Today was a beautiful day but too chilly for porch pondering. I was walking Penelope on her first walk and stopped long enough to really study the sky. Father Sky had picked up some different colored pastels today and swiped them across his sky canvas. I think he’s been studying watercolor painting with Mother Nature. Sitting on top of the horizon line was a thin pale pastel stroke of aquamarine, darkening to a deeper shade of cerulean blue where it touched the skyline. Resting on top of the turquoise were layers of cobalt blue and layers of peacock blue that fanned out into a glorious dark azure blue sky. Only a few wisps of pale white clouds floated near the horizon. The azure blue sky canvas was blemished with four large buzzards, sun bathing and wind surfing, riding on the cool wind current and winding up a corkscrew in the sky.

Oldest brother came over mid-day and we thought about sitting on the porch but he quickly said, “Too cold for me,” so off to the lady den we went and watched the birds on the feeders outside the windows. He told me he got up early and turned on the porch light and a big fat opossum was sitting on his platform bird feeder, chowing down happily, having an early breakfast. I didn’t ask him but I bet that possum met its maker after his sunrise breakfast. I haven’t’ had any more raccoons. I hope the three that went to the farm are enjoying the forest and have forgotten about their suburban living. Only the squirrels are snitching seeds in my yard but a little Pam or peppermint oil on the poles and they stay away.

Today was such a wondrous sunset. I’ve never seen the colors that Mother Nature brush stroked across the sky, so gloriously created and so swiftly gone. I got my camera out and Penelope jerked the leash and when I turned around the glorious spectacle was gone. At my first glance the horizon’s sky was bathed in light brush strokes of watermelon, pale purple, lilac, and deep mauve, a beautiful layer of brush strokes that brought the twilight alive.

The sun rolled down the horizon dressed in a luxurious gown of shimmering orange chiffon. The train of her gown brushed the lingering clouds and colored them in pale orange and yellow shades. I watched a small group of cotton ball clouds, watercolored on their bellies a pale huckleberry purple, push the orange clouds away and gather like a school of little purple fish ready to swim across the evening’s sky canvas.

I had carried a few clouds of worry with me on this walk with Penelope but that quick but magnificent sunset pushed those worries off my shoulders into God’s hands.

Isaiah 41:13 says, “For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.”