Friday Foto Friends~Memorial Day Weekend

Greetings Friday Foto Friends! Happy Friday!

It's been a difficult week for our country, and our hearts are still broken for those families in Uvalde, Texas. We must keep them in our prayers as the grief sets in as they must bury their beloved children.

I love what Sean Dietrich wrote in his column about these precious children:

"Homecoming". Click the link for his post. Some may ask how you can be so sure all those children entered heaven's gates?  Well, all I know is Jesus loves the little children. He says in Matthew 18:2-4 the following:

2 Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

And again in Matthew 19:14

14 But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

You can believe whatever you want to believe, but I believe Jesus was there waiting to welcome these precious children into heaven...every one of them. 

Now, with that being said, let us move on to some pictures from the week. I really don't have anything too exciting to share, but here we go:

I scattered some bird seed on the ground for the Sand Hill Cranes, and they came right away to clean it up. 

They seemed to be quite grateful...

We've also had some young Cardinals come calling this week. I believe some of them are juveniles (not delinquents...just young birds, you understand. LOL)

The one on the chair above may be our bob-tailed cardinal.  Looks like he's missing his tail feathers.

Anyway, they like to come up on our porch and wait their turn for the bird feeder:

Not sure if this is a big family or just different ones coming and going, but it has been fun to see them up close.

The Milkweed plant is blooming in the butterfly garden. I hope it attracts some pretty butterflies:

And this Foxglove is really pretty. I hear hummingbirds like it, but we haven't seen too many this spring. I finally put my feeder away because they weren't coming and it is a lot of work to keep making new "nectar" for the feeder and changing it every couple of days so it doesn't ferment in this heat.

Foxglove

When we were out walking the other day I noticed this little wildflower blooming, and checked to see what it was:

Foxglove Beardtongue

And guess what? It is also a type of foxglove plant, only wild. They say these can be dangerous for people because they contain digitalis, which is a heart medicine of sorts. Medicine might be made from this, but it is not good for us to use it without understanding how it works or how strong it is.  

I also checked on the wild plum trees, and some have plums that look like these above...not quite ripe yet.

And others are a little more ripe than those. However, they are still small, about the size of a grape, and not sweet enough for us to eat. I suppose if you were able to gather enough ripe ones you could make jam.  However, I've found that by the time they are all ripe enough they are already dropping on the ground or the critters have found them first.

And here are some wild Paw-Paws.  There are quite a few of these plants scattered throughout the woods. And again, it's better to just let the critters have them. I tried one one time, and wasn't too impressed. LOL.

Meanwhile, back at our Still Waters Pond, Mrs. Bluebird continues to wait patiently on her nest for her new brood of babies to hatch.  She spends a lot of time these days looking out her window and breathing the fresh air. I can imagine it is pretty hot and stuffy inside that birdhouse, as hot as it is out here these days.  Hopefully we will get some much needed rain this afternoon, and maybe that will cool things off a little...(wishful thinking).

Our kids are on a little vacation trip to the mountains this weekend. They were so kind to send us some pictures of how beautiful it is there:

They are staying at an Airnb with great views and lovely accommodations.

And it sounds like it is about 20 degrees cooler there than it is here in Florida.

Of course I'm not envious. I'm just happy for them.

Their 7 a.m. phone call to tell us how beautiful it was and how fresh and cool and crisp the air was didn't bother me a bit. LOL.  

Seriously, we are very happy for them to have this little break away. They work very hard and they really deserve a rest.

So, what big plans do you have for this weekend?  We are staying inside due to the high heat and humidity, but are very thankful for the AC.  We will go to church on Sunday as per usual, and then on Monday our church is having a picnic at the church parsonage. Hopefully the weather will permit us to stay outside in the shady yard and eat our hamburgers and hot dogs. If not, we will go inside where it's cool.

We are blessed to have cool places to escape the heat. Very thankful indeed.

Okay, folks! That's it for today! I pray you and yours have a safe and happy Memorial Day Weekend. 

And let us always remember those who died in service to our country, to give us these freedoms and privileges.  May we never take these freedoms for granted. It's becoming too easy for those in leadership to take freedom away with the stroke of a pen.

May God Bless America, the land of the free!

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

II Chronicles 7:14