For the Birds

So we have been inundated with just about every bird in the universe. Wow. Look around there goes a ..a..well I don't know the name but it's cute. There are the little yellow and gray ones that are like the all gray ones but, well with yellow. Since we are lucky enough to live in the NJ turnpike for birds we get all kinds here but with less tolls. The Syrian-African rift valley is the land route from Africa to Europe. Birds that require a stop-over on their way north stop along this land mass. The price of hotels may be high but the buffet is primo.

I do know some names. The yellow one that looks like  a gray one is a Wagetail and even if I don't remember the names so much...but they are still cute. I did learn what a Hoopoe (Israel's national bird...as well as Lebanon's national bird) is and how a Plover will practically pluck your eyes out if you go too near their nest which is camoflogued better than anything in the Hunger Games.

In fact I saw a Hoopoe hit pay dirt this morning as it plucked a huge juicy dung beetle larvae from the ground. Now that is one five star breakfast. The bee eaters and sun birds are swarming around our Bougainvillea and the Warblers (the winged kind) have a nest at the top of our Marula tree.

Scores of Babblers (or so it seems) crowd into our Neem tree in the morning to sing at the top of their feathery guts. They love the Neem because (I think):

1. It keeps insects away
2. It is well camouflaged
3. Its thick branches provide cover from other birds
4. It is closest to our window thereby maximizing their waking power at 5 am.

So basically we are one giant pit stop for birds who can afford to winter in Africa, stop by to annoy us, and then fly back, first class, to enjoy summer in Europe and take in the EURO 2012 games from a birds eye view. Local hawks, buzzards, eagles and such take advantage of the unwary travelers and find their fill of tourists that will not be bringing home souvenirs.

Storks, pelicans and cranes often dot our skies with tremendous aerial shows but rarely touch down near here. Once there was a lovely gray heron that made its way between what once were outdoor fish ponds and turned them into empty pools of algae.

OMG, I turn my back for one minute and a young Great Bittern sneaks under the mulberry. I empty the house of family members, trying to coral the young chick for a picture but the Great B is very elusive and escapes under our storage shed and into the wilds of our backyard. Wow, now that is an exciting visit.

So basically we are a snack bar. Why should the birds have the pick of the platter? If you are hungry, why don't you stop by and tuck in. There are some nice grubs here. You can have your fill, except for that big dung beetle larvae guarded by the Hoopoe and don't get too close the the Plover!

Shabbat Shalom

Join me on Saturday for a little poetry (very little)
and
on Sunday for some more Memory Tripping

Freedom is Just Another World

Every day we wake we have a choice. Hit the snooze bar or not. No really we have so much freedom in this world we have completely forgotten the meaning of the word.

One more small rant about Passover cleaning. Almost every year while I am cleaning for Passover and I see the trash can overflowing and I remind my self of the real meaning of cleaning. Cleaning for me has always been a matter of taking my refuse and moving it into someone else's space. It is true that most of the time we are moving trash into an "appropriate" receptacle but somewhere down the line it becomes refuse to someone (or someplace) else. In other words, we are really cleaning when we scrub and dust and sweep and throw, we are moving, moving my crap to you. My mother never accepted that as an exemption from cleaning so, unfortunately, it doesn't let us off the hook. If I choose to live in a dirty/unclean place it doesn't make your space any cleaner. When we get down to it we should learn that our lifestyle contributes to the trash that we "consume". The only way to really clean in the end is to "consume" less. As the popular saying goes, "less is more". I don't know how we teach that and I don't know how to live with that completely, but it is a goal of mine. Live with less. As we enter this new holiday season lets try and embellish our lives by having less. Less to clean, less to purchase, less to throw away when it is broken or replaced.

I guess that brings me back to freedom. The cynical side of me wants to say that most people believe that freedom is the ability to choose between which sugary cereal to eat in the morning all to the profit of one or two huge corporations in the world, but we live in a more complicated world where everything we do can effect the global market. So actually what we eat for breakfast is actually a good place to start. We can easily fool ourselves that our actions are trivial which gives us the out for taking the "easy" road. I don't mean to preach a specific brand of consumerism, but I do believe struggling with the issues at hand will help us make the right decisions. What are the "right" decisions? The ones that we not only can live with but the ones we want to live with.

Yes from time to time we are faced with the really big questions...real life and death stuff, but then we are so focused we can only see the forest, it is when we are casually strolling through the trees we lose sight.

I have seen some of my friends invite guests over for Passover Seder, on Facebook etc. and I am very impressed. At the Passover Seder table we usually invite people to come in off the street and eat, but for most of us that part of the Seder is a ritual, very much detached from the realities of the real world. I also look up and admire those who make sure to give tzedakah before they themselves enjoy Seder or other festive meals.

We have so much choice. We really are very fortunate, lets remind our selves how fortunate, share when we can, live humbly and healthy, and look out for our neighbors as we would want them to look out for us.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy Passover

(My poetry blog this week is also on a Passover theme so I am publishing a day earlier.)