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I Return to the Place I was Born
From my youth up I never liked the city.
I never forgot the mountains where I was born.
The world caught me and harnessed me
And drove me through dust, thirty years away from home.
Migratory birds return to the same tree.
Fish find their way back to the pools where they were hatched.
I have been over the whole country,
And I have come back at last to the garden of my childhood.
My farm is only ten acres.
The farm house has eight or nine rooms.
Elms and willows shade the back garden.
Peach trees stand by the front door.
The village is out of sight.
You can hear dogs bark in the alleys,
And cocks crow in the mulberry trees.
When you come through the gate into the court
You will find no dust or mess.
Peace and quiet live in every room.
I am content to stay here the rest of my life.
At last I have found myself.
— Tao Yuan Ming (Tao Qian) Chinese, 365-427
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Reminds me of that one time I almost forgot my beer at the bar…almost.
Thank heavens the little birdie saved his friend, the bunny from falling all the way to the ground. That would have hurt the bunny really bad.
Hopefully, that near miss will make the birdie think twice about taking his friend, the bunny, on a thrill ride like that
‘Twixt, short for betwixt. But you knew that, Gerard. 😉
Obviously the bird knew he was being watched, and was just showing off.
We have had, of late, a covey of quail visiting the the bird feeder on a daily basis, pecking and scratching at what falls to the ground. Mrs. was a town girl and gets quite excited to see any kind of critter, and seems especially taken with these little guys. They come running across the wretched piece of grass that passes for a lawn at our place, backbones straight up and down or nearly so, and clearly on a mission. You can’t help but smile at the little bastidges for their focus and apparent resolve, so maybe it’s not just Mrs. who gets excited to see them. Fifteen of them at last count.
Anyway, I was watching the covey peck away the other day when a hawk swept through low and fast and scattered them. It missed on the first past, with the air suddenly all a-cluttered with whirring balls of feathered fluff, and the hawk pulling G’s in a tight turn to circle back for the kill, but it missed again. It made another loop, but the little guys had vanished.
Mission failure. Score for the day was quail 15, hawk 0.
When you are completely and totally done for. No escaping…
Did you ever watch a cat with a mouse? This cat has wings!