Enjoying the porch so much today. Been here since 10 AM and it’s now 5 PM. Retirement with no schedule or commitments is grand! The sky isn’t as blue as yesterday. Guess all the clouds floating past are blocking the blue. It’s warmer outside than in my house. I’ve had Bertha, my steam boiler furnace, off a few days. She loves her gas! Loves to add a couple hundred dollars to the utility bill.

The finch piggies have finally left the bird feeders and my cardinal and chickadee friends are enjoying the feeders with the peace and quiet of dusk settling the day. Guess it’s like the calmness that descends when a group of rowdy children leave the room.

The big owls just had a conversation. They are so loud they made Penelope bark. They’re on the trees in the back yard. Only seen them once flying through the yard. They’re large with wide wing spans. They get rowdy sometimes and make these deep guttural sounds. Sounds scary when they argue. Just looked up owls and listened to their bird calls. These owls are barred owls. Their hoot sounds like “who cooks for you.” Sounds just like that and some times they add a y’all at the end in a guttural sound. We’ve had owls here since I was a child. They used to keep my daddy awake at night. He didn’t like them but thank goodness he didn’t shoot them. They raise their babies here every year.

Had this red tail hawk terrorize my birds twice today. He swooped down from the top of the oak tree when all the feeders were full but he didn’t manager to pluck any one off the feeders. Usually, he snatches one of the birds mid-meal and one little feather floats down when he flies away. They don’t have time to know they are the hawk’s next meal. He has a monarchical look. When he cocks his head around and peers intently, he’s a majestic creature. Didn’t realize till today hawks can’t turn their eyes so that why they cock their heads around.

I am missing my pansies while I’m porch swing sitting. I’ve always had flowers on the porch year round but December’s cold killed the pansies. I’ve seen pansies not be phased by an ice storm, frozen solid but just as perky as usual when they thaw out, but that December arctic cold blast did them in. Never entered my mind I might need to cover them up. Covered my one rose bush and neglected my pansies. Nothing blooming anywhere to buy and plant in the urns. Decided to bring my ferns outside and put them in the urns for a few days. They look pretty sad but they’ll perk up. Oldest brother just called me said the Opelika Home Depot had tons of pansies so hopefully the LaGrange Home Depot will have some, too. Wahoo! Gonna get me some pansies!

Knew I’d have to talk about this sentence when I read it yesterday — “Every human has so much potential we never see.” I looked up the word potential to see if I truly understood what it meant. The word used as a noun is defined as “latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness.” We don’t all have to set the academic world on fire or compose the next greatest violin concerto. I believe everyone is born with talents and gifts that once nurtured help make the world a more humane space. It takes courage to live. I believe we are alive for a certain purpose and our lives matter. You can choose to be happy or choose to be unhappy. We can choose to focus on ourselves or focus on others. You can be selfish or selfless.