Peaceable Kingdom

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.” ~ Isaiah 11:6.
Painting reference: Peaceable Kingdom, by Edward Hicks.

We celebrated the U.S. July 4th holiday quietly, at home. If you can call it quietly, with all of the fireworks going off. I don't typically mind that much, but I know that many animals and some people do. Did you ever know any vets with PTSD? Yeah, fireworks time sucks for them, and for many others.

It's like open season on fireworks here from about a week or so before the 4th, until a week or so after. So gird your loins, or batten down the hatches, or do whatever it is that it takes to get through it. Did you know that July 4th weekend is the top weekend of the year for pets running away?

Thanks to my husband's good planning skills, we had some nice steaks for the grill, and we celebrated as much as we could, in a country where 167 million female individuals have recently lost their most fundamental rights to bodily autonomy, and where there was yet another mass shooting: in Highland Park, this time.

This time it was somebody I knew, in the way that it is on the Internet. I have a wide variety of friends from all over the world. My friend in Highland Park - her husband was AT that parade. He made it home safely, after barricading in a library nearby for hours. He lived to make it home. He was one of the lucky ones.

America, what have you become?

In America, as a woman, I have less rights than a gun.

But as dusk began to fall on Independence Day, I sat and watched the hummingbirds, and discovered my own peaceable kingdom, where I got to live for a few minutes. The birds are small and feisty and typically, they fight. The air is full of squeaks and chirps, as they fly around madly, chasing each other.

But on this evening, they shared the feeder, and so I sat by the window, got out my monopod, stuck the camera on it, and got some decent shots. These are ruby-throated hummingbirds. The one on the left is a female. The one on the right with a dark throat is a male.

I have to tell you that my heart went "Ahh," as I watched them. For hummingbirds are a thing I always dreamed of. I had various yards over the years that were sort of mine, but I never had hummingbirds like my parents do. Now, we have several regular visitors who stay with us all summer long, on this piece of land that I own.

I have included a second photo in the extras. This one is a picture of two females. When I saw it, I noted that the two ladies almost seemed like mirror images. I thought, oddly enough, that it looked like a picture of me, contemplating my past or future self. . . .

Now, every blip posting gets a soundtrack song from me. Sometimes two, as will be the case on this day. First is a song for the Peaceable Kingdom, and the tune is Simple Gifts, sung by Alison Krauss, as Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello. Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free. . . .

My second is a more angry and determined song, for any of you who may need something like that on this day. And let me add that if you think the land of the free and the home of the brave isn't quite as free or as brave as it once was, well, get out and do your best to CHANGE IT. I promise you I sure will.

The song is Independence Day, written by Martina McBride, and sung by Martina and Pat Benatar in this recording from a CMT Crossroads episode that was out of this world. Also, let me say that it's a real treat to watch how happy Martina is to see her idol Pat Benatar singing her song! Look at Martina clutching her heart when Pat starts to belt out the chorus at about 1:19. We'll leave you with this quote from its song lyrics.

Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today
Is a day of reckoning.
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay
It's Independence Day.

Possibly related: Calling All Angels.
And: Only His Hairdresser Knows!/At Dawn We Ride!