107 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 1-17-18”

  1. Good morning everyone but Jo and “Tychicus.
    I hope you’re feeling better Aj.
    It’s snowing in “Greensboro.. It’s supposed to keep snowing most of the day.
    We are in for the day.

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  3. Interesting article Karen.
    But I wish people wouldn’t use phrases like “Suburban Washington”. It could mean Annandale, or Bethesda. And “Dallas area” could mean Fort Worth.
    Every place has a name. (Arlington, just across the river from Washington” would have been better. But it could have been Gaithersburg.)

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  6. Prayers, Yapa.

    It’s 15°, and we have a blanket of snow.
    Son reported on a text that it is 9° in Waco. Just weird. I doubt he even has a heavy coat with him. And Eagle Scouts are suppose to always be prepared.

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  8. Bruce seems to have made a full recovery. We really thought he was dying on Monday morning. Sometimes I think they do this to us just to get attention. Hubby said that the next time he does this, he’s just going to take him on a two-hour car ride.

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  11. It is 19 degrees and the roads are iced over in the Sunny South. I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but I was not made for cold weather. I don’t like winter clothes and therefore have very few.
    Thankfully we cancelled all classes and closed the office today. I am working from home. No reason to change out of flannel pj’s and “cabin socks”. Someone gave the socks to me last Christmas (2016) they are supposed to have lanolin in them that keeps your feet warmer. I think I accidentally washed them in hot water and removed whatever it was, but they are still warm enough for me.

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  12. We are staying put in our house for probably two days at the least. My brother called and said that crazy store expects them to go in to work. They do sell generators, but so far this is not a storm that has taken down trees and left people without power. Brother will not go into that store for minimum wage and risk life and vehicle. I still encourage him to quit that part-time job. They gave him a rough time for being out with the flu over Christmas.

    I bought two small crock pots at J. C. Penney yesterday to help with making healthy meals at work. I went in looking for a lightweight puffer jacket to replace the one I gave the near homeless lady on Christmas Eve. I did not find one. I also wanted to buy a one burner hot plate for cooking at work but got the crock pots when I saw them for buy one/get one for 50% off. They are just right to cook two chicken breasts in one and veggies in the other.

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  13. Kim, I was not made for cold weather, either. I was the fifth child born to my mother (in other words, by the time I was born she knew something about babies) and she reported that most babies scrunch their eyes when the sun lands on their face, but I simply closed mine, that from day one, in effect, I was OK with heat. By the time I was ten, I had gained a reputation for being the one to put on a sweater if it dipped below 70 or 75, and away at school in Missouri at 18 I was nicknamed “Sweaters.”

    Several years into my life in Chicago, in which I dreaded and feared winter, I realized I would be there a few years and might as well do my best to endure it. I asked myself what it would take to “survive” it in the meantime, and I came up with three things: (1) I needed to buy the warmest coat I could possibly find, so that I would never find my wardrobe inadequate (I then paid $200 for a nearly full-length down coat, which was too hot if the temperature was above zero, and thus only got worn a few times most winters and some not at all–but even the fact it was there if I needed it was a comfort); (2) I needed to be sure that my own house was warm enough, and I bought a space heater for use in the drafty, enclosed back porch so that I could still use that room in the winter occasionally; (3) I had no choice but to go to work every day even in snow and cold (though I did get permission to work at home on days that ice was predicted), but for social engagements I determined on only “if the weather permits” RSVPs. That is, people in Chicago find bad weather so normal that they think it is weird that someone might think, “It’s 20 below zero and the snow on the ground has become quite icy, and as much as I would otherwise love to come to your party, if I am going to survive living in Chicago I have to give myself permission to stay home and cuddle up when the weather is like this, for any event other than work or church.” Fellow residents didn’t understand that perspective–but as the third item on my list, I gave myself permission not to care what other people thought on that one. As long as I gave myself that “out” when I gave an RSVP, I wasn’t breaking any promises if I then said 36 hours before the event that I was sorry but the weather predicted for the day of the event was the sort in which I went straight home after work and stayed there.

    It was extremely helpful to me, and though I was eager to get out of Chicago by the time I finally did, those things helped me survive it. When I was leaving Chicago, I sold that long down coat, believing that I would never need it again. I would not visit Chicago in the winter, and I would not live in such a cold climate again.

    Well, never say never. But we get less snow than Chicago does, and I no longer have to go out in the weather daily to get to work, and being married to a good man makes it worth enduring winter as much as I have to do so now. But I still don’t “do” ice, and I gave myself permission not to attend church Sunday because of ice (including our own driveway and probably the roads near church–our church is in a residential neighborhood with on-street parking). And had I not sold that long down coat, I would have had chances to wear it this winter. And, Lord willing, this is the last winter I will spend here, and by next winter we will be in a milder part of Indiana.

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  14. Linda, it sounds like Bruce has just used up one of his nine lives. Thankful he has perked up. Miss Bosley got out on the cold carport this morning. I was able to catch her and pick her up to bring her back inside. I think the cold slowed her down. Normally I would have to crank the car to scare her so she’d run back inside.

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  17. The snow we have is a powder. When I went outside earlier and the wind blew, a lot of the powder blew off from the roof and looked like fog. I don’t think I have ever seen that type of snow here.

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  18. Kim – I prefer winter clothes, as they are cozy. Even Nightingale, who gets cold very easily, enjoys dressing in cozy winter sweaters.

    Cheryl – What did you find scary about the article? Do you think they are not Reformed because of being charismatic, or for some other reason? (I haven’t finished the article yet myself.)

    Linda – I am so happy for you that Bruce is better!

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  19. Today is a snow day for us. Nightingale already had the day off, and The Boy has a snow day from school. Chickadee is here, too, since we childsat last night, but she’s still sleeping.

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  20. Kim, I need to look at that. I was on a strict diabetic weight loss diet some years back so I am doing something similar for us, just adding more flavor like putting BBQ sauce on our chopped up chicken yesterday. Also, we are trying to eat less bread.

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  21. I should have finished that article last night. It is now only a preview, and the “Google trick” doesn’t work. 😦

    If anyone can get the whole article, would you mind copying it and emailing it to me?

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  22. I used to be able to use the Google trick with Christianity Today articles that had expired for public view, but that often doesn’t work anymore.

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  23. My new pastor made a comment on Sunday about the Holy Spirit. He said because we always put the word “the” in front of Holy Spirit that it gives the impression of Holy Spirit being separate from Father God and Jesus. I had never heard that mentioned before. He basically said it is not required for us to distinguish the Holy Spirit by using that “the” title. Probably someone here has an opinion on that.

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  25. Good news, Linda. Animals can be strange that way.

    Whole 30. Son in law and daughter did that as did sis in law. They all said it helped them feel better and get started eating better. Other daughter did it until she fell off the wagon by eating an entire pizza by herself. I suspect she was not eating the good stuff, just starving herself until desperation hit.

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  26. What’s not to like about winter clothes? I’m not particularly fond of summer clothes/colors — I have a friend from church who always wears spring and summer colors year-round so in December she’ll be dressed in white or lavender or pale yellow jackets and pastel scarves.

    Me, I love the darker colors, the rich plaids and hues of fall and winter.

    Cheryl, I like that nickname, “Sweaters”

    Cats are known for kidney problems, I read where they generally drink only a bare minimum of water by nature. So hydration is a common vet treatment for most anything that is ailing them, they almost always (and all) seemingly are in need of that anyway.

    But so glad to hear Bruce is back to himself.

    Now for AJ and Liz ….

    I worked from home yesterday but today it’s back to work. But no ice or snow to deal with and all the trees and flowers still seem to be blooming. But they are talking about possible rain either for the weekend or early next week. Let’s hope, we need all we can get.

    I’m in need of a new, healthier eating plan. As I mentioned, I do not deal with stress well and with all the chaos of the house projects in the past almost two years added to the uncertainty and super-low morale & anxiety at work I’ve put on more than a little weight. 😦 I’m dreading seeing my doctor here in the next couple weeks. I can already tell you what he’ll say. “What happened??”

    “Well, doc, it’s like this …”

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  27. mumsee, so what’s wrong with eating an entire pizza by yourself? A small pizza. When you’re really hungry.

    Publications are starting to get stricter about reader “pay walls.” It’s mostly too little, too late in my view. No one realized when the Internet dawned that our content would be free for so long that people simply got used to not paying for it (I’m included in that).

    Now, some of the newspapers with national reach — NYT, WSJ, etc. — are toughening up and it’s become harder and harder to view their content without paying. I pay for the WSJ but nothing else right now. Time will tell how that all shakes out and whether people will be willing to pay for what they read online. I’d think it will work for some publications (like those mentioned above) but maybe not for most, sadly.

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  29. There are winter and summer clothes???

    I think it was not a small pizza. And I don’t think pizza is allowed on the whole 30, but I don’t know, Just saying what she told me. At midnight she ordered a pizza and ate it all, or two.

    The stress of daughter is not being dealt with properly by me and the weight is also piling on here. The fact that I can no longer go outside at all, prisoner in my own home, has not helped but I should be beyond comfort food. I am not. And husband says, eat and be happy so he buys everything I like but maybe should not be eating.

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  30. Speaking of Christianity Today, and you were, what do people think of that magazine? People here seem to cite it frequently so it must be reasonable. I looked at it maybe thirty years ago and it was way more liberal than I thought necessary.

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  31. Kizzie, a congregation in which people prophesy to one another within the service is not “Reformed.” The word “Reformed” has become trendy, and so it is used in many different settings, but that isn’t Reformed.

    Janice, Holy Spirit is not a name, but a designation, I think. We say “God the Father,” “God the Son,” and “God the Holy Spirit.” In other words, “Holy Spirit” is not equivalent to “Jesus” because Jesus is the human name that God the Son has had since His incarnation.

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  32. I used to subscribe to CT ages ago but haven’t regularly read it in a long time.

    But I’ve seen links (and provided links) to some of their news stories — pieces on church trends, for example — that I have found helpful. I don’t follow “church news” as much as I once did, but it’s helpful (and sometimes startling!) to know what is going on in the broader Christian community.

    Reformed Charismatics? Or is it Charismatic Reformed churches? Either way, strikes me as something of an oxymoron.

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  33. I don’t know why, but Cheryl’s 10:05 reminded me of the time when Jimmy Carter decreed that all government offices would reduce temperatures to prevent global warming (I think it was). Anyhow. The women were especially affected because they didn’t ordinarily wear coats and ties as men did.
    So they wore sweaters. Our secretary tried to type with gloves on.
    I hear that Jimmy Carter was one of our smartest presidents.

    He wore a sweater in the oval office. That was a smart thing to do.

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  34. I heard a recent President kept the heat turned up to seventy eight in the White House, so he could stay warm. I remember when Carter had us all turn the heat down to sixty eight. Which was more concerned about impact on the environment? And stay alive at fifty five was an environmental effort as well.

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  35. ‘Global warming’ has been post-Carter, but now I’m not sure I remember the reasoning behind lowering indoor temps during his presidency — just an all-around perceived energy shortage at the time?

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  38. Cheryl – Could a congregation hold to the traditional Reformed beliefs as in the TULIP acrostic, but still be charismatic? Or is the cessationist view integral to being Reformed? (Btw, I hope you know that I am asking from curiosity, not to argue.)

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  39. Yes, the turning down the thermostats to 68 was to conserve energy. It was also advised to keep air conditioners turned up to 72 (in the summer, of course 😉 ).

    But I was thinking that started under Nixon.

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  40. Cat stuff. The vets are very good at diagnosing bladder problems by feeling. One tried to get me to do it but all I felt was fur. I’m not sure about infections, but the boys are very prone to crystal blockages in their male parts. It’s also true that they drink very little and is one of the reasons our vet recommends moist food instead of dry (the other reason is that the dry makes them fat). On Monday I was tempted to spray water on Brucie so he would lick it off of himself but hesitated because the vet had already told us his temperature was down.

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  41. I have always said my dad, a logger, was the original environmentalist. But really, there were a lot of them. They did not buy to buy, they bought because it was needed. They drove at a speed that was most conducive to saving fuel because they were not spendthrifts. They kept the heat low enough to still be comfortable but not wasteful. My dad does not understand my daughter and her need to be driving all of the time. He says he has told her about the cost of driving and how it is not about paying for the gas, but she drives anyway.

    A lot of the modern environmentalists could learn from them.

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  45. Apparently Birmingham is closed, too, so I got all dressed up and put on MAKE UP for no reason. 🙂

    I’m now struggling to find a comfortable spot for my back. Will probably give up after 10 days and call the doctor this morning. It’s worse and last night I had to take Aleve.

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  46. Kare, in March, Canadians start coming to Myrtle Beach.
    Jimmy Carter is a good man. Not a good president, but a good man.
    He is responsible for the proliferation of CB radios and the truck caravans.
    We had a secretary who would spend her time driving yacking it up with truckers. It was lots of fun for those into it. I wasn’t Though I had a CB radio.

    55 MPH speed limit, for those of you who don’t remember.

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  47. I still rarely heat my house over 68 degrees, always wear a sweater, try to stay at 55 (with limited success) and incorporate some of Carter’s suggested ideas–since I came of age during his presidency and had to face living as an adult.

    I agree, he was a good man but some of his policies were short sighted and like many of us first borns, he thought he knew better than anyone else.

    (I can say that since I suffer from the same maladies).

    I don’t know who the best president was or why. They all have had feet of clay, along with hopeful ideas.

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  48. Kizzie, I have no idea whether a fully cessationist view is considered essential to being Reformed. But I am fairly sure that an elder-led liturgy is. And I would be pretty surprised to find a Reformed person who believes we still have prophets today, with the completion of the canon.

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  52. Mumsee, believing in the sovereignty of God is definitely part of the distinction of being Reformed, and probably the biggest one, actually–but it is not the only one.

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  53. Okay, so why could they not be reformed? Prophesy means truth telling, does it not? Proclaiming the things of God. Doesn’t need to be something new, merely proclaiming the Truth.

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  54. A few days ago, my daughter prophesied that she was going to kill me right then. It did not happen. That prophesy was not from God, therefore, not truth telling. If I say Jesus is coming back, that would be prophesying and it is Truth. If I say He is doing so in ten minutes and eleven minutes go by, it is not Truth.

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  55. Hi all.

    Cheryl is doing better, but working from home today because of the snow. ‘Liz is better too, somewhat. She still sounds a little congested. I’m a little better as well after another night of sweating while freezing. A person should not have to change pajamas twice a night. 😦

    But I did eat some pasta and I’m not gagging and heaving, so that’s improvement. Hopefully the worst is over. 🙂

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  56. Mumsee,

    It’s funny you mention that about cats. Mouse was an outside kitten when we got her. Since we have cast iron radiators, it dries out the humidity in the room so we put a pot of water on the top of one radiator downstairs. It’s Mouses favorite place to drink from when it’s cold. Cheryl calls it her cup of tea. 🙂

    Gemma doesn’t like tea, so she knocked the whole pot off 2 nights ago. Best to keep it full, so she can’t move it again. 🙂

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  63. I scanned the CT article since I have a subscription. I can share if you ask.

    Heat is working better on the back but I’m a skittering cat myself today, not able to stay with anything more than a couple minutes without needing to move. 😦

    Whining done for the moment.

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  68. I couldn’t read Kizzie’s whole article, either, but am starting to piece together a little of what “Reformed” does and doesn’t mean from the dialogue here. I never understood what exactly the term stood for.

    Glad Bruce is doing better, Linda.

    Temperatures are pleasantly mild in the 20s today, and will go up to 30s tomorrow and 40s for the weekend. Nice.

    I don’t like to have to wear winter clothes, but I get so cold without them that I suffer through the discomfort of wearing them in the winter. I would rather wear skirts and short-sleeved tops (without collars) all the time, because pants make my hips ache (and my knees, when sitting), long-sleeved tops make my elbows and forearms ache unless the material is loose, which doesn’t help me keep warm, and turtlenecks, the warmest of all tops, makes, you guessed it, my neck ache.

    So in winter, I’m either cold or achy (or sitting and wearing summery clothes with a blanket over me). But I have to be up and around a lot, which you’d think the extra activity would warm me up, but it doesn’t, so … I just look forward to spring — the warm part of spring.

    I never heard the “stay alive at 55” saying (first I thought that was a reference to indoor temperatures, until I read further), but it reminded me of the apartment I lived in my last year of college. The women already living there had decided that the thermostat would be set to 55° during the day and 50° at night. It was a basement apartment, and uncomfortable as all get out. I was glad to spend most of my days on campus, and as little time as possible in the apartment.

    Hot flashes: totally didn’t glean that from Mumsee’s 2:14. 🙂 I will say that hot flashes in the winter are quite wonderful, though. 😉

    Pizza: gluten-free pizzas are smallish; I can easily eat a whole one myself. Sometimes I’ll save a couple of pieces for my next-day’s breakfast, though, which is kind of fun. There are benefits to being the only gluten-free individual in the family. 🙂

    Michelle, hope your back gets back on track. I would forget about energy conservation and crank the furnace up. If you’re the least bit cold, you might be tensing muscles and making it worse. That might just be me, though, FWIW. YMMV.

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  71. Mumsee, prophecy should be truth telling, but not all truth telling is prophecy. I personally wouldn’t call all predictions prophecy. That is, a prophet claims to be speaking for God and a false prophet was supposed to be put to death in Israel; under that standard, if a man claims “Jesus said He would kill me if I didn’t raise this much money by this date,” then he is a false prophet if it doesn’t come true. (Which it didn’t.)

    I can say that a girl who stays with an abusive boyfriend is going to live to regret it, and I might even say that based on signs I see, if she stays with him she may end up dead. But I am not making a claim of prophecy and not claiming a word from God; I am speaking (in this theoretical case) of likelihood of future events based on present events. I think there is a place for saying to a fellow believer, “You are making choices that are dangerous / wrong, and this is a result that seems to me likely.” And most certainly a person can use applicable Scripture texts to do so. But I can’t see taking time for such conversations during corporate worship, and such conversations are not “prophecy.”

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  73. I guess one has to know what a Charismatic is and what prophecy is and what the Reformed platform is. My cousin is charismatic but she also seems to be quite Reformed. So, I too am curious.

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  74. For those of you who like birds, this is a book I am reading (savoring): https://www.amazon.com/Baby-Birds-Artist-Looks-into/dp/0544206703/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516222989&sr=8-1&keywords=baby+birds+julie+zickefoose

    The author, Julie Zickefoose, looks at 17 species of bird, from the first day of hatching to their being out of the nest. For most of the species, she takes a baby bird out of the nest every day and paints it lifesize, and then paints that same baby again the next day. You learn a lot about a bunch of different species of birds (I was amazed how much I learned about cardinals, the one I just read), and it has hundreds of watercolor paintings of birds in it. And what she did in this book has never been done before. In some cases the bird was orphaned, and so she raised it, and in a couple of cases she based her paintings on photos, not on birds she held in her hand. For the cardinal, she painted birds in their nest and didn’t take them out of the nest. She was extra careful that nothing she did would hurt the birds she painted (leading a predator to them, for instance), and she would feed the baby while she was drawing it, and sometimes would feed the other nestlings, too, if it was bad weather and the parents weren’t finding enough food. But it’s interesting to read how different all the species are in how quickly they develop and so forth, and the paintings are really interesting.

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  77. Two kinds of prophesy: 1/ foretelling the future and/or speaking for God outside of his revealed will 2/ declaring the Word of God as has been revealed in the scriptures.

    Most of us associate the word with the former and I’d say that’s its general, popular understanding for the most part.

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  79. So the plan was to work from home due to the weather. Oh, maybe take an hour or so oh let’s be real more than an hour or so off this afternoon to sit in front of the fire and read a book.
    Here it is a quarter of 5 and I have eaten lunch at my desk, had a Coke and a cup of hot chocolate (Mumsee’s fault) at my desk and I haven’t been able to goof off at all today.,

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  81. Thank you, Cheryl, for what you said about “the” with the Holy Spirit. That makes logical sense.

    I have a subscription to CT but don’t get to read it. I try to take them to the church media center. We have no budget for the media center so I try to bring in some new materials.

    I read the interesting post about the books. It made me wonder where Sarah Young is from and where she was (or is) a missionary.

    Earlier I cooked London Broil. Tonight I will make stir fry veggies with the beef. I like to cook in cold weather. I have not even been to the mail box. I do not want to risk a slip and a break like Art has in his knee. The brace has helped speed healing for him.

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  82. I have heard the word prophecy used in both senses. For that reason it has been a confusing word to me unless someone specifies how it is being used.

    Oh, my. I think I hear a ladder being moved around outside next door. I think, perhaps, the neighbor is taking down outside Christmas lights. It is way too cold to do that job!!! He needs to be sitting by the fire reading a book to his child and enjoying a cup of hot chocolate along with his wife and son. Don’t we all need to do something like that?

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  83. DJ. I would agree on the first definition not being Reformed, but the second? And there are Charismatics that only go with the second. Again, how would they not be able to be Reformed?

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  84. Strangely, I have never read any of the book’s on Cheryl’s list. I’ve only heard of one of them .
    I once read a book called “Thirty Minutes In Heaven” but didn’t get much out of it.
    I thought the “Left Behind” series would be on the list. I read the first book, but none of the rest. I don’t buy the thesis of the series.
    Prophesy is not meant for speculation.

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  85. Re: Reformed- I know of a Sovereign Grace minister who wondered how there could be Reformed Baptists. I think he meant that Reformed would include the main-line Protestant churches, which all hold something of the Roman Catholic liturgical traditions like infant baptism, and Baptists tend not to follow those traditions, never baptizing anyone until there is a confession of faith. So he couldn’t see how the two could be combined.

    Yes, the Sovereignty of God is a key doctrine of being Reformed, but I think the liturgy and infant baptism are the other main ones. So unless a Charismatic stayed in a main-line church, there is no way to say they are Reformed.

    But then there are the Reformed Baptists like Al Martin and Walter Chantry. Hmm.

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  86. Chas, I’m assuming he limited the list to books marketed as nonfiction. If you were going to include fiction, The Shack might be a more obvious choice than Left Behind. (I’m not arguing for the theology in “Left Behind,” but basically it’s simply dispensational theology fictionalized, and thus not necessarily as troublesome as the ones on that list.)

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  87. Re: The 5 books article – I have only read the Prayer of Jabez. My SIL gave it to me for Christmas. The problem it had for me was that it makes a wonderful short prayer of an Old Testament Israelite into a formula for Christians who want blessed. I think it wanted you to say the prayer every day for so many days and then see how God blesses you. My thought was what Jesus said about vain repetitions.

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  89. Somebody gave one of my children Jesus Calling and she gave it to sixteen year old. I moved it out. Somebody else gave one to another child who gave it to me without reading it and I shelved it, I think it is gone now.

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  92. It was the early 70’s when there was an oil shortage that started slower drive speeds and thermostats to be turned down. Carter was president and in some places there were lines at gas stations. I don’t know how much of it was due to environmental issues, although it was just a few years after the first Earth Day.

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  94. Nixon was president during the big energy crisis in ’73-’74, with gas lines and rationing, year-round daylight saving time, and the beginning of the 55 mph national speed limit. Carter came in in ’77, promoted turning down thermostats, and created the Department of Energy.

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  95. Cheryl, that baby birds book looks nice. I just skimmed some of the text, so maybe the author addresses it, but how did she manage to get those baby birds out of the nest and back again without disrupting things? I thought people weren’t supposed to be taking birds out of nests, because don’t parent birds abandon nests where people have tampered? Or is that only with eggs in a nest, or only certain species?

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  96. Am I the only one in the Great Lakes region for whom last night’s exploding meteor was big news?

    People who study that sort of thing believe the meteor was 1-2 yards across. The fireball lit up the sky brighter than a full moon for several seconds a little after 8 pm and was seen from Milwaukee to Pittsburgh. Its sonic boom was heard in much of Southeastern Michigan and shook the ground enough to register 2.0 on seismometers. Then it exploded.

    We were indoors with the curtains shut, but the boom was startling and left us mystified. For the next hour social media was atwitter with “what was that”? Local news stations started covering it about an hour later when they had some answers, and the 11:00 news was about almost nothing else.

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  97. Kevin, I saw a headline about it on my email homepage, but I didn’t click on the article. I’m sure I would have if I’d seen or heard the exploding meteor. (I’m not as far east as that.)

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  104. I would have loved to see that meteor. I see lots of falling stars on my drive up and down the mountain. One time, I was driving the ambulance back from a call, talking with my partner. We saw one streak across the sky, that was so beautiful that it left us speechless.

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  105. 6 Arrows (9:58), the author is a licensed wildlife rehabiliator. She has written other books; I own and have read one, but didn’t realize till I started that it was the same author. She has lots of nest boxes on her property.

    She says (as I have heard before) that it’s a myth that birds will smell the person’s scent on their baby and abandon the nest. BUT there can be dangers in bothering the nest. I myself watched nests of Inca doves when I was a teenager (12-14, somewhere in there), and drew the birds. One time the mama was sitting on eggs and I wanted to see and draw the eggs, so I encouraged her to move. She was reluctant to leave, but finally did . . . and then didn’t come back. I think I had read that doves have such flimsy nests the parent has to stay on the nest until the two squabs are several days old and heavy enough to hold it down with their own weight, because otherwise it can blow out of the tree, or maybe I didn’t read that until it was too late. I had noticed that one parent would sit until the other one came to relieve it, and then they would switch places. (In many species only the female incubates, and the male may feed her or she may take short trips to get food and drink.) Well, a breeze came up, and I watched the nest fearfully from a distance (I think I was back inside the house) and kept hoping the scared parent would return. (We often scared house finches off the nest to count their eggs and the parent would come back as soon as we left, and I was expecting the same of the little dove.) Well, one or both eggs blew out of the nest. I saw it land on the ground. I remember distinctly seeing the broken egg on the ground and the baby inside it, and I felt truly awful. Eventually an adult came to the nest, but it was too late. I don’t know if it was the same parent or its mate.

    Also, if you handle a nest or get too close to it, predators can see your interest or can smell you. A raccoon or crow might see that you have found a nest, for instance. So the author took nestlings only from nests in her nest boxes–she has baffles on those to keep away predators. Some of the parents just left when she came to get the baby, some stayed, and some hissed and argued. Because she has been watching birds for years, she understands the signs when they are getting ready to fledge (leave the nest), and she stops removing them and painting them when she thinks there is a risk they are old enough to fledge prematurely. For birds that weren’t in a nest box or orphaned and being hand-raised, she worked from photos. She herself or a friend would stand a way away from the nest and take a photo of the chicks with a zoom lens, but she wouldn’t touch the babies. But with the ones in nest boxes, she was able to save some from parasites or other things that likely would have killed them, and she also offered extra food to the baby she was drawing, and to the rest of the nest if they needed it, so she was doing more good than harm.

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  107. We are finally back home. The testimony went very well. It turns out that I have known the judge for almost twenty years. She is a Christian. Praise the Lord, I am seeing his hand in multiple situations.

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