Saturday Morning

 Good Saturday Morning everyone!  I hope this morning finds you bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to enjoy a wonderful day!

This funny little ink pen says good morning to you...and to Blackie too!

Blackie loves to jump up on my computer desk when I'm sitting here trying to write to you and/or read your posts, and the only thing that saves me is this funny little fuzzy headed pen. I rub his ears and cheeks and chin with it, and he loves it, and then sometimes he bites it, but at least he's biting it instead of me! LOL.  He doesn't like for me to reach for the computer mouse or keyboard and so he nips at me and tries to get all my attention. It can be quite exasperating, but I give him some good head rubs and pretty soon he's happy to jump back down in search of other adventures (or to finish his breakfast food instead of me! LOL)

Yesterday afternoon, after I finished writing a post HERE, where I didn't have a lot of pictures to share, I went outside and took a little walkabout the yard, and as I was examining this holly bush to see if it had any berries forming on it (it didn't, I think it's male bush instead of a female, and I guess that makes a difference in whether or not it will bear berries!),  I almost missed it, but suddenly I discovered this teensy tiny little tree frog hiding in between the leaves:

I wonder if you can spot him in this picture below?  Yeah, so you see how difficult it was for me to discover him there!

Isn't he sweet?  He can't be more than an inch long, and he's quite well camouflaged there in his little hiding place:

After I took a few pictures he was starting to squirm a bit, and I was afraid he was going to suddenly leap out at me, so I decided to leave him alone and let him rest up for his evening activities. These little critters get much more active at night, catching mosquitoes on their tongues and having them for supper, and singing songs with their very loud voices for such a tiny little creature.

After looking him up, I decided that he is an American Green Tree Frog,  even though he looks a bit darker than what we normally see out in the open.

"The American green tree frog is a small, bright green amphibian native to the southeastern United States. [1, 2]

Physical Characteristics

Size: Adults grow between 1.25 and 2.5 inches long. Females are usually larger than males. [1, 2, 3]
Color: They have bright lime-green or yellow-green skin, sometimes with tiny gold flecks. A white or cream-colored stripe runs from the mouth down the side of the body. [1, 2, 3]
Adaptations: They can change their color to darker olive or gray depending on the temperature or background. Sticky toe pads help them climb trees and glass. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]"

If you want to hear a green tree frog "calling" his mate, here's a video for you. When you live in Florida in the country during the warmer/wetter season, you can hear this all night long if you leave your windows open. I grew up listening to these things because we didn't have AC back then, and so we had to leave our windows open. After a while you get used to the noise, but there were sometimes that the windows got cranked shut, oops!! Oh no! and the frogs were "silenced". LOL. You would have to have lived here to understand appreciate that...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hyla_cinerea_call_video.webm

Not long after this fun discovery I was sitting inside looking out the window and noticed that it was suddenly raining, while the sun was still shining! 

That puddle over there next to the green bushes is getting larger. One of these days I hope it will cover the whole pond!

So of course I had to go investigate and see if perhaps there was a rainbow out there, and I was not disappointed:

Don't you just love to see rainbows in the sky after the rain?  The sign of God's promises to us:

Genesis 9:13-17 NKJV

"13 I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 14 It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; 15 and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

After the rain stopped Still Waters Pond was bathed in golden sunlight...

It was just so beautiful! I can almost forgive it for not having much water in it when it looks like this! LOL.  But I'm still praying that it will fill back up somehow before time for the migrating geese and ducks and Sand Hill Cranes to come back for the winter. It will take a lot more rain for that to happen, but "all things are possible with God"!   Matthew 19:26

Actually, last evening before the little surprise rain shower, while I was still outside doing my little "walkabout" the yard, I was in the front yard picking up some branches that had fallen out of our big oak trees, and a car pulled off the side of the street in front of our house and a lady opened her window and said hello...and I looked and it was actually the two ladies who manage our Dollar General store here at the entrance to our neighborhood.  They recognized me and stopped to say hi, and they had their kids in the car, and one of the girls, probably about 11 or 12 years old,  stuck her head out the window and said, "Here, I wanted to give you this!"

It was this little clothespin, that had been painted and had written Romans 15:13 on it!  I was so very surprised and pleased and thanked her profusely, and told her I would go look up the verse right away and I would treasure it.  Here is the verse:

Wow! What an unexpected surprise and blessing!  And yes, I will keep this little clothespin as a reminder to pray for those children and also those two ladies. I mentioned recently that they both showed up at the Celebration of Life for one of our church members, and I was so surprised to see them at our church.  Me thinks I need to keep praying...perhaps God is working behind the scenes there and there's a lot more to this story...we just never know...

And so I will close this post on that note...remembering that God works in mysterious ways...and we need to always be ready to give an answer for the faith that we have.

Especially in this day and time in our country and world...our faith is being tested and we who are believers are often maligned for our faith and our stand for righteousness and truth...here's some good verses to encourage us in our daily lives and to continue to have faith and courage and not give up hope. God is working through us in ways we don't always realize or understand, so stand strong!

1 Peter 3:14-16 NKJV

14 "But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.” 

15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; 

16 having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed."

Amen.