I wanted to go out on the back deck to marvel at the sun and look to see if the Thumbelina daffodils had started to bloom yet. The dog was in front of the door. She could not decide if she wanted to go out or not. I slid open the door and growled at her “Go in or go out! I do not care!” After she moved I stepped outside. Before looking at the daffodil leaves I looked up and to my left sensing something looking at me. I saw this wonderful hawk in the nearby tree. It was not startled by my growling.
I texted Bob “Hawk on back deck.” knowing he would grab his camera and come see. His photos were much better than mine. Here was our visitor! He likely saw our feeder as a bait station. Like Sonic says, “You gotta eat!”
r m dutinaMy favorite by r m dutinar m dutina
“Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars and spreads its wings toward the south? 27 Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes its nest on high? Job 39:26-27 NRSVUE
We often hear the hawks calling from high in the sky. Sometimes we can see them, sometimes not. We are always blessed when they come to close to us! God is in control of them, certainly not us!
These blasts of snow and cold followed by spring warmth and sunshine have the Ohio Valley in whiplash. Never certain if we should layer up with woolens or wear spring weight slacks and short sleeves. It is definitely NOT shorts weather yet, though we have seen some folks sporting them!
The daffodils get a little taller everyday. Roofs are getting covered with snow this morning. Furnace is still needed. One night I had to open the window as bedroom was so warm! Next night I got my leg out of the covers in my sleep and awoke with a frozen limb.
Here is part of A Song of Creation, Canticle 12 from The Book of Common Prayer
Glorify the Lord, you angels and all powers of the Lord, * O heavens and all waters above the heavens. Sun and moon and stars of the sky, glorify the Lord, * praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, every shower of rain and fall of dew, * all winds and fire and heat. Winter and Summer, glorify the Lord, * praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O chill and cold, * drops of dew and flakes of snow. Frost and cold, ice and sleet, glorify the Lord, * praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O nights and days, * O shining light and enfolding dark. Storm clouds and thunderbolts, glorify the Lord, * praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
We had a recent morning snowfall that was enchanting. Part of the enjoyment was knowing that this would not be a “shoveler” and was likely one of the last snows of the season. I will upload the video as soon as YouTube takes out the music that recorded in the background of the video. Here is a link to the song that came to me as I watched the snow.
Just last week a flock of FIVE female goldfinch showed up at the feeder. This was as the snow was still deep upon the ground. I was delighted to see them!
As the inches of snow melted, 37 mole tunnels appeared on the vacant field and the two lots adjacent. Those critters were obviously busy during the big accumulation.
The morning of February 14 I noticed the maple buds were beginning to swell. Last week the twigs were all smooth. Now bumps of growth have appeared.
Spring is on the edges of our days and nights here. The daffodils which had broken the ground surface before the snow storm are continuing to gain height. I have not seen any crocus yet.
There are still snow piles up and down the street. Soon we will complain that it is to hot or too humid. Never satisfied, are we?
I recently read a book entitled “The Dog That Talked to God.”It features a miniature Schnauzer. I knew one once. My friend Jeanne owned it and it was sweet, though yappy.
The book is Christian fiction. Not only does the dog talk to God, the dog talks occasionally to its master. That might be fun!!
More than halfway through the book the owner decided to sell her house and relocate. This was difficult for both her and the dog. Here is one conversation the two of them had.
Rufus stared at his front paws.
“I guess. Maybe. But I don’t like this change. I liked the way things were. Except for the cold. And the snow. And getting run over by cars. Other than that, I liked it. And there were no horses there at all. None at all.”
This time I bent to him, not to hear him, but to hug him tight to me.
We were both lost and alone and dislocated and we wanted what we had before and would never, ever get back.
“God did say to trust him,” Rufus added, his voice soft, almost a whisper. “I don’t know what that means exactly. But I think he will show us what he wants us to do. Right? He does that sort of thing, right?”
Does that sound familiar to your life experience? This was not just a cutesy book with a warm fuzzy message. This book, written from the perspective of a woman and her dog, written by a man which had me puzzled for a bit, is more like a meatloaf sandwich when you apply it to yourself. The woman is angry with God and has decided not to talk with God anymore. It is an age old human situation and this one is told in an interesting way. I went through that after my mother died suddenly. (We worked it out.)
My book has a copyright of 2012 so you can likely purchase it used through Abe Books or Thrift.
I receive daily quotes from several sources. The ones from Every Moment Holy tend to be from one publication for a week or more. Then they will choose a different volume of liturgies to quote from. They books they publish run along a theme for the liturgies in each volume.
Here is their website https://www.everymomentholy.com/ They offer several volumes for sale, free printable liturgies from various topics and other materials on the site.
Let me glimpse in growing things, some hint of your unseen kingdom. Let me shape here a living poetry that whispers words of grace to all who pause to listen. From A Liturgy for Yard Work 1 from Volume 3. I would love to quote more from this, but I have loaned my books to a Pastor at our church!
Last autumn my sister sent me flower arrangements from a company in California that prides itself on sustainable arrangements with little environmental damage from pesticides and fertilizers.
Notice the succulent in the center of each arrangement?
The instructions said after the flowers faded I was to remove the succulent from the water tube it was in and plant it in a pot of soil to get it rooting.
They arrived in early November. This is how they appear in early February! The base of the flower pot is small enough to fit in the large plastic pharmacy pill bottle top for a saucer!
No, they do not look quite as nice as when they first arrived, but they are still alive!! I am tempted to trim off those outer leaves, but I decided not to do that yet. If they shrivel and look unhealthy by late winter/spring I might.
“Let me glimpse in growing things, some hint of your unseen kingdom. Let me shape here a living poetry that whispers words of grace to all who pause to listen. ” Do you glimpse in these growing things some hint of the unseen kingdom? Does the photo come to your eyes as ‘living poetry that whispers of grace to all who pause to listen?’
Apple photos identified the plant as Echeveria. https://worldofsucculents.com/grow-care-echeveria/ has detail on how to grow it. “Thanks to their charming rosettes and gorgeous water-storing leaves, Echeverias are among the most popular succulent plants. Echeverias are one of the easiest succulents to propagate. They are usually propagated by offsets or leaves, but they can also be grown from stem cuttings and seeds. The best time to separate offsets and take cuttings is in the spring.
Guess I do not need to worry about those shriveled leaves, “Echeveria is self-pruning. All you may need to do is pick out the dead leaves or flowers. Removing dead leaves prevents rot or disease from taking over the plant.”Seems the shriveled leaves may have been due to lack of water. (This house is SO DRY this winter I am tempted to purchase a humidifier!)
May your find reflections of glory and glimmers of God’s presence wherever you look today!
O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as you? You are the God of great wonders! You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations. Psalm 77:13–14 (NLT)
I was not quite awake as I poured my coffee. Remembered there were snow flurries last night when I took the dog out. Flipped on porch light and looked at deck to see how much snow we received? Yikes!! The four inches that remained from the last storm is still there. This was not new snow but shook me up for a brief minute. No, I was not awake before but startled to reality now! Negligible snow in the night .
I do not remember the last time that snow lingered like this in our town. I just saw a forecast that calls for 1-3 inches of new snow tomorrow!
Our God of great wonders has blessed us with unusual weather this winter. I pray you can enjoy it?
We took a ride in the Sunday sunshine and Bob took photos of the snow and shadows. We knew a few older houses in downtown Batavia that would form icicles from the second story to the ground. Indeed, they did!
Our son took a vacation to Hocking Hills in the midst of this winter mayhem. Perhaps you are familiar with Old Man’s Cave?
photo by Jeff Dutina
photo by Jeff Dutina
photo by Jeff Dutina
Beauty from the Lord our God is every place we turn. Praying you will discover treasures in plain sight for yourself today!
A friend sent me this and I thought you would enjoy it! “Douglas Florian is one of my favorite children’s poets. Here is his poem called “Cabin Fever”
I've done the wash. I've swept the floor I've fed the cat And fixed the door.
I've read three books and last week's news, and for the fourth time polished the shoes.
It seems like years
since I've had fun.
I look outside
For signs of sun.
I bite my nails.
I crawl the walls.
For lack of space
I pace the halls.
My mother warned me
of cabin fever.
I was a fool
to not believe her.
Sound familiar? They say we might return to more temperature in the Ohio valley soon. I am liking the stay-at-homeness, but will also relish he release to come and go as we please.
We are having a laminate floor installed in teh sewing/sitting room this week. That ought to tear this up, dirty things up and take time to put together again!
The January almost nationwide storm swept through our area with bitter cold and wind. In total, we had about seven inches of snow, which for us is unusual. Grateful it was not the possible twelve inches, which would have been over the top of my boots! As it was when I had to walk through the ditch at the edge of the driveway where the snowplow had piled it even higher, I almost fell. Yes, Lucky still requires walking even in this weather. She is faster though at tending to her business. Bob did fall in that snow this morning while returning with her from her morning constitutional. Later this morning we plan to run the car over that pile a few times and salt it in hopes of diminishing the depth there!
There has been a feeding frenzy at the bird feeders. The starlings are doing their best to empty the mealworm feeder as fast as they can. I did fill it extra full this time and if I am writing at my computer I try to frighten them off. They are larger than the bluebirds and get food other places. And they are cowards. One tap on the window and they usually take off. The bluebirds seem to know they are welcome! Of course, when I am not sitting here writing the starlings help themselves unhindered. The slate colored Juncos were so amusing jumping about on the surface of the snow. I wondered why they did not scoop up the fallen meal worms. Must not be to their liking.
I made a huge pot of chicken tortilla soup on Thursday. It makes so much we have plenty to share with friends and neighbors. I just had a text message from another neighbor asking if we would like some chicken tortilla soup? Hilarious! That makes three of us on the same street who made the same soup! It is filling and certainly warms you up!
It is snowing again now. The snow plow did not come through until late on Sunday afternoon. The shovelers our HOA hires arrived after the plow. Then the shovelers evidently came again during the night to remove some of the snowplow depth at the end of driveways. I doubt we will see the shovelers again unless these flurries develop into 2-3 inches. Not likely. The surface of our road is still white.
I had to wonder when it was snowing really hard where the bluebirds take shelter? It is not as if we see them huddled in a particular tree or shrub. They are not known for digging tunnels for shelter. Where were they? As the wind whipped the wind chimes into a continuous winter chorus where was the even tinier Carolina Wren?
Birds hide in dense evergreens, shrubs, tree cavities, or human structures
Many species huddle together to share body heat
They enter torpor, a nightly mini-hibernation, to conserve energy
Birds fluff their feathers to trap warm air increasing insulation
They forage intensely before a storm to build fat reserves
Window ledges and backyard shelters become crucial hiding spots
Some birds stay perfectly still for hours to preserve energy
We do not have evergreens on our lot. There is space under the deck though. I like the idea of a flock of bluebirds sheltering under my deck during a winter storm! 🙂 Maybe if I give up the garden that runs across the back of our lot I will opt for evergreens to replace the many annuals I usually put out?
photo by r m dutina
I did notice the pesky squirrels did not appear on Sunday until late afternoon.
Glorify the Lord, all you works of the Lord, * praise him and highly exalt him for ever. In the firmament of his power, glorify the Lord, * praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, you angels and all powers of the Lord, * O heavens and all waters above the heavens. Sun and moon and stars of the sky, glorify the Lord, * praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, every shower of rain and fall of dew, * all winds and fire and heat. Winter and Summer, glorify the Lord, * praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O chill and cold, * drops of dew and flakes of snow. Frost and cold, ice and sleet, glorify the Lord, * praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O nights and days, * O shining light and enfolding dark. Storm clouds and thunderbolts, glorify the Lord, * praise him and highly exalt him for ever. The Book of Common Prayer Canticle 12, Morning Prayer Rite II
So regardless of your situation this winter I hope you too are able to glorify the Lord. Our church along with most others was closed this past Sunday. we look forward to seeing our church family again soon!
The opening photo was taken in Colorado, 2020 by our friend Dan Cooksey.
Our church offered the congregation the book, A Light Upon My Path, Daily Devotions for Advent & Christmas this year.
We enjoyed sharing selections at various mealtimes. I was reading the entry for January 6, Epiphany. The author for this entry, Laurie Brock, was contrasting navigational methods and mentioned, “I can think of nothing as inefficient as a star.” She went on to write about celestial navigation over the centuries. She pointed out that “One necessary part for celestial navigation by stars is darkness.”
She quoted that the Milky Way in “now NOT visible by 99 percent of people living in the United States and a third of the people living in the world because of all of our artificial light.” That is incredibly sad. We have been so eager to get rid of the darkness that we can no longer view the heavenly light easily.
Laurie made a good point that we need the darkness to see all of our God. Have you been comfortable with darkness? Can you try to enjoy this short season of diminished light now that we are moving towards the summer solstice when we have the longest day once again and the hours of light are increasing as we move towards it??
Some of our neighbors leave their outdoor lights on year round. When the birds are migrating I want everyone to turn them off as suggested by most of the naturalists. We have gone so far in demanding artificial light at night that our incessant lighting can mess up the migration routes.
A driving force behind the up to one billion birds killed globally each year by human-built structures is artificial light at night (ALAN), or light pollution. The new technology telling us so much about migration has also helped illuminate the magnitude of ALAN’s impact: For the September night that BirdCast predicted 594 million birds would be in the air, an overlaid map of light pollution showed the gauntlet those birds would have to pass through. “Suddenly the whole system of evolving to move at night is under potentially extreme pressure,” says Farnsworth, “pressure that birds would not experience otherwise, and it is creating chaos.” https://www.audubon.org/magazine/new-golden-age-observation-revealing-wonders-night-migration
Audubon goes on to point out that the migration numbers are huge and we are mostly unaware of the movement of these birds!
Light pollution, darkness, fear, finding our way we can learn about all of these things. Are we willing to change even one thing that we might know our God better? You are unlikely to be able to see the Milky Way from your neighborhood, but you can become aware of migration times, watch for the movement of God during the darkness of winter, and draw close to the Light of Life as you are called to bear that light.
We have responsibilities and we can honor God by honoring those responsibilities. I just ordered the stickers that go on the outside of the windows that show birds they should not fly there. Many birds crash into windows on houses because they think it is a clear path. Some of our stickers are getting old and losing their grip on the glass. This is one small thing we can do for the birds in the daytime.
Light, darkness, ours to behold. We need not fear the dark because we have the Light of Life with us.
In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:4-5 NIV
The house has been mostly closed up for a couple months now. Occasionally though there is a gnat possibly coming form the basil plants I brought in for the winter? It is especially annoying when I am reading my iPad mini in bed and the gnat visits the screen lit up in the dark bedroom. O try to squish them then if I can. So tiny, so annoying.
I got up one morning and retrieved my denture out of the cup where it rested all night. Yuck! this is what I found.
Gnat drowned in the Polident.
Our lot borders on a lot that is outside of our subdivision. We chose it on purpose because they have large trees and their lots run perpendicular to ours, creating some interesting sights. The houses over there are not built like ours, more unique in design. We have become good acquaintances with the neighbors closest to ours.
Recently it was warm here both day and night. I was delighted to open the bedroom window to get some fresh air into the house. And then it hit me! WHAM!
Roaming the neighborhood and stinking up our bedroom! SO disappointing! No fresh air for us!!
Just a couple nights later it was really cold and the windows were shut tight. I asked Bob if he smelled something burning? I have had terrible sinus trouble the last couple months and do not always trust my olfactory senses. He smelled something but could not identify it. A few minutes later we were both certain. That darn skunk was back and even with the windows closed tight the bedroom was filling up with nauseating odor.
Another question to ask when we get to heaven, “Why God? What were you thinking with the skunk?”
Online sources have a few ideas on how to deter the skunks. Most of them won’t work for us and I have no intention of installing a motion sensor light either. They likely live in my neighbor’s fallen branches or overgrown vegetation. Might even bee under their porch, though I have never witnessed any activity there. They do have two dogs though. Hope neither gets sprayed with Pepe’s cologne!
NOT cute!!
Go back to sleep you dratted mammal! Finding it very difficult to thank God for this black and white pest. I read that they eat some of the garden pests. Wish they would choose someone else’s garden!
Treasures in Plain Sight, A Christian Blog 