Ate a Mrs. B’s biscuit this morning with some cantaloupe and strawberries sitting in the swing pondering on life and looking up at a beautiful cloudless summer time blue sky. Every time we look up at the sky we can count on seeing something different. Bright clear sunshine, twinkling stars, glorious sunsets, bleached cotton ball clouds, delicate song birds, multi colored rainbows, dark purple thunderhead clouds, tiny silver airplanes. So many gifts from Mother Nature and God to see looking up toward the heavens. The sky is constantly changing and I love it.

Yard mowers came this morning. The wood thrushes love when the yard is newly mowed. Several of them are running around in the yard pecking for bugs and insects. Not all insects are bugs but all bugs are insects. What? Ninety percent of all animal life forms on Earth are insects. That’s a little scary! Hope the wood thrushes eat plenty of bugs and insects today.

A large flock of chimney swifts came out at dusk tonight right when I went out to sit in the swing and watch the sun set. The birds were noisy and boisterous, darting through the yard and circling around the house like acrobats. Never seen them fly so close to the ground. There were 17 cardinals on the feeders and they just kept nibbling and ignoring the chimney swifts. Hope the swifts were gobbling mosquitoes and flies while they were flying around. A group of chimney swifts is called a scream. That suits them, they are loud. They eat and sleep while they fly! One article I read called them flying cigars because of their shapes. Couldn’t help but laugh when I noticed how that really described the little gray birds.

The sunset tonight was painted in the most beautiful shades of pink and orange. It’s amazing how the clouds catch the last red-orange rays of the setting sun and paint such wonderful masterpieces. Watching the sun set each day is such a calming, restful moment. The day is winding down to night and watching the sunset gives us a sense of peace. The stress of the day melts away as we watch the colors meld and go dark and silent.

Life is a journey and most of us travel so fast we miss all the beauty that surrounds us. We know the seasons of Earth come and go. Spring always follows Winter and Mother Earth is reborn in all her greenery. Summer warms the earth for vegetable gardens and flowers and song birds. Fall follows Summer and paints the trees with beautiful water colors before their leaves are stripped and their limbs left bare. Winter comes softly here, leaving us a bare landscape, and exciting us with an occasional snow flurry to tickle the cool ground.

In the seasons of our lives I see Winter as a time of sickness and heartbreak. Maybe loneliness in the dark, dreary days of sorrow. In Spring I sense hope and new beginnings. Mother Earth wakes up the daffodils and dresses the trees in beautiful sleeves of green on their bare branches. We break out of our doldrums in Spring and see the bright sunrise of a new day on our journeys. Summer brings us sunshine and happiness, longer days to enjoy life. Summer give us gardens to tend and grass to cut. We nurture the important things in the Summer of our life’s travels. Fall starts us on a new path as we prepare for changes ahead in the coming year of our lives. We live these seasons over and over in the journey we call life. Some of us are lucky enough to not experience the harshness of Winter. Others are broken down by their Winter storms of life. Some of us struggle through Fall trying to find the correct path to walk down. Others of us are fortunate to enjoy the hope and promise of rebirth in Spring and are happy with the warm sunsets in the Summers of our lives.

Little things make a difference in this journey we call life. We should look for the sunsets and enjoy the promise of another day. Life is constantly changing and offers myriads of experiences that define us and make us who we are. Life is a journey, not a destination.

“The beautiful journey of today can only begin when we learn to let go of yesterday,” — Steve Maraboli