Good morning, everyone! It’s another beautiful sunny day at the bird feeder. I love waking up to the music of of chirping and singing. They are nature’s praises to the Creator for daily bread…or in this case, bird seed and peanuts. I put a small elevated birdbath beside of Peachy yesterday so I’m hoping to see a little activity there this season as well. I also made my first batch of hummingbird nectar. I know it’s way too early, but this year is zooming by already and I want to be ready.
Good morning! Is that a Great Blue Heron? My eyes are fading things out a bit more so not sure of the color.
Your flock must be very pleased, Debra, with your welcoming hospitality. I take the easy route of putting pear peelings, sweet potato peels, stale bread crumbs, and the like under the Birthday Tree for our wildlife. Everything seems to disappear quickly.
Debra, I loved your description of all the birds who visit your feeder. We are in time of transition, as the springtime birds are moving in. It is fun to try to find which bird is making the new song. I have heard a meadowlark sing, so that is a sure sign that spring is near.
Yes, watching the birds is fun. I watch them now in the crabapple and other trees. My husband has not put the feeders up the past couple of years, because of bear concerns. He could put them up from November to March. We also have one (a gift) that we can suction to a window. My husband says that is way too messy. It probably it, but it would be fun, IMO. I do not care enough to make an issue of it, however.
I found the story about the Kindergarteners, amazed to find a bathroom at their teacher’s house, amusing. I distinctly remember students at my Catholic school arguing about whether or not the nuns ever had to go to the bathroom. I believe so many adults do not understand that children are not just little adults. They do not, at all, think like adults. That is important for both parents and those in leadership to remember.
I do not put out any bird feed with my herd of cats. They do eat in the chicken yard, and I see a pair of pinon jays, who steal dog food and then brag about it. They are quite comical to watch.
Not sure why but I was following the blog and catching it mostly on Word Press Reader app, and it disappeared yesterday. I am only noe seeing the prayer requests from yesterday. I guess my two Bible studies and having son home kept me from checking prayer requests.
I will remain hopeful about AJ’s report and pray.
So sorry to hear of M’s loss, huge considering the place that man and family holds in your lives.
Also, prayers for Nightingale’s friend who needs wisdom not to let her momentary feelings rule over what will be hurtful to her family forever.
Morning all! Once again the sun is hidden behind the clouds and there is a bit of freezing moisture once again. Either snow or be done with it already! 😊
We seem to be in a flux with our bird population. Juncos seem to be here year round and the house finches were here for just a bit then decided winter was not over. Nuthatches have been pecking on the house grrrrr.
I do love hearing the song varieties of our feathered visitors but those jays are the most boisterous of all!
A cloudy Wednesday with some rain coming again Friday and next week.
The birds (the neighborhood crows?) are making a racket here early in the morning.
I typically get humming birds around the bougainvillea and other flowering plants in the yard, they’re so amazing to watch, just suspended in air. A blue heron was tormenting my neighbors last year, stalking their backyard koi pond and nabbing a few of their fish before they were able to get a better protection net in place.
I used to put a bird feeder in my backyard but took it down when it mostly attracted squirrels. They were great fun to watch with all their acrobatics (this was a “squirrel-proof” bird feeder), but my dog at the time was getting way to close to nabbing one of them.
Another excellent (and convicting, for me) weekly email piece from Paul Tripp:
____________________________
~ When was the last time you introduced a friend to another friend? “Hey Jack, this is my friend, Joe.” Then you briefly add where they work, what they do, or how you know them.
Now imagine you have to introduce Jesus Christ to someone. What would you say in a single summarizing sentence?
In the first chapter of his Gospel, John gives a fantastic five-word introduction: full of grace and truth. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
This week is the second devotional in a five-part series about our communication, interactions, and reactions in our relationships. There are five biblical themes that, by grace, will help transform the way we live with others.
And that’s precisely the theme today: grace. Are your relationships characterized by an attitude of grace?
2. Grace
What is grace? At its core, the nature of grace is a Christlike nature. Jesus, full of grace and truth, is the one we have been called to imitate in our relationships. Submission to the Son of God should shape how we communicate, interact, and react.
It’s important to notice how John presents Jesus as being filled not just with truth but also with grace. The combination of truth and grace is our hope in this life and the one to come.
If the Messiah compromised his truth for grace, there would be no hope of satisfying God’s righteous requirements. But Jesus wasn’t just full of truth. If that were all that filled him, we would have no hope. There would be no tenderhearted sacrifice for sin.
In your relationships, if you speak truth in ways that are devoid of grace, you have, in fact, done violence to the “truth” that you think you are speaking. If you handle grace in a way that compromises truth, the “grace” you are offering is not really grace at all.
Truth and grace must never be pulled apart. One is never valued more than the other, and neither is ever abandoned. To conclude today’s devotional, however, I want to focus on grace because I have been saddened by how Christians treat others in ways that are devoid of grace.
Yes, we are called to love and defend truth. Yes, there are strongholds of falsehood that need to be torn down. But using “truth” as a sledgehammer to destroy, with no intention of restoration, is hardly Christlike.
If we claim to be Christlike, we cannot simultaneously claim to be using “truth” as we shame, mock, dismiss, self-righteously judge, or disrespect others. If our way of speaking “truth” is characterized by vengeful responses, mocking reactions, character assassinations, disrespect, dismissal, cruelty, and toxicity, are we truly following the way of grace and truth?
When the Apostle Paul lists the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19–21, he puts enmity, strife, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and divisions right next to sexual immorality, impurity, and sorcery.
It should be sobering to us that while we decry the immorality of the surrounding culture, we have permitted into Christian culture and our relationships many of the things the Bible names as the works of the flesh.
As sinners, our intentions that started out as pure defenses of truth have the capacity to get bent and twisted by biased emotions and selfish agendas. Grace never ignores wrong; grace is never passive in the face of evil. But grace is also never unsympathetic; grace never treats issues as being more important than people.
I don’t know about you, but the call to follow Jesus and be full of grace and truth in my relationships leaves me crying out for transforming grace.
It requires grace to invest the patience necessary to fully understand your opponent. It takes grace to answer them with calm wisdom. It takes grace to respond lovingly to personal attacks. It takes grace to be humbly approachable. It takes grace to trust God to do what you are unable to accomplish in the life of another person.
If I am ever going to interact and react to others with grace, I need grace. I need the intervention of God’s grace to free me from the works of the flesh.
Because of the life, death, and resurrection of the One full of grace and truth, this grace is ours for the taking ~
__________________________
I have decided that the stomach flu is no fun. Couldn’t even keep down ginger beer. Finally about9pm, I texted my friend asking her to bring by 7up in the morning. She called me and got her husband to bring it by. That helped a lot. Feeling better this morning. The question is will I have the energy for a shower today? It is much needed.
Power still off at my church
So sorry to hear you are ill like that, Jo. I had heard a stomach bug was going around in this area. Maybe it is all over the country?
Dj, that is a really good Tripp devotional. Timely for me as I awakened to hearing Art angry again at his computer as he tries to do some work here at home. Onr does not like to awaken to cursing as the first sound one hears (birdsong much preferred). I decided to say the word ‘Grace’ at each of his utterences. It helped tame my anger.
Oh Jo feel better soon! Sometimes jumping in the shower brings just that refreshment…asking the Lord to bring you through quickly!
My other half has been very testy lately. Maybe from treatments but walking in grace has been taking top of my list lately!! (Think biting my tongue til it bleeds!!)
Thankfully he is helping out a friend with a building project this morning and I have no distractions to ponder this over with the Lord….
Janice @12:07, we live in an especially “angry” time, it seems. Hard not to pick up on it ourselves in our weaker moments (even if it’s just “in our heads,” but that counts, too!).
Abby stole a pair of socks this morning. I nabbed them for the wash before she remembered (she’d left them lying neatly on her dog bed in the living room).
Jo @11:46 – food poisoning? Or maybe Norovirus (which plagues our cruise ships). CDC: a very contagious virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea. Anyone can get infected and sick with norovirus.
Re our angry times — a big reason why I’ve weened myself off of all the louder opinion talking heads. Though curiously, they sound quite different behind the scenes … Hmmm. Entertainers, primarily.
Meaning they still sound snarky and angry behind the scenes, but their opinions shift, oddly …. Shouldn’t that tell us something? Like, beware of screaming cable TV opinion “hosts” trying to tell us what to believe?
Good afternoon, all, from beautiful cloudy comfortable in the mid thirties, Idaho. The day is flying by. My dad and I have taken our two morning walks and he is at the table with lunch. The nurse was here the other day, he may be off hospice in the near future. They were a big help when we really needed them and continue to be an encouragement. And the nurses appear astonished at the change in dad.
They put my grandmother–then in a nursing home–on hospice, took her off hospice, and when my dad asked why, they explained hospice is only for the last six months.
She lived 3 more years.
Hospice’s theory?
She finally got attention and was too busy enjoying herself to die.
Took a work break to clean up in the backyard, found a half eaten orange. Someone must have an orange tree nearby, looks like the munching of one of our squirrels.
Charlie Brown 1 and 2 are coming along, filling out quite nicely.
CB 1 still leans a bit, but is now quite tall and very full, with bright green new growth buds visible throughout.
CB 2 in the back is getting very tall, still needs to start filling out. But arborist said — when he came to check on it before my 1-year warranty timed out in December — said it looks just the way it’s supposed to and it will start filling out (in the next year? can’t remember the timing he may, or may not, have given me).
Kathaleena – Years ago, Mr. Rogers had a segment on his show about what to expect when going to a restaurant. He included the fact that there are restrooms (he might have called them bathrooms for the children’s sake) for “if you have to go”. 🙂
I loved watching his show with my girls when they were young. He really understood children, and how they think.
NJ, does your right-hand microwave panel — where all the numbers and setting buttons are — light up? (Mine doesn’t and it’s one of the things that’s so inconvenient, but maybe I missed a set-up step.)
It seems to me that whenever I have gotten the norovirus, it has been in February or March. Have others had that same experience? I wondered if there was something about the ending of winter that “wakes up” that virus, so to speak.
Dj the numbers do not light up. If they are supposed to light I should probably read the owners manual which I have not! I really like it though. The interior a muted gray and the light is a soft white. The light of the clock is even less bright.
I like it, too, NJ. But so odd that the side panel isn’t lighted, maybe it’s just me, but it’s really hard to see the buttons and settings in my kitchen (though I also have a couple ceiling lights out in there that need replacing…)
I did find a video of a guy who bought one and is opening the box up with the promise of going through all the features for the first time — it’s kinda long, 45 minutes I think, and I just started it the other day, but will plan on finishing it. Easier than the owners’ manual!
Wandering Views 
Good morning, everyone! It’s another beautiful sunny day at the bird feeder. I love waking up to the music of of chirping and singing. They are nature’s praises to the Creator for daily bread…or in this case, bird seed and peanuts. I put a small elevated birdbath beside of Peachy yesterday so I’m hoping to see a little activity there this season as well. I also made my first batch of hummingbird nectar. I know it’s way too early, but this year is zooming by already and I want to be ready.
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Good morning! Is that a Great Blue Heron? My eyes are fading things out a bit more so not sure of the color.
Your flock must be very pleased, Debra, with your welcoming hospitality. I take the easy route of putting pear peelings, sweet potato peels, stale bread crumbs, and the like under the Birthday Tree for our wildlife. Everything seems to disappear quickly.
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The pollen count was at a record high for the date yesterday. It was above 3500😳
We started today at a chilly 50°, but expect to warm up nicely.
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Good morning! Another beautiful sunrise.
Debra, I loved your description of all the birds who visit your feeder. We are in time of transition, as the springtime birds are moving in. It is fun to try to find which bird is making the new song. I have heard a meadowlark sing, so that is a sure sign that spring is near.
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Yes, watching the birds is fun. I watch them now in the crabapple and other trees. My husband has not put the feeders up the past couple of years, because of bear concerns. He could put them up from November to March. We also have one (a gift) that we can suction to a window. My husband says that is way too messy. It probably it, but it would be fun, IMO. I do not care enough to make an issue of it, however.
I found the story about the Kindergarteners, amazed to find a bathroom at their teacher’s house, amusing. I distinctly remember students at my Catholic school arguing about whether or not the nuns ever had to go to the bathroom. I believe so many adults do not understand that children are not just little adults. They do not, at all, think like adults. That is important for both parents and those in leadership to remember.
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I do not put out any bird feed with my herd of cats. They do eat in the chicken yard, and I see a pair of pinon jays, who steal dog food and then brag about it. They are quite comical to watch.
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I think the only time that son went to a teacher’s house was for an Easter egg hunt when he was in Kindergarten. The children had the best time!
Yes, Kare’s story yesterday was amusing. And now we have found out where she got her knack for working with the young at camp.♡
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Not sure why but I was following the blog and catching it mostly on Word Press Reader app, and it disappeared yesterday. I am only noe seeing the prayer requests from yesterday. I guess my two Bible studies and having son home kept me from checking prayer requests.
I will remain hopeful about AJ’s report and pray.
So sorry to hear of M’s loss, huge considering the place that man and family holds in your lives.
Also, prayers for Nightingale’s friend who needs wisdom not to let her momentary feelings rule over what will be hurtful to her family forever.
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Morning all! Once again the sun is hidden behind the clouds and there is a bit of freezing moisture once again. Either snow or be done with it already! 😊
We seem to be in a flux with our bird population. Juncos seem to be here year round and the house finches were here for just a bit then decided winter was not over. Nuthatches have been pecking on the house grrrrr.
I do love hearing the song varieties of our feathered visitors but those jays are the most boisterous of all!
LikeLiked by 2 people
A cloudy Wednesday with some rain coming again Friday and next week.
The birds (the neighborhood crows?) are making a racket here early in the morning.
I typically get humming birds around the bougainvillea and other flowering plants in the yard, they’re so amazing to watch, just suspended in air. A blue heron was tormenting my neighbors last year, stalking their backyard koi pond and nabbing a few of their fish before they were able to get a better protection net in place.
I used to put a bird feeder in my backyard but took it down when it mostly attracted squirrels. They were great fun to watch with all their acrobatics (this was a “squirrel-proof” bird feeder), but my dog at the time was getting way to close to nabbing one of them.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Another excellent (and convicting, for me) weekly email piece from Paul Tripp:
____________________________
~ When was the last time you introduced a friend to another friend? “Hey Jack, this is my friend, Joe.” Then you briefly add where they work, what they do, or how you know them.
Now imagine you have to introduce Jesus Christ to someone. What would you say in a single summarizing sentence?
In the first chapter of his Gospel, John gives a fantastic five-word introduction: full of grace and truth. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
This week is the second devotional in a five-part series about our communication, interactions, and reactions in our relationships. There are five biblical themes that, by grace, will help transform the way we live with others.
And that’s precisely the theme today: grace. Are your relationships characterized by an attitude of grace?
2. Grace
What is grace? At its core, the nature of grace is a Christlike nature. Jesus, full of grace and truth, is the one we have been called to imitate in our relationships. Submission to the Son of God should shape how we communicate, interact, and react.
It’s important to notice how John presents Jesus as being filled not just with truth but also with grace. The combination of truth and grace is our hope in this life and the one to come.
If the Messiah compromised his truth for grace, there would be no hope of satisfying God’s righteous requirements. But Jesus wasn’t just full of truth. If that were all that filled him, we would have no hope. There would be no tenderhearted sacrifice for sin.
In your relationships, if you speak truth in ways that are devoid of grace, you have, in fact, done violence to the “truth” that you think you are speaking. If you handle grace in a way that compromises truth, the “grace” you are offering is not really grace at all.
Truth and grace must never be pulled apart. One is never valued more than the other, and neither is ever abandoned. To conclude today’s devotional, however, I want to focus on grace because I have been saddened by how Christians treat others in ways that are devoid of grace.
Yes, we are called to love and defend truth. Yes, there are strongholds of falsehood that need to be torn down. But using “truth” as a sledgehammer to destroy, with no intention of restoration, is hardly Christlike.
If we claim to be Christlike, we cannot simultaneously claim to be using “truth” as we shame, mock, dismiss, self-righteously judge, or disrespect others. If our way of speaking “truth” is characterized by vengeful responses, mocking reactions, character assassinations, disrespect, dismissal, cruelty, and toxicity, are we truly following the way of grace and truth?
When the Apostle Paul lists the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19–21, he puts enmity, strife, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and divisions right next to sexual immorality, impurity, and sorcery.
It should be sobering to us that while we decry the immorality of the surrounding culture, we have permitted into Christian culture and our relationships many of the things the Bible names as the works of the flesh.
As sinners, our intentions that started out as pure defenses of truth have the capacity to get bent and twisted by biased emotions and selfish agendas. Grace never ignores wrong; grace is never passive in the face of evil. But grace is also never unsympathetic; grace never treats issues as being more important than people.
I don’t know about you, but the call to follow Jesus and be full of grace and truth in my relationships leaves me crying out for transforming grace.
It requires grace to invest the patience necessary to fully understand your opponent. It takes grace to answer them with calm wisdom. It takes grace to respond lovingly to personal attacks. It takes grace to be humbly approachable. It takes grace to trust God to do what you are unable to accomplish in the life of another person.
If I am ever going to interact and react to others with grace, I need grace. I need the intervention of God’s grace to free me from the works of the flesh.
Because of the life, death, and resurrection of the One full of grace and truth, this grace is ours for the taking ~
__________________________
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I have decided that the stomach flu is no fun. Couldn’t even keep down ginger beer. Finally about9pm, I texted my friend asking her to bring by 7up in the morning. She called me and got her husband to bring it by. That helped a lot. Feeling better this morning. The question is will I have the energy for a shower today? It is much needed.
Power still off at my church
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So sorry to hear you are ill like that, Jo. I had heard a stomach bug was going around in this area. Maybe it is all over the country?
Dj, that is a really good Tripp devotional. Timely for me as I awakened to hearing Art angry again at his computer as he tries to do some work here at home. Onr does not like to awaken to cursing as the first sound one hears (birdsong much preferred). I decided to say the word ‘Grace’ at each of his utterences. It helped tame my anger.
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Oh Jo feel better soon! Sometimes jumping in the shower brings just that refreshment…asking the Lord to bring you through quickly!
My other half has been very testy lately. Maybe from treatments but walking in grace has been taking top of my list lately!! (Think biting my tongue til it bleeds!!)
Thankfully he is helping out a friend with a building project this morning and I have no distractions to ponder this over with the Lord….
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Janice @12:07, we live in an especially “angry” time, it seems. Hard not to pick up on it ourselves in our weaker moments (even if it’s just “in our heads,” but that counts, too!).
Abby stole a pair of socks this morning. I nabbed them for the wash before she remembered (she’d left them lying neatly on her dog bed in the living room).
Jo @11:46 – food poisoning? Or maybe Norovirus (which plagues our cruise ships). CDC: a very contagious virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea. Anyone can get infected and sick with norovirus.
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Re our angry times — a big reason why I’ve weened myself off of all the louder opinion talking heads. Though curiously, they sound quite different behind the scenes … Hmmm. Entertainers, primarily.
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Meaning they still sound snarky and angry behind the scenes, but their opinions shift, oddly …. Shouldn’t that tell us something? Like, beware of screaming cable TV opinion “hosts” trying to tell us what to believe?
Sigh, I’m hoping that this, too, shall pass.
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Those are certainly my symptoms, but it is not food poisoning as I have reacted to many things. I think my kids were sick when they came over
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Maybe Norovirus then. That’s strictly gastro and spreads by touching common surfaces (which is why it races through places like cruise ships).
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(and schools, btw)
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Norovirus, yes, that is the one my friend Karen said is going around here.
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Posting this for Anglican Kim in case she checks in: https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/march-web-only/beth-moore-book-sbc-church-stranger-anglicans-welcomed-me.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Beth%20Moore%3A%20When%20I%20was%20a%20stranger%20in%20the%20SBC%2C%20Anglicans%20welcomed%20me&utm_campaign=ni_newsletter
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Good afternoon, all, from beautiful cloudy comfortable in the mid thirties, Idaho. The day is flying by. My dad and I have taken our two morning walks and he is at the table with lunch. The nurse was here the other day, he may be off hospice in the near future. They were a big help when we really needed them and continue to be an encouragement. And the nurses appear astonished at the change in dad.
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They put my grandmother–then in a nursing home–on hospice, took her off hospice, and when my dad asked why, they explained hospice is only for the last six months.
She lived 3 more years.
Hospice’s theory?
She finally got attention and was too busy enjoying herself to die.
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That’s such good news, mumsee, good job.
M @ 3:24 🙂
Took a work break to clean up in the backyard, found a half eaten orange. Someone must have an orange tree nearby, looks like the munching of one of our squirrels.
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Charlie Brown 1 and 2 are coming along, filling out quite nicely.
CB 1 still leans a bit, but is now quite tall and very full, with bright green new growth buds visible throughout.
CB 2 in the back is getting very tall, still needs to start filling out. But arborist said — when he came to check on it before my 1-year warranty timed out in December — said it looks just the way it’s supposed to and it will start filling out (in the next year? can’t remember the timing he may, or may not, have given me).
Both trees have enjoyed this rain, I’m sure.
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Abby, the teen-age girl, is still tall and thin with big feet.
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Kathaleena – Years ago, Mr. Rogers had a segment on his show about what to expect when going to a restaurant. He included the fact that there are restrooms (he might have called them bathrooms for the children’s sake) for “if you have to go”. 🙂
I loved watching his show with my girls when they were young. He really understood children, and how they think.
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Janice, @2:44, thanks for that link, good article. Hope and pray they find that a good church home.
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NJ, does your right-hand microwave panel — where all the numbers and setting buttons are — light up? (Mine doesn’t and it’s one of the things that’s so inconvenient, but maybe I missed a set-up step.)
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It seems to me that whenever I have gotten the norovirus, it has been in February or March. Have others had that same experience? I wondered if there was something about the ending of winter that “wakes up” that virus, so to speak.
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Our local eagle-cam up at Big Bear: (And the nest will be featured on Monday’s NCIS 🙂 )
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Well, never mind. 🙂 You’ll just have to watch NCIS I guess …
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Oh, I clicked it again and it played.
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Lots of eagle noise over eggs that appear not to be hatching. 😦
Abby’s transfixed.
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Dj the numbers do not light up. If they are supposed to light I should probably read the owners manual which I have not! I really like it though. The interior a muted gray and the light is a soft white. The light of the clock is even less bright.
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I like it, too, NJ. But so odd that the side panel isn’t lighted, maybe it’s just me, but it’s really hard to see the buttons and settings in my kitchen (though I also have a couple ceiling lights out in there that need replacing…)
I did find a video of a guy who bought one and is opening the box up with the promise of going through all the features for the first time — it’s kinda long, 45 minutes I think, and I just started it the other day, but will plan on finishing it. Easier than the owners’ manual!
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