Been studying the clouds this morning. Trying to learn to identify clouds. The sky is filled with puffy white clouds now and some are gathering rain drops. Blue sky is peeking through around the edges. The clouds are moving fast and stretching out. They are a soft gray color, the color of spring rain clouds, bleached white around the edges by the sun. The sun is doing her best with her fingers of light to break them up.

The birds have been slow coming to the feeders. The cardinals have enjoyed being the only ones eating but the grosbeaks are flying in now. The grosbeaks, specifically the females, are bossy and worrisome to the cardinals. The little flock of purple finches fight back when the grosbeaks get after them. Saw the little downy woodpeckers and a pair of wood thrushes. Didn’t see my chubby hummingbird today.

The magnolias have started blooming on my street. I love to put a few stems of blooms in the dining room but none are blooming low enough now for me to reach and pick them. Always had a bowl of magnolia blossoms on the piano at Rosie and Thomas’ piano recitals. Someone down the street just cut their two twigs of grass with a riding mower and sent a red clay dust cloud up the street. Penelope and I watched it float by. We could smell the dirt in the air.

Learned two new words today, biophony and geophony, and when you put those words together, they make a beautiful yard symphony. A biophony is a sound from living things such as frogs and birds and other animals. A geophony is a non biological sound like wind in the trees or ocean waves at the beach. There is a soft yard symphony going on highlighted by biophony and geophony sounds. Now the purple finches are fighting and chirping so loudly I’ve got an angry yard sounding symphony. I can hear this loud bird chirping in the side yard and it’s singing what sounds just like, “Listen to me, listen to me!” I am listening and I hear you, birdie!

Been watching this huge buzzard floating high up in the sky. Glossy black when the sun touches his wings. His gray shadow is dancing across my yard and sidewalk. He’s really up high, surveying his domain, king of the sky. He perched on the ball on top of the cupola on the roof across the street. Sat up there for a good while. He was chased earlier by two mocking birds but he just kept soaring in his circle ignoring their pestering. Buzzards symbolize rebirth. These birds fly their own course and choose to ignore the interference of other birds.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all just walked our own road map and didn’t worry about all the interferences that stop us along the way. We’d just be our true selves, not worrying about what people think, not trying to keep up with the Joneses, all marching to the beat of our own drums. We’d be flexible in our life’s path yet we’d be able to change directions. We’d learn to listen to our own voice and walk our true path. Marching to your own drum is courageous. Deep inside us is a voice that guides us like a compass. The hardest part is really listening to that voice. We should all march through life following the beat of our own drum.

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears the beat of a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” —Henry David Thoreau