Birds

Have you ever just sat and watched the birds?

I’ve always liked birds and I’ve always been interested in them but I never really took the time to sit and watch them until the quarantine/shutdown started. In March when the quarantine first started I was still in college (see the previous blog) and I didn’t have a lot of time for anything but trying to finish the semester dealing with very unusual circumstances. I had one college-age child trying to finish up the semester online and I had a middle schooler trying to finish up the school year at home, it was a very interesting and as Thomas Paine would say "These are the times that try men’s souls.". When the semester finally ended and we were still in a state shut down I decided to get the birdfeeders out, clean them up, and get them filled with food for my little bird friends. I started going out onto our back porch early every morning to do my yoga and have my quiet time. My quiet time consists of my Bible reading and my morning devotional. Throughout this whole time, my devotional has been focused on learning about different women of the bible (it’s been a very interesting devotion which has three parts and when I finish all three I’ll do a review). After my quiet time, I would just sit and watch the birds. It was during this time that I started noticing different kinds of birds that I’ve never noticed before. I started to listen to the different calls and trying to identify which bird was which by sound. I also noticed the interactions between the male and the female of the species.

We have this one red cardinal and he is very dark red, I named him Red Daddy. At the time that I noticed him, I also noticed several other male cardinals who are not as brightly colored as Red Daddy. I observed that when he was around the female Cardinals tended to flock, for a lack of a better word, to him and just completely ignore the other Cardinals. Eventually, I also noticed that he was the only male cardinal around, I guess he’s made this his territory and ran all the other males off.

Now you know that the male of the bird species is always the more brightly colored that’s to attract mates and the female is a lighter color that’s for camouflage and hiding on the nest. I just thought it was very interesting the way these females reacted to this very brightly colored male. Other than the interactions between the birds themselves I also began to notice something else about birds based partly on what I noticed about the male cardinals. I started to pay attention and I noticed that when an environment is not good for these birds regardless of whether they are male or female they don’t stick around. I let myself run out of birdseed and when I didn’t fill the birdfeeder back up immediately I noticed that the birds didn’t come. I also observed that when I filled the birdfeeder back up it took a couple of days for them to realize the food was back and then they were there all the time.
You see it’s not just about any one particular thing it’s about all things of the environment. Birds need food, water, shelter, and companionship in their environment. If they don’t have the things that they need to sustain themselves they leave. It made me wonder about humans.  Why can’t we see that our environment is not sustainable for our existence? In answer to my question, I think we can. I think what holds us to the ground is the fact that unlike birds we can’t just fly away. If a spot is not good for a bird they can just fly to another spot and start all over again but people aren’t like that. We get bogged down by responsibilities and obligations, maybe different people are depending on us or we don’t have the financial means to make our flight. We’re just not birds! Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes a person may say my environment is not good for me and make up excuses just to leave, but at other times the environment is bad and they do need to take that step and get out.

I guess taking that Biology course this past spring really put my scientific brain into overdrive, it seems that I am always making some sort of observation lately.

That’s my two cents worth, what’s yours?

College is complete, maybe?

So it’s been a long time since I did a blog post, I don’t think I’ve done one this entire year. To say things have been crazy since I started college would be the understatement of the century, well except for this year which has been an understatement in itself. I started the year off in with my last semester to complete my bachelor's degree. It was kind of bumpy to start with and there were just some things that we weren’t sure about, but it got better. Of course, as soon as it started to get better, about halfway through the semester, boom corona hit. I went from being home during the day by myself to being home with two other students, one in middle school finishing up the year and one college student finishing up the semester online. It made the days very interesting, bogged down our internet service, and made it for some very testy interactions. People got ill and aggravated, it just wasn’t a very pretty thing in the beginning. After we had been home for a few weeks we settled into a routine and then my semester was over.

Of course, my graduation was canceled and that was a bummer I cried. The university said we would have a ceremony but they couldn’t tell us when, so we had a virtual recognition and I graduated with the highest honors summa cum laude, which I was very proud of. I had to wait several weeks because of the virus for all of the paperwork and everything to come from the University but I finally got everything that I needed to start the process of applying for my teaching license. Well, I started the application only to discover that I was still missing two pieces of information that I needed and that was three weeks ago. I had to make some phone calls and was able to request some of the paperwork, from one organization, that was mailed and the other paperwork I have to go pick up today. I’m hoping to get this whole licensure application completed by the beginning of next week. I guess we will see!

Anyway, I have no idea what I’m doing next as I don’t want to go into my first year of teaching when we have no idea what the school year is even going to look like. I talked about the possibility of just returning to school and working towards my Masters with my family and then contacted the University. My name has been placed on a waiting list for a class this fall as a visiting student, as it was too late to apply for the Master's program for this fall. Now I just wait for a phone call or email letting me know if I have gotten into the class. The way I see it is if I get into the class then that's the Lord's way of letting me know that he opened this door and he wants me to go through. If I don’t get into the class then I know that it’s not what he wants me to do. I know my college days are not over because once I get my license I have to take so many glasses in a certain amount of time to keep it. Therefore, I know I’ll be going back to school I just don’t know what I’ll be doing this coming up school year. For me the waiting is hard, I like to be able to make plans and figure how things are going to go, but I have had to learn to take my hands off of things and let God do the work. The Bible says in Psalm 46:10a, "Be still, and know that I am God:".  I just have to give it to him and let him guide me in what he would have me to do. So the question remains masters program or not? I don’t know if I wanna bite off going to school again or if I just want to be finished for right now and take classes as I need to keep my license. I hate being indecisive, it’s never been my thing!

That’s my two cents worth, what’s yours?