Friday, April 18, 2008

travelling north

Flyway

Sadly leaving behind our granddaughter and her parents we travelled Thursday and Friday from sunny California to snowy Seattle! We knew Maggie's parents were doing well and that they could ask her real Creator for her operating instructions. *


We took it slow. In that inbetween zone of leaving and return we watched the haymaking on the center strips of the highway, bales carted away on double flatbed trucks secured by metal straps. In Oregon we noticed truck after truck of huge cedar logs. We loved the old farms and barns along the highway, and green fields of cattle in California and sheep in Oregon.

We stopped and felt most at home at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, the only car there, pausing every few minutes along the automobile route to view wildlife. Most of the birds had headed north before us, returning to their nesting sites as far away as Alaska. We, however, enjoyed the natives in their natural habitat and some newly arrived shorebirds. Wildlife, not having reason and will, but a guidance system and operating instructions built in, migrate the Pacific Flyway north and south according to the seasons since the beginning of time. We, with our will yielded to God's direction were instructed to have dominion and care for these creatures of the earth. I am thankful for refuges that help us experience that care and this rare peek at God's avian creation.

Because 90% of California's wetlands have disappeared, these wetlands are mostly manmade. Established in 1937 more than 35,000 acres of wetlands and uplands are managed by draining and reflooding, burning, mowing and irrigating grasslands and creating ponds, a replication of natural habitat. We drove at the edge of seasonal marshes, watching waders and by permanent ponds the waterfowl finding abundant wildlife in a fun few hours. The brochure states, "... appoximately 44% of the Pacific Flyway's waterfowl population winters in the Sacramento Valley. Three million ducks and over one million geese migrate here." We will try to come back at the peak in November, but then again, I don't think we can wait that long for another trip further south to visit our new granddaughter and family. If it keeps snowing in Seattle, we might just turn right around south again.


* 2 Timothy 3:15-17

See www. youtube.com angelambryant Sacramento National Wildlife Reguge

Friday, April 11, 2008

Lost looking

Marguerite Grace one week old


Holding Maggie I'm lost this week

Looking at her face, hearing her squeek.

A smile, a scrunch, wiggling around

I'm caught in a dream I've found.

Her eyebrow up, mouth turned down

a wrinkled brow shows a frown.

An outstretched arm hits her face,

a simple squeek speaks Maggie Grace.


I'm not the same from a week ago.

My single focus lets all else go

the past, the future melt away.

Only in the present here I stay.

I don't want to miss a single smile,

or change, or first, so I sit awhile.

I get lost in a dream just watching her face,

taking every move in, oh Maggie Grace.

Friday, April 4, 2008

To Marguerite Grace

Maggie Grace born April 3, at 3:28 p.m., 5 lbs 8 oz, 18.5" long


On the day before you were born, the earth and surround started slowing down. Two pairs of ravens soaring the skies over the field, talked in their quiet “qworks” to each other. The small helpless injured junco quiet in a box with blanket and soft tissue found its way on a long slow ferry ride to the bird hospital. At dark, the deer sauntered from the woods to the fields for dinner. On the forest floor Morel mushrooms pushed their way from the dark earth, and picked by a friend, found their way into my hands.

But on the day that you were born time slowed down so much that life became like a dream. People were moving but not going anywhere so it seemed.
As you were waiting for the time to be born that God ordained, I waited to get on the ferry to go to meet you. As I boarded the delayed ferry, and traveled extra slow through the waters, you were carefully brought to the hospital in your secure box, your mother’s womb and were gradually passing through the waters of the birth canal,

But on that day and very time you were born, the time and place ordained by God, the ferry boat I was on, and the whole earth, stopped still for just a quiet moment. The heavens and the earth were celebrating your arrival. A very little while after landing, with the word of your arrival from your Dad, we all shouted and cried for joy. Time sped us the 850 miles to California to finally find you in our hands and arms. Then time stood still just for a moment once again.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise Him all creatures here below.”