Because summer is on the way...

     Yes, summer is almost here....school is almost out....time for being lazy....sleeping in...

     Summer is almost here...and I was thinking of last summer as we went rafting down the Truckee River....drifting slowly...finding the time together as family as we do each year to reconnect ourselves.  It is harder as our girls have grown up.  They have their own lives away from us.  Sometimes we can work out these vacations together and sometimes we can't.  For our R~man he basks in being with his sisters.  I wonder if he feels he missed out on those many years when it was only his sisters with us.  All those trips he never was on...and so for me it is really special and important when we all can be together....making those new memories that he can say he was there and he remembers.  

     This year may be tricky doing a vacation together but somehow we will gather who can come to do some kind of get-a-way to somewhere even if just for a day and hope for a weekend.  We shall see....and then we can be lazy and laugh, be silly and just be...that is all we need...to just be....together.

    I love you my family....I do....

Eric Whitacre

 

                        Sleep


The evening hangs beneath the moon
A silver thread on darkened dune
With closing eyes and resting head
I know that sleep is coming soon


Upon my pillow, safe in bed,
A thousand pictures fill my head,
I cannot sleep, my minds aflight,
And yet my limbs seem made of lead


If there are noises in the night,
A frightening shadow, flickering light....
Then I surrender unto sleep,
Where clouds of dream give second sight.


What dreams may come, both dark and deep
Of flying wings and soaring leap
As I surrender unto sleep
As I surrender unto sleep.


      ~Charles Anthony Silvestri~


     I have loved this song ever since my dear M. was in her school choir and they were singing music written by Eric Whitacre.  Hearing the choir perform year after year I had heard so many lovely pieces as her choir teacher seem to pluck music out that sounded perfect for their performances.  It was she who prompted me to keep asking or looking for more of his work and we did.  Mr. Whitacre is a brilliant composer that writes music that moves the soul in ways unimaginable until one hears it.  Live is best but recordings are what I have so I play his music when my soul needs a deafening to all the outside world.  Here I am drowned in the peaks and falls of the voices of men, women and youth who sing his works.  Oh to be able to sing with them in a unison of bliss! 

Love

                                                                                         Love

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, 

but have not love,

I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, 

and if I have a faith that can move mountains, 

but have not love, 

I am nothing. 

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,

but have not love,

I gain nothing.

 Love is patient, 

love is kind.

It does not envy,

it does not boast, 

it is not proud. 

It is not rude,

it is not self-seeking, 

it is not easily angered, 

it keeps no record of wrongs. 

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 

It always protects, 

always trusts, 

always hopes, 

always perseveres.

Love never fails. 

But where there are prophecies, 

they will cease;

where there are tongues,

they will be stilled;

where there is knowledge, 

it will pass away. 

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 

but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 

When I was a child, 

I talked like a child,

I thought like a child, 

I reasoned like a child. 

When I became a man,

I put childish ways behind me. 

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror;

then we shall see face to face. 

Now I know in part; 

then I shall know fully, 

even as I am fully known.

 And now these three remain

faith, hope and love. 

But the greatest of these is love. 

Corinthians 13

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Love

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires,

let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

 ~Kahlil Gibran~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Whispers of the Beloved

I cannot sleep in your presence.
In your absence, tears prevent me.
You watch me My Beloved
On each sleepless night and
Only You see the difference

Looking at my life
I see that only Love
Has been my soul’s companion
From deep inside
My soul cries out:
Do not wait, surrender
For the sake of Love.

If you can’t smell the fragrance
Don’t come into the garden of Love.
If you’re unwilling to undress
Don’t enter into the stream of Truth.
Stay where you are.
Don’t come our way.

All year round the lover is mad,
Unkempt, lovesick and in disgrace.
Without love there is nothing but grief.
In love… what else matters?

Love is our Mother and
The way of our Prophet.
Yet it is in our nature
To fight with Love.
We can’t see you, mother,
Hidden behind dark veils
Woven by ourselves.


Do you want to enter paradise?
To walk the path of Truth
You need the grace of God.
We all face death in the end.
But on the way, be careful
Never to hurt a human heart!

Do you know what the music is saying?
“Come follow me and you will find the way.
Your mistakes can also lead you to the Truth.
When you ask, the answer will be given.”

The Master who’s full of sweetness
Is so drunk with love, he’s oblivious.
“Will you give me
some of your sweetness?”
“I have none,” he says,
unaware of his richness.

You know what love is?
It is all kindness, generosity.
Disharmony prevails when
You confuse lust with love, while
The distance between the two
Is endless.

~Rumi ~

Murder most vile....in the coop!

     When my children were young and we would sit reading books together, one of our favorites was "Wait Till The Moon Was Full" by the dear author Margaret Wise Brown.  Garth Williams sweet illustrations of forest animals frolicking together in play endearing us to the gentleness of them living in such harmony.  The story of a little raccoon who wants to go out into the night and see what there is is told by his mother he must wait till the moon is full.  So gentle and calm it goes.

Soft in the night
In the bright moonlight
Rabbits run all through the night
And never bump into each other
In the Full of the Moon
When the Moon is Full.


And the cat and the cow
And the fish and bull
Dance an animal dance
When the moon is full
With the owl and squirrel
And the skunk and gull.


And a little bird cries
From over the hill.
"Whip poor Will,
Whip poor Will."
My little raccoon
Be still, be still
And wait till the moon is full.

     Yes, such a sweet, gentle book.  I loved this book.  Of course in those times we had been aware of raccoons but never in a bad way.  We had one morning found little muddy paw prints leading out from the cat food and water dishes to our cat door.  We thought that was cute how he/she had cleaned up after his/her meal but realizing that our dogs could have encountered an unwelcome visitor took to keeping the cat door closed for awhile at night than to take our chances of a raccoon running around our house in the middle of the night with dogs chasing it, barking and waking us all up.  No, we would remember the visit and stop it from happening again.  

     Then we moved to our country home where there were skunks, raccoons, mice, coyotes, rats, and snakes.  Still we didn't bother them and they didn't bother us.  Till we brought chickens into our menagerie.




     Hhhhhmmmm....on April 28, it was a full moon........  


     My Love heard a lot of hen distress as we were getting ready to go to bed.  He nightly goes out to check on the hens, turn off any outside lights and lock up.  He knew that they were not out of their coop, that they were locked in as we had been cautious upon having seen a coyote a couple of times in as many weeks.  That is enough for us to take care on letting them out to enjoy the yard.  Those coyote sightings had been in the late afternoon, just across our driveway, rather than hearing their yips in the middle of the night.


     He was gone for awhile which made me think this was a bad sign.  I turned down our bed, went to brush my teeth and he came inside telling me there had been an attack.  What?  

     Once upon a time in the dark of the moon there was a little raccoon.......

     The sad sinking feeling of a terrible event hit me.  No, no, not another hen?   My Love felt it was the same hen who was attacked less that a month ago by a coyote that he was able to scare off.  The poor hen was missing quite a few feathers and was clearly loopy after her almost being coyote dinner.  My next thought was but how?  If the coop was locked how did this happen?  We have wired the lower two thirds of the coop in triple layers of wire (due to the amazing, gross, attacks by raccoons).   

     That raccoon had chosen to climb up the wire where the hen was roosting on the top, a less than comfy spot to me, on aboard above the door.  Now why the hen chose to roost here I don't understand as there are far more desirable spots to roost inside the hen house or in the coop yard.  Yet that is where she apparently was when the raccoon yanked her through the wire.  Where the wire up there is not ultra small but we never would have imagined a raccoon would try to get a hen high up.  Of course we would never have thought of a hen just choosing to sit while a raccoon scales the wire perimeter, continues to sit and doesn't fly down to the safety of the coop but sits and gets yanked through the wire to her horrible death.  


     But wait, wait till the bright moonlight 
     Bursts on the night all silvery white,
     Wait till the moon is full.


     It was bloody above the door and all down the door.  She was gone except for her feathers scattered all over the ground inside and outside the coop.  All the hens were squawking their fear, sharing their nightmare of an evening amongst each other and to all the neighborhood.   


     How could such cute little furry animals do such a vile deed?  I have to give them credit that they are smart.  To have thought about climbing up to get at the hen took some planning, yes premeditated murder it was.  


     We are down two hens in one month.  Our last Big Red died of unknown causes.  My Love found her dead in the coop one morning whereas the day before she had been active and busy with her hen friends.   Such is life here in our what I like to think, our peaceful home.  Safe for us but deadly for chickens.  I think we need guard dogs, barber wire, spot lights that come on with movement, water blasting, etc......maybe then the hens will sleep peacefully!