May - June 2003, I went to work the next day and told Rob and Steve whom I work with what had happened and asked them what it could possibly mean? They had no idea. Steve thought "Maybe a 2nd chance?" I did not know and then about 2 weeks later after much thinking, I came to the conclusion that it must be just simply a 2nd sign, the 2nd sign, and "My sign!" It was the 2nd sign that I had received and it was given to me on the 2nd Sunday after Easter. And for quite some time after that I thought it was just that, my sign that I had asked for and I was satisfied with that explanation. During the time after that I prayed and read more and learned more about God and Jesus by reading articles online. My level of faith in God and Jesus Christ grew enormously. I didn't even own a bible at this time. I told my friends at work that I would get one though. I knew God would get one to me somehow, so this I did not worry about at all.

It was about 1 month later that my family and I went to California on a vacation trip to attend the 2nd wedding of my Wife's brother Jim. Before we left, I had made arrangements with some of my co-workers to look after my house and my 2 pet cat's Lucky (because we thought he was when we picked him out of the litter) and CC (named after Cris Carter who played for the Minnesota Vikings football team and here is a very interesting fact about Cris Carter that I would like to share with you. On December 18th, 1994 Cris Carter was at a Minnesota Moose Hockey game in downtown St. Paul at the St. Paul Civic Center. He was there with his family and I was also there with my family. I just happened to be wearing a Minnesota Vikings sweatshirt and I thought it would be neat if I could get Cris Carter to sign it. I had to go and look for a black marker and I found one from a friendly police officer. I went down to where Cris Carter was sitting just about 6 rows in front of me and I asked him to sign it, and he gladly did so. I felt bad also that a lot of attention was brought upon him and a lot of people were asking him for autographs. So much so that he could not even watch the hockey game he was attending. He ended up leaving before the game was over. 6 days later, Cris Carter broke the single season reception record for most catches in a single season. He finished the year with 122 catches. Here is the fun part. In 1995 he again caught 122 catches! 2 times in 2 consecutive years giving him the all time record for the most catches in back to back seasons with 244. He was also the 2nd player ever to catch more than 100 catches in 2 consecutive years. When Cris Carter caught a touchdown pass, he always pointed up to God and thanked Him. Thank you for the memories Cris and Thank You Father for letting me get his autograph just 6 days before the start of that 2 season receiving record. Cris Carter is the receiver that holds the 2nd highest record for most touchdowns in a career behind Jerry Rice. Cris Carter along with Jake Reed became the only wide receiving twosome in NFL history with over 1,000 yards receiving for each of them in four straight NFL seasons. No other twosome has matched that; there were other twosomes to accomplish this feat, but they have done so in only two straight seasons. Cris and Jake have doubled the others best.)

Now back to the trip to California . Before I left I remembered saying a prayer. It was a rather simple prayer, so I thought. But the magnification to me and the ramification of that 1 simple prayer turned out to be one of the neatest series of things I have ever witnessed. The prayer was this; I prayed to God the Father to bless the bird feeder outside of my kitchen window so that when my friends came over to my house to look after my cats, that if they had the chance to have a cold pop and sit at the kitchen table, that there would be an abundance of bird watching there for them to enjoy. I love watching birds, especially humming birds. They are my favorite.

We then left for California and I thought nothing more of the prayer I had made. Our vacation to California was absolutely wonderful and Jim's new bride Jenny was very lovely and wholesome. She treated us very kindly and we met many of her relatives there. The wedding was one of the finest weddings I had ever attended. It was at an old historic winery. We also visited many other tourist attractions and saw many beautiful sites including the Napa Valley Wine Country, Lake Tahoe, Nevada and Old Sacramento. Jim and Jenny made the trip very special and we all had a great time. Jenny let us use her Audi TT which is a "2 seater" sporty convertible car, to drive down to Los Angeles. My Wife, her Dad, her Mom, her Aunt and my son and I all had a great time. My Wife and I alone then visited the Universal Studios Theme Park and on the 2nd day of our trip to Los Angeles, we saw a taping of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. We sat in the second row above the railing over by the band. We were directed to these seats and had no choice in the matter of where we could sit.

I remember one evening in California when we deep fried 2 small turkeys in a deep fryer that Jim's Dad Ray had gotten them for a gift. Seeing as how I had done this before back home in Minnesota 2 times, I was in charge. I carefully measured the oil so we would not make the mistake other first timers usually do in that when you add the turkeys, the oil overflows and creates one big mess. Well one thing I forgot to do before lowering the turkeys down into the boiling oil was to dry out the inside of them. Water and oil do not mix. As the turkeys were lowered, the water inside the turkeys boiled over the pot and created a really big mess! Another lesson learned in the art of deep frying a turkey. They still turned out beautifully though and were very moist. I used some Dawn dish soap and cleaned up the mess afterwards on the rocky patio. What a humbling experience, but I was thankful that neither I nor anyone else was hurt. Boiling oil on the flesh is not an experience I would wish on anyone. I can now look back and laugh at that experience. I was also humbled when I tried to fly a kite at a local park near their house. It was the first time I had ever tried to fly a kite with a system of 2 strings. I couldn't keep the kite flying for more than a few seconds. The wind was not cooperating and I was just not experienced enough to handle the 2 string system. One of these days I will give stunt kite flying another shot.

Shortly after we arrived home I was told that both of Jenny's parents were also re-married within a very short span of each other. Her Dad's was scheduled and we knew about that one, her Mom's however, was a total surprise. That was another 2 that struck me as unique. But at the time I was out there, I was not looking for any more signs of 2, as I thought they were done coming. I thought that the 2's that came to me on the 2nd Sunday after Easter were just what they were; a series of small miracles that added up to 1 BIG miracle. Sitting here and writing this now, I guess there were a few 2's that I hadn't even realized at the time.

While I was at Jim and Jenny's house there was this really cool looking blue colored bird. It always came and hung out in their back yard and would go about the yard unconcerned or without fear of us. I saw it every day multiple times. The reason I mention this is that when we did arrive home from California , the very next morning my wife and I were sitting at the kitchen table and we saw a Chipping Sparrow sitting on the window ledge. It was pecking and chirping and dancing across the ledge unlike any bird I have ever seen do before or anything remotely like it. And it kept chirping, and pecking, and chirping and pecking. Then it would fly over to the bird feeder a foot away, grab a snack, and come right back to the window ledge. The ledges of the windows on our house are not big, they are rather small. In fact, I would not even call it a ledge, but rather a small � inch lip of plastic that seals the window from the weather when closed. Even as small as this so called ledge was, this sparrow kept on doing this thing.

Have you ever seen a bird do that before? If you could imagine this scene yourself, how long do you think would be a reasonable time period that a bird would stay on a window ledge doing these things; a minute, 2 minutes maybe, 10 minutes maybe? That might even be stretching it. How about most of the entire day! My wife and I watched that bird for a very long time while we sat at the table just a few feet away. It was a really cute bird and just watching it made me wonder about how God can do things like this. I took it as another sign from God that to me was like a gift from Him personally. We went about our daily business and occasionally looked at the window and watched it again and again. One time I had thought, maybe this bird really wants to come in to the house. I quickly shrugged off the notion as if and when a bird does happen to get itself caught within the confines of a home, it seems to panic and fly into walls. I had seen this happen as a child. This would surely be very stressful for the bird and injurious. But I had the thought again. So I went to the window and opened it up about a foot high. The chipping sparrow flew over to the small pine tree about 15 feet away. Whenever the sparrow would occasionally fly away before, he would always return within a minute or 2 back to the window ledge so I waited. I waited about 5 minutes and he would not come back to the ledge. I closed the window and 1 minute later the sparrow came back. Ok, that answered that notion of, "Maybe it wants to come inside and visit". Which actually was a relief, I wouldn't have known what to do with it when it came in, and I would have also worried for its safety with my 2 cats. I think the sparrow finally left later in the afternoon. We had gone away to the store for a while and when we returned near dusk, it was gone. The next morning before I left for work, I looked again but no sparrow. I wish I would have sat there all day now and just watched it. The way this bird sat on our ledge, flew to the feeder and back many times over, flew to the pine tree and back many times over, I would say is rather rare and unique. The fact that it did this for most of the entire day was a miracle.

I went to work that day and it was a good day. I talked about my vacation and the bird watching extravaganza on my window ledge. What was really interesting about this day was not what had happened at work, but what happened when I went home on my break. I saw another bird. As I pulled into my driveway, I looked down at my lawn and saw a solid gray colored bird. It was skinny and tall - around 9 or 10 inches tall and had no special markings. It was not like a pigeon or a dove as it was too skinny and a little darker gray than they would be. It was very plain looking and was all one color of gray. I had never seen a bird like this in my yard, and I still don't know what kind of bird it was. But the unique thing about this bird was that it was not afraid of me or my big truck I drive. As I drove into the driveway, I thought it would surely fly away. But it stayed in the grass in the yard about 10 feet away from my truck. I just stared at it a short time and then thought that it would surely fly away when I exited my truck and slammed the door shut. But to my disbelief that it would fly away, it stayed right there. I thought wrong. This was not normal for a bird to do this. I stood next to my truck and stared at it again for another short time and then I went into my house and told my wife about it. She said that she could not go and look at it because she was not wearing her contact lenses and did not have her eye glasses either. I said, "Oh well, you're going to miss this then."

I looked on the kitchen counter and my wife had some mail to be put in the mailbox. I took the mail outside and looked for the bird again. It was not in the yard where I had seen it last. But as I looked up into a nearby tree I saw it on a branch and it saw me. As I walked down the steps and headed toward the mailbox, the bird flew out of the tree and landed back down into the grass where it was before. I walked by my truck which placed me about 10 feet away from the bird again and I stopped. We looked at each other again. I started walking again towards the mailbox and the bird surprised me by flying along side of me and landing 10 feet away from me again! We stared at each other again and I thanked Father for this unique gift of this bird's company. But my break from work was only so long and I had to go. So I started walking closer to the mailbox and when I was about 15 feet away from the mailbox the bird flew right up and landed directly on top of my mailbox! Now what a sight that was. Unbelievable I thought. Such a simple thing, but it meant so much to me. I just stood there dead in my tracks and full of amazement. I slowly approached the mailbox and when I was about 10 feet away from it, the bird flew across the street and landed in another yard and watched me put the mail in. I guess the bird had a comfort zone of 10 feet. I returned into the house and told my wife of the neat thing that had just occurred with this bird. I shared the story at work with my co-workers. This was one thing that no one else witnessed. It was another gift for me alone.

3 days later I went to visit my Uncle George and while I was there I had told him and his wife Ronnie about what I had witnessed about the birds and the miracle of the 2's. Shortly after we ate supper, there was a loud ruckus outside. There was a bunch of large black birds cawing loudly. More and more blackbirds came and it was quite a sight. You could see this perfectly from where I was parked in my uncle's driveway. I took my uncle's dog for a walk and the dog and I watched the birds as we walked around the entire block. I kept thinking, "What is all this fuss? Why such a big commotion? You bird's should quiet down." As I got to the opposite side of the block a small girl came down from her house and saw me staring at the birds. She said to me, "I know why the birds are doing that. They are doing that because a really big bird is trying to get one of their babies." "Oh", I said to her and thanked her for telling me that. Now I guess that would be a good reason for the commotion. I felt bad for thinking that they should stop and that there was certainly no need for such a commotion. But I didn't have all the facts. As I returned from walking the dog, I went into the house and asked my Uncle if he knew what was going on with the birds? He said that there was a really big Owl attacking the nest of those blackbirds. I never saw the Owl. All I heard and saw was the 50 or so blackbirds flying about and making such a loud ruckus. I asked the neighbors who were also outside watching the spectacle if they had seen or heard these birds do this before and they said "No, never." While I was watching them from the tailgate of my truck, Ronnie came over to me from across the street as she was also talking to some neighbors about the commotion. She looked at me and said, "Mike, when you leave, take this commotion with you." She said it in a funny way as she thought that because I had just told her of the things which had just recently happened to me with the birds, that I had something to do with this. "Oh no, I have nothing to do with this. The fact that I am here watching this spectacle maybe God's doing, but I certainly have nothing to do with it. I am just watching the show".

The next week while I was at work at the prison, I was leaving to go home on my break. If the weather is nice outside I usually take the outside path to leave by the gymnasium and go through the control center at the prison. I started walking down an area that has on one side a wing of the units that is 4 stories high and the building is made of brick. On the other side of this path was a very tall fence. The fence has razor wire on top of it. This particular portion of the path at work is about 200 feet long. As I was walking through this area, I noticed bright gold finches. There were about 8 of them. They flew along side of me as I walked. They flew on one side of me grasping to the side of the brick building on my right. They were just clinging their clawed feet to the sides of the brick in such an odd manor. They could have used the window ledges above them a few more feet but they didn't. They would fly about 10 feet and re-grip the side of the building using the roughness of the bricks for leverage. The finches on the left side of me flew along the razor wire fencing and just landed every 10 feet in the diamond shaped area inside the fence links. So imagine if you will, as I am walking out, finches on my left and right, flying along and landing and flying and landing every 10 feet or so as I walked out the door. It was like an escort. It was really a site to see. This time I was also alone.
Thank you Father.

A few days later, Harriet at work mentioned to me that there were birds making a ruckus outside by the air conditioner in her office. She could hear them and wanted me to go outside and check to see what was going on. About 4 feet off of the ground on the window ledge next to the air conditioner was a Robin's nest. In the nest were 2 Robin's eggs. 1 was hatching at the time. Wow, I thought, how neat was that to be able to see them down so low to the ground. I told the people at work about them, so they could also share in the beauty of this miracle of life. Co-workers of mine did come to see the new birds as they were hatching. But on the 2nd day of them looking at the new birds, there was an unfortunate mishap. It seems as though there were 2 nests. I was totally unaware of the 2nd nest outside the back door of the unit I worked on. Going out the back door, there is an overhanging roof. Under the overhang, there was a barn swallows nest. The nest was made from mud that was placed into the roughness of the outer brick building, and by them making it under the overhang they would be protected from the rain. I felt really guilty about the swallows' nest coming down. I thought that maybe because of what I had told everyone about the Robin's nest that the added traffic of the door slamming caused the mud to loosen in the bricks and come down. 4 baby swallows died that day. It was rather sad to have to see that.

About a week or so after that, the swallows returned and rebuilt their nest. And not only was their nest rebuilt, but another family of swallows moved in to the other side of the overhang and built a 2nd swallows nest. Now that was very nice to see. I would occasionally go out and see the parent birds feed their young. I didn't tell everyone about the 2 new swallows nests that were there. I thought to leave well enough alone as I did not want to see a repeat of the last mishap. It worked out well; all the baby birds grew up and flew away. The 2 robin's eggs both hatched and they hopefully flew away on their own as well one day when I was gone. I do not know how many swallows were in the 2 new nests, probably 7 or as many as 10.

A few more weeks went by and I had shared my story of 2's and birds with co-workers and even a few offenders. But I had stopped seeing any unique things with birds. I remember having a day in which there was uneasiness about the unit where I work. Things were happening there and at home that were not going as smoothly as I usually like them to go. I went on my break that day and it is nice to get away from there for a short time. I pulled into the parking lot and I was just thinking to myself about how sad I was not seeing anymore birds for a while and the rough day I was having. But just then a small sparrow holding a feather in its beak flew and landed right on the middle of the hood of my truck. It plopped itself on the front bug shield, right in the center of it. I stared at it and it stared at me. The feather sticking out of its beak was just something different and rather cute I thought. How odd it was that this bird would pick my truck to land on and take a break from flying with this feather, probably to use it in nest building. I saw the direction from where it came and after about 1 minute the bird flew toward the west. It went way out of its way to land on my truck. I saw the path the bird came from and left to go towards. It was a good 50 yards out of its way to get to my truck. It could have landed on many of the vehicles that were parked around me. It was truly a sign from God saying that He was still with me. I went back into work that day with a better attitude than when I left. That was the last sign of birds that I saw doing anything unique. But I was ok and at peace with that now. I will still keep my eyes open for more signs of birds.