Went to bed way too late for the 7 a.m. call that came in on Kim’s phone. I’m sure whoever it was doesn’t know that he’s 2 hours behind Michigan time but it left us both awake and facing the day running on much less than 8 hours of sleep.
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On my
ride on Monday I took a picture of a hawk on a saguaro. Later that night I went online and to my inexperienced
eye it shared characteristics with four types of Arizona hawks; I couldn’t
narrow it down farther than that. So I
looked online to see if either of the local universities had an ornithology
department, found an associate professor who seemed to fit the bill and emailed
her. To my delight I found her reply
Tuesday morning: she identified it as a Harris’ hawk, native to the Sonoran
Desert and one of the four that I had picked.
She also pointed me toward a Facebook page called Birding—Arizona and
the Southwest. It’s good to have
resources.
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Our
church is making an email/text opportunity available as a way to individually participate
in a collective celebration of Lent; it’s called 40 Days of Lent. Lent is the 40 days leading up to Easter; prayer,
giving/charity and fasting or abstaining from that which distracts so I can
focus more on God are all part of this time of preparation. My understanding is that those who signed up will
get daily content involving scripture and an action. It’s started today on Ash Wednesday.
Today’s
action was a ‘fasting’ challenge: Spend 3 hours away from all technology. ‘Game on’ I thought when I read it but right
away a couple of questions surfaced for me: Is
a camera considered technology and Is
it supposed to three hours straight or could it be broken up in chunks?
So
first off I had to define what technology meant to me…I eventually defined it
as any apparatus that used the internet or a wi-fi signal. That meant my Kindle, computer and my phone were
off limits, with the exception that I would answer incoming phone calls from
family members. No Rapunzel, no Google,
no texting…phone calls only. My camera can
talk to my phone using a wi-fi signal but since my phone was to be used only to
receive calls I decided that using the camera wouldn’t dishonor the
challenge. With that settled I turned to
the issue of how to manage the time. I
decided that three hours straight was the honest way to play it. Otherwise the concept of abstaining to better
focus would be a sham if I did it piecemeal.
Both
Kim and I walked away from technology at about 3 p.m. and it proved to be a bit
harder than I had anticipated. As we sat
outside soaking up the warmth of the day and watching the hummingbirds,
drowsiness became an issue within five minutes.
A long walk earlier in the day and lack of sleep last night were
catching up with us. It was too late in
the day to think about a quick nap so we got in the truck to do a couple of
errands figuring the best way to avoid temptation was to drive away from
it. We got back to camp about 7:30 and
while we did meet the challenge I can’t say that we spent the time focusing on
faith based topics. However, we did
enjoy the time spent together so I’m calling it a win.
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One
of our errands was to run over to the owl nest to check out the surrounding
area; I needed Kim’s opinion about an idea I had brewing. We were talking as we crossed the ditch which
must have threatened the owl because it flew off the nest. I’d been silent on my previous visits although
I could tell she was aware of my presence.
With her gone I knew this was my chance to look inside the nest and I
started wondering aloud if we had the necessary items in the truck but Kim held
me back; he didn’t want to harass the owl and besides I’d have to use
technology to accomplish it. Oh, ding dang, that’s right. Okay, I’ll go back as far as my zoom allows…I’m
going to stand in the shadow of this cactus…maybe that will fool her into
thinking I’ve gone. Can we spare a few minutes so I can stand over here to see
if she’ll return? I want to get pictures
of her returning. He was agreeable to that.
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We took
the Tom Mix Loop to Coolidge for the next bit of errands. On the way Kim got a call from our 7 year-old
great granddaughter Mavis. She was making a video call and while I suspected it
was toying with the no technology challenge I was willing to make this
exception because connecting with the great grands is important to both of us. She and I chattered away about nothing really
for about 15 minutes until we reached our destination then it was Papa’s turn
to amuse her.
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During the course of our phone call, Mavis gave me a close-up view of her baby brother Mordekai or as she called him ‘the cutest baby in the world’. I asked her if she remembered when he was born or if she knew how old he was because I was drawing a blank on how many months old he was. She promptly told me he didn’t have an age yet, that she didn’t know when he was born then with excitement in her voice she asked, “Hey, guess what? Did you know I was born on my birthday!” like it was a totally unbelievable occurrence. I had to play it straight for the camera; Kim was beside me chuckling about that one.
Then
we had a discussion about dinosaurs and their eating habits. She had definite disdain for the plant diet
of the stegosaurus, saying it was just boring.
She seemed much more impressed by the carnivorous T-rex.
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My arms are feeling a bit warm so I figure I
got a little sunburn during my walk today despite using sunscreen. It would be a heck of lot worse if I hadn’t…I
know that for a fact.
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It
was a beautiful day to be out on the bike but I just couldn’t bring myself to get
on it. Low energy from too little sleep was
the culprit. Tomorrow is supposed to be
hotter than today…predicted to be in the high 80’s and I already have a plan to
ride in the afternoon. Must get to bed
earlier tonight, though.
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