Should you feed birds in winter?

In a moment she was trudging back, dragging an enormous burlap sack.

"What are you doing?"

"Going to feed the birds." She was out of breath but still moving. "This time of year they need all the help they can get."

He shook his head. "Let me do it"

"I'm very strong."

"Yes, I know. Let me do it anyway."

He took the sack, braced, put his back into it and began to haul it across the snow. It gathered snow— and weight—with every step.

"I thought you weren't a nature lover."

"That doesn't mean I'd let them starve." And she'd promised Libby.

He hauled the bag another foot. "Couldn't you just dump it out?"

"If a thing's worth doing—"

Times Change 

_________________

It seems like a no-brainer to help our feathered friends, but consider these potential risks

Watching birds at your feeder during the barren winter months is a great way to stay connected with nature and help creatures that might otherwise struggle to find their next meal.

mother nature network

_________________

The mourning doves were cooing, bobbing heads as they pecked along 

the ground under the bird feeder. Too fat and lazy,

Duncan thought, to bother to fly up into it. Rather take leavings. 

A lot of people were the same.

High Noon

Sloppy Joes

She gestured vaguely in the direction of a cabinet while she contemplated the

package of hamburger.

"The meat's frozen," he pointed out.

"Yeah. Well, we'll have sloppy joes."

"Which are?"

"Delicious," she assured him.

Time and Again

___________

By jeffreyw - Mmm... sloppy joesUploaded by Fæ, CC BY 2.0, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23108839

Homemade Sloppy Joes taste delicious and are quick and easy to make using real ingredients in lieu of a store-bought can of sauce!

Five Heart Home

Bob Dylan Is a Literary Genius

"Can I ask him what he thinks of Dylan?"

She gave his head a shake. "No."

"Bob Dylan or Dylan Thomas?" Cal asked, earning a narrowed look from William and one of

surprise

from Libby before she remembered his affection for poetry.

"Either," Will decided.

"Dylan Thomas was brilliant but depressing. I'd rather read Bob Dylan."

"Read?"

Time Was

____________________

By Baezadany - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33614171

What set Bob Dylan apart from everybody was something more outlandish: It was how he wielded language. “Like a Rolling Stone” was surreal – in the sense of infusing the known with the unknown, certainly in ways never heard before in a popular song. Phantasmagoric images flew by as retribution and entered our parlance. Some heard it as arbitrary wording, nonsense. Others called it neologism, a new direction.

Now, 50-some years later, Dylan is receiving the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature

ROLLING STONE













👉Life imitating Art 👈

Nora Roberts published Novel TIME WAS in 1989.
Bob Dylan is awarded with Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016

Once-Important Things People Don’t Know How to Do Anymore

"Lib, I'll concede that J.T.'s a little unusual."

"The way he seems fascinated or puzzled by ordinary objects?"

She remembered the kitchen faucet. "Well, yes."

Times Change

_______________

See the push buttons on the left? That how you shifted the auto trans.

By inkknife_2000 (7.5 million views +) - 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/23155134@N06/7309990326/, CC BY-SA 2.0, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57469912

When was the last time you adjusted the antennas on your TV, changed the ink ribbon in a typewriter, or looked up your library book in the card catalog? Here, we take a slow stroll down the memory lane of obsolete life skills.

Family Handyman

_______________

Cal took a moment to be charmed by the old-fashioned instruments and controls. The birds were singing as he tested the steering wheel and pumped the gas pedal curiously.
There was a lever between the seats marked with numbers running from one to four in an H
pattern.
Gears clanked when he shoved the lever forward. Confident he had the skill to operate such a simple vehicle, he turned knobs. When he got no response he jiggled the gearshift while depressing the floor pedals. Through trial and error, he found the clutch and shifted smoothly into first gear.
A beginning, he decided, and wondered where the hell the designer had put the ignition.
"You're going to have a hard time starting it without this." Libby stood on the porch, one hand in a fist on her hip, the other aloft, with the ignition key dangling from her fingers. She was mad, all right, Cal thought.
But he didn't feel like smiling. "I was just… thinking about taking a ride."
"Were you?" She tugged her hastily donned sweater farther over her hips before she walked
down the steps. "It's your bad luck I didn't leave the keys in the car."
So it took a key. He should have known.


Time Was

TESS

"I always feel so cut off here, more so than when I'm in the field hundreds of miles away. 

I imagine we could establish a colony on Mars and I wouldn't hear about it until it was all over."

"A colony on Mars," he murmured, feeling his stomach sink as he glanced at the paper again. "I think you've got about a hundred years to go."

"Sorry I'll miss it."

Time Was

_______________

By ESO/S. Brunier - http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0932a/, CC BY 4.0, 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9559670

"I have been blessed to have been a professional astronomer during the period of time that started with—'well there probably are planets around other stars, but boy, they're just too hard to find and we'll never know'—to where we are today, which is we know there are planets around almost every star," says Paul Hertz, the Director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA. "In just 25 years, this field of science has gone from theoretical to very, very applied and very, very data-driven."

Popular Mechanics

_______________

"Sure. I probably would have gone on being happy here, but I discovered the world. 
What do you think of the world, J.T.?"

"Which one?"

With a laugh, she gave the popper an extra shake. "I should have known better 
than to ask an astro-whatever. Your mind's probably in space half the time."

Times Change

With his eyes half-closed, he imagined… the endless sweep of stars, the pure black of space, the beautiful symmetry of orbiting moons and planets. "Don't you ever think about the worlds up there, just out of reach?"

 There was the vastness of space, seductive and compelling. 
There were stars, clusters of them, and what was surely a distant planet. 
There was a blackness, an absolute blackness, that spread for miles. 
The ship seemed to be hurtling toward it. 


Time Was

______________________

___________________

He believed in chance, in the purest sense of the word—the unpredictable possibility of existence.
 He was here now to prove it. In addition to his calculations, 
the technology at his command, his knowledge and his computations, 
he needed one element that any explorer required for success. 
Luck. 
He was alone now in the vast, silent sea of space, beyond the traffic patterns, 
beyond the last charted quadrant. There was an intimacy here between man and his dreams 
that could never be achieved in a laboratory. 

Times Change

This Valentine's, be lovely and Loved

The music drifted out, slow and romantic. "Which is this?"

"'The Rose.' It's a ballad—a standard, I suppose, even today." 
"Do you like to dance?"

"Yes. I don't often, but…" 
Her words trailed away as he gathered her close.

"Cal—"

"Shh." He rubbed his cheek against her hair. "I want to hear the words."

They danced—swayed, really—as the music drifted through the speakers. A mother with two squabbling children rested her elbow on her table and watched them with pleasure and envy.

In the glassed in kitchen a man with a bushy mustache tossed pizza dough in quick, high twirls.

"It's sad."

"No." She could dream like this, with her head cushioned on his shoulder and 
her body moving to their inner rhythm.

"It's about how love survives."

Time Was

_____________________________

About That Mystery Aircraft Flying Over Oregon

She saw the light race across the sky, and for a moment she was fooled into thinking it might be ball lightning, or perhaps a meteor. But when the sky lit up she caught a vague outline and a quick flash of metal. She stepped forward, into the rain, instinctively narrowing her eyes.

Time Was

_____________

By Kenrick95 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42970080

The FAA, Air Force, and air traffic controllers all confirm something happened that day. But what?

POPULAR MECHANICS



_____________




He took her hand before she could leave the room. "Where did you say we were?"
He looked so concerned that she covered his hand with hers. "Oregon, southwest Oregon, just
over the California border in the Klamath mountains."
"Oregon." The tension in his fingers relaxed slightly. "U.S.A.?"
"The last time I looked." Concerned, she checked for fever again.
He took her wrist, concentrating on keeping his grip light. "What planet?"
Her eyes flew to his. If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn the man was serious.
"Earth. You know, the third from the sun," she said, humoring him.


Time Was

a thousand years

"I came through time for you, Libby. Don't ever, ever think I made a mistake."
She shook her head. "I'm afraid you'll think so."
"'Time is… Time was… Time is past'," he murmured. "My time is in the past, Libby. With you."
Her eyes filmed over again. "I love you so much, Caleb. I'll make you happy."
"I'm counting on it."

Time Was

________________

Christina Perry

And all along I believed I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me
I have loved you for a thousand years
I love you for a thousand more

_________________

 "I wanted you to have something from your time." 

He felt a little foolish, not ready to admit that he had
spent months scouring antique shops. "When I saw this, it was… well, like fate. Don't cry."
"I have to." She sniffled, then raised her drenched eyes to his. 

"It survived. All this time."
"The best things do."

Times Change