Sing to me

Two Saturdays ago I spent time in the garden without my phone.  I watched a mama squirrel eating cautiously at the back bird feeder.  Two young checkadees were flitting about the small pine tree.  Three young finches were all trying to get on the front bird feeder together.  A young cardinal was picking away under the pine tree.  And the monarchs had been around all week and were flitting by.  It was awesome just to take it all in.  Our guest in the garden was half-snoozing on my lap.  It was good.

Then a large crow flew in, silently, and started looking around the greenspace.  Soon two more large crows and a third came.  They were noisy, cawing back and forth.  And another came.  Three sat in one tree, one in another, and one struted across the lawn, all large and in charge.  By now the song birds had stopped singing and were flying away from the pine, and the squirrel had stopped eating and just sat crouched on a branch.  I was so inclined to shoo the crows away, but knew that would further disrupt the previously peaceful scene so I waited and watched.  It didn’t take long.  Apparently finding nothing worth their energy, within a few minutes the crows left.  And then the squirrel left.  I watched as it ran  off.  It was on edge.

I went in to look at the time.  I got my phone and went back outside with Sandy.  Soon the birds started coming back, more than before.  Then one squirrel and then two.

I thought to myself, there’s a lesson here.  Things were peaceful, good.  The birds were singing.  And, as so often happens, something had to come in and stir things up.  But, if you don’t take the bait and make things worse, if you just sit there for a while, things calm down.

We just spent some relaxing time on the north shore of Minnesota.  Lake Superior, as always, awes and inspires us.  A bit further inland we enjoyed the more remote areas.  More to come on all of that in future blogs this week.