alone with blueberries

Posted on July 8, 2024 by Shanda

Well I am in New Hampshire in our vacation cabin alone for a couple days. How did this happen, you wonder?

Since I had driven here first (with Sarah) to prepare for the rest of the family to arrive it worked out nicely for me to remain behind for a few days because 1. I had my car and 2. My kids are old enough to be alone & 3. baby Lucy my angelic granddaughter was able to find someone else to watch her today. So Rich left with everyone and I was very grateful to have three free days, to spend time by myself. As much as I love and adore my family and honestly each one of them is someone I would always choose over solitude, as a quiet introvert I still believe that when an opportunity to be alone presents itself it’s wise for me to take the gift. (I admit it does feel odd for me at first). Yesterday I stayed here at the cabin, but this morning I thought I would drive to visit our old friends, Karl and Edna. This is an older couple who used to be our neighbors in Connecticut, they moved away a few years ago to spend winters in Georgia and summers in NH. I didn’t have their phone number but I remembered the street they lived on so I put on a sun dress and left Sammie (who is still with me and who lost part of her tail, see previous blog post for the story) to make the sunny forty five minute journey. New Hampshire is a beautiful state to drive in, what with the hills and valleys , picturesque homes, gardens, lakes, forest, and more.

They were home!! Of course the Mr. was in his garden and the Mrs. was cleaning. They welcomed me warmly, as I knew they would. These delightful friends are in their 80s and such a wonderful couple to know and admire. We sat and visited in their beautiful living room and when I left I was given two crispy garden cucumbers and a container of soft zucchini bars (frosted) and a mind full of inspiration. I hope Rich and I, when we turn 80, are just as delightful and kind and friendly as they are. I was so glad I went, I was a little nervous about it but my bravery won the day.

I then went to Bristol, NH to a coffee shop called The Purple Coffee Lounge, and I can highly recommend the pesto, cream cheese and tomato bagel sandwich 100%. There is also a cute village thrift shop nearby where I bought some books for 10 cent each- (note to LeaAnn, I bought an Anne Lamott book called -All New People- and thought of you, although this one is a novel. I’ll let you know how it is)

I also scored some Redwall paperbacks for the kids. (highly recommend)

Continuing on my way, my second shopping stop was at Moulton Farm where I bought food for myself for the next two days.

nutritious foods, and also molasses cookies and a peach muffin

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I have decided to start doing my “10,000” steps per day again. I had gotten tired of walking and was really proud of myself for quitting but I also began eating whatever I wanted.

I’m still going to do the eating plan but will walk briskly now, as well. I had enough “rest” (months, indeed, entire seasons).

And thus it was, that on today’s second walk, I found

wild blueberries

of which I have a very

very

long history, as I used to pick quantities of them every summer for long periods of time, as a child and teenager.

I picked often enough that the whole experience is genetically coded in my brain now I’m certain of it. It feels like home to pick them. Only the wild ones though.

On today’s walk I found a nice airy five foot high blueberry bush and could not pass them by even though I have no one to share them with and believe it or not blueberries are really not in my top ten fruits to eat, I still HAD to pick them because I wholeheartedly believe that the bush ENJOYS being picked (the birds pick them too), yielding a higher amount of berries for the next year. Plants know when they are Useful and they produce accordingly.

As I picked for that small amount of time (7-9 minutes), I listened to music on my earbuds, felt perfectly content, felt a little bit like I was trespassing as there was a house close by just beyond the bush but then I reminded myself “it’s a ditch” and, also felt, not like a bird, but like a deer. The moment I turned back and jumped up on the road again is when I felt most like the deer, my feet even made the same rustling noice in the bushes and grasses as I jumped.

I had stopped picking when my hand was too full for any more.

It could have been any number of things in my hand; a baby bird, an insect, a butterfly wing, rocks, anything!

As I came out of the woods (from the trail) I crossed the road and deliberately took a photo of this sign as I found it very charming. There is a great deal of honking going on today. God bless Gail, she’s 90!! (I don’t know her but I had also honked earlier).

could have been anything, but it was blueberries, and a buttercup for decoration and whimsy

I found out today that my left hand holds a full quarter of a cup. I hadn’t realized that before today.

If today was a song it would sound like a visit with old friends, driving through New Hampshire, a purple coffee shop, smiles from strangers, hot sunshine and humidity, the sound of birds and lapping lake water, a true crime podcast, laundry machines humming and spinning downstairs, Birkenstocks, a navy blue sundress, iced coffee, dirt roads, the hum of fans in every window, in my voice, my song, of my hand, of my memories, of my blueberries.

You are loved.

Half a cup of blueberries and one raspberry

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Shanda

From New Hampshire

Good morning, I am writing to you from my small little art table upstairs in my bedroom in the cabin. Sarah is the only person here with me and she is still sleeping in the dark and quiet basement (finished), curled up in the top bed of the bunk bed, where it is so very nice and cool……..it’s as humid as can be this morning. Everything is covered in humidity outside and so was I, when I went for a little walk around. I saw people, flowers of all kinds, a daddy long legs, the lake, slugs, mushrooms of all kinds, charming lake homes, trees, crows, a male cardinal, and……

……and wild blueberries, of which I am quite acquainted with because I, along with my grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings, grew up surrounded by them. I suspect they are part of my genetic make up at this point. I’ve eaten them from hand, in jam, in pies, in coffee cakes, and my favorite; in muffins.

I said hello to the first bush I found about a week ago here right next to the dirt road that we walk from our cabin down to the lake. I said, “Hello, are you related to anyone in Afton, NY?” And this bush replied to me, “It’s possible, anything’s possible you know.” Then I asked if I could pick it’s ripe berries and it said “Please do, they itch me so, I’ve been waiting for berry lovers to come around and notice and you’re the first.” This is is all true. It was a small sized bush without many branches and I’ve been stopping by almost daily to pick what it had to offer. This morning, just an hour ago, I tied on my sneakers and set out for a quick jaunt. My friendly blueberry bush had a good 1/4 cup for me. I got every ripened one, and ate them, thinking of antioxidants and how each small berry had a slightly different taste and how amazing that was and……..

……and all of a sudden, I found three more small bushes right next to the road, this time on the left hand side. After proper introductions I proceeded to pick berries, oh and I also met the Daddy Long Legs Spider -quite handsome he was- but camera shy. I walked away again eating berries and thinking to myself of walking with a cup and making muffins.

(A mushroom interlude)

I was just about home when I found the one raspberry.

And so we pick what is good as we go about the day, taking what there is for us to gather, enjoying, thanking, smiling, knowing from Who’s hand every good thing comes. A thousand and a thousand good things— if we only have eyes to see we will then have a heart which is large and grateful.

**********

“May I remember the bright hours that found me,

Walking over the silent hills of my childhood,

Or dreaming on the margin of the quiet river,

When a light glowed within me,

And I promised my early God to have courage

Amid the tempests of the changing years.”

Max Ehrmann

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.  Genesis 1:31

keen boot saved my life, written by a chipmunk

Posted on June 9, 2022 by Shanda

There is a very persistent rain today and so a perfect day to tell a story.

I am a small red chipmunk. They tell me the hunters love chipmunk meat and there are five such hunters living in the yellow house on a nearby hill. And though they are fed the best cat food money can buy, they still prefer freshly caught and killed chipmunk. This is what I was told and told again by the one and only elder chipmunk in my family (the rest were eaten in their prime). But most don’t believe The Bad Thing will happen to them, until it does, and thus it was for me. I would never become a meal. The day I almost became one, I was dancing.

I am a lover of the arts; literature, drawing, music, light, and expression. And I was dancing that day, when suddenly I was seized. My audience (mostly ants, flies, bugs, and butterflies), gasped. I was suspended in air, except for a tightness of teeth in my back, and away I went.

Inside the open window the hunter flew, and landed with a jolt on a terrible floor. Instead of earth, and grass, and good smells, it was barren and perfectly flat with no place to hide.

The hunter, a skinny striped cat named Bones, put me down briefly to absentmindedly lick a tiny sliver out of his paw and off I went, as fast as I as could run, looking for a small tunnel or hole to hide in. Tunnels and holes are all over the place outside, but not in this terrible place, the only hole I saw led to nowhere.

It was a boot. I felt the hot breath of Bones as I pressed as hard as I could into the very end of it, the toe, and I turned my face away, curled into a hard oval, and clamped my tail around myself like a vise. I stiffened and held onto the boot with every fiber of my being.

Still the cat tried. An epic battle began between Bones and Boot. If it had been any other boot but Keens, I wouldn’t be writing this story right now. Keen boots are performance quality, built to last with the most durable of materials. They are strong and keep the foot safe and warm and dry, stable and secure, and I might add, they kept me safe as well. No cat was going to get me out of this life-saving boot.

I felt a different touch, a touch of inquisitive gentleness, of soft slender fingers, and then I heard a scream, many screams….. or perhaps one long scream. My heart stopped and then calmed. My Savior had appeared and what I thought was a scream was really the trumpet sound, announcing her arrival. I felt my safe boot lift up in the air, and I was being carried, yes danced, outside. The best place to be.

She, along with two of her children, left the cat in the house, and then kindly tapped the boot on the driveway so I could understand it was time to go. It took several attempts, but then I was free. I ran across the driveway into the shrubbery.

It took several days for my paws to stop shaking and hold this pen with which I write.

I avoid the yellow house and all of its property now. I learned my lesson. As usual, the words of the elders are ignored in preference for personal experience. How I wish it weren’t so.

But I never stop thanking God for that boot, and for that woman, both of which saved my little life that day. They will be the subject and inspiration for my beloved art until I die, preferably of natural causes.

my exodus from the boot

I am going to make everything around me beautiful – that will be my life.

Elsie de Wolfe

I was there

Posted on June 5, 2022 by Shanda

I set out with my big camera to find a dead moth only I didn’t know that was going to be my main accomplishment, I only knew that I had just seen and heard a Kingfisher in the big dead pine tree and I greatly desired a photo shoot with it.

As trees and birds and all of creation are much wiser and intuitive that we realize, the kingfisher sensed my plans and was gone without a trace by the time I came back outside with the camera. No matter, I would wander. As I’ve learned time and time again, going out is truly going in……in to God’s big, beautiful and endlessly generous world.

I never go back to the house disappointed or empty handed.

I admire little nurseries such as this. Some wonderfully accomplished parent sewed up a little room (using a fern frond) for its babies to hide and grow. I was so very curious as to WHO exactly this particular family was, but would never dream of doing damage to such fine house building. Imagine! Building a house out of leaves and threads (I’m fairly certain it’s some sort of spider).

And then I saw this intimidating creature.

Into the darkness of the woods I wandered, and although it is darker in the forest, there is always dappled sunshine that comes through the tree canopy above. I continued to look for birds but was reminded, as I stopped to admire an old dead tree, that there are worlds below as well. These silent little slugs, for instance. feasting on mushroom.

Then I saw this insect on a fallen tree. The tree was pushing out mushroom (?) through its bark and on these mushroom growths were the insects, probably snacking.

The beavers’ preferred tree to chew down in our woods was the swamp, or yellow, birch. The birch is a juicy, sappy tree, and this stump was oozing with it. Another feast for slugs!

On my way back out of the woods, I bent to look at the ground again, and happened to spy this dead moth. It was so pretty I brought it home and added it to my nature journal, along with two mourning dove feathers.

And now I shall sit on the porch and try to identify things. We aren’t going to church today because Seth sprained his ankle badly yesterday and is now lame, and my husband is terribly sick with fever, chills, headache, and cramp. He did an at home Covid test = negative.

heart & mind

Posted on May 23, 2019 by Shanda

Rich is away today for a meeting by the shore of Connecticut. Jacob and Ethan are at work, Grace is home with me and cheerful, David, Caleb, Seth, and Sarah will be home from school soon.

I did a lot of crying yesterday but look! I’m still here. I’ve felt like crying a few times today (even now) but so far…..have been able to restrain myself. I feel quiet and calm and deep down sad. This is an improvement over yesterday’s “my heart hurts so bad make it stop sobbing”.

There is a chicken bubbling in broth on the stove with celery, onion, and seasonings. When it’s done I will let it cool, take the meat off, and add it back to the broth with noodles for dinner. Or maybe I’ll make biscuits. This is an improvement over yesterday’s dinner of “nothing”.

Seth has a band concert tonight. Have I told you he plays the trumpet? He’s 10? A new player? Not very good? And it’s loud?

I went for one walk today so far and did some reading. Mainly I’ve been parked here in my favorite spot on the couch most of the day with my camera nearby to snap photos of birds visiting the porch feeders.

baltimore oriole, hopping off the railing to the grape jelly below

They were fussing at each other (oriole and female rose-breasted grosbeak)

“and what is wrong with YOU”, I asked the cardinal

I saw six lady-slippers by the trail.

ground-ivy by the side of the road (“It is used as a salad green in many countries.”)

I think this is called “Celandine” and I read that it is poisonous to chickens. It’s growing and blooming on the side of the road.

In all their affliction He was afflicted. And the Angel of His Presence saved them; In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; And He bore them and carried them all the days of of old. Isaiah 63:9

My mom wrote this verse in my journal for me when we visited last.

tiny soft pinecone

“He started carefully down the trail, knowing that at any moment something unexpected might happen……knowing that nothing was exactly what it seemed to be.” Anpao (newbery book) page 183

back at home with Grace, Bible, journal, markers

Then, my friend Bridgette sent me a link to an article about Charles Spurgeon and I read it with interest and copied down some quotes.

After this I continued reading Beartown and rested for a while.

Caleb just got home from school, Grace is reading and I’m going to go for my second walk and try to get the rest of my steps done (10,000 per day).

Thank you for stopping by, friends, you are loved.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7

it doesn’t take much for a heart to glow

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Shanda

Good morning friends! After a raining evening we awoke to a glorious sunshine. Rich took this photo of me at Seth’s little league game the other night. ‘Tis the season. Tonight we have three things going on; David at a track meet (really want to go), Seth at little league (want to go, slightly) and Caleb at a band concert (music trumps sports, IMO). Therefore, the band concert is where I will be.

I was so tired yesterday that I went to bed at EIGHT THIRTY and slept all night. I got up a couple times to get a drink but never fully woke up. Then this morning, when Caleb dared to come right in the room to ask for lunch money, Rich got up to help him and let me sleep for another hour. It feels so good to sleep again after months of restless nights.

As I sit here, I still feel like I could go back to bed and sleep.

However, I have dirty laundry washing, a load in the dryer, a big basket of clean n’ dry to fold, a cake in the oven (dinette), the dishwasher going, and am going out to lunch soon. No time for sleeping.

It’s also the time of year when I’m constantly going for the camera to take bird photos so bear with me. Maybe you like birds, too?

This one was from yesterday evening when it was raining (again). I thought the drops of rain on its feathers was pretty. It sat nice and still so I could get close. I was out on the porch for a while as it rained, it suited my tired mood.

A Heron visited the pond, which is how I got out on the porch in the first place, as Caleb came inside to announce “There is a big bird by the pond, Mom.”

He wasn’t happy about it though because he does not want the fish eaten by a heron. He wants to catch them himself.

In fact, when I see worms outside I think of Caleb. Yesterday I rolled over a log and found a nice big one and put it in my pocket. Thank goodness Rich saw me do it because hours later he had to remind me to get it back out again. (I had changed out of my skirt and into jeans). The worm was still in the pocket, as moist as could be which I am sure was a survival tactic as pockets can be rather dry places for a worm. I said, “Caleb I have something for you,” and you should have seen his face when out came a worm from the pocket. We put it in a small box with dirt in it for when he goes out to fish again.

I kept telling him to smile and he just kept twisting his ears.

Somehow a log ended up in the pond and all day it floats slowly around. Sometimes I see it on one side, at times it’s in the middle, or the other side, but it always has a turtle or two on it. I want so much to add a whole fleet of logs and see if each one will gain a passenger or two. Maybe I’ll even add sails. How charming would that be? Turtle boats.

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Irridescent feathers in the EVENING TIME

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Different lighting (same spot) MORNING TIME….. are you the same bird? I can’t tell.

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Sweet little bird and do you wonder how I got the yellow background? My forsythia bush was in the distance and blurred out as the camera focused on the bird.

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showing off a fine suit of clothing (made entirely of feathers!)

David went outside in the evening to shut in the chickens for the night and caught a spring peeper. I was thrilled.

Spring is made more beautiful because of their sweet singing. Look at those toes.

I haven’t stopped reading the Newbery books. I’m currently on this one and I love it. I’m a forever fan of Nancy Farmer now. What a bright and original mind she has. This is the second Newbery book I’ve read by her.

I made this huge pasta salad yesterday.

But the rabbit got a dandelion salad. (possibly more healthy)

We babysat our neice! She’s so so so cute and looks so much like Isaac (her dad, my baby brother).

After Isaac and Cassandra came back we ate pasta salad and hamburgers and played a game of PIG which I won (as always), humbly noted.

Last but not least.

The beautiful Marsh Marigold (New England wildflower).

******

Thank you for the comments left on my blog posts! I do wonder sometimes if you guys see my replies, as I try to reply to most comments, can someone pretty please let me know if they are seen? Should I bother? Thank you. xo

Happy Wednesday, friends!
You are soooooo loved.

“Make someone happy, you can you know,
It doesn’t take much for a heart to glow.”

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but my heart.”

PS, the cake baked to a nice golden brown and smells so good. I wish I could give you a piece!

the second walk

Posted on April 11, 2019 by Shanda

Praise to the Lord,
Who oʼer all things so wondrously reigneth
Shieldeth thee under his wings,
Yea so gently sustaineth
Hast thou not seen, How thy desires have been
Granted in what he ordaineth

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Sarah wanted to go on another walk the next day so I agreed.

I also want to mention that on both days I had expressed longing to her that I wanted to find a feather. I wished to find one. I was looking.

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We admired an algae filled little stream in the woods, filled with the reflection of trees and sky.

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And saw frog eggs left clinging along an underwater (the clearest of water) branch that had fallen from the trees above.

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exploring

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We started to head home and to be different we left the trail to go through the woods and across the stream to home.

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Scattered among dry leaves we found a whole entire pile of yellow feathers!!

Not a brown feather, not a gray feather, not just one single feather, but many many bright YELLOW ones.

My first thought was “goodness, poor bird!” and my second thought was, “Well, I found feathers!” and my third thought was “Thank you, God, for the little things……for answering these tiny almost meaningless wishes we have, just to make us smile.”

If You care enough to answer in the little things, You must care enough to answer in the big things.

For Your good and glory.

Sarah said, “Check the bird application on your phone and see what kind of bird it was!”

And since you don’t necessarily need the bird to make a search (just the feathers), we stood there next to the pile and looked it up.

We decided it was a Northern Flicker, as they have yellow tails and wings, which obviously proved indigestible and were left behind. We gathered them up.

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See the itty bitty red feather between my thumb and pointer finger? Red as my nails!

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We took them home and let them soak in a bowl of warm soapy water.

Hours later, after Seth’s first little league scrimmage, and after I put the children to bed, I stood in the kitchen and carefully took each feather out of the water and arranged them to dry on paper towels.

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feather art!

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After they dried they fluffed right out again like proper feathers. I’m saving some for my flying pig (stay tuned), sending a couple to Joanna, and putting a couple in my journal. Some of them belong to Sarah.

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Something else made me smile this week.

I had given away a book here through the blog to Dawn R and mailed it out to her. After she received it she asked for my address (I had ordered and sent the book through amazon) and so I gave it to her. I was expecting a thank you card but she sent a package with a sweet little bird, a book, a note, and a lotion (my FAVORITE KIND!!). It made my day. Well, at the same time I was ransacking the house trying to find my Birth Certificate and to my absolute astonishment in the midst of my papers I FOUND AN OLD CARD FROM THE SAME BLOG FRIEND FROM 8 YEARS AGO!!!! ( I save ev.er.y.thing.) So, thank you dear Dawn R, you’ve really been an encouragment to me!!!

“We have shared together the blessings of God.” Philippians 1:7

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Last but certainly not ever least, 2019’s very first spring violet.

For Thia.

You are loved.

moss walk

Posted on April 9, 2019 by Shanda

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I was getting stir crazy so tied my boots on and went outside to visit a friendly cat and walk around. I gathered four eggs and picked up some garbage off the lawn (tis the season).

Then, the schoolbus came and let off Seth and Sarah and suddenly I had a willing little friend to walk with me. We thought we would go to the end of the road and back but she said “Can we go in the woods?” and naturally I said, “Of course!”

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We couldn’t help but admire all the moss, I wonder if it was because it was the only green in the forest and it just naturally drew our eyes. We liked how it lifted off the rocks just like a rug. Sarah put it carefully back.

We even reclined on moss.

We saw the first frog eggs of the spring, always worth bending down for a look-see. Sarah would NOT touch them.

But I don’t mind the feel of frog eggs, I quite like it. The water was like ice, though, and my motherly heart just knew they would need a few warm days in order to hatch.

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She was determined to take me to Murkwood, one of Grace’s old haunts that she found and named and showed to her little sister.

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Going on this walk made Sarah’s imagination kick into high gear and soon I was being called BrightHeart instead of mom. Her name was FlameStar which I never could get right. She seemed more like a TwinkleToes to me.

Mostly she said, “Come on, BrightHeart” but one time when I was in front of her she said, “Slow down BrightHeart, you don’t want to get too far ahead of your leader.” And then I knew she really was imagining things.

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I thought I found a hedgehog but then I realized it was just moss again.

(I started imagining things, too)

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I carried this pretty twig the whole walk and guess what? Sarah, I mean FlameStar, changed my name!! To TwigHeart. I wasn’t sure what to think of that. I guess I have a heart of wood.

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This made my heart happy. I saw in the distance a flow of sticky pine pitch down the side of a tree so we went over to take a look and discovered a tick STUCK fast to the pitch. As I look at this photo I can also see a tiny black caterpillar stuck there, too. The tick was still alive, too, but stuck. I was intrigued but Sarah looked off into the distance and waited in disgust for me to be done.

Skunk cabbage, I broke a piece off to have Sarah smell it and she hated it.

She’s particular about what she wants to experience.

However, she loved the water… she loved the rocks …she loved the trees …she loved the moss. She was happy. Just please don’t show her ticks or make her smell skunky things.

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There are many different kinds of moss. If you touch them, some are soft and some are rough, some are wet and some are dry. Some look like tiny ferns and some look like underwater grasses. Some is short like carpet, some is fluffy and makes you wish you were tiny enough to snuggle within it. Some is bright green, it hurts your eyes, and some like the moss growing on this boulder, is the deepest darkest forest green.

signs of springtime

Posted on March 27, 2019 by Shanda

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The beautiful March Full Worm Moon happened last week.

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And every year we welcome a pair of Mallard ducks to our property.

*****

The winner of the book is Dawn (first commenter on the last post). I will be emailing you, Dawn! Thanks to those of you who left comments!

you come too

Posted on March 15, 2019 by Shanda

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“I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;

I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too…………” Robert Frost

Before I went on my long walk I stopped at the chicken coop to open the doors and check for eggs. I found three in the barrel, along with a chicken. I took all three eggs and put them in my pocket but one of them must have had a thin shell because it promptly broke as I did so. I’m not disgusted by much, but a warm gooey egg popping in my pocket is one of them. I threw the shell out in disdain, along with an egg covered tissue. I bent down and rubbed my hand off in the snow and went on my walk with a soggy pocket leaving egg residue on my jeans with each step.

I was glad I had decided to put on boots as I walked through hard snow, slushy snow, mud, running water, puddles, and regular ol’ dry forest ground, too. My feet stayed dry. It was 50 degrees and I wore a sweatshirt and a jacket and was nice and warm.

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I thought this was fun, doesn’t it look like a mushroom?

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Soon my eyes were opeed and I was seeing alive things, mainly birds…….

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Birds have such elegant lines.

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This one was flying SO SO FAST!!!

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Like a rocket going across the sky.

I sat down on the hill and looked at my phone, lost in my own little world and resting in the fresh air and quiet. Then, I looked up to see a brown animal walking straight toward me out of the woods.

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We looked right into each other’s eyes and gazed. Then, as I picked up my camera, he turned around to run away. Thankfully he stopped to look back a couple of times.

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He lifted his upper lip and showed me his smile.

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Then he ran off like a little bear.

Never in all my days!!!

I figured out it was a fisher, the second largest member of the weasel family in our area, the first being a river otter. I read online that fishers are useful in eating porcupines, however they are also known to eat housecats. This one better not eat any of my housecats! Or chickens!

Well, nothing could top that but I kept trudging along nice and slow. I stood here in the woods for a while listening to a woodpecker, the thing about them being they sound so close but you peer and peer and can’t see them. Finally I stopped being stealthy and moved in confidence and sure enough it flew and I saw it but then of course I coudn’t take a photo. But I did see another small and sweet bird busy buzzing up and down tree bark looking for insects to eat.

See if you can spy it.

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