The lights flickered at church before the service began, last Sunday. They don’t usually flicker. They flickered again some minutes later, and flickered periodically as the service progressed. I cannot have been alone in thinking, Oh, no; this may be expensive to fix. Our building dates back to 1868; any repair is likely to be expensive.
During the sermon, our rector Paul Frolick told us that our breakfast program has passed another birthday. St. Andrew’s has been serving breakfast to anyone who comes to partake, every day for the last forty-two years. No exceptions, not for Christmas, not for Easter, not for pandemic.
Volunteers have gotten up early for this ministry for the last 15,330 consecutive days. They’ve served over a million meals. That streak nearly came to an end last Sunday morning.
Our local electrical provider had informed those likely to be affected that there would be a planned power outage Sunday morning. Paul contacted DTE to say that this could not happen, Hungry people depend on the breakfast program, around a hundred people every morning.
So, how was the impasse resolved? Sunday morning early, DTE showed up at the church and installed a generator. Temporarily. With enough capacity to run our commercial kitchen to feed the hungry, and power left over to keep the lights on in the sanctuary. Albeit with the occasional flicker.
DTE came back and collected the generator later in the day, and St. Andrew’s breakfast program continued.
The bright sunshine of the last few days has made for good critter viewing and the occasional seeming metamorphosis. Yesterday, for example, looking out the upstairs window by the big spruce, I saw the shadow of a squirrel strolling along the edge of our roof. The shadow action was like something from an old movie, with dancers performing behind a backlit scrim. Then, without missing a beat, the squirrel jumped onto the tree in front of me, no longer a flat image but a creature of fur and three dimensions. It was as if it had changed state, subliming from vapor to solid in the blink of an eye.
Something similar happened later, while the dog and I were out and about. A bunch of swallows near a pond were making helter-skelter shadows on the ground, as the birds hunted for insects on the wing. Then the swallows got to the pond and metamorphosed from shadows to reflections on the water, with color and detail. And then, of course, there they were in the sky, real swallows doing so gracefully what real swallows do.
Standing in that same pond was a great blue heron. Almost always, great blues assume regal poses as they go about their business. They’re tall and stately and ready for their close-up any time, Mr. DeMille. This one was taking a break from elegance. It had its neck stretched out horizontally, rather than vertically, and its bill a horizontal extension of its neck. With the usual dramatic coloring of its face, it looked like a cartoon rendition of a crazed bird.
Not far from the great blue stood a juvenile green heron. It looked curious and kind of gawky. It has a lot of growing to do if it’s planning to migrate in the next month or two. As the dog and I finished our time by that busy pond, we passed a little branch on the surface of the water. Not only did it look perfect for basking, but about fourteen turtles had crowded onto it to take advantage of the sunshine there, on that cool August day.
They were all painted turtles except for one box turtle, with its distinctly different profile. And while I watched, one more turtle managed to climb onto the basking branch without upsetting the multitude of turtles already balanced on it. The newcomer was an itty-bitty painted turtle, and it filled in the last little space, with no room left over. By the time it was all the way out of the water, it was so close to the turtle in front of it that it had to rest its head on its neighbor’s shell. No worries, though; it’s all good when you’re basking.
Sue and Loris and I came upon a frog enjoying the sun on a sidewalk today. It was a green frog, iridescent green on the head and partway down the back, fading into bronze. It was facing Nixon Road, but Loris explained that another direction might be a wiser choice. That did the trick. When last seen, the frog was disappearing into a sumac thicket. We hope it will live to hop another day.
23 August 2024