Today was truly a day the Lord hath made. Just beautiful! Drawn with a cloudless blue sky and colored with warm bright sunshine. These morning are feeling more like fall every day. Had a quiet Sunday symphony composed of bird songs and soft wind chime concertos. Just when I got peaceful and relaxed a riding lawn mower cranked a solo in the symphony and changed the course of the morning. The music became the noise of the moment. Didn’t disturb the birds or the butterflies so I decided to not let it disturb me. I watch the clouds gather on the horizon, big and fluffy with luminous bleached white cotton bolls on top, so bright where the sun washed their ridges. A few of the clouds were carrying a soft grayish rain on their bottom tufts. They traveled slowly through the sky on their lazy paths.

Mr. Raccoon visited the porch last night. Moved the brick off the top of the bird seed bag and enjoyed a repast of seeds till Penelope’s barking finally drove him off the porch. Brought the bag in the house tonight. Hope he’s not hungry enough to come down the chimney! He’ll hopefully move on when he realizes the bird feeder buffet is closed. I heard Penelope barking in the middle of the night. I knew it was a critter bark and not a burglar bark so I didn’t get up and check on things.

Caught the sunset tonight and the sun lay her head down in a baby pink horizon, soft and unpretentious. Mother Nature used her paint brush to stroke the clouds with pinks and purples and yellows and oranges. So pretty! I’m always filled with astonishment when I view Mother Nature’s paintings. Her colors are exquisite.

I was watching the yellow butterflies in the yard and thinking about their short life spans. The average butterfly lives five to 15 days! They flitter around drinking nectar not seemingly worrying about tomorrow. They are eternally young and beautiful. Everyone gets to be young but not everyone gets to be old. Never thought about that but it’s true.

Growing old is a privilege. With age our memories are in our hearts. They are not the tangible things of our youth. We have lived our dreams and now enjoy our twilight years at a slower pace.

My daughter died at age 17 and will perpetually be a young woman. My husband died at age 85 with the privilege of old age. One of the gifts of old age is looking back and realizing that life took the path it was most destined to.

“Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.” —Stanislaw Jerzy Lec