Spring

Spring is Sprung,
the grass is riz.
I Wonder where
the boidies is?
or
Spring is
what winta
Always
gozinta.
Ogden Nash

Beautiful Forsythia

Hyacinths
So hardy yet so fragrant.

Grape Hyacinths
I really like these little blue flowers. They seem to spring up in many places. I especially like to pair them with the hot pink camelia that should be ready to burst into bloom. But my bush doesn't look as if it will bear any of those beautiful clusters for me this year.

Robins

The north wind doth blow and we shall have snow,
And what will the robin do then, poor thing?
He'll sit in the barn and keep himself warm,
And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

A little song that troubled my little heart while in Grade 1, where I learned it...and we don't have a barn!

I took these pictures through my kitchen window - couldn't risk sending the birds away in a flutter by opening the door. Click on the little robin to enlarge the image and see the details.

Winter Revisited

Oh that glorious sun riveted me from my complacency and I sprang for my camera. Some of this beauty just had to be captured. I wasn't going to take any more winter pictures even as the snow fell beautifully all day yesterday. But this morning, as the sun broke through, I relented and am glad I did.

 

I took this directly into the sun. It's cool I think to see the rays even though I could have improved the image by knowing my settings better.

 

With my zoom at max I took this of the mountains to the northeast. Even now as I look over my shoulder as I type, I can see the snow on the mountains east of us, closer than the ones in the photo.

 

Just can't pass up the beauty of this lovely tree near the back northwest corner of our property. This time a crow has found its perch on the tip. I remember our neighbour planting that tree near our property line about 20 years ago. He held it up in his hand a mere 3 foot sapling. What a beauty its become.

 

A picture is worth a thousand words...but this picture doesn't begin to capture the sparkle of the sun on these snow-laden boughs. Just yesterday morning with no hint of snow in the air, I noticed the first squirrel of the season scampering along these branches. They can always resume hibernation but what about the unsuspecing birds... I noticed how puffed and chubby the robins look in the snow.

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Children are amazing! Walt Disney knew it, Art Linkletter knew it and grandparents know it!

The other day, our just-turned four year-old grandson blew us over with his grand dramatics (as he recited word for word with flair and inflection, a dialogue of Bob and Larry's from one of the Veggie Tales) and observation skills. This came after supper when the two of us went out onto our back deck to check the night sky and breathe some fresh air. He pointed out the stars. I noticed, through the trees, a very bright star in the western sky and told him I thought it was too big to be a star and that it might be a planet or a satellite. He looked toward where I was pointing and said, "Nana, that's Venus." And sure enough it was the "Evening Star" which I was looking for in the southern sky. I ran back in and expressed my amazement to his parents and they just affirmed that they always looked for Venus before going to bed.

This little fellow knows the names of all the planets and a salient feature of each one. The ease with which children can absorb and hold information is an awe-inspiring thing.

Today it was our five year old grandaughter who cheered our hearts with her effervescent joy. On the way from Kindergarten she and I sit together on the back bench of the van and she shares her adventures of the morning with me as Grampa chauffeurs. She was excited to remember for some unexplained reason that she had seen a grasshopper at Camp last summer. Well we had a little discussion about that little creature and I told her there was even another name for it. Before I could utter my word "Katydid" she jumped in with, "Praying Mantis"? Wow I'm thinking, you have to be a cracker jack teacher to keep these little buttons entertained in the classroom these days.

Valentines Day

What a lovely valentines surprise to receive this basket of flowers from friends today - my first primroses of the season. I just had to take some pictures to preserve the memory. Thanks dear friends!

-and very tasty cookies thoughtfully tucked inside!

Fruit-always in season

They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green;
Psalm 92:14

My Dad frequently quoted this verse in German, in his last months - it seemed to energize and encourage him. He was not easily daunted or discouraged. He held fast to the Truths in the Scriptures. I am so grateful for my heritage and the legacy both of my parents left for me, indeed for all of us eight kids in the family, 22 grandkids, and by now 23 great-grandkids, who all benefit from my parents godly example.

The Scriptures fortify and nourish me daily. Over the years, and through different challenges in life, I have come to embrace the Scriptures as God's personal letter of love, comfort and hope to me. It's impossible to find a favourite passage. So often, each day's reading presents its own favourite passage, so perfect for me for that very moment. Some days it's not so obvious but then I just have to flip through to find hundreds of underlined and highlighted verses from previous meaningful encounters. What a rich treasure trove-invaluable resource-the Holy Bible is. It s a gift like no other!

There are so many easy-to-read translations, with excellent study passages to offer insights.
Right now I'm enjoying a children's Bible, along with my regular New Living Translation, which I used with two of my grandchildren today. Sally Lloyd-Jones has done a masterful job of highlighting and defining the scope of the whole Bible in 44 delightful stories. Carefully chosen, each one declares God's purpose, His plan to rescue us from ourselves and from our fallen world in a fresh and beautiful way. Each story whispers his name,as her title indicates: the Jesus Storybook Bible Every story whispers his name (Zondervan). Her retelling of the Creation account in the first chapter is so unique as are the other chapters. For example, the story of Daniel in the lion's den she's entitled: "Daniel and the scary sleepover". I also love the way the last chapter of the bookA Dream of Heaven ends, not with the perfunctory The End,but To be continued....

February

How I always looked forward to February as a kid. Growing up on the prairies was great but once we became used to building snowmen, playing "Fox and Goose" and dodging snowballs, it all became ordinary again.

My sisters and I really looked forward to February, a shorter month - one less very cold day it seemed - and of course, Valentine's Day! These were days with no television, very few library books and no computers, cell phones, I-Pods etc. We all had music lessons so practising the piano was a daily dreaded ritual and we had our little responsibilities to help Mom with the housework and cooking. So any special occasion became a very special time for enjoyment and participation.

My Mom's birthday fell on January 15 - that was a very special occasion. One which brought all my aunts and uncles to our home for afternoon "Faspa". We would hurry home from school at 4 o'clock that day, greatly anticipating the delightful aroma of coffee, the buzz of animated chatter around the table, and the knowledge that there would be special treats for our after school snack.

So we looked for diversions for entertainment. A great diversion for me during school hours was to study the back of our notebooks -Scribblers, they were called. There were charts of measurements of the old variety: cups, pints, quarts and gallons; inches, feet, yards; bushels and pecks; times tables and in the very center, this little ditty for remembering the number of days in each month of the year:

Thirty days hath September
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one-
Except February, which has twenty-eight
But Leap Year coming once in four,
February then has one day more!

And so another February is here...still exciting but definitely in a different way.