I'm back after yet another hiatus...

Once again I have had circumstances that have taken me away from being present here on Blogger as well as from moving forward with my "Imperfect Strangers" book project.

I feel akin to Mooch, the cat featured in the Mutts comic strip atop this entry and I must confess, the longer I'm away from my book project, the more confidence I lose re any value it might have. 

But I've received an encouraging "note" (email) from an advocate for those who suffer from NF.

It stated:

"Your struggle is real, Patricia. 

Youngsters nowadays are SO lucky to find there's information (re NF), care and acceptance of their differences, at least in safe circles.

You got a very opposite message.

Remind yourself of the courage and strength of character it took to make a new home in New York.

It wasn't the end of ridicule or discrimination, but your determination to educate the uninformed has been a real inspiration.

I'll admit that it seems cosmically unfair that you've been assaulted by so many complications - both painful and cosmetically distressing - at this point in your life.

Why you should be so afflicted I cannot understand.

All I can suggest is to set small goals for yourself each day. 

Celebrate small accomplishments.

Thank each bird who graces your garden. 

You're a good person with a kind soul. 

That's huge.

RM"

I'm not so sure RM is correct in calling me a person with "a kind soul," I can get pretty short tempered, but this is not the time or place for self-deprecation, so onward I shall go with my return to this blog.

Inspiration From Patrick McDonnnell

Indeed, George Eliot! AND thank you, Patrick McDonnell for publishing another one of your amazing drawings  (a copy is posted directly above) and quotation citing. What a nice way to ring in the first day of fall, in the Northern hemisphere (in states that have Eastern Standard time, it offically begins today at 3:21 PM)!

As many of you may know, I am a huge Mutts fan and I've featured McDonnell's drawings and strips in a number of my blog posts.

On another note, McDonnell and his cast of characters are part of what inspired me to create my photo-comics. They are featured in my digital book, BIRD TALES.

It features a number of birds participating in a variety of activities and is dedicated to all birds and everyone who loves them. An interactive book for people of all ages to enjoy together and is now available via Apple Books.

BIRD TALES is my second book with Apple. The first one, Words In Our Beak, was published in 2015.

Subsequently, Words In Our Beak's iBook version was published as a soft-cover book (with slight variations) by MagCloud. 

Following this, Ingram Spark published a hard-cover version of Words In Our Beak Volume One  (with slight variations), and they also published hard-cover versions of Words In Our Beak, Volume Two and Words In Our Beak, Volume Three. 

All versions of Words In Our Beak have a goal which is to open readers to a simple understanding of the winged world and their environment. The setting for my books is my rooftop urban garden in New York City, my stories are told in the voice of Cam, a female cardinal, who visits it. Words In Our Beak is directed to children and adults who are curious about birds, and want to learn about them from a unique perspective.

Mourning doves, the bird type featured in  the photograph directly below, where they re sitting on a pumpkin in my garden, are included in this book all my versions of Words In Our Beak as well as in BIRD TALES.

While I believe this bird type likes autumn, I don't think their likely to do the George Eliot thing and fly around in search of other autumns, their interest seems to be invested in sticking around to nosh on seeds during all types of weather, as evidenced in the photograph below.

Wednesday's Wisdom is from SOUR PUSS!

I'm a sucker for Mutts and have published many blog posts about this amazing strip. 

You can read them by clicking here.

Mutts, as well as other comic strips, are part of the inspiration for my newly released book, BIRD TALES.

This book is a collection of photo-comics (a medium, as I've mentioned here on Blogger, that is a means of sequential storytelling that use photographs rather than illustrations). The inspiration comes from photo-novels, also known as fumetti. They are popular in Italy and Latin America.

It features a number of birds participating in a variety of activities and is dedicated to all birds and everyone who loves them. An interactive book for people of all ages to enjoy together and is now available via Apple Books.

Earth Day 2021

Earl and Mooch (from Patrick McDonnell's Mutts comic strip) as well as the prolific Mehmet Murat İldan sre spot on, for indeed "Wherever there are birds, there is hope."

For as discouraged as I might feel from time to time, whenever I see birds (such as the ones featured in the next sequence of photographs) in nearby Central Park, I feel more hopeful about most circumstances.

I also feel more hopeful about most circumstances when avian creatures spend time in the courtyard trees.

"Spring is just around the corner?"

Atop this entry is a copy of a Mutts comic strip created by Patrick McDonnell. It was initially emailed to me this morning, February 21, 2021. We are still dealing with a lot of snow here  in NYC and as you can see in the next set of three pictures, Mourning doves, visiting my snowy garden appear unphased to know that spring does not seem to be around the corner.

They are a bird type featured in my book series, series, Words In Our Beak.

MY BOOK SERIES

The books make a perfect gift for someone who may be in quarantine or lockdown due to consequences of the coronavirus because the stories in them can bring the outdoors into the homes of those who cannot go out and about.

Friday's Follow-Up Re A Visiting Jay

Atop this entry is a copy of a Mutts cartoon created by Patrick McDonnell. It was initially posted in celebration of the 2018 Winter Solstice and I thought of the sentiment expressed by Mooch during the nor'easter which occured in NYC this past Monday (2-1-2021).

As I said in my blog post about the event (which I published the next day) an array of bird types (including a lone American robin, several Dark-eyed juncoes, a number of House sparrows, an entourage of Mourning doves, and a lone Northern mockingbird) spent a lot of time in my garden during this storm. 

The day following the storm, which happened to be Groundhog Day, a Blue jay stopped by my place.

Patrick McDonnell has got this! "A little bird seed or a source of water goes a long way for wildlife!" (Wednesday's Wisdom)

I completely agree with this bird featured the Mutts's drawing atop this entry (as anyone who reads this blog I'm a huge fan of Patrick McDonnell (the creator of the Mutts strip and related cartoons). Be that as it may,  it has been beyond bitter cold the past few days (and continues to be). I spent much of this last Saturday pouring hot water over the frozen water in my bird baths (that are in my garden) in order for the ice to melt and allow my visiting wildlife to take a drink or two.

It's Saint Francis's Feast Day

 Today is the Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi. He is the patron saint of animals and environment and many web-sources concur, he could "be viewed as the original Earth Day advocate. Francis' devotion to God was expressed through his love for all of God's creation."

"Words In Our Beak" Gives You A Place to Go

MUTTS's STRIPS ARE FEATURED THROUGHOUT MY BLOG

Mooch, Earl and Mason Cooley got this! Reading DOES give us a place to go when we have to stay where we are.

And while restrictions and lockdowns (that have been imposed due to the coronavirus AKA COVID-19) are being lifted, many people for the most part will have to (or maybe should have to).

A Couple of Thoughts Re Session 63 & 64 (Tuesday's Truths WK 182)

MUTTS'S CHARACTERS ARE FEATURED THROUGHOUT MY  BLOG

For this 182nd segment of my Tuesday's Truths series, I confess that (in the midst of this coronavirus  pandemic) it has been hard for me to focus on my projects, which I find distressing.

In terms of this blog, I had big goals set aside for 2020, which I mentioned at the onset of the new year, but now it seems I'm having a great struggle to think about anything but the impact of COVID-19. Like Earl, the dog featured in the Mutts comic strip atop this entry, I'm questioning how to clear my mind and focus on other mattes besides the #ClapBecauseWeCare tributes that I've participated in since two days after they began this past March.

The tributes and the reasoning behind them are very important and I'm glad to pay homage to these events and to the people for whom we do them, but I recognize, I must get back to focusing on my writing projects as time is marching on with out me.

Going forward re this blog, I hope to continue to draw attention to the #ClapBecauseWeCare efforts, but also get back to what I was trying to accomplish pre-COVId-19.

A 2020 "Worm Moon" will appear today! (Monday's Memo)

As you can see in the Mutts comic strip posted atop this entry, Earl has asked Mooch if he knows why this March 9th 2020 is called The Worm Moon, and a little worm, overhearing the convo, pops up from the ground to say, "YES!"

How about you dear reader, do you know why this Monday's moon is called The Worm Moon?

Fear not, if you don't, The Farmer's Almanac has the answer and so does Patch!

House Sparrows Watching

I came across an oldie but goodie Mutts comic strip (posted directly above) and it reminded me of a couple of house sparrows whom I saw in Central Park last Sunday.

Boxing Day 2019

Unlike the characters in The Mutts comic strip (posted above), on this day after Christmas,  I am stirring, but like them I'm exhausted, so I'll keep it short.

Today is Boxing Day "which is only celebrated in a few countries; mainly ones historically connected to the UK (such as Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand) and in some European countries. In Germany it is known as "Zweite Feiertag” (which means 'second celebration')."

It's 2019's first day of fall in NYC.

In honor of the onset of Autumn in New York, I'm sharing some comic strips by Patrick McDonnell whose strips (Mutts) almost always warm my heart.

On this first day of fall in NYC, we don't have much fall color and won't for a few weeks, so, on this first day of fall, I'll leave you a poem (Song for Autumn) by Mary Oliver, and with photos of what the leaves on the trees in Riverside Park will look like in the coming months, that as if they repeat what they've done in by gone years.

Song for Autumn
(By Mary Oliver)

In the deep fall

don’t you imagine the leaves think how

comfortable it will be to touch

the earth instead of the

nothingness of air and the endless

freshets of wind? And don’t you think

the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,

warm caves, begin to think

of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep

inside their bodies? And don’t you hear

the goldenrod whispering goodbye,

the everlasting being crowned with the first

tuffets of snow? The pond

vanishes, and the white field over which

the fox runs so quickly brings out

its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its

bellows. And at evening especially,

the piled firewood shifts a little,

longing to be on its way.

A Cicada's Perspective (Throwback Thursday)

Nearly two tears ago, here on Blogger, I published an entry about cicadas that includes the mini essay by E.B. White which is posted directly below.

"At eight of a hot morning, the cicada speaks his first piece. He says of the world: heat. At eleven of the same day, still singing, he has not changed his note but has enlarged his theme. He says of the morning: love. In the sultry middle of the afternoon, when the sadness of love and of heat has shaken him, his symphonic soul goes into the great movement and he says: death. But the thing isn't over. After supper he weaves heat, love, death into a final stanza, subtler and less brassy than the others. He has one last heroic monosyllable at his command. Life, he says, reminiscing. Life."

Over the past few weeks, maybe even several weeks while hearing cicadas the essay always comes to my mind. Now, on this throwback Thursday, I'd like to share with you the Mutts comic strip atop this entry where a cicada points out not much has changed since he/she went underground and that insect is absolutely right.

Meanwhile, in the aforementioned posting I also stated (and included a copy of the same picture used at the conclusion of this entry)  "Additionally, a web-page for the Home Depot (which includes the image directly below) states: "If you live anywhere from the Midwest to the East Coast and you’ve ever been outdoors in spring, chances are that you have heard the distinctive sound of the annual cicada. The tinny buzzing sound seems to go on forever, but it really only lasts for a few weeks in late spring. This year though, the love song of the cicada will become a deafening roar for people from North Carolina all the way up to New England when billions of the Brood II Magicicada species emerge from deep beneath the earth for their time in the sun – an event that only happens once every 17 years."

IMAGE CREDIT

Remembering Donald Robert Perry Marquis

This week's Monday Musing is from a quote associated Donald Robert Perry Marquis (which is featured in the Mutts comic strip atop this entry). Marquis was born on this day of July 29th in the year 1878.

According to a Wiki Page, he was "a humorist, journalist, and author. He was variously a novelist, poet, newspaper columnist, and playwright. He is remembered best for creating the characters Archy and Mehitabel, supposed authors of humorous verse. During his lifetime he was equally famous for creating another fictitious character, 'the Old Soak,' who was the subject of two books, a hit Broadway play (1922–23), a silent movie (1926) and a talkie (1937)."

WW is from Albert C. Barnes

This week's Wednesday's Wisdom (WW) is from a quote associated with Albert C. Barnes: "We can always find something to be thankful for, no matter what may be the burden of our wants or the special subject of our petitions."

His quotation is featured in the Mutts comic strip atop this entry) Barnes was born on January 2, 1872 and he died on this day of July 24th in 1951. 

According to a Wiki Page, he was "an American chemist, businessman, art collector, writer, and educator, and the founder of the Barnes Foundation in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania."

It's W.E.D. for 2019!

Today, June 5th is World Environment Day (WED). It is a day that has been set aside since 1974 to promote “worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment.” Last year’s theme was “beat plastic pollution," and the Mutts comic strip stop this entry, is a small reminder of how plastics can hurt members of the avian and fish community. The following photographs show how plastic (or rather how people's disposal of plastic) harms the creatures among us.

The first two pictures are ones I took in bygone years when I was at Long Beach. The second image (also taken in bygone years) features a Mallard duck, "caught" in debris within NYC's Hudson River.

More info on 2018's W.E.D.'s theme of “beat plastic pollution," can be found within the following three links: https://theatln.tc/2sJsxya and http://bit.ly/2JeDG5l as well as https://ind.pn/2syboIG.

The way people's dispose their plastic is not the only thing harming our avian creatures.

"Mother's Day is for the birds."

I have often said, "Mother's Day is for the birds," so I was delighted to see today's Mutts comic strip (a copy is posted atop this entry) in my In Box. I just love Patrick McDonnell's drawings of birds, but that art medium is a talent I do not possess. Thankfully I can take photographs of them and the ones posted below are ones I've featured within this blog before, however because they are images of mother birds with their offspring, I am including them within this post in honor of today's holiday which is Mother's Day.

Exits and Entrances Reprised from 2011 (Tuesday's Truths WK 124)

A copy of the Mutts comic strip that's posted atop this entry was in my In Box this morning causing me to recall a joke that I heard a few years ago:

Q: If an April shower brought a May flower; what did the May Flower bring? 
A: Pilgrims!

But if truth be told, imho, April showers take away May flowers and I've mentioned my observation re this occurrence in prior posts here on Blogger. Welcome to the 124th segment of my Tuesday's Truths series...

NYC has been receiving heavy rains for several days now and many of the tulips in my garden that I wrote about in this past Tuesday's blog post (where I included photographs of them) have lost their petals.