Gray skies today. An occasional a blue space would open up in the sky soon to be covered by the dull clouds. The birds were scarce today. I moved the feeders around when I painted the poles yesterday so maybe that discouraged them in some habitual way. The faithful cardinals are always around. Had an occasional chickadee and some wrens. My downy woodpeckers friends ate some suet.

Oldest brother came by for a porch visit and said he counted 5 male cardinals on the feeders when he drove up. He’s concerned about his tomato plants. Middle brother has tomato plants full of blooms. The greenest plants I’ve ever seen. An organic gardener gave him the plants. He doesn’t even know what kind they are. He’s in first place in the garden contest. I’m in second place with my two Big Boy plants. Both have blooms on them. Doing well in the pots. Oldest brother is in third place. He’s got some curling leaves one one of his plants, which isn’t a good thing. Haven’t seen baby brother’s tomatoes yet but I’ll check them out at our family party this weekend.

The funniest thing happened last night. I went to turn on the air conditioner and it came on set at 30 degrees. I could not get the temperature button to go down or to go up. I put new batteries in the remote, unplugged it and plugged it back in and it still said 30 degrees. Finally figured it out. The remote was on Celsius temperature. Why that would be on the remote beats me. I looked up 30 degrees Celsius and that’s 86 degrees so I would have had the heat on I guess. Was thinking I could freeze at 30 degrees or burn up at 86 degrees. At least I didn’t call Stew to come downstairs and fix it for me. That would have been a Shady Oaks lecture I know!

Today has been a lazy day of rest Sunday. Sometimes we need a quite day of reflection to sort out our thoughts. I sat on the porch and thought of all the children who had enjoyed this porch for generations. Lots of them rocked to sleep in the swings and so many played in the playpen where Penelope is taking a doggy nap. Guess you don’t pen up children now but mine were raised in the playpen, safe from the wood-heater at home, learning how to pull up and eventually walking.

Walking in such a monumental step in a child’s life. Once we learn to walk we are essentially on our own to navigate the world. We fall down, we get back up, and continue our journey. We walk across the stages during our graduations, we walk down the aisles at our weddings, we walk the hospital corridors during the birth of our children, we walk out of the hospital without our loves ones, and we walk in funeral processions. Some of our walks are in the bright clear sunshine and some walks are in torrential thunderstorms. Course we keep walking, plodding along day after day experiencing life.

And what a wonderful thing is this experience we call life. We can choose to walk forward or we can choose to walk backward. Walking forward brings us peace and happiness and wisdom and joy. Walking backward puts us in darkness. We need to walk with a purpose. Forge ahead putting one foot in front of the other, remembering we never walk alone.

“As you walk through life, always walk toward the light, and the shadows of life will fall behind you,” — Thomas S. Monsoon