Early Saturday Morning...

Today started out with an interesting sunrise...

It made me think about this song that I'm sure most of you will recognize..."Morning Has Broken"

Morning has broken

like the first morning,

blackbird has spoken

like the first bird.

You can't see them, but the black crows were flying around and singing this morning while this was going on!

Praise for the singing!

Praise for the morning!

And then Mr. (or Mrs?) Crane flew in for breakfast...

So we threw out some bird seeds for him/her?

Praise for them, springing

fresh from the Word!

He?she? was most grateful.

 Sweet the rain’s new fall

sunlit from heaven,

like the first dewfall

on the first grass.

Praise for the sweetness

of the wet garden,

sprung in completeness

where God’s feet pass.

And then, much to my surprise, these two Muscovy Ducks flew in from the pond and landed on top of our back porch!  I'm not too sure if they really intended to land there, because they seemed rather confused about where they were as they waddled back and forth across the roof.

Hello! Anyone down there?

Could you send us up some of those seeds you are having, Mr. Crane?

Hello!  I think they flew in to the Rooftop Cafe' on Still Waters Pond expecting some breakfast! LOL

And after a while of going back and forth, watching the Crane below them eating his breakfast, I think they gave up on ever being served and they flew back off into the pond...can't see them in this picture, but they were rapidly departing and Mr. Crane was watching them go...

I think I should name the Rooftop Cafe' "Castle Craneycrow", which is the title of one of my favorite old books in the George Barr McCutcheon collection...a very old book copyrighted in 1902!  After this past Tuesday 4 meme,  where we were asked if we had a name for our home, throughout the week as I watched the Sand Hill Cranes come and go this name kept floating into my memorybooks, and I thought it would be a great name for our home! We certainly have had the Cranes living here on our pond ever since the beginning, and there are also many many crows living here in our trees as well. I just don't take pictures of them because they tend to annoy me, but they are very interesting birds (and very intelligent as well) if you pay attention to them. 

So maybe our home should be called "Castle Craneycrow on Still Waters Pond".  LOL.

Oh, the song is still playing!!

 Mine is the sunlight!

Mine is the morning

born of the one light

Eden saw play!

These Goldfinches have been having quite a feast time at the finch feeder. These pictures were actually taken Friday morning, and then I had to go buy some more finch seed at the hardware store to refill the feeder!

Be sure to look at each picture closely to see all the birds flying in and out and scrambling to get their place at the feeder...

Like this one:

And this one:

Praise with elation,

praise every morning,

Aren't they amazing?

God’s recreation

of the new day!

I could sit and watch them all day...as they are still at it today, especially since I refilled the feeder. They will only be here for a short while, and then they will be heading back up north to their spring/summer breeding grounds, so we will enjoy them while we can.

God's beautiful creation, new and fresh every new day!!!

Today we had other things to do, and now here it is mid afternoon and I still don't have this post written and published!  I had hoped it would be a nice "morning devotional",  but I guess it will have to do for whenever you receive it!

Last evening the "kids" came over and we made pizzas for supper. Here's Benton with Sugar, and I think Spice is on the other leash, but didn't make it into the picture. I mainly took this picture to show how Benton's truck is all loaded up with the items he's been building this week to take to the Deep Creek Farm Market today here in our town.   It was just funny to see all that stuff piled up in his truck and ready to go.

Here it is all set up at Deep Creek this morning:

We went over to check on him this morning, and I found a few things that I just needed to buy, like this little bag of several "home brew" tea bags along with that sweet little heart shaped tea infuser:

I don't know if you can read the names on these different tea bags, but they sure are interesting:  
Liverroot Brew, Fearless & Focused, Lavender Mint, and Mint to Be.   I'm trying to decide which one to try first...I'll let you know how it goes...

Another thing I bought was this loaf of home made "Milk Bread".   I thought it would make wonderful Toasted BLT sandwiches, because I also bought some beautiful big tomatoes and lettuce. Unfortunately we did not have any bacon, but we did have ham, and so that was almost as good, and yes, it was a wonderful sandwich!

I didn't take a picture of the sandwich, but here's how the bread looks. I may just have some with butter later...  (that's why I don't make or buy homemade bread very often...I will keep eating it and eating it...)

Yesterday we stopped at the hardware store and I picked up these packets of seeds to plant in the butterfly garden. Now I just need to get some good soil before I plant them...

Something else has happened in the past few days...you know I've been feeding the neighbor's "neighborhood cats" that she had adopted, but because she has not been well I have been feeding them...and sadly this week she fell and now is in the hospital and most likely will not be coming back to her home to live.  She's just not strong enough and really shouldn't be living alone. I actually found her when I went over to feed the cats the other evening. She had been laying on her bedroom floor for several hours she said. Her cell phone was too far away (and the battery had died).  Thankfully, she had left the back door unlocked for me to come in and bring her the mail, and when I stepped inside I could hear her calling me.  So long story short, I called hubby over and between the two of us we could not move her so we called 911. She was still coherent, etc., and she refused to go to the hospital, but she was very weak and could not do much at all and had not eaten and didn't want to eat, etc., so I called her daughter who lives a couple of hours away, and I stayed with her until her daughter arrived and then she ended up taking her to the hospital that night.  Please keep my neighbor in your thoughts and prayers, and also her daughter while she figures out all the details of where her mother should go. The daughter is single and still works full time, so she can't really take care of her mother at her house. This is one of those difficult decisions that has come to many of us who have had elderly parents that eventually needed more care than we could give them on our own. It's never an easy decision.  My heart goes out to both of them. And there are no other siblings to help out either.  

So now I will definitely be figuring out how to get the cats to follow me over to my house to eat from now on. Hopefully they will figure that out and it won't be a problem.

Well, I guess that's all the news and pictures I have for you today. 

Mark 9:23-24 NKJV

23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, 

all things are possible to him who believes.”

24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

Thursday Thankfulness

Happy first Thursday of Lent, 2025.

Actually, these sunrise photos were from yesterday morning, and these clouds ushered in a very stormy, windy  Ash Wednesday.  The winds are definitely in keeping with the month of March's reputation!

Seems like I can see and angel flying into the midst of this sunrise, which gives us encouragement that even in the midst of storms, God sends His angels to watch over us and keep us in all our ways...

Psalm 91:9-12

9 Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge,

Even the Most High, your dwelling place,

10 No evil shall befall you,

Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;

11 For He shall give His angels charge over you,

To keep you in all your ways.

12 In their hands they shall bear you up,

Lest you dash your foot against a stone.

What a beautiful promise from God's Word for us in these chaotic times! So very thankful for God's protection and provision always!

As you saw in the preceding pictures, the Goldfinches have arrived on their spring trek back up north!  It is such fun to watch them feeding at the finch feeder, and even the Bluebirds don't seem to mind them being here. I think they know they are just here temporarily, and that they are not a threat to their home territory, so they seem to get along just fine for the short while the finches are here filling up on food for their journey. 

Other signs of Spring are these blooming trees on the corner of our property:

This is a Carolina Cherry Laurel tree blossom, which I never realized before now was it's name! We always called it a wild cherry.

And the yellow flowers are some that I've shown you many times before, the Carolina Jessamine, or Yellow Jessamine are growing like wildfire this spring! They are so beautiful, and I've been noticing them almost everywhere we go along fencerows and up in the trees. Funny that both of these plants today have the name "Carolina" in their name!  And yet we are in Florida, but really not all that far from the Carolinas!  I am really enjoying their beauty this year for certain!

And I am really happy that the red Hibiscus plant we planted in the garden on Sunday is still blooming beautifully, and still has a lot more buds on it!  This makes my heart happy indeed, since this is the bush we chose to plant in memory of our son Matthew for his birthday.  

Here is something else that makes my heart happy.  A very dear young woman in our church gifted me with this painting on Sunday.  She actually painted it based on one of my sunset photos on Still Waters Pond:

She is learning to paint with watercolors and said she struggled a bit in getting it just right to her liking, but I love it. This young woman is currently going through a lot of issues in her family...her father has terminal cancer, her mother is not well at all and has some deep emotional issues, and her own daughter is getting married next month and so she is planning a wedding while in the process of being a care-giver for her parents, (and praying that her father is well enough to be able to attend the wedding and watch his granddaughter get married) and balancing that with her own life with her husband.  The painting is good therapy for her, but I honestly don't know how she finds the time to do anything extra.  This young woman's name is Nicole, and if you have a moment to lift her and her family up in your thoughts and prayers, I know she would appreciate it.

Yes, the Sand Hill Crane couple are still nesting, and they still take turns sitting on the nest and then coming to our shore looking for a handful of seeds to eat for a snack to help sustain them.  It has become a regular daily event to have each one of them show up at our back door waiting for us to appear and throw out some seeds. So we do, but it is just a little supplement to what they are able to get from around the pond, which is actually much better for them. But we enjoy the little interaction we have with them, and they seem to appreciate it too.

I just hiked around to the other side of the pond to see if I could catch them changing the guard on the nest, but I just can't seem to hit the right time.  There's mother Crane resting peacefully on her nest as per usual:

I do hope that since we've developed such a "close relationship" with them, they will be sure to bring their young baby colts around to visit us as soon as they are able. I'm sure they will. That has always been their tradition!    Judging by the calendar I've kept, we will be watching for that happy event sometime around St. Patrick's Day or thereabouts.  That seems to be their favorite birthday time period!

Regarding Lent...this 40 day time period prior to Easter, I wonder if or how you are observing it? I haven't made any specific promises or set any goals, but I am using this time to prepare my heart for the remembrance of what Christ has done for us on the cross, and most especially in His resurrection from the dead.

Our choir is working on our Easter Cantata, "It Is Finished", and one of the songs we are singing is this one:

Sung here by the Florida Boys

"When He Was On The Cross, I Was On His Mind"

I'm not on an ego trip I'm nothing on my own

I make mistakes I often slip

Just common flesh and bones

But I'll prove someday just why I say

I'm of a special kind

When He was on the cross

I was on his mind

The look of love was on his face

Thorns were on his head

The blood was on his scarlet robe

Stained a crimson red

Though his eyes were on the crowd that day

He looked ahead in time

For when He was on the cross

I was on his mind

He knew me, yet He loved me

He whose glory makes the heavens shine

So unworthy of such mercy

Yet when He was on the cross

I was on his mind

Yet when He was on the cross

I was on his mind

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Ronald Payne / Ronny Hinson

When He Was On The Cross lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Royalty Network, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

And this is what I am truly thankful for today.  I hope you are too.

Have a blessed and beautiful rest of your week.