Seems we were the only family in the neighborhood that didn't go away for the weekend - and the rest of our own family were away as well ... so it was quiet for us here. A nice change of pace with a new baby in the house.
There was a little customized "down time" to suit each person, I think. A bit of one-on-one with everyone for Zach (a movie, library time and painting with Mom (and a bit of extra sleep for Shan!), water play and gaming with Nana and walks with Grandpa & Krypto.) The Budman read, enjoyed some old Westerns and did some great burgers on the grill and I did some yardwork, reading and did lots of photo work (play).
Yesterday we made sandwiches and loaded up for an impromptu picnic at the pond -
Luke's first picnic!
And Zach caught his first fish - TWO in fact - one right after the other! We saw ducklings, a green heron, lots of redwing blackbirds - and a beautiful sunset to top off a lovely, long praiseworthy weekend ...
A favorite poem perfectly expresses the many things about this life that I praise and give thanks for most every day ... but most especially lately. It's long, but so is my own private list - and Ms. Porter's words are such a beautiful reminder and well worth the read:
List of Praises
by Anne Porter
Give praise with psalms that tell the trees to sing,
Give praise with Gospel choirs in storefront churches,
Mad with the joy of the Sabbath,
Give praise with the babble of infants, who wake with the sun,
Give praise with children chanting their skip-rope rhymes,
A poetry not in books, a vagrant mischievous poetry
living wild on the Streets through generations of children.
Give praise with the sound of the milk-train far away
With its mutter of wheels and long-drawn-out sweet whistle
As it speeds through the fields of sleep at three in the morning,
Give praise with the immense and peaceful sigh
Of the wind in the pinewoods,
At night give praise with starry silences.
Give praise with the skirling of seagulls
And the rattle and flap of sails
And gongs of buoys rocked by the sea-swell
Out in the shipping-lanes beyond the harbor.
Give praise with the humpback whales,
Huge in the ocean they sing to one another.
Give praise with the rasp and sizzle of crickets, katydids and cicadas,
Give praise with hum of bees,
Give praise with the little peepers who live near water.
When they fill the marsh with a shimmer of bell-like cries
We know that the winter is over.
Give praise with mockingbirds, day's nightingales.
Hour by hour they sing in the crepe myrtle
And glossy tulip trees
On quiet side streets in southern towns.
Give praise with the rippling speech
Of the eider-duck and her ducklings
As they paddle their way downstream
In the red-gold morning
On Restiguche, their cold river,
Salmon river,
Wilderness river.
Give praise with the whitethroat sparrow.
Far, far from the cities,
Far even from the towns,
With piercing innocence
He sings in the spruce-tree tops,
Always four notes
And four notes only.
Give praise with water,
With storms of rain and thunder
And the small rains that sparkle as they dry,
And the faint floating ocean roar
That fills the seaside villages,
And the clear brooks that travel down the mountains
And with this poem, a leaf on the vast flood,
And with the angels in that other country.
