Miracle!!!!!

My little Thumbelina is brooding.  She does this often enough to make me sad because , well, I don't have a rooster.  That's Chickens 101... A hen needs a rooster to make a chick.  So, when the conversation turned to incubaters and fertalized eggs in the teacher's lounge, my friend and I "hatched " a plan!!

She actually was the lady who gave me Thumbelina 4 years ago so we are already 2 birds of a feather.  (Sorry.  Couldn't help that ).  We curiously hypothesized what might happen if I sneakily placed one of these eggs in her nest!!  Well, yesterday it happened and she is very happily snuggled in her nest cooing away.  It's possible that the egg isn't fertalized but I like the hopefulness of my little Thumbelina as a mother.

How perfectly timed.  My little chicks are now 18 and 20; so this mother hen is very excited to think there might be a little baby chick running around my yard again!   Happy Mother's Day!!!  

The Egg Smuggler

The Wind has Settled

Wind can do damage.  Wind can also be wonderful.  Most of the time, we don't quite understand which wind we are experiencing until it's finally over.  Are we going to have a cool breeze that helps the dandelion puffs drift around or is the sky about to disappear along with the mountain that sits in the middle of my city? 

 I don't remember wind as a child.  My memories rarely revolve around the weather we were having...except for the snow that sometimes reached my desert home.  And because  I have never suffered with allergies or asthma I don't have the memories of doctor visits to get better.  But lately wind has really become the most annoying way Mother Nature can get under my skin.

I very much realize that I have not experienced wind like our fellow Americans in tornado areas.  I feel so helpless when I see the devastating affects of what tornados can do.  Those poor families losing all their possessions and thankfully hugging because they miraculously still have each other.  Or the wildfires that can't be contained because the wind won't let up.  Families evacuating when they see the ridge of fire approaching.

Wind.  What exactly does it do?  If I pose the question scientifically I understand that it is the force that moves our weather patterns all around the world which is of course invaluable...if I pose the question personally I would have a set limit of how much force could be used daily.  I would never allow the heavy winds on the weekend.  Especially on special holidays like Mother's Day, Father's Day, or Easter.  I am actually Jewish but thinking about all the sweet children searching for colored eggs in their darling outfits in heavy winds is just not acceptable.  So when would I allow the monster wind storms that are so very necessary to nature's need to move the clouds and seeds around?  Maybe on Mondays.  Maybe on Tuesdays.  

About 6 years ago I awoke to a wind storm that knocked over part of my most beautiful Mexican Elder tree.  The tree had made a bough that arched over my doorway and a dove had decided that would be a perfect place for her nest and babies.  She had already raised her young so they were no longer there but when that tree was laying over my sidewalk I was devistated.  "It's a tree," my husband keep saying...but it was so much more to me.  That Saturday we went to our Shabbat service and the prayer that I read first was...Psalm 147 ...he causeth His wind to blow, and the waters flow..."  Yes. I was startled into the knowledge that I may not know the purpose for the inconveniences that I face but there is another plan that I get to watch unfold if I choose to pay attention.  

My tree has grown back in another beautiful way... Not a bough that covers my walkway but instead holds a grandfather bee who loves to visit every time I water.  I must appreciate the tree in whatever form it is in and I must except wind as a necessary force that moves weather across the planet.  The evening news said that we were in for another gusty day of 40 mph or so... I have to just say...He knows why and I will have faith in Him.  Hopefully some beautiful seeds will fall in my yard and bring boundless blooms.  

Wind.  Good or bad it is what helps us see the miracles around us.