"In the world but not of it"

In a lot of ways, I think we truly are "in the world but not of this world". I mean, look out my windows! The world rushes past, seemingly oblivious to the quiet space on the cul-de-sac. While they follow the 'madding crowd', we lock eyes with a doe, flap our wings about the turkey vultures, and -- what's this??? a swarm of bees????????? The doe came quietly into the park across the road, grazed, stood and watched the bunnies, and finally left.

As I sat in the swivel chair, enjoying the sunlit vistas, knitting away on a prayer shawl for Heather Bouws, my acute peripheral vision distracted me from knit-one-purl-one. My trusty camera captured turkey vultures. In my research I was surprised to learn they live here only in the summer, wintering in much of the southern US and in South America.

Saturday mid-morning, adrenalin-laden Isaac Moss came to be a part of preparing the land we are co-sharing with him at 48th and Stanton. Because he had a little down time, we asked him to take the Honda and trim the grass around the house. Everything was normal at that time. We sat down for supper at 7 p.m. before heading over to Pruis' to plant corn. Looking north from the table we saw something odd in that young maple tree just outside the window.

Again, doing some of that research that I love, I learned that honeybee swarms may take a temporary rest en-route to a new and more permanent home. This swarm seemed smaller on Sunday morning. At 8:30 a.m. we left for greeting, church, a retirement open house in East Lansing, church again, a check-up on the broken culti-mulcher on Isaac's land, drop-off of the prayer shawl at Bouws' place, and home again by nine p.m. The swarm moved, and not into the hollow tree adjacent to the swing set. Whew!