I've been reading

 I had a chest cold or something like it, and now have bronchitis. I've been reading.

"We do not migrate as the birds do, but I notice there is a change in the rhythm of our life when the season ebbs. Nights are cool, days dreamy with blue haze. There is a quickening in the blood, a restlessness. Suddenly, we are full of projects, which may be our own manner of migrating."

                                          -  Gladys Taber

"...the one thing that sets creative people apart is that they have all acquired the habit of being receptive to inspiration, actively seeking it, or even simply recognizing it. Some may have to travel to the ends of the earth to find inspiration, others may find it hiding in libraries, at the tops of mountains, buried under the earth. But the domestic artist is in the glorious position of being able to find inspiration in daily, domestic life."

                                           -  Jane Brocket, The Gentle Art of Domesticity

"The right kind of warrior takes on his own internal demons before he sails out to take on those of others. He takes his stand, and stands his ground, without giving in to the nihil of the age. He cleaves to what he believes in without falling into the traps laid by partisanship, anger and self-righteousness. Most of all, he works to clear out his own inner junkyard so that he can go searching for truth - and recognise it when he finds it. His war is against the worst of himself and for the best of the world, and what he is fighting for is the love he so often fails at. His most effective weapon is sacrifice."

                                               -  Paul Kingsnorth, Against the Machine

Also from Against the Machine: "No one is obliged to take part in the spiritual crisis of a society. On the contrary, everyone is obliged to avoid the folly and live his life in order."

                                                       -  Eric Voegelin

From Magnificat:

"Our glory is to mirror back in loving praise to the God who made us the beauty we glimpse dimly in all that comes from his hand."

splendor

 "What does the season mean to me? I think about it as I circle back to the house. The one word that expresses it would be splendor. October is the jewel set in the hand of time."

                                         -  Gladys Taber

that yellow torch

two down, and bright maples

 The maple I see out* the kitchen window I just cleaned glows yellow in the light of evening. 

Yes, at this late date I have started to wash the windows. I just couldn't make myself do it. Today, I had a headache, which wasn't bad, but I didn't like it. It's going to go below freezing overnight, so I went outside to cut some chives. The fresh air was so bracing, I came in the house and decided to wash a window, and then another. Just like that I did two, when before I was making such a production out of it in my mind. What is it about the spur of the moment? But you can't always operate like that, on a sudden impulse. Life is interesting. 

Anyway, the headache is gone.

"The air is as cool as an old coin teaspoon, and a faint tang of blue woodsmoke spices the wind. The color of the great sugar maples is so dazzling, it seems I must have dreamed it. The maples give forth light, like closer suns. The oaks glow with a garnet fire, and all the thickets blaze with scarlets and pale gold and cinnamon. It is like the music of a trumpet."

                                                 -   Gladys Taber

*after I typed up to this point, I realized the October poem was playing on the kitchen radio, and I went out there in time to hear him say

Now is the glory of the universe manifest. And in the mighty pageant of the hills, each patch of woods elects its own tree beauty queen. You like the dogwood? We don't quarrel. I'll take the maple, that yellow torch. 

Daisy, an onion, and I guess I'm a jolly good fellow

 I saw these wool vegetable cat toys on Etsy and could not resist. I gave Daisy the onion. This was less than a week ago and it's getting frizzy already - I trimmed off some fuzzy stuff, as she chews it and seems to be kind of eating it. Annie is only mildly interested. 

My co-workers sang For She's a Jolly Good Fellow to me, as if more needed to be done to celebrate my time at the library; Sue got a cake for the occasion. They are a nice group. A lot of young people, all very pleasant to get along with, all very dedicated and talented. I am fortunate. 

Isaias is coming up this way tomorrow night and into Monday morning - at the moment it's a tropical storm, but it's been a hurricane, up to category three. If it stays over land, it won't get any stronger, but we're supposed to get lots of rain. Anyway, this is nothing in comparison to Panama. 

"As I turn back toward the little white house, I wish with all my heart that the serenity of woods and hills and valleys could be shared with the whole restless and uneasy world."

                                        -  Gladys Taber

I couldn't take it anymore

 I decided to stop reading The Brothers K - I won't miss them. I w

rote down the publisher, and the translator in case I ever have a reason to go back to them. For a good reason, I might; if so, it may as well be the same edition.

I've had the cushion for the rocking chair in my bedroom, waiting for some finishing touches, so long that I kept forgetting about it. But enough was enough and today I was looking at it. Basically, I'd covered the whole thing with some corduroy, just going right over the original, piping and all, and it almost was enough to cover the whole pad, but there's a space at the back of it that I just handstitched on. I've been meaning to cover it with something - nothing seems like a great idea. So I left it that way; it's on the chair and nobody's going to notice it until something strikes me. 

The offending area is at the back, where the chair spokes (is that the right term?) are, quite unobtrusive.

I took a video of Benny, coming up our driveway:

He stopped at the "crossroads", to ponder whether to go ahead to the back door, or take a left to the front door. 

I picked up Gladys Taber's The Best of Stillmeadow, which I apparently read six years ago . I hadn't remembered that a previous owner of their old farmhouse had murdered his wife! They didn't seem to mind it. They wanted their children to grow up in the country, with fresh air and nature all around. The house was rather run-down, more than they'd realized.

"Our basic equipment for this venture consisted of a staggering fortitude and no common sense. But we didn't know it then. We came out the next weekend and paid some more money. By then, most of the furniture had vanished, except three carders and five spinning wheels, and one rope bed which had been too big for moving out quickly.

High hearted, we advanced. We bought tons of wallpaper, and it turned out to be tons, since we had never papered before and so were uncertain about quantities. For years we gave away wallpaper. I sent for some furniture stored in Virginia, and three weeks later a disturbed Kentucky racehorse arrived while the furniture rode along to some racetrack. It takes time to swap a horse for your furniture. But by then we had discovered the fatal truth about every sink, toilet and tub in the house.

'Well, one could not expect a man to drain the pipes before shooting his wife,' said Jill. 'He didn't think of it.'"

"filled with good things"

 I was continuing on with Watership Down, when it got so tense I couldn't leave it; so I made more progress than I expected to. I've read it before when I first started at the library, but only remembered what tribulations they had, what dangers they faced. Now I'm marveling at the wonderful story-telling ability of Richard Adams. 

I put the book down to go turn on the light out back; there was a rabbit out there. I so wanted to say to him, I've been reading Watership Down! But how do I do that? So I watched while he enjoyed the clover with which our yard is plentiful - thankfully - and then hopped away toward the brook. The humid air has blown away in the past few hours. We will make the most of it.

These all look to thee,
to give them their food in due season.
When thou givest to them, they gather it up;
when thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good things.

- Psalm 104: 27, 28

 

"By sunset the whole party - twenty rabbits all told - had made their way up the length of the beech hanger and reached the warren. They fed among the dew and the long shadows, with twilight already fallen in the fields below. Then they crowded down into the Honeycomb to hear Hazel and Bigwig tell the story of their adventures to those who had waited so eagerly and so long to hear it."

- Watership Down

a little hitchhiker

 We got in the car this morning, heading down the road to go to Mass, and a little sparrow landed on the outside of the passenger side, where the window comes out. I rolled it up so he couldn't come in - he stayed there while we went down the street. We pulled into a gas station and my brother got out, went round to my side, and the bird was still there. I was just going to say he'd need to take the little one off the car, when he flew into some bushes. He was young and perhaps didn't know what was going on. 

Reading Watership Down makes me think (even more than usual!) about how our lives impact the natural world around us, since so much of how we live has little to do with nature. 

"Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
Don't trouble it, don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness,
don't work against God's intent."

- The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky*

*Can you believe this quote from The Brothers was the epigraph to chapter 22 in Watership Down? A connection between two books, both of which I am currently reading. 

in quiet

 "..I also know even better now that it's always amidst the siege that God's kindness arrives. We live in a world at war and will until the kingdom comes and the story of the cosmos begins again. Our pursuit of quiet will always be attended by our anguish, our wrestling, our loss. Quiet does not remove those things from us; it offers the space in which we may give voice to them so that they do not destroy us, so that the alternate voice of God's kindness may turn the besieged cities of our lives into 'rock of refuge' David found in his own wild distress... In quiet, we learn to watch and wait for God's help as it sets up camp in the very heart of our darkness."

                                              -  Sarah Clarkson,  Reclaiming Quiet

Fathers' Day

 "As he bumped the car up the drive he deplored with sudden impatience the inescapable and impossible demands that his children make upon a man. It would have been more comfortable to have remained a bachelor and wallowed along in the agreeable state of self-deception that had been his before marriage. Fatherhood revealed one's inadequacies in an appalling manner..."

                                          -  The Heart of the Family, Elizabeth Goudge

good ideas

I sat at my sewing table a few minutes ago and there before me was a beautiful sunset, all pink and gold. I have no idea how to photograph such a thing; I've tried. All I could do was watch. These sort of moments are like being in an Elizabeth Goudge story. 

I wore my daffodil dress yesterday in the heat. Since I like this simple style so much, I decided that maybe I should focus on making several, and perfecting the fit as I go. So I had ordered three lengths of quilting cottons on sale. This was the first. Quilting fabric isn't created equal - the daffodil one was classic, with that body that's good in an a-line dress. After I was finished with it, I realized that I didn't like the shoulders, so I took a tuck on either side to bring in the edge.

It did the trick. I have narrow shoulders, but sometimes I like the slightly oversized look at the top. Not this time, but the tucks made it better. The second fabric is a black and dark blue batik. Batik fabric tends to be thinner, and I wasn't sure it was suited for the same silhouette, so I angled the pattern pieces out, to make it more a-line, and fuller, and I also brought in the center of the bodice a half inch, so I wouldn't have to make any tucks, if you get what I mean; just a different way of bringing the shoulders in toward the center. I think this was a good idea; I've put it on and it's looking promising. So tonight I was sewing some binding around the neckline when the sunset appeared out my window. The third fabric is a burgundy red. I washed it today, and it still feels silky - I'm not sure I want to make it in this same a-line shape. I have to think. But with present temps in the seventies, I won't be needing these that soon.

After five or so days in the nineties, with increasing humidity, the seventies are so welcome! Of course, we'll have humid days, but for today, the winds are strong, the sun was warm, and tonight it's going to be fifty two. Let the cool air blow - we have quilts. Speaking of warming things, lately when I make a cup of tea, I don't finish it, so today I used a smaller cup and finished the whole thing. 

Not as small as a china teacup, but smaller than an average mug. Like Goldilocks.

I washed another window today; I can see that I need to give up the notion of spring or fall cleaning, and just do it as I can. But anyway, I found out that a small paintbrush is good for getting into the window tracks - and it is! What an idea! 

I'm thrilled.

leisurely things

 "It was because Damerosehay did not change that in this chaotic, tumbling, terrifying world it was a place of such comfort."

                                                      -  from Elizabeth Goudge's The Herb of Grace (1948)

Last week I'd felt the urge to re-read The Bird in the Tree, and now I'm reading this one, the second in the set of three. When I came upon the above sentence, I realized that is why I read certain novels again and again. It's non-fiction that I tend to pick up "new". It seems to me that if a book speaks strongly or deeply to you, there is a reason for it, and it's up to you to pursue that. Get out of it everything you are supposed to, although that makes it sound so much like use, when it's really like a drinking more and more deeply of something nourishing. Hopefully, anyway.

The liturgical year turns and today we are in the feast of Corpus Christi. Our church sits right at a busy intersection, and when it's not raining we go outside after mass and process around the property, stopping at four altars set up along the way. Often it's hot out, and I find it hard to stand in the bright sun but today we are having a really strong wind (which is delightful, I think!) and partly cloudy conditions which kept things comfortable. But as for proper June temperatures - we just don't have them. It should be in the seventies, and it's not, nor is it going to be, according to the forecasts. But I realize I'm often complaining about the weather over here. (sorry)

I made a simple dinner of chicken thighs, marinated in plenty of lemon juice, olive oil, smoked paptrika, garlic, salt and pepper, and baked at a high temp till done. Which took longer than the recipe said, but I don't like slimy chicken. But it was easy, after not falling asleep until two, and getting home from church much later than usual. 

After seeing the rabbits often, lately I don't see them at all and I wonder if they've had babies. But there was one in my garden the other day, in one of the beds I'm not using at the moment, eating some weedy stuff. The garden is anything but neat, but if the creatures like it, perhaps it's not a weed

after coming out of the garden

"But Sally did not want to be set free for anything, for it was living itself that she enjoyed. She liked lighting a real fire of logs and fir-cones and toasting bread on an old-fashioned toaster. And she liked the lovely curve of an old staircase and the fun of running up and down it. ... It's my stupid brain, she said to herself. I like the leisurely things, and taking my time about them."

birdsong and sunshine

 "It was the glorified beauty of the familiar and habitable earth that she saw now, the trees and flowers and creatures that made up the sweetness of it, but soon she would see more. She would see the spirits of those she loved going about the purposes of God bathed in the light of His perpetual compassion...

one world inter-penetrates another; we live in them both, but... the language of the lesser is the language of dreams and birdsong, sunshine and the kindliness of man"

                                             -   Elizabeth Goudge, The Bird in the Tree

feast of the Holy Trinity

 Spirit of the Father and the Son,
ripen your fruits in our hearts:

Grant us patience and gentleness,
charity, joy, and peace.

- from Magnificat, May 2026

Well, last week was finally Pentecost, the end of the Easter season, and today is Trinity Sunday. It's very springlike, and pleasant out. Yesterday it was fifty five, wet, gusty and cold! Well, we'll be in June tomorrow, and done with that sort of thing, hopefully.

We had a nice Memorial Day and before that, a visit with an elderly aunt, my mother's remaining sister. She is ninety four, and doing as well as she can - still at home!

I finished the daffodil dress, except for the hem. I really like those sleeveless, a-line shifts for hot summer days at home, so I plan to make a couple more. I put the green blouse project aside when the heat rose - couldn't stand the thought of it. 

A beautiful Tasha Tudor book was dropped off at the library, in perfect condition; I took it home to read. 

Filled with quotes, poems, prose and everything romantic, I wouldn't put it in the children's section, even though it looks like all her wonderfully charming picture books for children - no, this one would go over the heads of the little ones. Apparently, if you have a toothache, you should kiss a donkey.

That was from Germany. But you're out of luck if you don't know anyone with a donkey, aren't you?

"In the Middle Ages they kissed the newborn baby three times 
in the name of the Holy Trinity."

-  Tasha Tudor

real life

 "The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own', or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life - the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one's 'real life' is a phantom of one's own imagination."

                                                       -  C.S. Lewis

sleeping with bears

 "I was never more at ease than when sleeping with the bears. They were entirely without odor, without bad breath even two hours after eating overripe carrion, and without any kind of vermin other than ticks which I removed every day anyway. Aside from a little rambunctious eagerness to play when we first went to bed, their nighttime manners were impeccable. Once they began to snore softly, they rarely moved until morning, at which time I received a regular nose nudging when it came time to crawl out for a visit to the otter coign. I cannot recall their ever having deliberately awakened me. My first waking sight of each morning was three pairs of shiny, brownish-yellow eyes staring silently and affectionately into my face. Instead of wagging a short tail as a dog would do, each bear engaged in a rapid tapping of the claws of both front feet. Rusty introduced the routine, and the other two took it up at once."

                                                                      -   The Bears and I, Robert Franklin Leslie

This book is wonderful.

bears, skirts and dinner

"On this mountain [God] will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, The web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces; The reproach of his people he will remove from the whole earth; for the Lord has spoken."

                                                              -   Isaiah 25:7-9

Meanwhile, tomorrow is the feast of St. Patrick; I'm working, so we had the dinner today. The crockpot did much of the work.

The cabbage was in another pan.

I've been reading "The Bears and I" by Robert Franklin Leslie. Published in 1968, the author is a young man in the north woods of Canada. Are there any of these type of men left? Can someone live like that in this day and age?  Anyway, he has to "adopt" three motherless cubs, and he tells the story so well; it's a page-turner!  I had brought the book home for my mother years ago and it was such a favorite with her, I'd gotten her a copy to keep. After she died I ended up letting it go, as I figured I'd never read it, but at work last week it came across the desk and I was suddenly interested. It's hard to put down! Bears are more like us than I'd realized. If you like animal stories, I very much recommend it.

"A wild bear grows to maturity and stays healthy for his twenty-five or thirty years on a vigorous program of physical exercise and diet unparalleled for any animal of his weight. I've watched both black and grizzly bears swim across the lake three miles wide, then climb over a mountain on the other side when easy alternative routes were available to them. I have seen black bears gallop down a mountainside and ascend a 200-foot fir without even breaking their speed - climbing by throwing their arms and legs around the trunk like a pole-climber - until they were near the top of the tree."

                                                -  The Bears and I

I saw this image on pinterest and saved it. I've got a sweater this very color, although not a turtleneck and not cropped. But that's all right. I have black suede maryjanes and I could copy the look well enough. So I poked around online and found some quilting cotton that is almost exactly this pattern.

I made a casing for an elastic waist, put in wide pleats, and it is machine basted. If i hadn't been so busy with the corned beef dinner, I could have made more progress. But it's an easy design to make and won't take much longer.

"To a bear, loss of face represents genuine calamity. Within his local society, withdrawal from any struggle most generally incurs loss of pecking rights - the established wilderness protocol of who has the right to clobber whom."

                                                  -  from The Bears and I

turning aside

 The snow started around or right after seven thirty; it isn't a blizzard yet, but they're saying it's going to be. Right now it's just falling steadily but gently. We threw out some carrots, in case the rabbits came around before the snow, but they didn't.

However, I later realized the storm door was unlocked, and when I locked it, there was one at the head of the driveway, looking for sunflower seeds beneath the snow. There are plenty there. I watched him several minutes, when he suddenly zigzagged into the neighbor's yard, and there he sat, near a pile of brush near the shed. Meanwhile another appeared on the side of the forsythia and just quietly sat for five minutes until he, too, came to look for seed. Then we noticed a third near the feeder where the carrots are, so maybe they will get some after all. Because we will get at least a foot of heavy snow, at times with very low visibility and I have no idea how they manage or what they do in snowstorms.

But there had been a hawk outside a few days ago, so I'm glad to see all three of them, still our little neighbors. But, what do they do? What do squirrels do in blizzards, when the wind gusts to forty five miles per hour? Can they stay in the trees?

Now, they've all converged under the bird feeder, while the snow is only an inch or so deep. Fill up, little friends, because it may be a long while before your next meal!

While I was watching them, I thought of the poem by R.S. Thomas, which was the Lenten meditation for today in Malcolm Guite's The Word in the Wilderness:

"Life is not hurrying on to a receding future,
nor hankering after an imagined past.
It is the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush."

Because I was standing there for a while; they weren't moving, so I didn't move, because I wanted to understand how they live.

But anyway, about the storm - we have plenty to eat, things to do and books to read. The town offices are already closed for tomorrow - my coworkers will have a day off.

I hope it won't be too bad.

The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise* now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

-  R.S. Thomas

*realize the way the English spell it, with an "s"

at home, yet a stranger

 I just finished In This House of Brede with an online group - an excellent story! So many characters, so many personalities and lots going on. I remember Diana Rigg being in the film version but don't think I've watched it, so that's what I'm going to do. I'll keep my expectations low, since I can't imagine the whole story fitting into a two-hour or less movie.

I discovered a mostly-done skirt in my fabric stash - it's an olive cotton knit, made up just like my gray knit skirt, and only needed an elastic for the waist. I finished it off, and it's waiting to be ironed. I tried taking a photo, but the right color is so hard to get! 

I've started looking at my gardening books, even though the snow on the ground is still a few inches deep. There was some rain today, which will melt things a little faster. I'm also looking at all the books I own with a critical eye - do I really need you? I have a cookbook with recipes for many pantry type foods, and I noticed a recipe for chocolate yogurt. I bought a gallon of the only pasteurized milk at the store (as opposed to ultra-pasteurized) and made some. It calls for very little sugar, but I have it with a bit of honey. As I was ladling it into the jars, I noticed it looked more chocolate-y at the end than the top. I was stirring it well the whole time, but milky things often stick to the bottom of the pot, and when they do, you don't want to scrape it when you stir in case it may turn up solids which aren't going to dissolve. So I stirred frequently but carefully,and more of the chocolate stayed near the bottom. 

It's Lent.

"To take the ashes is to confess kinship with this world of dust, to declare our readiness to abdicate pretensions to omnipotence. Standing before God in this way, I profess that I am not God. I admit the chasm that separates me from him. I accept the uncomfortable otherness of God. He is what I am not, yet my being bears his mark. I crave a completion no created thing can give. I walk this earth as yearning incarnate. I am at home, yet a stranger, homesick for a homeland I recall but have not seen."

-  Bishop Erik Varden, from Magnificat, February 2026

hopefulness

 There are icicles everywhere. Riding along, you see scads of them, hanging on almost every building. I don't know why some buildings don't have them. It's very cold all the time, but when the sun is bright, I guess there is some melting, because these things are lengthening by the day.

I had finished knitting the hand warmers and gave them to my friend, but I'm knitting another pair with the same yarn. She wears them over thin knitted gloves, and the basic bind-off I use doesn't have any give, really - they could be a little less tight at the opening, and since I have more of the yarn, and they're easy to make, I'm knitting another pair with a different bind-off, and it does seem better. I have a book that's just cast-ons and bind-offs, and it's very handy. Sometimes you buy books you think it would be good to have, and they just accumulate and you wonder why you bought them, but I'm happy I bought this one. 

A year ago, I received a book of Coleridge's poems, which I'd asked for, but they haven't really clicked with me. I enjoyed Malcolm Guite's Mariner, so I guess I'm more interested in the man than in his poetry. But I do like this one which I read today:

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair -
The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing -
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, o ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

- Work Without Hope, composed Feb 21st, 1825

And we know from Emily Dickinson, don't we, that hope's the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

the struggle is real

 I used to try and darn my brother's socks when I noticed worn spots, but he said don't bother. With that in mind, I do the laundry but tend to ignore the torn places in the jeans, figuring he'll say something when they need a fix. So, I didn't really notice. But a couple pair have big torn knees that were so far gone - but I think I fixed them, anyway. 

In order to patch a knee on a long, narrow "tube" - the leg of the jeans - I had to rip one of the seams open. I found out they aren't both flat felled seams - thank God! - because I really don't want to mess with one of those. The outside seam was just sewn regular and serged, so I ripped that out and was able to get inside there to attach a piece of fabric, or patch, on the inside. Then I over-stitched, zigzagging back and forth over the torn part to fortify it. Better than nothing. 

I learned something in the doing, and it wasn't that hard, but from now on I'll pay attention to the laundry, and possibly nip these things in the bud. And he's pleased with them!

Meanwhile, Advent moves along and I have made no cookies, haven't written any cards! I was planning on it today, but it did not happen. Christmas is in two weeks.

In between things I pick up Rachel Peden's Speak to the Earth: 

"When starlings come to the feeders other birds depart like leaves blown in the wind, to watch hiddenly and return only when the starlings have gone. 

Hearing the high-pitched cacophonous chatter ... for starlings always come by hundreds ... I need only open the porch door and immediately they lunge forward, admirably regaining their balance when airborne.

But these dark-bodied birds awaken a dark thought in the mind of a farmer: It is not merely because they eat food not intended for them, nor because they are dirty, but because there are always too many of them. Any creature that becomes too numerous causes unease among all other creatures.... Would ten thousand gaily singing chickadees be as delightful on a snowy winter morning as half a dozen are?"