I am always amazed at the beautiful place God has given us to live.

In our backyard we have lots of creatures, most of them we never see. This time of year we have ducks and geese. Usually there are only one or 2 goose couples. That's good, because geese make a terrible mess. We hardly ever see goslings. This year I saw 2. I tried to take a picture of them but they were too far away. If you look real close you might see one of the goslings. It doesn't help that the picture is fuzzy. We haven't seen them for two days now. I'm afraid something ate the goslings and the parents flew away.

These are Canadian geese. There are lots and lots of them in the area. They stay all year. Sometimes they start to flock. They know they should go somewhere but they don't know where, so they fly around in circles and then land again.

We have lived on this land for 22 years and this is the first time we have had winter wheat growing in the field across the street. Usually they plant corn one year and soybeans the next. I don't know who owns the field. A large farming operation in the county rents and farms the land. I expect one day the owner will sell it and someone will build houses there. I will be sad when that happens.

We have been to a lot of funerals and viewings lately.  Yesterday morning about 5 am I thought of this.  Begat in Pleasure,  born in Pain, buried with Grief.                                                                                                                                                   Life..........Prebirth, Infancy, Childhood, Adulthood, Old Age.   (I'm omitting Teenage, because I think it has been invented by our culture.  In other cultures, and previous generations here, one went from child to adult, and skipped the teen stage.)

The prophet, Micah said this.  "O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what He requires of you;  to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Paul said "Thank God, He gies us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ."

He also said  "Rejoice in the Lord always.  Again I say rejoice."

PS  I wish I knew how to put the words where I want them on the page.  I could do it in the prior Xanga-World, but not now.

I'd like you to meet Izzy, who is now my favorite dog.  She lives next door with our daughter and her family, but she comes to visit.  She's a mutt, mostly boxer, but we're pretty sure she has some greyhound in her too.  You should see her run!  He real name before our daughter got her was Isabella and her nickname was Bella.  Our grand-daughter is named Ella, and when she was little our daughter (her aunt) used to call her Ella Bella.  Well, she didn't want to call the dog Bella, so the dog is called Izzy.  Our extended family owns 7 dogs, unless I've forgotten any.  I'm not counting the exes dogs.  Five of the the seven live in TX. so I hardly ever see them.  That leaves just Judy and Izzy here.  Judy is more of a spoiled dog, pampered pooch, and less like a real dog.  I much prefer Izzy, though I'd never tell my mother that.

Izzy likes to run to a nearby farm and roll in the horse manure. That's when I'm glad she's not my dog. I get to enjoy her but don't have to do the dirty work. I guess that's why some people call them grand-dogs.

The colors of Spring are muted, waiting for the full summer sun to shine before they burst into brilliant color. The scents of Spring are cool and refreshing. Can you smell the lavender?

Thanks to all who sympathized with my cold symptoms.  I'm happy to report that I'm mostly better now.  I even had enough energy to do some grocery shopping today.  Good thing too, as we were out of fresh fruit and veggies, and almost out of bread.  We are out of chocolate (except for one almost full pkg. of chocolate chips which I'm trying to save for making cookies.)   Remember when our backyard looked like this?

Not too long ago this is what it looked like.

Time goes by way too fast. The little great-grand-daughters are sitting, crawling, and even walking. And......2 more new little ones are on the way. One of my grand-daughters, and a great-grand-daughter will start high school this year. Amazing!  I am reminded of 2 Bible verses. One is from Philippians.....Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice. The other is from I Timothy..........Godliness with contentment is great gain. Which reminds me of the song, Great Is Thy Faithfulness.
"Summer and winter and springtime and harvest, sun, moon and stars in their courses above.  Join with all nature in manifold witness to Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love."
God bless you all. Have a wonderful holiday weekend.   Remember those who sacrificed for us, and pray for our country.

If I had it I would post a picture of a Puffs Plus with Lotion tissue box.  But I don't have one and I don't have enough energy to take a picture, get it on the computer and onto Xanga.  Sunday evening I was feeling unusually tired.  Then my throat started to hurt.  I took 2 extra strong vitamins and went to bed.  Sure enough, the next morning I woke up with a cold.

I don't know what I would be like if I had a serious disease.  Just a simple cold, and I am moaning and groaning like it's the end of the world.  Well, God will just have to give me strength for whatever lies ahead in my life.  I am doing all I can to get over this cold.  I'm somewhat limited in what meds I can take to ease the symptoms, because I take coumadin.

Last night we had a rainstorm with hail.  The noise of the hail hitting the glass of the door in our bedroom that leads to the patio is what wakened me.  Today it was sunny and warm.  I enjoyed sitting outside with a book and my box of tissues.

Soon it will be summer and the kids will be out of school.  Ours don't get out until June 10 or 12, because of having to make up snow days.  Sorry this post isn't more exciting.

Sunday we were invited to our great-grand-daughter's birthday party. She's one year old.

Love the little outift she was wearing.

She was a bit overwhelmed by so many people in one room.

Her mom and dad helped her open her first present.....a shopping cart, and she lost all interest in any other presents.

Our great grandson was there too. I think they are 2nd cousins? I always get 2nd, 3rd cousins mixed up with cousins once-removed. Anyway, I know that his mom and her dad are first cousins. He is 20 months, and weighs about 28 lbs. As you can see, she's plenty hefty too.

Time for cake. She didn't want to sit long in the high chair, so her daddy finished her cake for her.

My favorite books are children's books.  When I was little I liked my Raggedy Ann and Andy books.  I still have some of them.  I also liked the Wizard of Oz.  My favorite one was "Glinda the Good."  Another book I checked out often at the library was Dr. Seuss' first book "And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street."  Dr. Doolittle was another favorite, and of course Mary Poppins, which was not like the movie.  I like them both.......they're just different.  When I was real little my mother bought a whole set of Childcraft books.  Numbers one and two were my favorites.  She read me poems, and some of them I read to my children.  I still have my set.  They were printed in 1942.  Here is a list of some of my favorites.  The Friendly Cow.  The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson.  There Was a Little Turtle.  The Lamplighter, also by RLS.  Then there's this one by RLS.  "In winter I get up at night and dress by yellow candle-light.  In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day."  I think I liked that one because my mother made us go to bed at 6 or 7 even in the summer.  "Over in the Meadow by Wadsworth is a great poem.  The Sugar Plum Tree was a favorite too, because I loved candy (and still do.)  RLS also wrote The Land of Counterpane.  It's about a boy who was sick and had to stay in bed.  Remember when sick children had to stay in bed?   That was a long time ago.  Remember I Have a little  Shadow by RLS?   His poems must have been my favorites . The Dinkey Bird was fun to read.  That's by Eugene Field.  The Blind Men and the Elephant is a classic.  The Owl and the Pussycat.  Musn't forget Wynken, Blynken and Nod.  These are all in the first book of the 1942 publication.

I'm going to quit before you all get tired reading and leave.  I bet though, that you've never heard this one.

"Skinny Mrs. Snipkin with her little pipkin, sat by the fireside a-warming of her toes.   Fat Mrs. Wobblechin, with her little doublechin sat by the window a-cooling of her nose.   Says this one to that one, 'Oh you silly fat one, Will you shut the window down?  You're freezing me to death   Says that one to t'other one, 'Good gracious, how you bother one!  There isn't air enough for me to draw my precious breath!'

Skinny Mrs. Snipkin took her little pipkin, threw it straight across the room as hard as she could throw....    Hit Mrs. Wobblechin on her little doublechin and out of the window a-tumble she did go.

And the moral of the story is..................?  There is no moral.  It's just funny, and fun to read to kids.  What did you like to read when you were a young child?  Or did you read at all?  Of course, my brother and I read comics too.  Oh, I wish we had all the comics our mother threw away.  I liked Little Lulu and Uncle Scrooge.  My brother liked ones like Superman, and Plastic Man.  Remember him?  OK, I've rambled enough.  G'night.

I am thankful we don't have heat, winds, and fires (especially fires) like the people in Calif.  but it is chilly here.   We did have a few nice days.  Once it even got up to 80.  However, tonight it's supposed to be 32.  I just went out and covered my potted plants.  Hope the peonies make it through.  They're already budding.  I brought my azalea inside.  It might be dead.........I hope not.  It was so pretty when hubby gave it to me for Valentine's Day.  I'm sure it was force-bloomed.  I re-potted it, and just last week put it outside.  Here's a picture of what it used to look like.

I don't have a picture of what it looks like now, but it is sad.
I planted my weeping pussy willow outside by our swamp a few weeks ago.  Didn't realize it would be so cold. It's too dark and cold to go out and cover it now. Hope everyone else stays warm, but not Too warm.

Just to prove that my husband is well again. He mowed for at least 2 hours Sat. He loves to mow.When we were first married we had a little yard with a little mower and he hated it. I don't think the mower even had a motor. It had people power, which would be a foreign sight to young people today. Now that he has a big riding Kubota, he loves it. We have wa-aay too much grass to mow, but we're not ready to give it up for a retirement home yet.

This next picture is of the farm across the street from our house. We've lived in this location over 20 years, and have never seen winter wheat grown here before. It's so green and pretty. Usually they alternate growing corn and soybeans.  I would not have had a clue what it was, but Tom was a ag major in college and he told me that's what it is.

I think this is a red-breasted grosbeak. We often have one or two visit us in late Spring or early summer. It's just travelling through on it's way south, I guess. I took lots of pictures, but this is the only one that showed the red.

It was warm enough last night that we were able to sit out on our porch after supper. Nice!