Trust Me - This One is for the Birds

Sometimes it is difficult to tell one day from another, even when you are retired. I don’t know, maybe even more so. I woke up this morning, which is always a good way to start your day, ate my Corn Chex with a banana and LOTS of milk. Then I took the dogs for a walk, fed the dogs, took them for another walk and checked my “Honey Do” list.

The morning went by while I constructively checked off three pretty constructive projects! Then I sat down with a cup of coffee and watched an old episode of Bonanza. Well, there aren’t any new ones, so I guess that was somewhat redundant. DON’T MOCK! That’s a good show with good life lessons.

Anyway, out I went after that to pick some raspberries and black raspberries for dinner, as we were planning to have crepes. I call them fruit rollups since I can seldom remember the word crepes. Whatever you want to call them, they are so yummy, especially when it gets hot and sticky out!

But as I was picking the black raspberries, there was this one tiny little bird that kept landing on the post that is at the end of the raspberry plants.

Then it would fly away, only to come back and land on the post. The bird seemed somewhat concerned that I was picking the raspberries, perhaps wondering if I was going to leave any for its dinner. There are plenty and I would never do that! I was on the last row of berries and almost had a full bowl when I moved a leaf back to get a raspberry that was trying to hide. What I found was something even better.

I found out why that bird would not let me out of its sight. This nest is all of two inches across, about an inch deep and has two newborns that obviously needed their mommy! I carefully released the raspberry leaf and backed away before walking back toward the house. A quick glimpse over my shoulder gave me a view of a bird flying into the raspberries, so I will assume it was dinner time!

I will cautiously check on the development of our babies as the days and weeks go by and share with you what I find! I know it isn’t a major discovery! They are just a couple of small birds, no pterodactyls or eagles, but still kind of neat knowing my yard is home to so many little creatures.

So why can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom?

Because the P is silent.

Did you know that Wisdom is an albatross that lives in the South Pacific? Well, now you do. Wisdom is special in that she is 70 years old and just hatched another chick. An albatross usually lives 15-40 years in the wild, but it appears Wisdom is what I’ll call special. Wisdom was first recorded and tracked in 1956. They usually mate with a lifelong partner, but Wisdom has outlived a few of them. And only one chick? Come to find out an albatross will only hatch one egg every few years, so age has nothing to do with Wisdom, well, I mean sometimes it does but not in this case.

So, what is special about an albatross? They can glide without the aid of an updraft because of their specialized wings. A young albatross will typically spend its first several years at sea, eating fish and squid, without ever touching land.

But once on land, the albatross has all kinds of problems taking off, as the same gifted wings that give them continuous slight with minimal effort are not designed well for takeoffs or landings. So, if you are in the glide path of an albatross, find a helmet or seek immediate shelter!

I know I went from Bonanza to an albatross in a few short paragraphs, but it all got me to thinking about trust. It is a word that we all know but perhaps we don’t have enough trust in our lives.

Trust is the firm belief in something or someone. I trust the sun will come up every morning. I trust that the pills my wife puts out for me to take every morning will not kill me. Trust is one part of the love formula.

So, find out who you can trust and who you can’t. Don’t take advice from people you can’t trust. But remember one thing. When push comes to shove, you should always trust yourself, your instincts, your gut feeling.

Here are some words of others about trust:

“Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.” —Benjamin Spock

“Trust yourself, you will start to trust others.” —Santosh Kalwar

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” —William Shakespeare

“Learning to trust is one of life’s most difficult tasks.” —Isaac Watts

Peace Out!