Worry

Talk about lack of perspective! I certainly lost it. Last night I woke up worrying about the wild birds I feed. They are precious to me, don't get me wrong, but it just doesn't help to lay in bed and listen to the wind, thinking about my birds and how they're doing out there in the extreme cold and wind. They are wild things, after all.

But I do know they benefit from my ministrations, so I keep the feeders filled and spread plenty of seed on the porch for the juncos who don't go up to the hanging feeders. A source of water is very important to their survival also, since they can't digest the birdseed without it. I keep a nice bird bath for them, which kept freezing over all day long yesterday. I fretted about it and got on the internet to see what people do to keep the water from freezing. This pictured bird bath heater is one way, but it requires an extension cord from your house to the bird bath, and I'm not willing to run a cord out the door. They do make solar heated ones, but usually that doesn't make much sense in the Pacific Northwest where we just don't get a lot of sun in the winter.

Okay, what about battery powered ones? They do make them but they must not be very popular because I couldn't find much on line to consider. I'll go over to the Wild Bird Chalet today and see what they have for me. I did find a wonderful idea of putting bricks in the oven and heating them up, and placing one in the middle of the bird bath, which would work for people like me who are willing to spend their day taking care of the birds!

There are so many things to worry about, I don't know why this became so prominent in my mind last night. Maybe it was watching the birds try to drink water yesterday and their little beaks just met hard ice. I would go out and break up the ice but within an hour it was back again.

My grandmother was a champion worrier. She would find things in my life to worry about because she didn't have enough in her own life to fill that void. I remember telling her not to worry about me because I wasn't worried, but she would just look at me and say "that's why I need to; someone has to!" It is easy to find something to worry about: look at all the things that can go wrong with the human body! Look at all the distressed homeless people! (Oh my, now I've done it! What are THEY doing tonight?)

So today I'll fix the problem somehow and make sure my birdies have the best care I can provide. I wish it were so easy to do something for those people huddled under bridges.
:-(