when berries ferment, the squirrels, along with everything else, get brazen…

In this world of ours, every believer must be a spark of light,
a center of love, a vivifying ferment for the mass;
and it will be that all the more as, in the depths of his being,
he lives in communion with God.
Pope John XXIII

(Julie Cook / 2018)

This is what happens when both time and berry picking get out of hand…
One of the two starts to ferment…and everything seems to simply…
well, go to hell in a handbasket from there…

And it’s all because the alcohol starts flowing…

Frist the squirrels become brazen…

They stealthily emerge from the security of the woods and boldly skirt across the
large, very open, expanse of yard.

“Hawks be damned” is their day’s battle cry…as they raise their tiny glasses…
all because the bubbly is starting to flow…

Yet the mockingbird, king bird of the yard, is none too keen to share
his private stash of hooch…

Notice very carefully in the lower left of the bush and you’ll see the hidden usurper.
The culprit in which the mockingbird is loudly raising havoc over.

Too bad I didn’t video this melee allowing you to both hear and see the ruckus and the clamoring
taking place between the squawking bird and the barking squirrel…
one protecting while the other usurping…

Now throw in both cats who are merely, and might I add intensely curious, bystanders…
wondering why they have been excluded from this soiree.

But wait…
Is that a rabbit now making tracks across the wide open and dangerous field??
And is his tiny glass empty as well…

Too much of a good thing is really never a good thing…

To share or not to share, that is the question

“When someone steals another’s clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.”
― Basil the Great

(images of a black capped chickadee and grey squirrel attempts at sharing a feeder / Julie Cook / 2014)

Look closely….

“Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.”
Soren Kierkegaard

My husband and I had gone on a hike early one morning while visiting Crater Lake in southern Oregon. Camera in tow, I was busy snapping images left and right. The scenery beautiful and breathtaking. I don’t think I’ve been in a more beautiful place (more about this visit later). Our adventure took us along a trail skirting the southern rim of the lake. As we climbed higher and higher, I noticed that so many of the trees, which had seen better days, giving up the ghost so to speak as a direct result, no doubt, to a life lived in an extreme weather local, were withered and gnarled–twisted and misshapen in violent contortions.

Later in the evening, once we were settled in from an exhausting day, I began looking over the pictures taken during the day’s journey. I stopped on the above image of the weathered tree, marveling in the ancient twisted shape, when I suddenly noticed a small little fellow who, unbeknownst to me, had been looking down on me obviously while I had been taking the picture. What a delightful surprise seeing this little guy.

This picture was a pretty potent lesson reminding me that even though I think I’m always aware of what’s going on around me at all times, I suppose this picture may prove otherwise………….
Maybe I get too caught up, being hyper-focused on the task at hand, that I tend to miss the extra little wonders. Maybe I think I’m too busy to slow down long enough to “soak it all in”–always being in a blasted hurry. Perhaps it takes a sly little squirrel to remind me that there is always more to life than meets the eye……

On this new day to a new week, may we all learn to keep our eyes and ears open at all times, may we take time to slow down, to really look, to really listen…who knows what we may be missing…………..

oh, and if you still don’t see what I’m talking about, check out the top left corner branch on the tree