Birdless January Blahs--and This, Too, Shall Pass

Our January has been so bird-less that I must resort to taking pictures of cold turkeys in the middle of the city of Sioux Falls on my way to medical appointments. 

They looked so totally cold, and I didn't blame them because our vehicle thermometer had registered about 10 degrees that morning.  

Is this where they get the saying " stopped cold turkey"? 

I loved the scene with the flag! It had been an almost bird-less January for me. Even our friendly woodpeckers seemed to have disappeared. Even our pastor's wife has noticed not many birds at all coming to her feeder. She thinks it's because we've had so little snow this winter that birds are able to keep finding grain and seeds in fields around us and don't come to the feeder. 

Our dry weather is quite unlike other sections of the country, such as Virginia where my older sister lives and where her daughter created an Ice Heart on a bench on their deck! I loved it!

Or North Dakota where my youngest brother lives and where he said he was fighting a losing battle with the snow drift at his door. 

And where the temperature had dropped to at least 28 below zero and a wind chill more like 45 or 60 below at times. 

If I want birds, I have to hang pictures--or embroider them! But "this too shall pass," Jonathan reminded me the other day after something had happened that weighed on our spirits. 

And I have so much to be grateful for, such as the beautiful bouquet a friend surprised me with last week on Tuesday. 

LaDawn Smith stopped by with this bouquet of lilies that opened so sunnily within days. Then I invited their family for supper, and we had so much fun playing a game together after supper, worship, and Jonathan reading them the first chapter of my book Cowboy Sam Learns to Ranch. That chapter is so hilarious as we green ranchers tried to learn our way about buying animals at the auction and raising them successfully. We gave the book to them as a gift, but they said they wished Jonathan could read the rest of the book out loud because they liked to watch us grin guiltily or laugh at ourselves outright as we read about our crazy decisions and silly outcomes and yet the delicious pork sausage we finally ended up with in that story. 

I stood by my bird wall hanging for this picture of me with my thick hair that has been growing in so nicely, and I do so hope it won't all fall out again as it did last time when I started chemo. I'm not getting so much chemo this time, just some alongside the herceptin drug, and maybe, just maybe I can keep at least some of my hair. 

"This too shall pass," 

just like our birdless January suddenly has birds in it!

We spied two juncos that have discovered our birdfeeder in the tree and are finding bird seed on the ground as well where the wind must have blown it.