As I’m ready to leave the houseboat for the final time, the rain slows and the birds come to feed in the low tide.

This is my last day on the houseboat and the rain is pounding down, accompanied by thunder and lightning. There’s a few hearty ducks bouncing up and down but most, like me, are tucked.

I’m going through photos I took at and from the houseboat. I come across these three and smile. It looks like planning a hijacking to me. Maybe it’s because tomorrow is my last day on the boat, so perhaps I have some thought of taking the whole environment with me, as of course I do.

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I watch egrets and herons stand still, maybe take a step and then, another, until, and then … a fish!

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack – feeding depends on the tides.

I’m with these words of T.S. Eliot, from “Ash Wednesday, Part 6”;

Teach us to sit still.

I learn stillness and response watching my feathered friends. They are exquisitely feathered right now. It’s breeding as well as feeding time, and it’s cold. They also spend time grooming.

Oddly, each time I go to type houseboat, I type lifeboat. I think both are true.

Yesterday was a field day for me as I immersed in the life of birds. I took about 200 photos. This is a taste.

This morning, high tide, birds were swimming all around my floating home, and the boat was bobbing up and down.  I felt like I was on a trampoline, and of course, like life, that changed.

It’s low tide.  An egret flies by the window.  A Great Blue Heron lands right outside the window and then slowly strolls and explores around the boat.

Jimmy Carter, at 98, enters Hospice.  An inspiration, he’s lived a spiritual life. I think of him with these words of The Dalai Lama:

“Every day, think as you wake up,

Today I am fortunate to be alive.

I have a precious human life,

I am not going to waste it.

I am going to use all my energies to develop myself,

To expand my heart out to others,

To achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.

I am going to have kind thoughts towards others.

I am not going to get angry or think badly about others.

I am going to benefit others as much as I can.

My religion is very simple, my religion is kindness.”