Most every morning and again in the early evening a dove will perch in a particular place on one of the many lines that run across the front of our yard.
It will watch and turn its head and has a very good view of many things where it is perched.
I am in awe of how very intelligent birds truly are. How does a bird migrate from my house and fly thousands of miles away to a far off place and come back to our house the next spring?
How does a hummingbird remember where an old feeder was placed last year and no longer there?
How does a mother bird become a pharmacist and collect certain berries and things that only she knows and places them in a small shallow bowl that she has made in a branch and then pecks the pieces until they are a potion. She then takes that potion into her nest and places that potion on to one of her babies eye that is infected. How does a bird know to do this? My husband and I watched this happen in a documentary a long time ago and as my husband and I watched this amazing thing that this bird was doing it changed us at that moment.
This bird in front of our house is a Mourning Dove, I wonder is it called a Mourning dove because it knows when we are mourning? Is that why this Dove is here? It is exactly in front of my next door neighbors house and she has passed away and her daughter cannot bare the fact that her mother is gone and will not sell the house. It just sits empty. I understand this loss.
There is certain loneliness hard to describe that one feels when thinking about a loved one that has passed and no longer here to continue what we were doing whatever that was. It is like one by one they all fade away and have become our ancestors. Our ancestral lines go back far in time and if just one of them had not been here we would not have been born.
We are all traveling from here to eternity and many wonder why are we here? We are here to do as the bird, we should not question.
Sand crabs play an important role of the ecosystem. They are also an important part of the food chain. When pollution occurs a chain reaction happens with toxins moving up the chain.
The ants carry things much larger than their bodies, the squirrels gather nuts and put them away into their tree pantries as shown above from a limb that fell in a storm and my husband was cutting up the limbs for firewood.
The sea turtles burrow holes into the sand to lay their eggs and in just the right spot so that when the babies emerge they can make their way into the nearby glistening water. How do they know? The Osprey's build their nests strong and high and close enough to the water so they can scoop down over the water to bring fresh fish to feed their babies. They are living their lives with purpose.
I am as guilty as anyone of the things that we are not here to do and that is, we are not here to use up our resources, we are not here to fill up our houses, we are not here to indulge in foods that have been “decorated” or given cute or fancy names, we should live simple, eat healthy food.
We should only take what we need and give back what we can because that is what is the right thing to do. We should never do anything to pollute the water that the animals drink to survive or pollute the foods that they must have to keep them alive. But we do. This duck is searching for food.
We only need one purse, we could have two.
We should live with purpose.
Living with purpose means, we understand that we must eat so we plan what we need to buy or grow or can our food. If we live simply out of the grocery store then we plan what we need to stock at home for emergencies and we plan what we are going to cook. We have to shop and we have to cook which all takes time but something necessary to do.
Do we plan for winter or just let it happen?
We cannot live in filth so just like the birds, this mother bird is removing the poop from the babies and carry it off away from the nest.
Just like animals that give birth, they dispose of the sacks that the babies are born so that it does not attract, bugs and other animals that would come to harm their babies. We dispose of our garbage and clean our bathrooms, wash our sheets, clean our floors. We do this with purpose.
Are we suppose to plan ahead or live one day at a time? Both and the birds know this too as they are looking for a new home because they are planning to have a new family, a place to make their nest.
They have found one and are now cleaning out the house.
A lot of stress goes with owning too much and it is a good feeling to live simple. When one lives simple it allows us to think more clearly, to be able to go to bed at a proper time and awaken at an earlier time to allow us the time needed to do things less rushed and more proper.
Unlike the birds we must earn money so we truly do not have time to be sitting around being entertained.
Why do people feel the need to stay up late? To be entertained with television, electronics when we should be sleeping. There is no purpose if we are existing to be entertained.
We must plan ahead or we would go hungry. I am glad the farmers do not just live one day at a time or we would all starve. Here I am not planning for spring, I am planning for harvest in summer.
There is no time at our house for entertainment, but we must be entertainment of sorts for the birds that seem to be watching what we are doing.
This world that we live is our purpose, we are here to survive as the birds, to love those around us and not to live to be entertained. We are to work towards a common goal and that has seemed to be forgotten. We should all get our homes in order to be examples to others as the birds are to us.
Less clutter has allowed me to notice this dove that sits in the same place every morning and every evening because it has given me the time to observe this bird. And when I watch this bird I think more clearly which is always good. When was the last time you noticed the birds other than they were there because you heard them? Or did you hear them? How cluttered are you?
An upcoming post soon will be about a trip around the united states that some friends have taken and a good reminder to us that our country is still beautiful and all is not lost as it seems. Thank you Jerry and Liz for this photo above and the one below.
I knew many of you that visit my website would like to see this photo so I am giving you a sneak peek.
If you are using a computer to visit this page go all the way up to the top and click home to view the home page.
Grandma Donna
