Up

Looking Up


We used to have a fabulous and wonderful Golden Retriever named Jake that always watched the sky. He would chase after airplanes as if he had a chance at catching them.
Carlos also watches the sky and tries to catch birds.

Jake

Do you look up? I think we all have a tendency to walk along, looking at the ground or our phones or the people around us. But how often do you look up?

Saturday night was a "Super Moon".  It was enormous - I wish I had been at the beach to see it reflecting into the water. It was a perfect moon for the ocean.

My Super Moon photo which looks a lot like a regular moon photo. 

It was very impressive in person.

Not so much in my photo.

When I am in Colorado, the stars are overwhelming at night. Near Houston we are surrounded by so many lights that the stars are few and far between.   You forget living in a city that the sky is sprinkled with glitter.

Not stars but rain sprinkles. 

Still looks like glitter.

I quickly learned when I started horseback riding that you must look up....look at where you want to go. If you look down, guess where you end up? The ground hurts when you fall from 6 feet up. 

Bunny has her eyes focused beyond the jump- right where she wants to end up.

Look down, hit the ground.

In 2011 I saw the movie The Big Year about bird watchers vying for the "Birder of the Year" title. Who can see the most birds? After that I tried counting just how many birds I see. I'm certainly not a bird watcher but living near-ish to the coast and across from a creek- I see plenty. Add to those Texas birds all the Colorado ones that are new to me plus the ones I've seen traveling- I've got to be close to two or three hundred. If I didn't look up I wouldn't have seen the woodpecker that is nesting in my tree.

A beautiful little bird in a perfect hole.

Every afternoon when I look at the camera on the Colorado cabin there is no sky. Seems the entire state is burning. Fortunately so far the area around us has been spared.  That could change tonight.  But the mountains are lost in smoke every afternoon from fires 100 miles away.  There is no looking up there right now.

My morning view.  

By 4pm there are no mountains- just smoke.

The downside to looking up? I run into things.  I trip on curbs. I might be labeled a bit of a klutz. 

But the view-I think it is worth it.

I realize this has nothing to do with my challenges- just me rambling on my keyboard. But look up. You don't know what you might be missing.

Or.........