Chance of a Lifetime

Since moving to Florida, I have felt myself in a wonderland (without any Queen of Hearts or beheadings).  Flowers that died every winter in the North grew to huge masses and had to be cut back once or twice a year.  There were areas where the scrub was drab olive with very sharp edges, sharp enough to slice skin through jeans and venomous enough to send a fellow student to the hospital after being impaled by an end spine.  

The most incredible gift that I discovered were the birds.  There are tiny finches--the size of hummingbirds--that flutter about in an ephemeral cloud--reminding me of honeybees massing to follow a queen to form a new hive.  There are also raptors--lady hawks, falcons and even, by the rivers, golden eagles--which account for the dearth of squirrels and scarcity of marsh rabbits in our neighborhood.

Anhingas cut through through the dark canal waters like seals and then waddle up along the edges to a high spot where they point their faces into the sun and spread sparse wings to catch the breeze and dry.  Also in the deep canals you see tall, elegant, snowy white egrets, wading up past their knees, heads cocked and frozen until I the split second when they punch the water and suddenly appear tossing a fish down their long, thin throats.  

The biggest surprise was the sandhill cranes.  Almost able to look me straight in the eye, we have come to an agreement--they do not help me dig up the gardens, I supply daily amounts of cracked corn, milo and other assorted seeds from a scoop made out of a plastic milk jug. Many of these cranes have visited year after year and when their chicks are the same size (sometimes bigger) and mobile enough to keep up with them, these new birds arrive with their parents to glean from the offered food.  

Twice I have seen parents with chicks . . . It's has been the only chance I've had to record in photographs a family so recently cormpleted.

Magic.

Heard at Church this morning:

"You can't bless yourself with the  priesthood but you can bless others."

                                                                                     John Smarinsky--Stuart Florida Stake Presidency