...Bee-lieve in Hope!

For all of you who sent well wishes and lovely comments about Hope the finch - she is hanging in there as of 5 this evening! I called the rehab center first thing this morning and Giselle (the director) said that things were "touch and go" and that she thought she would have to try force feeding Hope as she was very weak. I waited all day before calling back, half afraid that I'd be told that she hadn't made it. Instead, Giselle said that she seemed to be stable and perhaps even a little more alert. She had eaten a bit and G said that her weight was good (not sure what a good weight for a finch is - an ounce?). She is being treated with antibiotics for the wound. I will check back tomorrow, but for now I am feeling cautiously optimistic.

I suppose that to many, this concern about one common little brown house finch may seem excessive. And perhaps it is. But, the timing is significant for me since I brought her in on 9/11, a day that has sad and horrible associations for me. A part of me wants this to end well, just to prove that the day isn't all about sadness and death. And then there is the issue of me being a great big softie and hating to see things suffer. And my hubs, who professes to only tolerate my fascination with all wild creatures, has been just as worried about this silly finch as I have been - he emailed me at 8:05 this morning saying "how's the finch?" (Yep, honey, your secret is out - you're just a big old mush-heart, too.)

I have been wanting to get up to the sunflower fields for the last few weeks and decided that, since I had an unexpected free day, I'd make today the day. I took several hundred pictures, a selection of which I've put in my blipfolio. I even tried a few landscapes which I frankly usually suck at...and they don't suck too much! :) I think that the pictures would have been more dramatic if I'd been there a week or so ago when the sunnies were just opening. Now, many have gone to seed and are hanging their heads. Still, I got some shots I like - after all, what's not to love about sunflowers? And this one even had a bonus honeybee on it!

After strolling through the fields (16 acres!!) for a couple of hours, I stopped off at the farm cafe across the road and got a lovely sandwich, some oolong iced tea, and bought some local honey (the bees have been feeding on the sunflowers, natch!) It was a day that was good for nurturing my soul, which I think I needed.

Giacomo wrote so eloquently about 9/11 yesterday and he expressed so much of what I've been feeling. I wanted to try to write some of my thoughts down, but I just can't seem to do it - but if you read Giacomo's journal, it speaks to what many of us feel about this somber anniversary. Perhaps for those of us who lived in NYC, there is an extra level of horror to it - seeing a city you love injured in that way ... it's beyond words for me. And then to realize the lives that were lost and/or inexorably changed. On the morning of September 11, 2001, we woke up innocent - that night we faced the darkness filled with fear and uncertainty, forever changed.

So my wish for all of you today is again ... peace and safety and love.