Project 10 Challenge: Alone: Feb/Mar 2014

Most people who know me automatically assume that I am a social person.  In many ways I am.  I love to gather people together, I love having friends around, I love connecting via events and I love having my family and their friends at home.  

However, there is another side of me that I find emerging so much more as the years go by. In the hustle and bustle and busyness of work, home, volunteering, and photography, I find myself craving and coveting alone time.  I love to be quiet. I love to do my own thing.  To take a book and settle into the sofa and just read.

This particular morning I worked from home, and I like to take my coffee and breakfast and head out on the deck and just enjoy the early morning quiet time.

Sitting there this particular morning, I realized very quickly that although I am alone, in the sense that I am by myself, I really am never alone.  Nature has a way of keeping you company. And if you know anything about me, nature is a very big part of my life and I love to photograph nature.  

So join me as I head out onto my deck for my "alone" time.  My view from my seat is of the Florida Everglades.  This is one of my favorite spots on a cool day or when the sun is setting. There is so much nature outside our back door.

My chair on the deck is comfortable and I am able to just relax and chill out and be at peace with  my life, my soul and everything that is so busy around me.  

And suddenly I am not alone....my first visitor is creation at it's meekest.  The mourning dove is waiting for me to feed the ducks.

My next guest is a routine occurrence morning and night.  The mallard will head up the bank and wait near the top of the grass for me to bring it's food out.  When I walk out on the grass it scurries off to the water and slips onto it and swims away from me.  As soon as I put the birds seed down and walk away to go and sit down it will swim back.  Some days we just have one, other days there can be as many as 12...and then we have a few disgruntled ducks.

This particular morning I had put peanuts out for the squirrel.  I think she is feeding and I wanted to make sure she had nourishment.  Next thing I know I have a blue jay looking at the peanuts.

And then quickly it snatches one and flies off.

 It did not take too long for the squirrel to realize that the Blue Jay was stealing its peanuts and quickly made a dash for them.  By this time I figured the Blue Jay had stolen enough peanuts and put the rest in the squirrel box. 

She's a quick mover.  Grabbing her single peanut and then getting out the box before the Blue Jay starts looking at her peanuts again.

She will sit on the edge of her box and nibble away at the shell until she gets to the peanut and then she will gobble it quickly before heading back into the box to get another.

While the squirrel is protecting and eating her nuts, along comes an Ibis and it is after the duck seed. Seems like a lot of stealing going on this morning. This is a new occurrence.  The Ibis will walk out onto the dock, and eat the seed that has fallen between the slats.

Finally if I walk out onto the bank and look down the canal, there is a bald headed eagle pair nesting in the trees.  They come back every year to mate, lay eggs and raise chicks.  My zoom is not high enough to get up close to them but if you look at the top of the tree on the left the mate is sitting up there.  

I hope you enjoyed my "alone" time.  I am by myself but I am not alone.  Nature has a way of keeping me company.  

Remember next time you are alone, to stop and listen to what creation has to say to you.  

“The earth has music for those who listen.” 

~ George Santayana