Autumn Saturday Morning and All is Well

If you are a Facebook friend you may have already seen these photos. Sorry they are kind of blurry, but it was getting dark and it was zoomed in to across the pond...But anyway...we know it is fall here on Still Waters Pond because last night 10 Canada Geese landed and visited with Mr. and Mrs. Sand Hill Crane on their island for a spell.

They mulled about, chattering back and forth with each other...probably talked about the weather and how nice it was here and asking directions to the big lake where they can swim a bit, etc.

Our pond seems to be growing another marsh island...that area where they are standing used to be all water, but now it seems the land masses are shifting and it has become another little sand bar covered with dying water lilies. They tend to do that in the pond. I just hope they don't all end up covering the whole pond,  but anyway...it does give the geese and cranes more space to land and build nests, etc.

After they visited for a while I could tell that the Cranes were getting a little concerned that the geese were taking up too much of their space, so they started their loud raucous cries at them, and then the geese started muttering among themselves a little more loudly until they worked themselves up into a honking frenzy and the next thing I knew they were up in the air and flying away. Too quickly for me to get focused and get a picture, but it was quite a sight.

I am sure they will be back. This is the season for them to start congregating on our lakes and ponds for the winter months, so the excitement has begun!! Stay tuned for further developments!

Meanwhile:

Back on shore I got busy the other nice cool morning and did some work out in my little butterfly garden area.  We had removed all the garden decorations the previous week for the hurricane, and so now was a good time to try to get outside and clean up the garden and put it all back...

Yes, I know it still looks weedy. I did pull a lot of weeds and grasses away, but some of that stuff is also the remainder of the flowers that were planted.   Some are starting to die back for the winter I guess, so I will continue to prune and pull and clean up as the days go by. Next spring I may do things totally over and prepare the ground better before planting...but I tend to do things spontaneously without much forethought and that's what happens...

Oh well, it still looks a lot better than it did before I ever planted the garden. And I love my new little lawn ornaments.  I will not be putting any regular birdseed in these items because of the squirrels, but I am experimenting with Safflower seed in the glass bird feeder to see if the birds will eat it and the squirrel will ignore it because they don't like safflower seeds. So far so good...

Oh, changing gears a bit...back inside...It's been cool enough a few mornings this past week to turn on our fireplace...actually we didn't turn on the real heat part, just the lighted part that looks like a warm fire but isn't really warm yet. We mostly use this just for the ambience. It makes our house feel all warm and cozy!

Well, with that in mind, I will close for today. It's going to be another busy day.  We have our "Agape Luncheon" at church, which is a gathering of church family for a pot luck meal and fellowship. I think I am making a pot of Hobo Stew (recipe can be found HERE ) and some cornbread. At least that's the current plan.  We aren't going to Dixie Cottage this morning, but we shall see how things go. If things get really busy there, we may go in and help out for a while. We hope it does get busy...it's been kind of a slow week.

Okay, that's all folks! Have a blessed and beautiful day wherever you are!

Here's a thought for today:

1 Thessalonians 3:12

" And may the Lord make you increase 

and abound in love to one another and to all, 

just as we do to you,"

 

Friday Foto Friends

Good Morning Friday Foto Friends!

I hope you have been having a good week thus far...and now we are heading into a lovely weekend!

Believe it or not, we are experiencing some lovely fall-like weather even here in Florida!  Our current temperature at 6:49 a.m. is 64 degrees! The high is expected to be 84, and it looks like a perfect sunny early fall day for us!  I would love to spend the day outdoors, but we shall see what develops!

The Sand Hill Crane family came calling again the other evening. They seemed to be enjoying the late afternoon sunshine along the shores of Still Waters Pond, searching for grubs and whatever it is they love so much...

I am always amazed at how big these birds really are!  I told my hubby I could almost get on his back and ride, but I'd have to figure out how to lasso him first. That might be quite a wild ride!

I don't know if this is mother and child, or father and mother, or  father and child...but these two seem to stick together while the third member of the family is over on the other side of the yard pecking away at bird seed in the ground under the bird feeder...

These two are slowly working their way over to meet him, and if you look closely in the window of the birdhouse below, you will notice our resident lizard quietly watching the parade go by:

I don't think he wants them to know he is there, because it probably wouldn't be beneath a Sand Hill Crane to make a nosey lizard his dinner!

Hey! Which way did he go?

This is how lovely the pond looked in the glowing rays of the late afternoon sunshine:

Ah! The family has finally been reunited below...

I was trying to get a picture of the one bird scratching at his underbelly, and this young upstart decided to photo bomb the picture! Must be the youngster, don't you think?

After that they sauntered away out of sight. I did hear them making their usual loud raucous noises from somewhere on the other side of the house as they wandered around the rest of the neighborhood. I hope you enjoyed watching them as much as I did.

We did have a couple of really rainy days earlier this week...one afternoon I sat on the back porch and listened to the rain on the tin roof...and watched our lizard friend enjoying the rain as well.

It was quite a gully washer! I did make a video of the sounds and shared it on Facebook.You can listen to it HERE if you want.  (but you may have to have a Facebook account to access it.)

In my meanderings around our yard this past week I discovered this interesting cocoon on the Rose of Sharon bush in the Memorial Garden:

It's quite large, and I had no idea what it was, but I looked it up on Google, and it might be a Cecropia Moth.  Not sure yet. I am keeping an eye on it to see if I can see it emerge. Here is a video about these huge, beautiful moths. I hope it is one, and I really hope I get to see it!

"Complete Metamorphosis: A Cecropia Moth Life Cycle"

If you read my Tuesday 4 Post earlier this week HERE, you already know the story about the rose that blooms in the Secret Memorial Garden for special occasions...and that I picked this rose the other day and brought it inside to enjoy all week long for my special "heaven-sent birthday gift" from my son Matthew.  I thought perhaps you'd like to see how it looks now:

This was yesterday,

And this is today.  It's been blooming for 4 days now, and tomorrow is my actual birthday! It looks like it will still be beautiful for my special day! Oh, and it still smells just as sweet as it did on the first day!  Thank you for the many kind comments of understanding and agreement that indeed, God does love to bless us with special little gifts that seem to be "heaven-sent", just to let us know we are loved and we haven't been forgotten, even by those dear ones who have gone on before us.  

Yes, tomorrow is my actual birthday, but we will be celebrating with friends and family on Sunday afternoon after church at our local "Hog Wild Country Cafe'" restaurant. It is a fun place to go and we were able to reserve tables for a large group.  It will be fun to see loved ones all together again. It's been a long time. We will also celebrate our son's 50th birthday with the extended family since we weren't able to on  his birthday, as well as celebrate several others in the family who have had birthdays in the past few weeks. It should be a loud, happy and blessed celebration! I believe in celebrating life while we are alive to do so!  Life is just too short to ignore these special occasions.

So my dear friends, I hope that you have a blessed and wonderful weekend! Get outside and don't forget to smell the roses!

Here's some good "food for thought" from the little "Choose Grace" devotional book that was actually a gift to "Lily Grace", but I like it too!

Let us "overflow with love" for others each day!

Amen!

On another more somber note, please remember our dear blogging friend Mildred, from her blog Laurel Wood.  She has been battling cancer and has now been placed in hospice care at her home.  I know she would appreciate your prayers for her and her husband John and their loved ones. Thank you dear friends.

 

Thankful Thursday!

I wasn't sure if I would have time to write tonight, but as the evening hours wore on I kept reflecting on how wonderful our day was today, and I just felt like it was something that needed to be remembered.  Many of us who blog do so to remember special moments in our lives...and to share them with you, our friends. Why do we do this? To give thanks to the Lord for the good things He is doing in our lives, and also to encourage one another in our daily walk.  When we see and hear about the good things that others are doing to bless other folks, it encourages us to want to pass that blessing on to others...at least that's how I feel about it.

Today was a lovely day.  I mentioned last night in my post:

"Tomorrow will be another busy and wonderful day. Having some other friends/neighbors from our old neighborhood coming to visit, and they are also bringing lunch! Wow!!! We sure are blessed with friends "old and new". I think we are having an early St. Patrick's Day meal: Corned Beef and Cabbage, and all the trimmings! Should be wonderful! "

Well, today was that day, and it certainly met up to all expectations and even beyond!  Wow! God is so good to bring such special people into our lives...and then to allow us to continue that friendship even after we have moved away! What's neat is, the two couples in this group of neighbors are snowbirds, so they only come down south for a while during the winter months and then they are gone back to their northern homes for the rest of the year.  But their winter homes were in our neighborhood at our previous home, and so we became friends! The other gentleman of the group was our next door neighbor right behind us, a very unique and kind man who loves to cook and also loves to give gifts.  I just realized that I last wrote about this particular group of neighbors almost exactly one year ago HERE, when they visited in our previous home for a lasagna dinner!

This year they insisted on bringing the main course and dessert and the delicious home-made cornbread. I provided the salad(s).  Here's a few pictures from our day:

Actually, this picture is from the internet, because I forgot to take a picture of the corned beef and cabbage, red potatoes and carrots that our former neighbor who loves to cook brought. He cooked this whole meal in his pressure cooker, and it was so tender and delicious...we all wanted seconds!

My friend Dee made this delicious cornbread...the perfect bread to compliment the main course, slathered in fresh creamy butter...


I made a tossed green salad, served in this pretty new bowl that I got from "The Pioneer Woman". I love her dishes!!

And here is what's left of my dish of Lime Jello Cottage Cheese & Pineapple salad, also known as "Aunt Marion's Lime Jello".  We usually had this wonderful concoction at Christmas, but I made this today per my hubby's special request. Here is a link to a recipe I found online that is pretty much exactly the same:  https://homecookingmemories.com/lime-green-jello-salad-recipe-cottage-cheese-pineapple/

For dessert we had this wonderful pecan upside down cake, baked by my friend Joy:

I don't have the exact measurements for this recipe, but basically she mixed maybe two cups of pecan halves with brown sugar, tablespoon of water and melted butter, and put that in the bottom of a 9 x 13" baking pan. She then mixed up a yellow cake mix as per directions on the box, and pour the mixture over the pecan mixture, and baked it probably however long the recipe for the cake mix called for. I may need to contact my friend for more explicit directions, but there are some recipes out there on the internet that sound about the same. Click HERE: This one sounds about the same for the topping, but she used a cake mix for the cake, and didn't do the confectioner's sugar on top.
She served it with cool whip on top.  It was DELICIOUS!!!

Here's these two lovely ladies now...you can tell they are a lot of fun! They were chuckling before they went into the kitchen and washed and dried all the dishes! (Laughing at me telling them NOT to wash the dishes) And they were still chuckling even afterwards! What a blessing!

And here's the guys who came along.  We were also celebrating the man on the left's 80th birthday!! But we forgot to put the candles on the dessert, so we sang Happy Birthday to him after the fact...

While he tried to mix up the numbers so they didn't say "80"....nice try!

 Oh yes, my hubby was there too.  He said we've celebrated his birthday enough for one year, so we didn't sing to him again...

I forgot to take a picture when the table was all set, but I wanted to get a picture of these lovely crystal candle holders again.  If you looked at the post from last year, you'll see that I featured them then as well. They are certainly worth mentioning. Our friend was pleased to see that I was still using them.

Yes, it was a wonderful day...such a blessing to have such dear friends want to travel all the way to our new home and even brought most of the food just so that we could all be together again! That truly humbled and touched our hearts. They know that I am getting ready for surgery, and they wanted to do something special without me having to do so much work. God is so good...and we are very thankful for these dear friends.

Here's some more thoughts from the Scriptures about neighbors and friends:

1 Corinthians 10:24 (ESV)

24 Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.

Luke 6:38 (ESV)

38 give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

1 Thessalonians 3:12  (NKJV)

12 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you,

John 13:34-35 (ESV)

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I hope that you are encouraged by these verses as well as by the example of these dear ones who showed such love today. I know it is an encouragement to me, and an inspiration to be more willing to go the extra mile to bless someone else along life's pathway.  It doesn't have to be a full course meal, but even just sending a card, or calling a person on the phone to chat who may be lonely, or stopping by for a visit and taking a little gift of some kind...a plate of cookies or a little cake or nut bread or something you've made by hand. (or not! we aren't all that crafty...so it doesn't have to be home-made).  I know I often have "good intentions", but then I get busy and I never get around to doing what I had thought to do.  I'm not a big fan of Nike, but I do like their slogan..."Just do it!"   Don't keep making up excuses or wasting time and energy on things that are not worthwhile.  Look for ways to bless someone else along the way.  (I'm talking to myself here!)  

Very thankful for these blessings today.  How about you? How has God blessed you today?