More Ups and Downs

Saw a Momma duck and five ducklings on the creek right below our house yesterday.

Suddenly there was a screeching and flapping of wings as a hawk zoomed in out of nowhere.  Even as I clapped my hands to shoo him away (poor hawk, I know he has to eat too -- but not while I'm watching, please), two big black crows dive-bombed him.  There was smack on the water and a slapping of wings.  The hawk took off -- not very far -- with the crows after him.  Just then the Pappa drake came squawking down the creek and landed near his family.  But all the excitement was over by the time he got there.  A few moments later the hawk did make another half-hearted attempt while flying back across the creek but the crows were on him like a shot.  I stood and watched for a while and was happy to see that there were still five ducklings, but now swimming close to Mom.

Now I'm wondering, were the crows actually protecting the ducklings or were they just thinking of their own nests high up in the pine tree close-by, taking this chance to get at their enemy while his attention was distracted?

*********

The wild fires came very close to us a couple of weeks ago.  We were next in line to be evacuated and actually did receive the reverse 911 call  but just to tell us that the evacuations were over.  The fire fighters and all the resources available were right on top of it all even though the event was more dangerous than ones we have had in the past.  Nine separate fires all sprang up in various parts of the city, some looking suspiciously like arson.

Since the Cedar fires of a few years ago when so many people lost their homes, the various departments, which included the military, have seriously overcome the red tape which was hampering their efforts to work together and provide necessary equipment to fight fires.  There was much criticism back then, mostly derived from the entangling red tape and bureaucracy.   What a difference this time!  The work of all the departments was magnificent!  I think there were only three homes lost.

Most people unfamiliar with our wild fires do not realize the speed with which these fires move given the right environment.   We have had no winter this year, it has been a delight, but it is going to be a long, dangerous wildfire season.

For those who may not know, 911 is our emergency phone call, like 999 in Britain.  But the reverse 911 is when the authorities call you to let you know of imminent danger such as floods and fire.  A great idea!

*********

Now for some anxiety-ridden news.  Our granddaughter, Haley, not yet 13 years old, has just been diagnosed with stage five Crohn's disease.  Of course everyone thinks their grandchildren are amazingly special and gifted.  We're no exception.  But she really is!

It is barely three weeks since she was first admitted to the hospital.  Then after tests and medication for about ten days, the diagnosis was made.  She is on antibiotics intravenously and can only eat very limited food until the abscess is healed.  It was very large and had pushed through the wall of the small intestine, collapsing her colon.

It's a lot for a young girl to go through never mind the future implications, so we are asking that if you are a praying person, please pray for Haley -- and her mother, who has taken on the immense task of nursing her and administering medications as well as being Mom.

A month or so ago I asked Haley what her favorite flower was as I have been doing drawings for all the 'girls' in our family.  She said it was a deep, dark red rose.  I posted my drawings here on my blog not too long ago.

My sister Kay, sent her some drawing templates of tangles and Haley has created one as her favorite flower. It is now placed in her room along with mine.

Then just to top it all off, her step-Dad, my son Glyn,

brought her a dozen long stem roses while she was in the hospital.

Look at that smile!  She was certainly pleased to receive these!

She is surrounded with prayers and love as well as the unfailing love of her heavenly Father, so we are expecting the Lord to do wonderful things in her life.

Here's a thought for those of us who sometimes wonder why God doesn't just heal those who love Him.  If He did, I wonder how many of us would love Him for all the wrong reasons --  just for what we could get.

GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME. ALL THE TIME GOD IS GOOD

CREATIVE TUESDAY -- TOPIC: SOCKS

I was a bit perverse in my entry for this week's Creative Tuesday.  I wanted to do something unusual and I came up with this idea.  I have to tell you that this topic in no way has anything to do with my political views. It is just a drawing.  I wanted to do Socks but when I found this photo on line I thought it would be a good opportunity to practice drawing faces too, since that is something I have been doing recently.

 Actually, I think Clinton's face came out better than Socks.

If you would like to see other entries in Creative Tuesday please click HERE

CREATIVE TUESDAY

OUR THEME THIS WEEK:        THE OLD OAK TREE

THE OLD OAK TREE AT HOTHORPE HALL Leicestershire UK.
( This was drawn with Prismacolor pencils on a water color background.)

In 2007 we stayed at Hothorpe Hall for our denomination's Triennial Conference.  It is a magnificent venue.  The hall is set in beautiful grounds.  This old Oak tree was located near the driveway that drove up to the Hall.  At dusk it looked quite eerie indeed.  I took a photo of it but that was three computers and probably a thousand photos ago and I couldn't find it.  So I had to do it by memory  I'm quite pleased with it because it does look like I remembered it.  

One evening while there, I was sitting outside in the dusk when over in a group of large trees I saw a strange, large creature slowly climbing one of the trees.  It looked like a humped-backed creature with twisted legs. I wasn't scared because I don't believe in monsters.  But I watched it for a while and then I remembered the Hall had quite a few peacocks.  I didn't realize that peacocks roost in trees!

I'm going to take a look now at what some of my other cohorts did for their interpretation of the Oak Tree.  Come on over and visit us -- even better, join our group and see what you can do in the way of interpreting our bi-weekly themes.  You can find us HERE

THIS and THAT

While our PC and my  laptop have been under therapy for almost two weeks, I have not been idle.  A month or so ago I took a photo of our new bench in the back yard which overlooks the creek.  I liked this shot so much I decided to draw it.  It is about 4x6" in size and was drawn with prismacolor pencils.

There are now a couple of small bushes beside the tree on the slope of the bank down to the creek. We are told they are New Zealand Christmas trees.  They look very much like what we call the bottle brush tree, but are smaller in size.  Still they add some nice color on the bank and elsewhere in the yard.  We have four of them all together. 

The lavender ice plant has been a blaze of glory this spring, but it is over now.  And before that there was the vivid magenta ice plant (towards the right of the picture), although it is about over in this photo. The left side of the photo is lavender verbena or it might be lantana.  Not sure which.  We have planted three or four golden euonymous, some on the bank and a couple in pots.  Plants in pots take less water than having to water a whole large area, so since we are in a four year drought  we try to keep the use of water down.  The red pot on the left side of the photo has a kangaroo cactus in it.  Kind of an interesting succulent. Back behind it are an assortment of geraniums.  The blue in the top right is the water in the creek which was fuller than usual because it had just rained.

Here is a better close-up of the kangaroo cactus:

Don't you love my Mexican man too!

Our temps are in the 80's and 90's this week.  Scruffy is flaked out by the sun room door, which in spite of its name actually has a nice breeze coming through it.

Speaking of Scruffy, he has a new trick.  What a love!

There is nothing in my hand because we don't feed him treats or people food, but he gives the tips of my fingers kisses when I do this.

I think we are all fixed up about now on our computers.  It has been a while!  So maybe I will start posting more on my blog.

Blessings -- and I'll be back.

CREATIVE TUESDAY -- BIRTHDAY CARD

Well, I really hope I've made it this week.  Our new hard drive is mostly up and running, but the scanner is not yet installed, so for now I have had to photograph my entries for Creative Tuesday.  The reproductions here are not quite all the color I actually produced, but I think you can get the idea.

FRIDAY 25th: Because I finally got my scanner working, today I pasted in below the copy of Wanda's birthday card after I was able to scan it .  What a difference!  

I have also done the same with the Nursery Rhyme picture further below.

Our theme was to design a birthday card for Wanda who has been a great supporter of Creative Tuesday for many months.

So -- a wonderful and blessed Happy Birthday for Wanda who has also walked along side me in my foray into blogging these past few years.  The background of the card is supposed to be a very pretty pink and the shading of the colors on the leaves have not reproduced as vibrantly as I had hoped.  But anyway, I' m sure Wanda will have an especially happy day with all her friends and family.

My entry for the last theme two weeks ago, Nursery Rhymes, was all ready to be posted when our hard drive died, so I have taken this opportunity to post it here this week.  I hope you don't mind.  Since I had put quite a lot effort into deciding what to do and then executing it, I decided I really wanted to post it, late or not.  So here it is:

  

Below is the scanned version:

Can you guess what nursery rhymes are represented here?

How about,

Polly put the Kettle On; Ding Dong Bell;  Twinkle Twinkle Little Star; Hey Diddle, Diddle; Little Boy Blue; Jack and Jill; Rain, Rain Go Away; I had a Little Nut Tree;  Humpty Dumpty; One, Two. Three, Four, Five...

It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun.

See you next time!

WHOOPS!  Forgot to do the link for Creative Tuesday.  Come over to see the other pieces of artwork illustrating our theme and why not consider joining us?  Here's the LINK

SCRUFFY'S GREAT ESCAPE!

It was bound to happen sooner or later -- but it was more of an event than I'd anticipated.

I was cooking dinner and as usually happens, whenever I put the oven on over 400 the smoke alarm goes off -- even though I Do clean the oven!

So it went off Saturday evening.  When it happens our routine is to open the back and the front door to get the air flowing through. It is a pain because it scares the cat half to death.  Well Saturday evening it went off twice.  Scruffy complained loudly.  Unfortunately I was so concerned about stopping the noise that I didn't close the  back screen door.  It is just a regular size door but the screen slides back into the door jamb.  It's not easy to see and we have walked into it a couple of times.

So I finished cooking dinner and then we ate.  It must have been a good half hour later when Barry took the dishes into the kitchen and noticed the back door was still open.  No sign of Scruffy anywhere.  For the next half hour we went all around the house and yard calling him.  I didn't think he would go far but by now it was getting dark and we all know what happens around the creek after dark. We went up and down the street calling, but not a sight or sound of him.  The gate security came by and helped us look.  

After about an hour I decided to get in the car and look in the next street over.  I rolled the windows down and began moving slowly down the street calling him.  Three streets later there was still no sign of him.  It was now nine o'clock and since this is a retirement park, I'm quite sure I kept a few people awake.  On returning to our street I decided to go around the block once more.  I was quite sure that if he heard me he would answer.  He nearly always does.  

Sure enough half way down the street, maybe three doors away from us but on the next street, I heard him cry and then give his excited little yips he does when he's trying to tell us something.  He was up on a long verandah that runs along the side of a house and he couldn't get through the bars.  I walked him to the back steps and picked him up. But as soon as I put him in the  car he jumped out of the window on the other side.  There was no way he was going in the car, besides he was quite sure this was our house, because he immediately ran up the steps to the front door.  The houses here all look so much alike except for the landscaping and the configuration of the porches.

Fortunately my husband appeared at that moment.  He had stayed at the house in case Scruffy came home.

Long story short -- we got him home safe and sound -- and not very repentant I have to say. Remember the story when my sister was here?  Well he's eyeing the back door now in the same way!  So I'm keeping ever vigilant!  

Honestly, I don't know who was more exhausted, him or me.

THE BIRTHDAY CAKE

(See previous blog).

My sister had a photo of the famous birthday cake described in my last blog and sent it to me.  Thank you Kaybee.  I don't remember seeing it before.  I have two corrections to make.  First Little Gran was 74 that day and second, by the looks of me in that photo I must have been 13, 14 years old. I think I look older, but I know where the house was in which this photo was taken and we moved from there in   1953.

This must be one of the last photos of our family together, except my father was probably taking the photo.  From the back left are, my mother, my brother (deceased aged 48), me aged 15 approx.

Maureen,  (the little girl who lived a couple of houses away), my sister Kaybee, Little Gran, (looking a youthful 74 years)  and the notorious birthday cake.  

Too bad Dad wasn't in the picture.  I can't recall ever seeing a family photo with us all in it.  So I'm glad to have this photo.  My initial reaction is that we all look so normal.  Truly this was one of the happiest times of my teenage years, but my overall feeling was that we were a somewhat dysfunctional family.  Or perhaps it was me that was dysfunctional -- I would not conform to my father and brother's opinion of women as being useless and feather-brained.

Thank goodness for Little Gran who was a great role model for me and kept me on track without even knowing it.