Tuesday 4~Rainy Days and Mondays

 Rainy Days and Mondays

Welcome to Tuesday 4
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We've had a lot of rain recently and it got me wondering about some things.


Could we discuss it please?


1.Do rainy days and/or Mondays really get you down? If so why?

No, not really. I actually enjoy rainy days, when we have them. We just haven't had enough of them this year to even begin to get tired of.  And Monday's don't get me down either, especially now that I am retired. I actually enjoy them as a day to begin a new week with a fresh clean slate.


2. Does thunder and lightning frighten you at all?
How about your dog or cat and what do you do to help them out?

I have a healthy respect for thunder and lightning. Here in Florida we are the lightning capital of the country, I believe, and lightning is quite dangerous and should be treated as such. This was on Facebook a few days ago:

 I do love to watch it from a distance, however, and I even took some pictures this past week that I already shared on my last post, but just in case you missed this one, here it is again...   I took this picture from our front porch, but be assured the lightning was quite far away from us. However, they say it can strike up to 10 miles away, so we still have to be careful.

Regarding my cat Blackie, he does not like thunder and lightning, and I've noticed that he will find a place to hide his face and head when there's a lot of thunder going on.  I may have shared this photo before, but it's been a while. This was Blackie hiding his head under the couch when we had a lot of thunder and lightning...

3. If you are at home on a dark, rainy day what do you do with your time? Some find it a good day to cuddle up with a cuppa and read or watch TV.. what is your preference?

Oh yes, I love to spend a dark rainy day reading if I have a good book to read. If not, sometimes I like to bake cookies on a rainy day (or something else that smells really good).

If you click on this link, I think it will take you to a lot of old posts for things to do on a Rainy Afternoon.  Apparently I've thought a lot about this over the years, because there are quite a few different posts there! LOL.I'd forgotten about a few of them, so I was glad I went back and checked them out!! Some sweet memories there.


4.Ever been caught in a downpour or has rain ever ruined your plans?

Oh, yes, I've been caught in plenty of downpours over the years. Living in Florida, that can be quite often throughout the summer months, but sadly, not this summer.  I'm sure rain may have ruined some plans sometime or other, but right now I can't think of anything in particular that's worth writing about!

Update...I just remembered a time when I was caught in a downpour. I was only about 7 or 8 years old. I had been at our Summer Recreation program at our school and I was waiting for a neighbor lady to pick me up to take me home. I waited and waited and she didn't show up, so I thought I could just walk home. We lived about 3 miles from the school, out a very long country road, but I had to pass through a less desirable part of town to get to the highway that led to our long country road. All of a sudden it started to pour down rain in a bad thunderstorm. The only shelter I could see was a little overhang over the door of a saloon.  I knew I shouldn't go there, but it was the only shelter I could see, so I stood under that covering for a minute, and a man stepped outside and asked me if I wanted to come inside. I knew I couldn't do that or I would be in big trouble, so I yelled, "NO!" and I started running away in the rain. I kept running and probably had gotten about a mile when the lady who was supposed to pick me up pulled up on the highway beside me and told me to get in the car. I was soaken wet and scared and crying by that time.  She took me home, and I don't remember much after that because I'm sure my mother was at work so I don't know if the neighbor left me alone at my house or took me to her house to dry off. That's all a blur. I just know my parents were very unhappy with me for leaving the school before the neighbor picked me up, but they were all very thankful that I was safe, even though very wet and scared. I didn't know it then, but I know now that God was certainly watching over me even when I was being disobedient and foolhardy. I am very thankful for His guardian angels who certainly had a difficult job in guarding me! LOL. 

Bonus question: Why do Mondays seem to be so unpopular with so many?

I suppose Mondays are unpopular for people who hate to see the weekend come to an end and to have to go back to work or school and get back to the "grind". There have been times in my life when I hated to see Monday come because I didn't particularly like my work or else I just was enjoying the weekend so much I hated to see it end.  But for the most part, I've been thankful to have a job to go to and/or I also enjoyed being at school back in the day so I could be with my friends. I guess it's all about attitude and perspective.  I am mostly a happy person, so I make the most of whereever I am.  

I cheated a bit and asked the computer to give me some Bible verses about rain, and here's the results:

Top Bible Verses About Refreshing Rain

Psalm 68:9
"You sent abundant rain, O God, to refresh the weary land."
Psalm 72:6
"May he be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth."
Hosea 6:3
"He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rains that water the earth."
Acts 3:19
"Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord."
Deuteronomy 32:2

"Let my teaching fall like rain and my speech distill like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants."
 

That gives us some more "food for thought" on the subject of rain.  I hope you are having a blessed and refreshing day wherever you are, rainy or not! It's hot and dry here right now (Monday afternoon at 3:30 p.m.), but upon looking at my phone weather app, it says we are expecting rainy conditions around 6:00 p.m., so I will wait and see if I can get any new pictures at that time before publishing this post.

A little later:

Well, Glad I waited! We did indeed get quite a powerful thunderstorm around 5:30 p.m.  It was quite windy in addition to the heavy rain and thunder and lightning.  We had just put Blackie back out on the porch after he finished his supper, and then there was the rumble of thunder, and he was right back at the glass doors looking in the window to the living room with a big eyes and his ears back, which said to me "Please let me in quick! I heard a big noise out here!! A storm is coming! Hurry up! Let me in!"

I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of that, but I was too busy opening the door and letting him inside.  Just in time, too. The storm really broke loose with a lot of rain and wind.  

And look where he was...if you can't tell, he's in my lap! And just as I was talking to our son on the phone (he called us to ask if it was raining at our house...he lives about a mile away), the power went out!  Yep! The lights went out, the TV went off, and of course the computer shut off as did the air conditioner. Thankfully it wasn't dark yet, but we had no idea how long it would be off.  And so we just sat there and watched the rain and prayed the power wouldn't be off for too long or we'd be getting hot.

Thankfully after about 45 minutes the power came back on and so did everything else. The rain died down and the wind stopped blowing and there was no more thunder or lightning. We survived the big storm, and after a little while Blackie went back to the door and said he was ready to go back outside, and so that's where he is now.  All's well that ends well, and so I will bring this little story about "Rainy Days and Mondays" to an end. It was quite appropriate that it did in fact rain for us on this Monday evening!  Good Night, and see you in the morning when this Tuesday 4 post will go live!!

Thanks Annie, for another great meme for this week!

Wednesday Treasures and Interesting Sightings

 Good Wednesday Evening! In the middle of the week I like to look for some hidden treasures or unusual sightings round about us, and today gave me some interesting things to ponder and share!

I was taking a little bit of a back yard walkabout early this morning, and I noticed these white flowers on a tree alongside Still Waters Pond that I had never seen before!  

So I ventured around the wooded lot until I could get a good vantage point to see what I could see, and here is what I saw:

I wasn't too sure just what this flower/tree was, but my thoughts were that it was definitely a member of the Magnolia family...and so I looked it up using the "Google Lens" feature on my phone, and sure enough, I was right! This is a "Sweetbay Magnolia" tree...and you can read more about that below:

"Sweetbay Magnolia or Silver Bay Magnolia, Magnolia virginiana, is a medium to large tree growing taller than broad up to 70 feet or more. It comes from wetlands and is best located where the soil is always moist. They are NOT adaptable to average to dry soil. The 7 inch leaves are leathery, medium green above and silvery white underneath. The leaves are aromatic if crushed and have been used as a replacement for European Bay Leaf used for seasoning. The sweet smelling large white blooms are 2 to 3 inches across and showy. The flowers attract pollinators to the nectar and birds are attracted to the large red seeds that are contained in the cone like seedpods. This is a beautiful and wildlife friendly tree for areas appropriate for it's requirement of moist soil. Provides significant food and cover for wildlife. It is a larval host plant for Eastern tiger swallowtail and Palamedes butterflies. Attracts beetle and moth pollinators. Turkey, quail and other seed eating birds and small mammals eat the seeds."

After reading all of that, I was happy to find this growing along our shore line of the pond...and I will be looking around to see if there are others growing here as well. It's definitely a tree to "hug". LOL.  

Speaking of trees to "Hug"...it looks like something hugged this pine tree a bit too tightly...namely a strike of lightning!! We remember hearing a very loud crash of thunder with simultaneous lightning one day last week or whenever we last had a thunderstorm pass through.  We knew immediately something had been struck by lightning pretty close by, but there was no visible sign of it that we could see at that time.  However, while I was walking around trying to see those pretty white flowers in that Sweetbay Magnolia tree, I put my hand on the side of this pine tree to steady myself, and my hand touched a lot of fresh pine sap dripping down the side of the tree. I thought that was pretty unusual, until I looked around at the other side of the tree and saw this:

(Does anyone else see a face in the tree next to this one, with a mouth wide open looking at the lightning strike in astonishment? Just wondering if I'm the only one who sees faces in trees and such...)

Here's a closer look:  Yes, that is definitely the result of a lightning strike:

It started way up in the top of the tree and came all the way down to the ground:

That is why they tell you to never stand under a tree in a thunderstorm!  Thankfully this tree is far enough away from our house and the neighbor's house so that even if it fell, it would most likely fall into the pond and away from our houses.  But still, that lightning strike was a bit too close for comfort! We are very thankful that God was definitely watching over us and our home when that happened!

Some thoughts to ponder:

Matthew 24:27 NKJV

For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, 

so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Now for another interesting picture from the back yard...our "little" beefsteak tomato is growing bigger every day! And hopefully with every new blossom, this one will soon have some "friends".  Who doesn't love a fresh garden beefsteak tomato sandwich...maybe with some bacon and lettuce??? I do hope this tomato will continue to grow and thrive!!

Speaking of thunderstorms...we actually did have a thunderstorm this afternoon, but it was more rain than thunder and I really never saw much lightning.  But we are VERY thankful for the rain, because we truly need it!

Still Waters Pond always drinks up every drop of rain like a thirsty sponge...

And now, last but not least, one more unusual photo for today. Just as I was sitting here at my window in my "Room with a view", I saw two hawks chasing each other around outside across the pond and up into the trees. The first hawk had what appeared to be a snake in his talons, and the other hawk wanted him to share! In this picture you can really only see a blur of wings as one hawk took off again to chase the other. Look carefully at the pattern of the wings in the middle of the picture. It's kind of cool.

I hope you enjoyed these little Wednesday treasures; seeing the beauty and uniqueness in our world around us. God's creation is always full of surprises and wonder. Never a dull moment when we stay tuned in to His power and majesty and beauty in His Creation.

Until next time...

"How Great Thou Art", sung at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem

Have a blessed evening!