Virgin Mary

Yesterday I was out on my deck trying to clean up some of the bird poop that Larry and his friends leave on the deck. It’s not only Larry coming every day – it’s other birds that stop by and eat and make messes. Sometimes two come at once. I wasn’t planning on this when I started feeding Larry during the dead of winter. Now I’m wondering what I’m going to do with all of the mess out there. So I was sweeping up all the bird seed they throw out when they scratch at it. When I put a new batch of seeds on the ledge, the sparrows will come and get right in the middle of it and scratch at it with their tiny, little feet, and the seeds go flying off the ledge onto the deck. Then they jump down to the deck where they do their thing. I never planned on having a deck full of bird poop and seeds. Some people have company and sit out on their decks and have cocktails, but do I? No, we sit in the house and watch Larry and his friends, scratch and poop all over the place. I’ve tried to take pictures of some of them, but I just can’t get close enough

Yesterday afternoon one of the birds lit on the ledge and sang a loud beautiful song! I’ve never had that happen before. He didn’t stay long. But later I saw two sparrows – one was bigger and sort of puffy and the other one was slimmer. The slim one was feeding the puffy one! They were sitting on the ledge amidst all the seeds and Slim would pick up seeds and Puffy would open his mouth wide and make chirping noises. I was transfixed. This went on for quite some time before they left. But they were back as the sun was going down, doing the same thing again. I didn’t try to get close as I knew they would leave. One time when Slim left, Puffy did peck at the seeds himself, so he was learning. I called the Audubon Society this morning and they said what I thought was happening. The mother was teaching the youngster how to hunt and get by as he grew up. I can’t believe I have all this on my deck. I could spend all day just watching them.

I was also watering my plants and checking on my potato plant that is getting so big and almost blooming. I was examining the plant very closely, when all of a sudden I noticed the image of the Virgin Mary among all the leaves! Sure enough, there she was right in the middle of the plant. I took a picture and you can see just where she is. If you can’t see her at first, just look at the photo until you do. It shouldn’t take too long. I’ll bet if you stare at the picture for at least 36. . . 40 minutes, you’ll find the virgin. I didn’t tell anyone as I didn’t want crowds of people on my deck. I know there was an image of the Virgin Mary on a toasted cheese sandwich someplace, but this is better as it’s on something that’s growing. I’m wondering how I could market this – maybe I should contact an agent or a PR person who could get the word out. I could charge a nominal fee for people to just look at the potato plant. And if a virgin stopped by, I could take her picture by the Virgin Mary potato plant. I would have to charge more for that – it’s something to think about.