Eclectic travelers

GOING NATURE’S WAY By Kate Crowley As one calendar year ends and another begins many of us take stock of where we’ve been and where we hope to be (literally as well as philosophically) in the coming year.  I would hope that everyone would also stop and think about all that our earth and our fiery star gives us.  Every day we get up and take a deep breath of oxygen without a second thought. In one day, the average adult takes 17,000-30,000 breaths per day.   Clean, breathable air; how much does that mean to you?  Then you head into the bathroom where you brush your teeth using this incredible life sustaining resource called water. Depending on what report you read, we are told that the average American drinks anywhere from 2.5 cups to 4 cups of water per day.  And we never question the safety of our water, although there may be more anxiety about this since the people of Flint, Michigan found theirs was severely polluted with lead. And then there is the sun.  Though it has hi

WINGIN’ IT   By Kate Crowley I know that the birds are supposed to be protected by their layers of feathers from our winter weather, but when the temps drop into the minus 20’s overnight, I really wonder how any of them survive. They must deal with more than 12 hours of darkness without benefit of external sources of heat, like the wood stove that glows with its warmth in our living room.  But every morning, we are blessed with the movement and antics of our resident birds (all 17 wild turkeys included).  Mike gladly goes out each morning to refill the sunflower feeders and the suet feeders if they need it.  He also spreads a wild bird seed mix on the ground.  The turkeys are watching unseen for this earliest feeding and immediately swoop down from the pine trees or race up the front field in single file to forage as fast as possible on the seeds and grain he has spread for them.  Then they retire to the top railing of our fence where they perch until they get hungry again