I just had to share this photo.  My tabby, Sugar sleeping.  Always makes me giggle how she hides her face.  Sometimes animals are so human like.

I was just thinking about the days as a young girl and teenager living around some pretty phenominal woods and lakes.  I think about how blessed I was to enjoy the sounds of nature that I no longer hear today.  In the sixties and most of the seventies, we did not have air conditioning.  Our homes and cars did not come with them.  We slept with our windows open and the box fans blowing.  Every night I would hear the whipporwill calling and the voice would echo across the lake among the woods.  It was a magical and mysterious call that absolutely excited us kids to hear because the bird was never seen.  The call always reminded me of the warm summer nights we kids spend talking on the streets of our neighborhood and then slipped into late night girl talks while stopping in silence to hear that bird's beautiful voice.

Another bird we use to see and hear during the day was the Bob White.  It would march along the sandy scrub brush behind our homes singing out its name in a whistle.  We were so young, but how we appreciated the nature that walked beside us on a daily basis.  We had not only those amazing birds, but gopher turtles that burrowed just behind our house that we used to feed lettuce to.  There were owls that perched on the lamp posts, rabbits scuttling about, and there were many a Florida panther in that area.

Today, I do not hear the Whipporwill or the Bob White.  I am blessed to hear a Cardinal or a Mocking Bird every  now and then.  I miss the sounds of nature.  Calming and soothing, a reminder of our Creator and everything brilliant and substantial that He made.  Those birds always sang praises to their Maker.  Every morning and or night depending upon your make and model, the shrills of voices doing what they were made to do, singing their little hearts out no matter what was going on in the world.  Sweet music.