dual personalities

On Tuesday when the boy came over for our weekly gabfest, a deer ran across our neighbor’s lawn into another neighbor’s back yard. In the middle of the day! What is with the wildlife around here? Deer, coyotes, foxes, BEARS?!

Speaking of wildlife, a Robin built a nest on our kitchen windowsill.

Later we noticed that there is one solitary blue egg.

I hadn’t seen the Robin in awhile and I was afraid the egg has been abandoned. I could have told the Robin that this is not a good place to build a nest, but would she have listened? I doubt it. Nature is red in tooth and claw and of this we are constantly reminded.

O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.

I thought, well, c’est la vie. But then the Robin was back on the nest.

The bird also has found a house,
And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young,
Even Your altars, O Lord of hosts,
My King and my God.

(Psalm 84:3)

In other news, in a miraculous turn, my English Ivy has come back. It was dead, dead, dead a month ago, as was my neighbor’s ivy. I should have taken a picture if it, but it was too depressing. Don told me to be patient and wait and see, but I really thought some scourge had taken it out. However, in the last two weeks it has greened up and filled in.

Now it needs trimming!

Well, have a good day.

[*You can read all of Tennyson’s very long poem “In Memoriam A.H.H.” here.]