This morning the sky was the bluest of blues with not a cloud on the sky’s pulchritudinous canvas. The cardinals were enjoying the feeders with the occasional downy woodpecker hanging upside down eating from the suet basket. I saw a little wren, not very old. He was a skinny juvenile and didn’t have the rounded chest like the mature one who sings in the yard all day and perches on the swing chain to watch me. He’s so curious. I love the wrens. They are dressed plainly but sing beautifully. A chime of wrens is always flitting and fighting with the titmice for the bird feeder by the gardenia bush.

I sat quietly and watched the cloud formations gather in mid-morning. This huge cumulus cloud behind my great-grandmother’s house was blinding white, glistening as the sun rays beamed on it. The cloud looked just like a T-rex dinosaur. The cloud morphed from a dinosaur to a big horn sheep, a fish, a dog, and a grizzly bear before it dispersed. Don’t think I’ve watched a cloud like that since I was a child. Sometimes Stew and I will watch them change shapes when we’re sitting on the porch together. We never see the same pictures, though. Next time my grandchildren come we’re going to do some cloud watching and be cloud-spotters. If you enjoy watching clouds for leisure you are a nephophile. Another new word to file away.

Ate breakfast on the porch this morning pondering in the swing. I made a quick grocery run earlier and bought some cut up cantaloupe and watermelon and it was so good! Wanted a second helping but will save it for tomorrow. Bought a whole cantaloupe, too, but going to let it sit a day before I cut it. Hoping it will be delicious, too.

After breakfast I filled up the bird feeders and added some water to the bird baths. When I was filling the bird feeders, I found a half-dollar hole “chewed” in the 20 pound bag of sunflowers seeds. Must be that fat little chipmunk. Weren’t any seeds spilled out so maybe he was scared off before he got down to serious eating. Missed Grandpaw running down the driveways today, it was hot so I came in to cool off. Penelope took a siesta. Grandpaw and his family are called a mask or a gaze. Love learning the names of groups of animals.

I honestly have watched my cucumbers and tomatoes grow today. I checked them this morning and I swear when I looked at them at twilight tonight they were twice as big! I wanted to pick that cucumber and eat it but decided to let it enjoy the vine till tomorrow. One of my tomato plants must be a mutant. It’s big and healthy looking, got a big stem, dark green leaves, but there is not one bloom on it. My Big Boy tomato has blooms and little tomatoes. Not sure what kind the other tomato plant is but it’s beautiful. Maybe I’ll see blooms tomorrow.

Was reading about the sky and clouds today and came across this quote, “It’s the darkest nights that produce the brightest stars,” — John Green. The stars are alway out there we just can’t see them in the bright sun. The dark of night makes the stars visible. Never thought of them as being there all the time, guess I thought Mother Nature drops a curtain and pins the stars there.

Dwelling on that thought makes me remember my mama saying, “This too will pass.” When we have dark times in our lives, we find the stars in our prayers and faith in God. We have to look hard to find them but they are always there. Life is full of changes. Guess that’s the only sure thing in life, that things are constantly changing. We have to learn to see the stars in the darkness. If you don’t accept change you’ll miss out on what life is offering you. We have to harness the changes into something positive. In the darkest of our nights, we learn of our blessings.

An old Chines proverb says, “When the winds of change blow, some people build walls, other people build windmills.” If you build a figurative wall, you are focusing on the negative changes. If you build a windmill you can harness the changes into positive blessings.

“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars,” — Og Mandingo.