Bird song, boy song

I pulled out a notebook and posed a question to my class: "Now that classes are done for the school year in Classical Conversations, what direction would you like to see our school go? What do you want to do more of?"

"Where we go outside and look at birds, leaves, bugs," says The littlest.

"Science!!" says the biggest.

"More nature studies!!" says the middlest.

And so we go. We pull out our nature notebooks, grab a snack. I pop over to our Nature Study Hour blog and look to see what our challenge is. I sneak my camera into the pack and quietly we go, down, down to the river. The boys have discovered a woodsie area about 1/3 mile from here. Woods, trail, Lamb's Ear, and trees with teeny bloom leaves singing out, "it's spring, spring is here."

And my heart soars & I'm certain that this is the best quiet worship that I can bring to my God, instructing my boys in the adoration of His Creation.

To stop.

To see, to really see all that His hands have made. The order to it, the chaos of it, the beauty in the fungus beast.

The joy in the crook of a tree.

We could stay all day. It just so happens that in my haste to run into the quiet I left my keys in the house, all locked away. We might just get to stay all day.

What is math, anyway, without birds to count? What is spelling if you don't learn what lichen IS to want to spell it? What are little boys without a tree to climb?

I can see that this new little forest of ours will be a lovely little refuge. We went down to listen for sweet little birds. The few we saw were quiet but we did get variety; American Goldfinch, Seagull, Mallard, Sparrow.

The Seagulls, they've been so very present. For months at night we hear them cry out all night. My youngest tells me it wakes him at times. I've been told they nest on an island just North of here, how I'd love to explore that!

On the way home we plodded looking, listening still. We came to a house with a huge tree (or should I say stand of trees together) that was a happy home to so many birds we couldn't sort out the songs. Our neighbor came out, pleased to see us listening. He told us the names of the birds he sees there. He strengthened my resolve to draw in more birds, in spite of our noisy yard.

I'm so grateful for this yard, these trees, the birds that seemingly sing for us to listen to. It is a good thing, to quiet oneself and listen.

After all, ears are to listen.