4th Day of Christmas on Still Waters Pond

 It's been a while since I shared any pictures from Still Waters Pond with you.  I've been so caught up with Christmas and all that is involved with that, and you'd think that there was nothing else going on around us. But oh no!  All of God's creation is still very much alive and active here in our neck of the woods, or pond.  So how about we switch gears for a little while and see who has been visiting our pond and/or yard lately, okay?  Some of these pictures may be a couple of weeks old. I've been saving them up, so bear with me and enjoy the view!

I'll start with our latest feline visitor to our yard.  I call him/her?? Pretty Kitty.  He loves to lay in our butterfly garden and watch the birds all around him. I don't want him trying to catch/kill our birds, but cats will be cats, and this may be his only way of survival. I don't know who he belongs to, but he looks healthy.  He just enjoys exercising his predatorial instincts.  I haven't actually ever seen him catch anything, but he sure tries.  If I go out to talk to him he runs into the woods, so I can't get close. 

This evening he was actually bold enough to sit up on our back porch railing!

That is, until he saw me looking at him through the glass doors...

So he moved over to get further away from me, but still kept checking to see where I was...

I took this picture through my room with a view window. It's not quite as clear because this window has some sun film on it so it's not so bright in my eyes.  I don't like it, but if I take it off the glare is too much and I don't want to have to close the blinds, or I might miss something, like "Pretty Kitty"!

Shortly after this picture he took off to go do some hunting elsewhere.  

One day we had just come home from the store, and as I stepped out of the car I could hear the loud raucous call of the Pileated Woodpecker up in the trees. I had to run in the house and get my "real camera" with the zoom lens so I could try to find him.  By the time I came outside I could hear him farther away in the trees over behind the new house next door. Thankfully no one lives there yet, so I ran over there and started searching the treetops for this huge prehistoric looking woodpecker!

Sure enough, there he was, pecking away in the treetops.  Actually, there were two of them, as I saw them following each other from tree to tree! Here are a few of the better pictures I managed to get.

It's always a treat to see these beautiful creatures!  I'm so glad they stayed around long enough for me to get a few pictures!

Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird have been popping in and out, checking out the birdhouse to make sure no one else is squatting in there!  They probably won't be ready to move back in until early spring, but they do like to keep "abreast" of the situation!

Isn't he beautiful?

Mrs. Bluebird lets Mr. Bluebird do all the major inspections.

She's sitting in the tree, while he's on top of the house checking out the roof, like any good husband should!

It will be fun to have them back building their nests again!

The Sand Hill Crane family fly in and out periodically, checking around for any birdseed or other tasty treats...

Pretty Kitty is sitting there on the shore, watching the Canada Geese in the water.  Do you see the goose?

Honk Honk!  The geese know to stay out of reach of Pretty Kitty. 

When the kitty started to stalk them, crawling toward the water, the geese swam far out into the pond out of reach.

And Yay! Our black and white Ring Necked Ducks are back!  They have been coming back each winter to Still Waters Pond, and they are so much fun to watch. They are diving ducks, and it often looks like they are playing Marco Polo, bobbing up and down as they dive under looking for food and pop back up again.  I LOVE that they come back here each year!

So far I'm only seeing four of them, but that could change.

They prefer the smoother waters in the back part of the pond where there aren't as many lily pads to impede their swimming.  Can't say as I blame them.  Don't we all prefer to take the easier way when we can?

That's about all of the excitement on the pond for now, but things usually ramp up after the holidays, when the geese and the cranes start thinking about building nests and claiming their territories. So stay tuned.  Things could get more interesting.

Now I am thinking about the fact that it is almost the end of 2024, and it's time to consider what my "One Word" for 2025 will be.  I honestly don't have a clue at this moment. Strength was my word for 2024, and one thing I learned is this:

2 Corinthians 12:9-10  NKJV

"9 And He (Jesus) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

I translate that to say that in my own strength, I am nothing. It is only through God's strength that I am able to do anything.  My body is weak at best, but when I need strength to do whatever it is that God is asking me to do, He gives me His strength to carry on. It would be wonderful to have the physical stamina of a marathon runner, or the strength of a power weight lifter.

 

Habakkuk 3:18-19 NKJV

"18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will joy in the God of my salvation.

19 The Lord God is my strength;

He will make my feet like deer’s feet,

And He will make me walk on my high hills."

Psalm 3:2-4 NJKV

2 Many are they who say of me,

“There is no help for him in God.” Selah

3 But You, O Lord, are a shield for me,

My glory and the One who lifts up my head.

4 I cried to the Lord with my voice,

And He heard me from His holy hill. Selah

It is God who gives me my strength and stamina. He is the One who lifts up my weary head and provides a shield around me for protection from my enemies. He gives me the ability to keep moving forward when my weary body would like to just lay down and give up. Although sometimes that is exactly what we have to do to restore our strength.

Psalm 23:1-3a

23 The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not want.

2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside the still waters.

3 He restores my soul;

And that brings me back home...here at Still Waters Pond..."beside the still waters", where He restores my soul...and body I might add.  That's the journey I've been on...letting go and letting God be the One who restores and builds my strength, and helps me to understand that it's His strength all the while...not my own. When I rely on Him and His strength, then His strength is made perfect in my weakness...and then I am strong!  

I still don't have a clue about what the new "One Word" is going to be, but I have a feeling it will be a good one.  So stay tuned and maybe you'll discover it about the same time as I do! Meanwhile, do YOU choose a word for each year? I'm wondering how you go about it.  For me it is a process of listening to God's voice as He whispers in my ear the things He wants me to learn in the days ahead...and that's how He directs me toward the word for the year.  I usually try to announce it on or around January 1, so we shall see what develops in these next few days.

Meanwhile, gotta go. Tomorrow will be a busy day. Hubby is preaching in Florahome (but he teaches our adult Sunday School class here at our church first, and since their service doesn't start quite as early as ours, we have time to drive up there after Sunday School and be there in plenty of time for their church service.)   Then after church we are coming back home and our son Scott is bringing steaks to grill for lunch, to celebrate Rose's 50th birthday and also a kind of Christmas gift as well.  So it will be a nice afternoon. I pray Rose is feeling good enough to eat a steak after being sick for a few days.  If not, she can save it for later, but I have a feeling she'll be hungry and ready for it.

Good night friends. I hope your weekend and Sunday are filled with joy and blessings too.

Thursday Thankfulness and Friday Foto Friends

I know, I know, it's Friday already, so what's with the "Thursday Thankfulness" title?  Well, believe it or not I tried to get this started last night, but didn't get very far, so now here it is Friday evening at 7:15 and I'm just getting back to it! I started out without many pictures, but seem to have accumulated a few more as the day has progressed, so just bear with me while I take you along for the "ride", or walk, or conversation...

Hope your week has been wonderful...Ours has been busy, hence why I am so late in posting.  Here's where I started out last night...

Perhaps YOU should be thankful that I am not your florist! LOL. I picked this bouquet of wildflowers one day this week when we went for a walk.  

It is a mixture of Coral Vine, wild Lantana, Wild Poinsettia and some other little yellow daisy type of flower.  

They were growing wild and free and I wanted to bring some home with me to enjoy for a few days, until the flowers started dropping and the water started getting smelly...you know how that is...LOL.  Those little pink coral vine flowers basically dropped all over the place, but they were still beautiful and a pleasure to watch on my kitchen counter above the sink.  

I could have picked some more tonight when we went for a walk in the same place, 

but decided to just leave them for the bees and butterflies to enjoy...

I had to "wade" through some pretty tall, thick grasses/weeds to get this close, and didn't have my good camera with me, so these pictures aren't as great as I'd like them to be, but you get "the picture" anyway I hope.  

As I rounded the house to the back yard to do some watering because it has been so dry again the past few days, I noticed the Sand Hill Crane Family out on "Crane Island", enjoying their evening supper.

They did stop to watch me from a distance, I'm sure they were hopeful that I'd throw out some birdseed for them.

But I mostly was enjoying the way the sun was setting behind the trees and lighting up the surroundings in a beautiful golden light.

I watered the plants...

I've been enjoying this geranium that is blooming on the porch!  

And I love the way the sun was filtering through the trees to the "Secret Memorial Garden".

I was VERY excited to see a bud on the Don Juan Memorial Rose bush...the first one in well over a year! I thought it had died away for sure, but kept watering and pruning (and even fertilized it once), and praying it would bloom again.  A few weeks ago we had a friend doing some weed-whacking and trimming for us, and unbeknownst to me, he whacked this plant back down to the roots! I was really upset when I saw it, but didn't say anything.  But guess what? That must be what it needed, because it started growing new leaves and stems, and now there is a bud!  I am hopeful that it will bloom in time for my birthday next Wednesday! That would be a real blessing if it did, since this is the rosebush that was planted in memory of our son Matthew in 2014. We brought it here with us when we moved to this house in 2019, and at first it did fine, but like I said about a year and a half ago it just quit blooming.  I guess it just needed to take a break and rest for a while and regain its strength.  I think I understand that, don't you?  Perhaps there's a lesson there for us! 

 

Psalm 27:14

"Wait for the Lord; Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord!"

I will keep you posted on further developments.

Speaking of waiting on the Lord and being strong again...one thing we did this week was mow the lawn. Although we don't have a huge yard, what we have is very bumpy, hilly, and sandy, and not a lot of good grass, but what is there has to be kept mowed or it will become overwhelming. This section of the yard it what I've chosen to do with the push mower.  A year ago I could not do this at all because of my shoulder, neck, and back issues.  But little by little I have regained some strength, and now I am very thankful to be able to do this again.  It is truly an answer to prayer.  (Strength is my "One Word" for 2024)

Hubby does all of the front yard with the riding mower, which is fine with me. We can't use the riding mower on the back yard because it is so sloped and uneven.  So he does all the other areas that are on flatter ground. This below is the driveway and front area of the house. We don't really have a lot of grass there because of the oak trees.  There are more acorns and leaves than grass, but what is there has to be cut. We do not have a paved driveway or sidewalks...just a lot of sand, which gets tracked into the house, but that's another story for another time! LOL.

He also mows this lot, which is where our septic/drain field is.  However, because the drain field is above ground, it is a mound with some sloping sides that he cannot do with the riding mower, so I also do those sides with the push mower. It is a self-propelled mower, but that really doesn't mean much if you ask me. I still have to push it, and it isn't easy, but I am determined to do it to help strengthen my arms and back.  However, I will admit that it takes me a couple of days to recover!

I am truly thankful to be able to do this again! It really is an answer to prayer.

What else did we do this week? Well, let's see, on Wednesday hubby had a doctor's appointment in Gainesville for some routine tests,  which is about an hour's drive away. So we made it there actually a few minutes early, and thankfully they took him right in. We were back out of there within about a half hour, and back on the road home around 10:00 a.m.  We got into our hometown around 10:50 (there wasn't as much traffic as in the early ride over), and decided to go to True Grits, a local restaurant,  for an early lunch.

We used to go there all the time after church, but they started getting too busy and couldn't handle our larger groups of people from church, so we quit going there.  However, on a week day, before noon, it wasn't very busy, and we enjoyed a good "senior discount" lunch of Country Fried Steak, Mashed Potatoes with white gravy, and fried okra, and a biscuit. It was only $6.99 (plus beverage)  What else would you expect at a place called "True Grits"?  Well, yes, they do serve grits with breakfast, but we didn't want breakfast.  And they call it "True Grits" actually after the John Wayne movie of the same name, and there are many pictures of John Wayne in the restaurant.  It's a nice place...I just wish they weren't so crowded on Sundays! LOL.

And speaking of restaurants and going out to eat after church, we are planning to go out this Sunday to my favorite place here in our little town, "Hog Wild Country Cafe'".  We plan to go with our kids, including Scott, to celebrate my birthday a few days early since Scott can't be here during the week.

Here's a picture of hubby and me there a couple of years ago,  obviously when it was a bit cooler outside, hence the fire inside! I don't expect there to be a fire this weekend! Even though our mornings have been in the low 70's this week (even down to 69 one morning!), it still warms up to the high 80's in the afternoon, so I'm sure there won't be any fire in the wood stove yet! But there will be warmth in our hearts to be together with our family (and maybe some friends from church, we will see if any want to go there on Sunday) We always have a good time there.

Oh, back to the back yard this evening...The Sand Hill Crane family DID finally come across the pond to visit, hoping for some treats, and they did happen to find some bird seed on the ground...

This is "Abe" below, the very grown up "colt".  He is finally getting his red topknot on his head, and it's getting harder and harder to tell him apart from his parents.  He will probably still be hanging around with them for a couple more months, but I expect he will have to go out on his own most likely around Christmas, if not sooner.  Then it will be interesting to see if Mom and Dad Crane decide to build another nest this winter out on "Crane Island".  Time will tell, and we'll be watching for sure.

Well, with that I think I will close for the night. It is now 8:19 p.m. So that only took an hour to write! LOL.

Here's some good thoughts from my devotional reading tonight:

Psalm 121:7-8

New International Version

"7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—

He will watch over your life;

8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore."

And with those comforting thoughts, I will say good night and may God be with you always.

Amen.