Way to Go, Mama Bird for the A to Z Challenge, Awww Monday, Inspiring Quote of the Week, and Poetry Monday

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To enjoy more blogs participating in the A to Z Challenge, click here.     

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Awww Monday is hosted by Sandee at Comedy Plus.

Join us every Monday for Awww...Mondays.  Post a picture that makes you say Awww... and that's it.

Make sure you get the code from Sandee's site, linked above, and leave a link to your post so we can visit you.  What better way to start the week than with a smile!

My every other Friday clients keep a basket hanging on the wall by the back door in the carport.  They have had a mama bird build a nest in it — she’d done it before they noticed, and they feel it is a privilege to sneak in and out of the door and try not to disturb her so she can raise the babies in peace.

Naked baby birdies.

So ugly they are cute.

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Sparks, the brainchild of Annie of McGuffy's Reader, is on hiatus, so here's an Inspiring Quote of the Week in her honor.

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Poetry Monday was started by Diane at On The Alberta/Montana Border.  She and Jenny at Procrastinating Donkey take turns providing a theme each week.   Charlotte/Mother Owl almost always participates, too.  This week the theme is Birds, which works perfectly, as i wrote a poem about the mama bird whose nest and babies are pictured above.                  

mama birdie

very clever

found a place where

rain could never

get into her nest

mama birdie

very smart

found a couple who

have a heart

to let her securely rest

mama birdie

very busy

with hungry babies

she’s in a tizzy

not sure what to do

mama birdie

go get food

to keep up with

the hungry brood

the people won’t hurt you!

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Today is:

Abolition Day -- Mayotte

Babe Ruth Day -- anniversary of the day dedicated to him in 1947 by every ball field in the US and Japan

Freedom Day -- South Africa

Furze-Hopping Event -- Fairy Calendar

Independence Day -- Sierra Leone(1961); Togo(1960) 

King's Birthday / Koningsdag -- Kingdom of the Netherlands (Aruba, Curacao, Netherlands, and Sint Maartin); Bonaire, St. Eustatius, and Saba

Matanzas Mule Day -- remembering the only casualty of one of the first naval actions of the Spanish-American War, a mule in the village of Matanzas, Cuba

Morse Code Day -- birth anniversary of Samuel Morse

National Prime Rib Day

National War Veterans Day -- Finland

Pastele Blajinilor -- Moldova (Memory/Parent's Day)

Resistance Day/Day of the Uprising Against the Occupying Forces -- Slovenia

St. Zita of Lucca's Day (Patron of butlers, domestic servants, homemakers, housemaids, lost keys, maids, manservants, people ridiculed for their piety, rape victims, servants, servers, single laywomen, waiters/waitpersons/waitresses; against losing keys)

Tell a Story Day -- US (no history of origin, although celebrated in many libraries)

The Ennead Sail Through the Land -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Victory Day -- Afghanistan

World Graphic Design Day

World Tapir Day 

Write An Old Friend Today Day -- a real letter, in the mail, remember how exciting it is to get those?

Yom HaZiKaron -- Israel (Memorial Day; begins at sunset)

Anniversaries Today:

Ringo Starr marries Barbara Bach, 1981

Cornell University is established as New York's land grant institution, 1865

Birthdays Today:

Patrick Stump, 1984

William-Alexander, King of the Netherlands, 1967

Sheena Easton, 1959

Ace Frehley, 1951

Cuba Gooding, Sr., 1944

Earl Anthony, 1938

Sandy Dennis, 1937

Anouk Aimee, 1932

Casey Kasem, 1932

Coretta Scott King, 1927

Jack Klugman, 1922

Walter Lantz, 1900

Sergei Prokofiev, 1891

Jessie Redmon Fauset, 1882

Ulysses S. Grant, 1822

Samuel Morse, 1791

Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759

Edward Gibbon, 1737

Suleiman the Magnificent, 1495

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Chips with Everything"(Play), 1962

"Le roi de Lahore/The king of Lahore"(Opera), 1877

"Roméo et Juliette"(Opera), 1867

"L'africaine/The African Woman"(Meyerbeer Opera), 1865

Today in History:

Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives in the Philippines led by chief Lapu-Lapu, 1521

Re-founding of the city of Bogotá, New Granada (now Colombia), by Nikolaus Federmann and Sebastián de Belalcázar, 1539

Cebu is established as the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines, 1565

The blind and impoverished John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10, 1667

The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, 1773

Beethoven composes Für Elise, 1810

US troops capture the capital of Upper Canada, York  (present day Toronto, Canada), 1813

The Foundation stone for new Palace of Westminster, London, is laid, 1840

The establishment of Jewish congregations in Lower Austria is prohibited, 1857

The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,400 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom are Union survivors of the Andersonville and Cahaba Prisons, 1865

In South Africa, the Group Areas Act is passed formally segregating races, 1950

Togo gains independence from French-administered UN trusteeship, 1960

Sierra Leone is granted its independence from the United Kingdom, 1961

Expo 67  officially opens in Montreal, Canada, 1967

Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse, 1981

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising Serbia and Montenegro, is proclaimed, 1992

Betty Boothroyd becomes the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history, 1992

Russia and 12 other former Soviet republics become members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, 1992

The first democratic general election in South Africa, in which black citizens could vote is held, 1994

The last successful telemetry from the NASA space probe Pioneer 10 is received, 2002

The superjumbo jet aircraft Airbus A380 makes its first flight from Toulouse, France, 2005

Construction begins on the Freedom Tower for the new World Trade Center in New York City, 2006

Estonian authorities remove the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, amid political controversy with Russia, 2007

The wives and children of former Osama bin Laden are deported from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, 2012

North Korea's Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in of South Korea agree to officially end the Korean war and rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons, 2018