Because things are looking up a little bit for us financially since I got my new job, we naturally decided to share the wealth. We started to put bird seed in the feeders again, and this time, I opted for premium seed.

I don't really know what makes bird seed "premium". It's not like I saw any that was labled "hi-test" so it can't be like gasoline. Actually, I think the idea is that there is a greater variety of seeds in the bag to hopefully attract a wider variety of birds to the feeders.

While we have a lot of birds in our area they are basically the same kinds of birds you would find in any back yard in our area. Except for the owls, of course, but they don't eat at the feeder. We see sparrows, little brown finches, and wrens, a couple of juncos and one punk blue jay who comes by every now and then.

We don't mind that they are little brown birds prone to squabbeling instead of majestic ones with fabulous plummage. The little guys have cheerful chirps and also vary their diet with insects and larvae in the warmer months, so they are good to have around. They are also fond of our little bird bath and the pond. Some days I feel that the only good I do in the world is that I keep that bird bath free of ice so some other winged creatures can have a bath.

Anyway, today I noticed that there was quite a frenzy at the feeder - at least the one at the end of the carport nearest the towering frosythia bushes that stand between our yard and our neighbors.

Either the little birds really like the premium seed or else it's going to snow. And there's no snow in the forecast...but still, from watching those birds, I feel like it's going to. But, maybe the birds just really like it enough to squabble and squalk and land on each others heads more than usual. Maybe it's just going to get very cold. It was a traffic situation over there! Good thing I was backing out!

The other thing that I have learned lately is that sheep like to be petted, or at least, scratched. I had no idea that this was true until Sunday when we went up to Manchester with Rob and Theresa to cut down a Christmas tree. It was a lot of fun and there was a petting zoo at the tree farm. There were some sheep in a pen and they came over to me to see if I had anything to eat, which I didn't.

But, still, in the interest of trying to make other people feel better, even if the other person is a sheep, I knelt down and sort of petted the nose of sheep. It was very velvety, and the sheep gave me a sort of encouraging look. I gently ran my hands over his head and neck. It was like petting a sweater. He had a lot of straw kind of stuck all over him.

"Would you like help getting that off?" I asked, and brushed some of it away. I have no idea why I talk to animals like that. Actually, I do. This is why: If I were abducted by aliens, and they didn't know that I had any appreciable level of intellegence (or, compared to them really DIDN'T have any appreciable level of intellegence) I'd hope they'd still be as kind and respectful to me as the situation allowed, even if they wound up cooking me with rice later. After all, I would be dead, and not know that parts of me were being cooked with rice, and so I wouldn't have any hard feelings about it. I think that animals may feel the same way.

Anyway, I started gently removing the straw from him and he seemed....relieved. I got this feeling like it made him feel more relaxed. Some of it was really quite stuck. So I reached down into his fleece and freed it. As I did I sort of ran my fingers through his fleece, like I was combing it, kind of scratching him.

"Hey, look, he's got that placid expression like Winston when he's getting petted!" The Hub said, "Everybody likes a massage."

Indeed the sheep did seem to have kind of a placid, relaxed kind of look. He stayed very still and then tried to move closer to me. He even seemed to, well, kind of sigh. When I got up and moved away he rubbed his head up against the pen where my hands had been, so I bent down and scratched him some more. His eyes were gold and he looked at me, but I couldn't tell if he could tell what I was.

Things like that are so interesting to me. I wonder what it felt like to the sheep. I wonder what my voice sounded like to him. I know that sheep are domestic animals. They are used to people on some level. But if they think, what do they think? Does my voice make any more sense to him than "bah, bah, bah" does to me? Was it just like Theresa said, "Oh, you don't have a pair of clippers, so you're all right with him." (Theresa probably knows. Animals follow her every where, and they love her) Speaking of that, what do they think of getting sheared? I mean, surely on some level they must be thinking "Hey, put that back, I'm using that! Go make a sweater out of the alpaca! Leave me the hell alone!" If the sheep had gotten frightened or confused, we would have known it. We would have looked around to see what was scaring them. But, if we were frightened or confused would they know? Would they look around and see what was scaring us?

I wonder if we will ever be able to get beyond these kinds of barriers with the other creatures that are in our world. But, I think that's a hopeless dream. After all, I see people every day stand side by side and not say a word to each other because they don't speak the same language. Sometimes even if we do speak the same language, it doesn't help.

There's an old legend that says that animals are granted the power of speech for one minute on the night of Christmas Eve - that the grace of God is so great and powerful that when Jesus came into the world his grace extented even beyond mankind to the most humble beings in creation. I wonder what that legend is based on, besides the whimsical wishes of children and people like me.

I wonder if the legend has it wrong. Maybe it isn't that animals are granted the gift of speech for one minute one night. Maybe people are granted the gift of being able to understand the animals for one minute for one night. But people don't even shut up long enough to listen to each other.

It wouldn't surprise me if the whole story were true, but the animals just gave up talking.