This week, while I’ve been away from my blog, Mother Nature has been doing her best to paint our landscape. We’ve had sunny weather well into the 80s with unusually warm nights for April. This morning, as I was having toast, I looked out into the grove, and realized that the shrubs and trees were beginning to blur the outline of the the houses to our west.
During the winter, when the trees are bare, we are very aware of our neighbors. There are six houses along our lot line. From where I’m sitting, I’d guess the houses are about the distance of a football field, or one hundred yards. Our grove is old, and a great deal of it has fallen over the years. We’ve purposely left it wild as cover for wildlife.
I welcome the leaves in the Spring. They give us a sense of privacy you don’t normally have living within the boundaries of a town. The noise is muted and the trees give us a little relief from the afternoon sun.
Despite what Robert Frost had to say in “Mending Wall,” I rather like the barrier my grove gives. Perhaps I’m like the neighbor who is buried in the past, but there are times when privacy is to be cherished.

since I last posted? I frequently ponder the passage of time. It seems to me that a good description of time would be a steam roller perched on the edge of a hill. Envision it, as it starts to give in to gravity….moving slowly at first, picking up speed until nothing could stop it on it’s downhill flight. Eventually, it hits the flats and slows, until all the energy of that glorious escape has dissipated.
I wonder if that simile holds true for our lives? As a child, I thought time would never pass. Now, I’m in the downhill stage, with each day flying by, crammed with activity. Will there come a time when I hit the flats and time will once again move more slowly?
I’ve talked with my 88 year old mother about this. She feels that there is never enough time in a day to accomplish everything on her list. The key to the passage of time has to be what we hope to accomplish. Time moved slowly for me as a child because I had not yet discovered the ability to keep myself busy. Now, there’s a never ending list of things to do.
I hope I never return to that stage where I have time on my hands.

Today we saw a Rufous Sided Towhee for the first time this Spring. Its one of a group of birds which visit us on their way to their summer homes. We have a thrush, and soon one yellow bellied sapsucker will be hunting through the mulch for bugs.
We have a pair of mallard ducks, and we hope to see indigo buntings. Our bird book is at the ready while we watch for new visitors.

I know….this picture doesn’t make a lot of sense without some explanation.
Ed, our hunting cat, was sitting on the ledge above the tub, intently peering out the window. He was SO intent, that I was able to walk into the room, leave to get the camera, return, and take several shots before he indicated he knew I was there.
I stepped into the tub to look over his shoulder, and by that time the chipmunk he was watching must have run away. Ed left too, telling me that I had imagined it all with a disinterested twitch of his tail.
You KNOW that he has made a mental note of the new location to visit when he goes out next.

Actually, that’s a teaser. There aren’t a lot of woods in North Central Illinois.
Elegant Mother has packed up and gone to visit her youngest daughter for a couple of days. I went off to exercise yesterday while she was packing her bags, and came home to find her ready to be off!

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I’ve taken on a do-it-yourself project, and I hope I’m up to the task.

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The egrets have returned! Monday, we thought we had a glimpse of them early in the morning. Yesterday, I saw one egret twice, in virtually the same spot.
You don’t suppose someone planted a decoy, do you?? *G*
Dear Husband thought the fishing might be good at that spot. I suspect the egret was standing where water flows from the north lakes, under the road, into the south lakes. Better to catch an unwary fish going visiting, or swept up in the current.
Making a note: Next year, we can look for the egrets and heron in late March or early April.

My heart is broken. The joyous Illini basketball team made it all the way to the final two in the NCAA and lost last night by two points.
I know….many of you know that I profess to HATE sports, and for the most part, I do. But these guys had such heart you couldn’t help but get caught up in what they were doing.
One win followed another, which followed another, until they had lost just one game, and were rated number one.
We watched the last few games, and saw the patterns emerge. I was seriously worried in the game last night when they were down by 15, but they battled back. I told myself that they had won a number of games by sinking a shot at the last moment, and when they were down just two points in the last minute, I really thought they would pull it out.
There was no joy in Mudville, or in Illinois, last night. I tip my hat to North Carolina. They are a great team. But watch out next year. The Illini are going to be hungry. No……make that RAVENOUS! Our time has come to be number ONE!

My niece brought me bad news this evening.
We were seated at the dinner table when she announced that to work off the calories of ONE M&M, you have to walk the distance of a football field, or 100 yards.
Of course, the first thought in my mind was the M&Ms I had last week. The second was to wonder how many of them are in the small bag you pick up at the check out lane.
There aren’t going to be any further thoughts about this.

I had the pleasure of a quick visit to my favorite quilt store this morning.

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