by jphilo | Apr 1, 2016 | Daily Life
Walking outdoors is one of my favorite things. Except when it’s cold and windy. So lately I’ve had to talk myself into walking outside in the morning. This post from 2013 proves this year is just like years gone by. But more that that, today’s Fantastic Friday post explains why walking outdoors is worth the cold, the wind, and the internal battle that get a person’s feet out the door.
The Cardinal Says It’s Spring
These April mornings,
When my walks begin.
I need a pep talk to push my feet
Out the door and down the lane.
The grass is brown.
The tree branches grey,
The wind is cold,
The landscape bare.
Still the cardinal,
bright red with promise,
Sings words to warm my frozen, winter soul.
“It’s spring! It’s spring.”
What says spring to you? Leave a comment.
by jphilo | Apr 24, 2009 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
The birds are noisy today, enjoying a last day of sun before rain arrives for the weekend. The little critters were noisy as could be, and one particular bird filled the air with an arresting song. I searched the treetops beside the cornfield and found her out on a limb, warbling and facing the rising sun.
Too dull for a robin, too big for a sparrow, I wondered if it was a meadowlark. But they rarely perch so high. No other ideas presented themselves so when I got home, I pulled out the “Birds of Iowa” book my friend Cindy gave me. Once again I was thankful the author, Stan Tekiela, arranged the birds primarily by color, with little colored tabs for those of us in the birdwatching-for-dummies crowd that needs all the help we can get.
Halfway through the “brown” section, I found my musician, a female red-breasted grosbeak. Apparently, the females are all sedate, Iowa church ladies who, instead of flaunting red breasts as flagrantly as their husbands do, cover themselves with brown speckles for the sake of propriety.
The book said males and females sing, but the males sing louder. If that’s the case, I’ll need earplugs when the mister commences his vocalizations. But the most exciting thing about the birds is that they are the last birds to arrive in spring and the first to leave in autumn (for Mexico and Central and South America if you’re interested in going with them in the fall). If the author knows what he’s talking about, and I think he does because the bird was correctly categorized as “brown” which is pretty impressive, then spring is really and truly here.
So I’m going out on a limb with my new church lady friend and fine musician, the red-breasted grosbeak. We’re singing the duet all Iowa has been waiting to hear – it’s spring, it’s spring, it’s spring.
by jphilo | Mar 16, 2009 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
This morning, I checked the forecast: sunny and highs in the sixties. Bright and early, not wanting to miss a minute of such optimistic weather, I strapped on my camera and lugged the tripod on my walk, determined to photograph the cardinals I’d seen and heard everywhere the day before.
The dawn was grey at first, the sun not even visible. Twenty minutes later, when the sun finally woke up and showed itself, the tripod had worn out it’s welcome, and the camera was a lead weight. Apparently the cardinals are still adjusting to Daylight Savings Time, because it was another twenty minutes before they woke up.
By then I’d wrestled with the tripod and camera twice – once to photograph a red-headed woodpecker on a telephone pole, and again to capture some wrens setting up housekeeping in a bluebird house up the road a ways. Finally, outside my kitchen door at the end of my walk, a cardinal began singing from the top of our neighbor’s giant spruce.
The tripod, now an experienced traveler, waited patiently while I mounted the camera and started snapping.
One bright red bird, small but able to fill the enormous blue sky with song, reminded me of the tasks on my to do lists this week. I am too small to complete them. They are too elusive for me to capture. But they are the song I’ve been given by the Creator of birds and sky.
In His hand, I can sing.
