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Tom Richter speaks wrapping up the final installment of our 2010 summer breeze series. You DON’T want to miss this video! 

It will come as no great surprise to any of you who really know me that I go at a pretty fast pace most of the time.  I don’t know if it’s nervous energy. ADHD,  compulsive behavior, or just that’s the way I am wired.  I will say that it usually makes for a pretty productive day.  However, I have discovered that there are times when fast is not always better.   Although I’ve been “bushhogging” on the farm for awhile now, I recently realized that running the machinery over the field too quickly does not give the blade enough time to cut it all down properly.  You end up with a ragged looking field.  Duh. I should have caught onto that one a little quicker.  I must confess slowing down makes the grass look better, but now it takes me twice as long to cut a field.  Not good for someone who has so little time on the farm and so much that he wants to get done.  So there I was recently in my 8^th hour of riding the tractor when a shadow passed over me.  I looked up and saw a hawk soaring high above me.  Now that in itself  was no great surprise.  We often see hawks on the farm, but there was something different about this one.  It was smaller, more streamlined, and the coloring was different from the red tail hawks that we normally see.  Suddenly, it swooped down and snatched up a grasshopper that had been disturbed by my mowing.  This bird of prey stayed with me the rest of the time as I finished up the field taking advantage of the buffet I was providing for him.  The next morning when I moved to a different pasture, the bird had evidently told a friend and the two of them followed me around feasting on insects.  I did some research when I got back home and discovered that I had seen a pair of Mississippi Kites.  According to the Audubon Society, their numbers have significantly decreased in recent years so I felt that much more privileged to have witnessed their graceful aerobatics.  Who knows?  If I had not slowed down, they might not have stayed with the tractor and allowed me to silently watch their grandeur. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”   Psalm 19:1 Looking up,