Never guess what I found in my mailbox today! No, it wasn’t a snake, Fatty the squirrel, or Grandpaw raccoon. Though that wouldn’t surprise me! It was my income tax refund check from two years ago. Had just given up ever seeing that money but the check came today! Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. Guess the new 87,000 IRS employees are on the job!

Probably be just enough to pay the gas bill! Had old Bertha, the steam boiler furnace, on 90 degrees for four days during the frigid cold snap and the house never got above 58 degrees. We weren’t cold and she worked herself to death. Don’t think my thermostat works anyway except like a switch to turn the furnace on and off. You turn it off and the heat just keeps coming till it runs out of steam. Chief turned it way up one Christmas during our McMurray family dinner. The house got so hot we put a fan in one window and stripped the babies down to their diapers. It was cold outside but blazing inside. Funny now how many of my kin folks watch the thermostat at our dinners. If Chief got up during the dinner, Thomas or someone would walk by the thermostat to be sure Chief hadn’t turned it way up.

Could not ponder on the porch today because of the cold but I did get inspired by all the beautiful birds flitting around and singing. I could hear them in the kitchen singing with happiness in the sunshine. Guess they were filling their little stomachs up so they could be warm tonight. All of them were excitedly gathered around the feeders, talking happily to each other. I sliced them some apples and put them in the suet baskets and platform feeder on the back deck. Been watching for Grandpaw raccoon so I can ping him on the butt with the pellet gum but he hasn’t gotten here yet. I’m hoping he’s down at the creek fishing for crawfish and can’t smell the apples.

Oldest brother had so many finches on his feeders this morning he said he couldn’t count them. We love our birds. We discuss our bird sightings each day and talk about the different kinds of seeds we buy. I bought two bird cakes today. The nuthatches and wrens and the downy woodpeckers love the seed cakes. Just hope Grandpaw raccoon doesn’t notice the seed cake. He likes them, too, so much he’ll eat a whole cake in one night. Oldest brother had seen a little flock of birds near the farm gate to his driveway this morning and he told me he was taking a feeder down there this afternoon for them to enjoy. He’s seen a scarlet tanager near the fence once. They are so pretty…redder than cardinals, black wing and tail feathers, and no crests. Saw a flock of them years ago in the back yard here. Looked like a flame when they all flew off together. Haven’t seen one since.

It’s so funny to think the little song birds are really dinosaurs. You got a dinosaur obsessed child maybe you can turn them into a bird watcher. Research says birds are “the only surviving lineage of dinosaurs that made it through the great extinction 66 million years ago.”

Bird watching is great for your mental and emotional health. Nothing cheers me up more than watching the birds on the feeders and listening to their songs. I’ve pretty much got all the bird identifications down so now I’m trying to learn their songs. I call all the little wrens, Wren. They make me think of Luciano Pavarotti. Can’t tell them apart but they are the opera singers on the brush around the porch. They lean back and push their chests out and sing loudly. I keep telling the one that perches on the swing chain he’s run all his friends off with his loudness. He probably has a mate but haven’t seen her, yet.

Mocking birds have 200 different songs and can imitate other nature sounds, even insects. Used to be a mocking bird around here that whistled just like someone calling their dog. The mocking birds perch on the turrets on the high roof across the street and sing their hearts out. Never could get past counting 11 songs when I’d watch one of my yard mockingbirds sing. I start counting when I see one perch and start singing. Unfortunately, the next door cat, Cheddar, has eaten all my yard mocking birds and scared the others out of my yard. He leaves the little pile of feathers on the ground under one of the feeders. Doesn’t bother Dum Dum, the pigeon. He will just traipse all over the pile of feathers.

One of my cousins paid me a beautiful compliment about feeding my bird friends. She wrote, “Each tiny feathered friend knows in his tiny feathered heart that you choose to honor his tiny belly with wonderful tiny seeds each day…windy, cold or blistering hot he feels your love in his tiny heart.” I love that!

There are 48 million bird watchers in the United States. I’m proud to be one of the 48 million. Why don’t you join us!