It snowed about 12 1/2 inches on Monday. School had been called off the day before in anticipation.
It was just beautiful! Big, large flakes.
The city was johnny on the spot, clearing roads. In Kansas where we live, the city does not clear our residential streets. This snow plow came by twice that day that I saw.
No school means lots of playing. Claire wanted to make a movie. She calls them "Claire's Night Out."
I told the girls they could stay in pajamas all day if they wanted. We had lunch in the basement and watched "The Waltons".
We made cookies.
Claire has a dairy allergy so she put skittles in hers and dairy free chocolate chip cookies. And we didn't use butter.
The girls wanted to play outdoors. The windchill was -10 degrees.
I checked to see how long it was safe for them to play outdoors.
The site I checked said 20 minutes.
So off they went to play!
That evening, some people from church came with their truck and snow plow to scoop off the driveway and a couple of guys shoveled the sidewalks. Many thanks!!
On Tuesday, the sun was out and the kids went off to school.
See what a good job the city did? It was no trouble getting around! Well, unless you were this guy.
Jill and Adam's church was sending them to a pastor's conference in Orlando, Florida and I was asked if I would be willing to come and watch the children. Of course I would! So, last week Allen took me to the airport to fly up to Wisconsin.
As I waited for my plane, who should come off the very plane I would be flying, than some dear friends from church. They had been in Ohio at her brother-in-law's funeral.
He was a Samaritan's purse pilot and had been killed in an airplane accident. I gave them a big hug and they shared about Brian Stolzfus. They said I should go on-line and watch the funeral. It really is uplifting! Wow, wow! Please take time to watch! I'm adding the link if you want to be blessed by this man's life.
God counts all our days.
All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16
It was my turn to board. I was in row 2. This was a smaller plane so there was no first class, but I almost felt like I was in first class, being up so close to the front!
I enjoyed visiting with my seatmate. He was a young man from Canada and had been taking training in Wichita to be a co-pilot. I asked him who his teacher had been and it was a friend of ours! He mentioned that he saw that people here had faith. That led to me sharing some of what it means, to have such joy and peace because we know Christ died and rose again and how God gives us a purpose and hope in life.
Close to Chicago, Lake Michigan was freezing over.
Deb Raney had posted on her Facebook page that a fellow author was putting this book free on Kindle. I thought I would download it and read it on the plane. Maybe not the best to read a book about a plane going down in a blizzard and landing in a frozen river! Not while flying in the air, anyway, but it was captivating. I also knew that if my plane went down, and I didn't make it, I would be with the Lord. "One last breath on earth, our first in heaven!"
In Chicago, I changed planes. The gate was only a couple gates over. I met a family who had an adopted girl from China. I showed them some pictures of our girl we adopted from Korea over 34 years ago.
As the plane was leaving the gate, I saw this plane.
Flying over Lake Winnebago.
I was on the wrong side of the plane to see Fond du Lac below.
Appleton - later Adam showed me where his parent's house was.
The family I'd met in Chicago was sitting in front of me and they received a text message that their children's school was being cancelled the next day due to the impending storm. I wondered if my grandchildren's school would also be closed.
At Appleton, we sat on the tarmac for some time. My seatmate, a young black man who told me he was from New York, had been watching an Alfred Hitchcock movie on his device. But as we waited, he began to share how disappointed he was in the decline of morality in our country. Me too! We had quite a conversation, feeling unity in sorrow over this nation.
Adam picked me up at the airport. We drove to Culver's and met up with the family. The girls came running up "Nana!!" An older couple said "Oh, they love their Nana!" So I told them I'd just arrived from Kansas.
"Oh? Where?"
"A town north of Wichita - Newton."
"Oh, we know Newton!"
"You do?? How do you know Newton?"
"I'm a truck driver and I stop there!"
Isn't it a small world?
After eating our delicious burgers and creamy custard, we drove home. Because of the blizzard that was in the forecast, Adam and Jill decided to drive to Milwaukee that night and spend the night in a hotel by the airport before taking off in the morning. It was just too iffy about traveling the roads in the morning. But we were hoping the plane would be able to take off.
Good-byes were said along with lots of hugs and kisses.
There have been so many Canada geese around here. Sometimes the ponds are so full you can barely see any water! The lake is partially frozen so the geese are "walking on the water".
Why are they called Canada geese? Well, the “real” name for this creature is Branta canadensis in Latin. They are not "Canadian geese", as I used to think. Simply "Canada geese".
We think this one was injured.
All alone and didn't budge as we came close to it.
Occasionally, you will see one or more white geese flying with the Canada geese. I thought they were snow geese. But on the monthly bird walk I go on by the college, our bird guide informed me that snow geese stay together and don't mingle with the Canada geese. When a white goose is with the Canada geese, they are generally Ross' goose.
The typical V formation helps with conserving energy. "the V shape makes the flock more energetically efficient, with vortices of air created by each goose’s flapping giving some lift to the birds behind it. Second, the formation makes it easier for the geese to maintain visual contact with each other and communicate, which helps navigation and flock cohesion."-M. Soniak
They fly right by my bedroom window.
This is the field by our home.
Taken on a foggy day
I know many people feel the geese are just annoying. They do leave a lot of goose poop on the sidewalks and the farmers aren't too happy with them in their fields, but I do enjoy watching them!
I love getting pictures of birds that visit our home!
Goldfinch
As Spring comes, the goldfinch will turn more and more yellow.
By summer, he is a bright yellow!
Goldfinch and house finch
House finch and Junco
The Junco is a winter bird; a type of sparrow. This is the slate-colored race.
Cardinal and sparrow (it is so cute!!)
Flicker
Female downy woodpecker
Sweet little sparrow
The chickadee
It makes a tse tse tse sound. Also a whistle - "so sweet" it calls
I've been trying to photograph an elusive wren, but it is so flighty! One day I'll have my camera ready when he appears! This morning I heard his loud, bubbly cry and got my camera ready, but I never did see it.
Marjolein Bastin paints the cutest wrens!
A cooper hawk in the willow - enemy of these little birds
They fly into bushes to escape.
As Christians, we also have an enemy. 1 Peter 5:8 "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."
I think about how a hawk soars to and fro, or sits in a branch with his keen eye, just watching. Just waiting to see a mouse or little bird he can go after. Likewise, Satan.
"Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me."
Psalm 50 15
"For in the day of trouble He will hide me in His shelter; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent; He will set me high upon a rock." Psalm 27:5
