A Little Bit of Nature to Start off the New Year

Happy 1st Saturday of the New Year!  It's a beautiful day here...breezy and sunny, with the hope of some rain tonight!! Keep Praying!  Speaking of rain and our "Still NO Waters Pond", this was the scene that greeted us early this morning:

It was quite unusual to see all these different species of water birds out on the dry pond together this morning! From left to right there were Canadian Geese, a Great White Egret, Sand Hill Crane, a Little Blue Heron that I almost didn't see because he's so small, another Canadian Goose  and a Great Blue Heron, and the other Sand Hill Crane! Normally they are rivals for any space on the pond, but today they are sharing what little bits of water rivulets they can find among the grasses and mud!

It really was quite a scene!!  We haven't seen any Canadian Geese all fall, which is unusual, but because the pond is so dry they haven't been landing here. So it was a surprise to see three of them out there today.  They didn't stay a long time, but it was a joy to see them at all!

You can see how pathetically dry the pond is.  It really is heart breaking.

But still they came and stayed a while and must've found something interesting out there to eat...and they weren't fighting over it either!

In this picture below, if you look way back in the back on that fallen tree, there are actually two of those pesky Muscovy Ducks sitting back there!  They didn't try to join the party of the other birds, however. Maybe they know they aren't welcome...

Hi Mr. Goose! I'm sorry there's no water for you to swim in right now.  

Still, I think these pictures are interesting as they foraged for whatever food they could find...

Looks like something must've gotten their attention! They are all facing the same way!

Except for Mr. Goose...something else has his attention:

I think these are his two lady friends...

Well, everyone is back to doing their own thing again...but wasn't it nice to see them all being cooperative with each other for a while? Gives us hope for our world in 2026...

Now, switching gears for a minute to a new location... Remember when I showed you these pictures HERE at the Kenwood Boat Ramp in October?

Well, we took a little ride down there this morning, and THIS is what it looks like now!

I don't think they need to worry about hitting any manatees in that water now...

However, don't be alarmed. This is NOT because of the drought!  This waterway is connected to a large dam and reservoir, and they do a "drawdown" of the water every few years to help restore the waters. Here is a link to more information: Rodman Reservoir Drawdown 2025

Even though we knew this was happening, it was still quite a shock to us to see it like this...

This is a close up of the area at the end of that canal above, which was a big lake before and a great place for fishing before the drawdown:

If you really want to know more about the controversy surrounding this place, here is an interesting article that gives you more information than you probably really want to know, but for some you may find it interesting: https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/12/11/rodman-drawdown-exposes-the-beauty-of-floridas-lost-springs/   That particular article doesn't paint our Governor in a very favorable light, and I must say on this subject I tend to agree with them, but in everything else he's been a remarkable Governor. Of course, I don't know all the ins and outs of this whole subject, but I would like to see the Ocklawaha River restored to its original beauty and place.  When man starts messing with nature, a lot of natural beauty is destroyed.  But that's all I will say on that subject. It will be interesting to see what develops on this subject in the future. 

I will close this post with this Psalm...I was going to just quote a few verses, but they are all so good I decided to include the whole thing. It just seems appropriate for all we are facing in this day and time.

Psalm 33

"1 Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous;

it is fitting for the upright to praise him.

2 Praise the Lord with the harp;

make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.

3 Sing to him a new song;

play skillfully, and shout for joy.

4 For the word of the Lord is right and true;

he is faithful in all he does.

5 The Lord loves righteousness and justice;

the earth is full of his unfailing love.

6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,

their starry host by the breath of his mouth.

7 He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;

he puts the deep into storehouses.

8 Let all the earth fear the Lord;

let all the people of the world revere him.

9 For he spoke, and it came to be;

he commanded, and it stood firm.

10 The Lord foils the plans of the nations;

he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.

11 But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,

the purposes of his heart through all generations.

12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,

the people he chose for his inheritance.

13 From heaven the Lord looks down

and sees all mankind;

14 from his dwelling place he watches

all who live on earth—

15 he who forms the hearts of all,

who considers everything they do.

16 No king is saved by the size of his army;

no warrior escapes by his great strength.

17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;

despite all its great strength it cannot save.

18 But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,

on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,

19 to deliver them from death

and keep them alive in famine.

20 We wait in hope for the Lord;

he is our help and our shield.

21 In him our hearts rejoice,

for we trust in his holy name.

22 May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,

even as we put our hope in you."

Amen!

Oh, one more thing...thank you to all who commented on my previous post HERE. Some wondered about the Black Eyed Peas that we ate, and I should've said that what I made was called "Hoppin' John", which is a recipe that adds a few things to the black eyed peas to make them more tasty.  Here is a recipe I found online that is pretty similar to how I made mine, except I cheated and used canned Blackeyed Peas, so I didn't have to soak them and cook them all day.  Other than that, I did add the onions, green peppers and celery and some smoked ham, plus some seasonings to give it a little more flavor. We don't eat a lot of hot spicy foods, so my seasonings were pretty mild (not cajun, like this recipe).  Just a little garlic and a slight bit of cayenne pepper along with salt and black pepper. Everyone's tastes are different, so some make like it with a bit more "heat" than we do.  And we served it over white rice, but any other rice is fine too. It was very good!

Hoppin' John Recipe for New Year's

Happy New Year's again dear friends!!  

A Very Special Day!

 

Here's some words of Wisdom from God's Word for today:

Psalm 33, NKJV

"The Sovereignty of the Lord in Creation and History"

"1 Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous!

For praise from the upright is beautiful.

2 Praise the Lord with the harp;

Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings.

3 Sing to Him a new song;

Play skillfully with a shout of joy.

4 For the word of the Lord is right,

And all His work is done in truth.

5 He loves righteousness and justice;

The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,

And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

7 He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap;

He lays up the deep in storehouses.

8 Let all the earth fear the Lord;

Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.

9 For He spoke, and it was done;

He commanded, and it stood fast.

10 The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;

He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect.

11 The counsel of the Lord stands forever,

The plans of His heart to all generations.

12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,

The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.

13 The Lord looks from heaven;

He sees all the sons of men.

14 From the place of His dwelling He looks

On all the inhabitants of the earth;

15 He fashions their hearts individually;

He considers all their works.

16 No king is saved by the multitude of an army;

A mighty man is not delivered by great strength.

17 A horse is a vain hope for safety;

Neither shall it deliver any by its great strength.

18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,

On those who hope in His mercy,

19 To deliver their soul from death,

And to keep them alive in famine.

20 Our soul waits for the Lord;

He is our help and our shield.

21 For our heart shall rejoice in Him,

Because we have trusted in His holy name.

22 Let Your mercy, O Lord, be upon us,

Just as we hope in You."

Amen!

Oh Wow! Today is going to be a busy day in our nation!  It's Inauguration Day!!! And it's also a holiday, Martin Luther King Day, so I think it's wonderful that schools are closed and so are many businesses and government offices, so that everyone can watch the Inauguration!  I'm thankful to hear that they have moved it to an indoor space because of the severely cold weather, but also I believe it is for security. Sadly, what should be a great day of celebration could easily turn into something terrible, so I pray for the peaceful transition of power and a day of joyful celebration for everyone. I also pray for our new President and his family and his cabinet and staff, that God will protect them and guide them in every way. Amen.

So, how are you going to spend this day? Will you be able to watch the Inauguration?  I hope to be able to, and if not LIVE, then later on YouTube.  Today is also our Bible Study day, which starts at 1:00, which would probably make it hard for me to watch it live. However, I am most likely not going to go to Bible Study today because I'm not really feeling quite up to par. Yesterday I had a difficult day with some "tummy issues", and had to stay home from church, and today, although that situation is mostly resolved, the aftermath has still left me feeling not too "stable" in that department, without going into details, and so I'm thinking it would probably be best for me to just stay home and let my body recover quietly.  

I wanted to thank everyone again for your prayers for my brother in law Art and my sister Doris. I did talk to them the other day, and although Art is very sore from that crazy and unexpected accident, he is very thankful not to have been injured much worse. He's almost 81 years old and already has back and heart issues, so it could have ended much differently.  So we give thanks to the Lord for His mercy and grace and protection.  And Doris is getting over her bout with pneumonia day by day, praise God!

Also, in my last post I shared with you about getting a new camera. Here's a picture of Lily Grace and me, both decked out with our cameras and ready to go taking pictures of anything and everything!  However, I have decided to return the camera and get my money back.  After trying to take pictures of all things great and small, I've determined it doesn't work the way I want it too and it doesn't have the same quality as my old camera.  And after changing the batteries in the old camera it seems to be working better, so I've decided to just stick with the old one for now, and if it dies on me I will replace it with another refurbished one just like it for about $25.00 bucks on eBay, and save ourselves a bunch of money. That's where I got that particular camera in the first place, which replaced the original refurbished one just like it that was given to my by my brother (who worked for Kodak), because he felt sorry for me for being the only person left on the planet who was still using a camera with real film and not a digital one! LOL.  So anyway, I have 30 days to return the new camera to Walmart, and so I've decided to do that and be thankful that my old one decided to resurrect itself with the new batteries! (It's very particular about the kind of batteries I use, apparently!)

Now, I must apologize for so many pictures of me...I hope you will indulge me for this next part of this post. On Saturday I received another special package! It was a total surprise, totally unexpected...this beautiful sweater was hand knitted by one of our very special blogging friends, who will remain unnamed but she knows who she is.  

When this package arrived in the mail I suddenly realized what it was going to be as this person had casually mentioned in one of her posts that she was knitting a sweater for someone as a surprise...and I never dreamed it could be for me!

In case you can't tell, my eyes were very teary eyed in these photos that I asked hubby to take so I could share them with this dear friend, so she'd know it arrived and how surprised I am to receive it.

I called my friend to tell her how surprised and thankful I was.  I really do not feel worthy of such a special gift. There's nothing that I've done to deserve such a wonderful blessing.  But you know, isn't that just like Jesus?  

Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us:

"8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 

9 not of works, lest anyone should boast."

Our Pastor has often used this little acronym to explain GRACE to us:

There's nothing we can do to earn God's salvation...it is a FREE gift, the unmerited favor of God. Why? Because He loves us...it's that simple. Christ died for us so that we could have eternal life...we can't earn our way to heaven...there aren't enough good works in the world that will ever make us good enough to cover our sins and make us pure and holy and righteous...Only a Pure and Holy and fully Righteous Savior can do that for us.  All we have to do is accept this gift and believe that Christ died for us, and we will be saved.

I am wearing this beautiful sweater right now, because it is only about 37 degrees here in Florida today, and it's going to be a very cold week!  Somehow my friend, who lives far away in a much colder climate, knew this, and wanted me to have this sweater in time for the cold weather! Wow! Isn't that just like our Lord? He knows what we are going to need even before we know it and He sends it to us with so much love.  I am still trying to get my head around this.  All I can do is say Thank you, to my friend, and Thank YOU, to my Lord.

While I was feeling so punky yesterday I drank a special cup of an herbal tea that was meant to help my situation, and I noticed this little tag line:

That kind of goes along with this verse from Luke 6:43-45~

"For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. 45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks."

And this was another tagline that was on a previous cup of tea, but it got a tea stain on it, so I apologize, but it spoke to my heart as well...

Friendship is like a sheltering tree...something that covers us and gives us shade from the heat of the day, and gives us comfort.

I thank the Lord for this special friend (whom I've never met in person), and for so many others who bless me every day with your posts and your kind words and comments and the love that you show for others as well. Thank you for being such a loving and caring community of friends. I am blown away by the love I've received through this community over the years.  Wow!

Okay, dear ones, it's time to go watch the Inauguration activities...A very special and historic day.  

God bless America!!

Friday Foto Friends~Happy Thoughts and Blessings

 Where did this week go?  Wow! and what a week it was!! I know it has been a pretty exciting and nail-biting kind of week, but we all got through it, and now we continue to pray for our country and our new President elect and his family, and that all will go smoothly during this period of transition.  Regardless of which side of the aisle we are on, may we come together in unity and prayer for the good of our nation.  "One Nation, UNDER GOD, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL!" Amen!

I posted this picture of the sunrise yesterday morning on Facebook and said, 

"The dawning of a new day".

And then I shared this Psalm, which I think is very appropriate for our nation right now.  May we read it prayerfully and consider what God has done and is doing in our midst.

Psalm 33 NKJV

The Sovereignty of the Lord in Creation and History

1 Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous!

For praise from the upright is beautiful.

2 Praise the Lord with the harp;

Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings.

3 Sing to Him a new song;

Play skillfully with a shout of joy.

4 For the word of the Lord is right,

And all His work is done in truth.

5 He loves righteousness and justice;

The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,

And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

7 He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap;

He lays up the deep in storehouses.

8 Let all the earth fear the Lord;

Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.

9 For He spoke, and it was done;

He commanded, and it stood fast.

10 The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;

He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect.

11 The counsel of the Lord stands forever,

The plans of His heart to all generations.

12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,

The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.

13 The Lord looks from heaven;

He sees all the sons of men.

14 From the place of His dwelling He looks

On all the inhabitants of the earth;

15 He fashions their hearts individually;

He considers all their works.

16 No king is saved by the multitude of an army;

A mighty man is not delivered by great strength.

17 A horse is a vain hope for safety;

Neither shall it deliver any by its great strength.

18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,

On those who hope in His mercy,

19 To deliver their soul from death,

And to keep them alive in famine.

20 Our soul waits for the Lord;

He is our help and our shield.

21 For our heart shall rejoice in Him,

Because we have trusted in His holy name.

22 Let Your mercy, O Lord, be upon us,

Just as we hope in You.

Amen!

And now, moving right along to what else has been going on around us here in our neck of the woods...

Not a whole lot. Hubby and I have been still a little bit recovering from that bad cold or whatever it was that hit us after our trip to the mountains.  We are MUCH better, praise God, but still have a little bit of a cough now and then and sinus issues, which I think are probably a kind of seasonal sinusitis that just comes with the season.  Hopefully, if the weather would cooperate and cool back down a bit and get rid of this warm, muggy, cloudy humid weather, we will feel a whole lot better.  I see that a cooler weather pattern is on its way next week, so that is encouraging.  

One good thing from this week (among others), our son Scott came home on Tuesday to vote and do his laundry and visit with us! I was so proud of him to take the afternoon off from work and make the hour and a half drive here so he could vote. This is still his permanent residence, but he stays in Jacksonville during the week, where he rents a room from a friend, so he can work in that area. It's always nice to see his smiling face come through the door:

Of course one of his first questions was, "Is there any Halloween Candy left over?"  LOL. Some kids just never grow up, and YES, I saved a bag of candy just for him because I knew he would be looking for it! LOL.

Scott wasn't our only visitor this week...this pretty young kitty stopped by and looked in our back porch door to see who was inside.

What a sweet face!  I've never seen this kitty before in the neighborhood, and she looks fairly young.

I took pictures so that if I see where anyone has posted pictures on our community lost and found pets, I can at least say I've seen her here in our neighborhood.

She soon took off and I haven't seen her since, but if she comes back I could be tempted to keep her! She just has such a sweet face!  But then again...no, I really don't need or want a cat...but then again...

Let's see, what else has been going on?  The kids (Benton and Rose and the grandpups) came over last night and we had pizza for supper.  We hadn't seen them ever since we came home from our trip, since we were sick, so it was so nice to see them all again.  I didn't take any new pictures, but you know what they look like by now! LOL.  Anyway, Rose brought me this magazine that she picked up in the mountains,

And inside were tucked all the leaves we gathered together while we enjoyed walking around the beautiful property where we stayed!  I was so happy she had done that!

These long leaves we had to look up to find out what kind of tree they came from, and I think they belong to a "sourwood tree"

Have you ever heard the song "Sourwood Mountain"?  I remember singing it many years ago...

Apparently the Bonanza fellas sang it one time, so you can listen to it in this video, and here's the lyrics below (their version may be a little different, but it's fun to hear)

Sourwood Mountain

Chickens a'crowin' on Sourwood Mountain

Hey Ho Diddle-aye-day

So many pretty girls I can't count 'em

Hey Ho Diddle-aye-day

My true love's a sun-burnt daisy

Hey Ho Diddle-aye-day

If I don't get her I'll go crazy

Hey Ho Diddle-aye-day

My true love's at the head of the holler

Hey Ho Diddle-aye-day

She won't come and I won't foller

Hey Ho Diddle-aye-day

Big dog'll bark and little one'll bite you

Hey Ho Diddle-aye-day

Big girl will court and the little one spite you

Hey Ho Diddle-aye-day

Chickens a'crowin' on Sourwood Mountain

Hey Ho Diddle-aye-day

So many pretty girls I can't count 'em

Hey Ho Diddle-aye-day

I sang this song while we were collecting our leaves together, at least the parts I could remember.  We had such a fun time.

We girls, including the grandpuppies, had a great time walking and finding the leaves...as you can see, there were many different kinds of trees to choose from!

It was a perfect time for leaf gathering...

I'm trying to figure out a way to preserve them better for the future, but haven't come up with any great idea yet...maybe you can help me?  

Maybe I could put some in a picture frame or something.  I don't know, but for now, we will just enjoy them there as is.

Oh, the Memorial Rose continues to bloom and smell so delightfully sweet. I did send our daughter in law Nicole a picture of it on her 50th birthday this week, and she did respond and appreciated it very much.  I wish I could've sent it to her for real so she could smell it, but I'm afraid it wouldn't have made the trip to Maine intact.  But she appreciated the thought behind it and we were able to wish her a happy birthday.  We continue to pray for Nicole and our grandson Noah, as they move on with their lives without our dear son Matthew,  who has been in heaven over 10 years now. (Still hard for us to believe that!)   That's why this rose is so significant, as it was originally planted right after he passed away.

Oh,  my goodness! I was looking for a good way to close out this post, and I turned to this little devotional calendar for today to see what it had to say, and would you look at this?

I think God had that planned all along! I never saw this until right now! Wow! Talk about God putting things together...

That leaves me rather speechless! So I will just say thank you all for reading along and for being such dear friends.  And may we always have "beautiful roses in (our) hearts".

Have a blessed and beautiful day and weekend.