Dear Reader:

I must confess! Yesterday was not my favorite day! Sorry… but true …though a God Wink helped save it.

Ferocious winds woke me up before dawn and light. The wind ” crescendos” were terrifying-I could hear a branch fall in the distance and feared a whole tree coming down. ( I still have a bad case of ” Hugo-it is” … Hurricane Hugo) I have never liked strong winds since.

I finally got brave around 9:00 am and ventured out on the porch to check on Big Red ( the geranium) and to turn the porch lantern light off. It was then I saw it… a beautiful moth pulled on to the porch by the lantern light ( probably while still dark)

I could only imagine-like a lighthouse beacon of light ushering ships on to safer terrain from rough storms at sea-the poor moth saw the light by the front porch window and was clinging to safety. A refugee from the storm. It was beautiful.

I immediately shared the picture with an ole’ teaching colleague and friend, Cindy Ashley, because she was a marvelous science teacher and really into moths and butterflies.

None of her sources looked exactly like it but one app suggested it was a ” Tulip Tree Beauty.” I sent the same picture to my neighbor-Vickie/and she agreed with Cindy-but there was one other picture that closely resembled it too-the ” Somber Carpet Moth” ( I wonder who thinks up these names? )

*** As of writing this post mid-afternoon yesterday ” Somber Tulip” is still resting on the front window pane.. I have said a little prayer she survives this and can leave when the winds finally die down)

I kept falling asleep on and off yesterday afternoon since the wind had awoken me so early… I had the television volume on low and could just barely hear it… but groggily heard a PBS quote that I repeated several times to remember it.

” A quiet hour means more to you than anything you can do in it.” ( Relieved my guilt for sleeping through it)

While fixing lunch another author/ doctor/: speaker came on and he was talking about ” Nature Deficit Disorder ” in children. Up until a hundred years ago childhood and nature were synonymous. Today parents are having a harder time getting their children off computers and video/ simulated games to play outside. This situation is causing all kinds of health problems -physical, mental, and emotional.

Even though my grandchildren do love video games they all love the outdoors-at my house it’s climbing in the treehouse, the rope swing, and their first climbing tree-the pear tree in the front yard.

Lachlan is the gymnast and can flip forward and backwards repeatedly to entertain the others -he is also our St Patrick Day birthday boy-coming up this week! ***Birthday picture when he was two on St Paddy’s Day!

Since all the grandchildren play sports or dance … like Eloise-they enjoy 🎾 💃 ⚽️ 🏈 🏀 the outdoors even more…

So until tomorrow…. ” Wonder is the first of all passions” -Let nature and her never-ending abundance of wonders transform this generation of children too!

Despite the strong winds and downward temperature pattern ( chillier by the hour) two little flowers bravely opened ” their eyes” for the very first time. The wonder of life!

Today IS my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh