Pretty Girl

My alarm goes off at 5:30 am so I can listen to the news of Nova Scotia. A rather detailed weather forecast follows then by the time the Sports report begins, I am awake enough to shove a cat or two off me and get out of bed.
I fix the fire in the wood furnace then make my chai tea and start my yoga practice.
This has to happen early, when it's still dark outside, not because I love the peace and quiet of being the only person up -- but because it's too distracting to do Sun Salutations while the little wild birds are flitting through the spindly branches of the lilac tree outside the living room window.
It's breakfast time, but breakfast hasn't been served yet.

I put out five bird feeders early every morning around our front yard and dump a big container of corn and mixed seed in a special spot way down front. Every evening, I bring them all in because I don't want to encourage the resident raccoon, nor have her wreck the feeders trying to empty them.

The past couple of mornings, I've seen several lines of deer tracks crossing the front yard, and pass through that special spot down front.
This morning, at about 8:30, I was sitting on the couch reviewing the speech I was giving to a local Rotary Club today when my mother said, "Don't move, just look out the window."
Speech forgotten, I spent ten minutes watching this pretty girl munch on seeds around the birch tree underneath our church bird feeder.
Talk about a holy moment. My front yard transformed into a temporary sanctuary.

The speech was well-received but this visit was the highlight of today.