9.30.16 Home on the range

Home, home on the range. 
The Seven Sisters, from the Connecticut River

9.30.16 Mouse parties and shopping

We coexist with our mice pretty well. 

The three cats deter them for the most part from coming out. 

We keep food well contained so they use the structure of the building but don't thrive better due to our food. 

Still, they happily feed on bird food out front for birds all winter long. You'll see their small beautiful selves of all colors coming out of the small tunnels, scoot across the snow, and in the night they will climb or hop up the picnic table by the front window with the wide array of bird suets and foods and nuts and berries and seeds, and they will go shopping. Happily..0

And at this moment, they are having one raucous 
par-tay. 

Must be the season.

9.30.16 Beneath the range

A pumpkin patch, colorful and varied

       still growing
   beneath the range

9.30.16 We learn

Gradually, we can begin to become more aware. We shift our attention from obsessing with our plans and goals and hopes and yearnings, and begin drinking in the day we are given. 

We learn, if we wish, that struggling against events and circumstances does nothing but distress us. Feeling our emotions about things, and then learning to say yes to what has happened, enables us to digest our experiences, and prevent them from accumulating and threatening to overwhelm us. 

So we wake and our belly or our knee or our head feel a certain way. Our house is or isn't certain ways. Our day involves things we do or don't appreciate. But with time , we cool out about it. We say to ourselves 'Yeah, that is my day. Yeah, that is my home. Yeah, this is my health and my appearance and state of mind. 

We learn how to keep walking down the city block or our neighborhood sidewalk or to the subway or down a country road or drive along a tractor or semi or manage a farm or cubicle in an office, as we gently affirm to ourselves our circumstance in this moment, and feel for that moment how we feel about it, and then observe with awareness as it passes on by.

9.29.16 Down by the arroyo

I went down by the arroyo early this morning, sans pup, as the young coyote is still living right beside the path, near the river. 

I watched the mated pair of Eagles playing together in the wind , their affection so evident. Then going off to fish for breakfast. 

I thought one of them was flying toward me, then mistook it for a seagull, til it became evident it was a darker Goshawk, a bit unhappy with my presence. 
It was a blustery morning , overcast, the grasses beginning to turn toward their fall colors, the last blossoms of wild flowers shining alongside the path.

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9.29.16 For everyone

Early in the morning and late at night 
we are grateful for safe homes
and pray for them for everyone