Today is a wintry day, overcast sky thick with vanilla grayish clouds, spewing rain every so often. The birds are all over my yard stuffing their little stomachs with seeds, getting ready for the cold temperatures. Been two days without any raccoon trouble so guess the clove and cinnamon oil are working. Good day for napping and reading and I’ve done neither. Took the Christmas cedar tree down in the dining room and made a mess, drug the tree to the porch and took the lights off the tree and made another mess AND the leaf blower battery wasn’t charged, so I had to go rogue and use the broom and dustpan. I am the world’s worst sweeper. Chief could sweep better than a vacuum cleaner. I just don’t have the wrist strength.

Learned about a new songbird today, the loggerhead shrike, “butcher of the scrubland.” Lives here in Alabama year round. Looks like a chickadee on steroids, mean little critter. They have white chests and rumps, large blue-gray heads, black masks across their forehead above their eyes, hooked, notched beaks, and tiny black legs. They used their beak to paralyze their prey with a viscous jab to sever the spinal cord and then impale their prey on barbed wire fences or thorn bushes and come back later to eat them. Most songbirds just eat seeds and insects but these little murderers eat critters like mice and rats and snakes and other birds.

Late afternoon my yard was full of cardinals. I quit counting at 31 and that wasn’t including the cardinals on the feeders around the lady den windows. I always think Chief sends the cardinals and when a large flock comes there is always a handsome male cardinal that sits on the bannisters near the swing and watches me for a few minutes. I always whisper, “Hey, Chief. Love you!” And it flies away.

The sun was trying on sleeveless ball gowns for the sunset pageant and Father Sky thought them too revealing so he hid the sunset pageant with thick vanilla cloud curtains leaving the sunset to my imagination. I can visualize the sun in her apricot silk gown rolling down a ripe mango colored horizon topped with low clouds of pale peach and light turquoise. Father Sky is having a hard time waking the moon and the stars, tucked under their cloud covers of vanilla and gray. The night is waking slowly, pushing out from its cloud covers.

Thinking about perseverance after reading this, “By perseverance, the snail reached the ark.” Wonder how far the snail had to go and how many times it wanted to stop and give up, but it persevered. Perseverance is persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. Always heard we need to persevere through adversity. Adversity is difficulties, misfortune. I think we all think about giving up when the tasks get to hard but we have to keep on keeping on, pushing ourselves across the finish line of life. James 1:12 says, “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.”

God gives us the wonderful gift of hope, hope that can help us persevere. Instead of focusing on our difficulties we can place our trust in God and be comforted through our faith and prayers. As we travel through life, we need to leave the past behind and walk toward God and look toward heaven.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” — Mary Anne Radmacher