I hope the short video links play. You may need to turn up the volume on your device. I don’t know the type of bird that flew over the pond solo, but he came down, appeared to scoop up water or shad, then went up high again. He was breathtaking to watch. Then a pair of ducks circled again and again, as the sun continued its descent. The fish were not biting (at least for me) but it was still a great evening on the pond.

Got a few more hours in kayaking with the wifey. Cool day on the lake with cloulds rolling in. Saw some geese, turtles, herons, a family of ducks (but I was too slow my iPhone to snap a picture), lots of water, swallows, crows, and learned once again how water and sky are used to speak to the soul.

These are from my friend Jim. He knows more about birds than I. He and I both share a love for how creation and creatures herald the Creator. Jim recognizes beauty when he sees it; he knows beauty’s Author.

This morning before Sunday school and church, some of the deer were munching behind the house.

Was able to come home today. Met the family at one of our favorite Italian places for lunch. Enjoyed an assortment of ziti, wraps, and even a burger (good burgers at an Italian place, yes). And like the rest of their items, it was tasty.

Arrived at the homeplace afterwards. Played with the dogs. (You can see my old faithful buddy, Brewster, keeping watch. He’s an old man now, and gray, too, but he’s been a trooper and I already feel the nascent sadness of when I’ll have to say goodbye to him.)

I piddled outside in the yard. Picked up some limbs and pine cones that had fallen due to the winds.

The wifey washed off a couple of the kayaks where pollen had coated them yellow and green. Now they are ready for some time in the water tomorrow after Sunday school and worship.

We sat out back in a couple of beach chairs and listened to the winds blow through the trees.

We went down to the water to catch the gloaming. Swallows shot hither and yon. Canadian geese soared inches above the water, gliding with the wind, honking. The sounds carried on the winds. A solo mallard paddled near the marina.

It’s good to be home.

It has been written, “I’ve gone fishing thousands of times in my life, and I have never once felt unlucky or poorly paid for those hours on the water.” To that I say, yes and amen.

It is never just the fish, or just the water, or just the sun, or just the breeze, or just the way light shimmers off the surface of water, or just the scents of spring, or just the splash of toads into the shallows, or just the tug on the line, or . . .

If it has to be explained, you probably should do something else, anyway, but I’ll be in at dark-thirty.

Words over pictures, that’s my preference. I know I’m very much in the minority, however. Emojis, images, and simulacra carry the day. Tweets, texts, and electronic mail have often jettisoned grammatically-correct sentences with coherent written expression. I get it. We want things fast–whether it’s our mail, our food, our energy, or our messages. People who know me well joke of my being the Luddite, and I’m guilty as charged. I love nearly all things involving the written word–notebooks, pencils, pens, pads, journals, desks, reading chairs, soft-shaded reading lamps, and the old classic: the smell and feel of books–real books, with real paper, preferably with sewn bindings, books you love to read, hold, look at, and treasure. Why? Because they become part of you. They take you places you’d otherwise never venture.

Below are four volumes I’m either reading currently or recently completed. Each was/is worth the time required, if you’re of a literary bent.

As promised, some pictures, too.

Enjoy the images, yes, but give the written word a try. Words, when strung together well, last. They seep into us. We are linguistic creatures. We write plays, stories, and novels. We write and read poems. We put quotes on headstones. We memorize Scripture. We’re designed a word people so that we reflect the Word. May we always be so.

This last one does not really do justice to my intention. Here was the context of my intention. I had just walked several miles. The sun was out. It was breezy. Temperatures hovered in the 80s. The field above is adjacent to where I walked. The wind was blowing and the crimson clover swayed with the winds. The red tops bent from the invisible hands of the winds. And when I was a boy, my family had a horse. She was a Quarter Horse named Poco. I used to ride her bareback some days and she could smell the crimon clover in the spring and summer, and she’d fight against me if I tried to ride her going away from the clover. She loved it. I would often give in to her stubbornness because I loved to watch her munch on the clover. Her whole demeanor would change when the clover was lush. And today when the sunlight and the wind hit the clover just so, I was taken back to my days sitting on Poco’s back, watching her munch clover.

*The bird pictures are courtesy of my friend Jim. He knows beauty when he sees it. The other shots are mine, from areas where I often trod.

Sometimes rainy days are blessings. Just one rainy day and a bit of another day is all it took for me to read Pat Conroy’s book, A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life.