MARCH 1, ST. DAVID'S DAY

Today, Saturday, is St David's Day. St. David is the patron saint of Wales (just as St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland). Our heritage is Welsh, though we were both born in England, so today we look at all things Welsh!

The Daffodil
This is the national flower of Wales.

The Welsh flag














A map of the British Isles, showing the Land of Wales
(and Flamborough Head, my true passion).



















The Leek also a national emblem of Wales.
It is something like an onion but more mild. A bowl of leek soup is wonderful!

The Welsh National Anthem
Hen Wlad fy Nhadau
(Land of my Fathers)

Welsh version
Cymraeg
Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi
Gwlad beirdd a chantorion enwogion o fri
Ei gwrol ryfelwr, gwlad garwyr tra mad
Tros ryddid collasant eu gwaed.

Gwlad Gwlad,
Pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad,
Tra môr yn fur i'r bur hoff bau
O bydded i'r hen iaith barhau

English version

Land of my Fathers, O land of the free,
A land of poets and minstrels, famed men.
Her brave warriors, patriots much blessed,
It was for freedom that they lost their blood.

Wales! Wales!,
I am devoted to my country.
So long as the sea is a wall to this fair beautiful
land, May the ancient language remain.

And what would Wales be without her sheep?...




....and the beautiful Welsh Corgi...

....and her many, many beautiful castles.

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We will continue the adventures of my sister and I tomorrow.
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Where we Went and What we Did

We went to Oceanside Harbor. It was an absolutely beautiful day.





































We explored the gift shops.....

















....but managed to resist the fish and chips, which tells you how much we had eaten in the last few days, because we both LOVE fish and chips!













At the harbor beach, the seagulls were taking a break and doing a little sun bathing.

Oceanside Harbor is one of the little known jewels of the Tri-City area.

What Have I Been Doing - Where Have I been?

I plan to answer these questions in the next couple of posts.

First of all, I mentioned my sister had been visiting us from Toronto, Canada, where they must have had ten foot of snow this winter.

Someone asked to see a more up-to-date-photo of us. Well this is us last Monday, at the Elephant Bar in Escondido, being bad girls.















How bad is that! We feel like we spent most of our time eating, but not just hot fudge sundaes.















Father and son, Glyn, (Welsh for Glen) were also there but were smart enough not to have their photos taken while they were eating their enormous desserts! At least Kay and I shared one!

We also spent some time sitting out on the patio. The sun did eventually come out after the first three days.



We also went to the Harbor, (Oceanside), and took a day out to the desert. Photos coming up soon.

Ups and Downs

Henrietta was missing for a couple of days and after the deposits on the patio we were a little alarmed. We have now decided that we are not being visited by a coyote but by a fairly large raccoon. At first I breathed a sigh of relief -- until I searched the web and discovered that raccoons eat chickens too! But I have seen her the last two days, so she is still with us. But she is pecking up seed rather nervously and doesn't stay around very long.


Last Wednesday my sister arrived from Toronto to soak up some sunshine. Of course you know what happened. It has rained every day since then. I think we have persuaded her to stay an extra day or two, since the weather is supposed to clear up. I should have some photos of her, but instead I have only one of me, which she took between the showers. Notice the plumeria in the green pot to the left of me. Just bare branches and it was so full of beautiful green leaves last summer. There are tiny shoots on the tips but I'm not sure if they will amount to anything.



Then she took another photo of me at the computer, which is, I think, my second home. (Not too flattering a shot, but there I am hard at work.)































Here we are together, taken last June while we were in England.


Here's the Man of the House picking up after what we think is the raccoon.

What Exactly is Morning Star Messengers?

Rev. Albert Sturges, first missionary to Micronesia.
circa 1850


















Islanders welcoming the Morning Star



In the 1800's American Congregational missionaries learned about many hundreds of islands, scattered north to south across the equator, between Hawaii and the Philippines. They had been badly exploited by the whalers and traders who had taken advantage of the islanders' unsophisticated ways. In addition, their culture included going to war, family or clan against clan, to claim villages and other areas of their tiny islands. The missionaries determined to reach these islands to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ and to bring peace instead of killing. It was an uphill battle since alcohol abuse and prostitution had already taken firm root. Eventually the missionaries, having settled on several islands, bought a ship to bring supplies for the missionaries and for the islanders. The ship was named the Morning Star after Jesus Christ, who is called the Bright and Morning Star in the Bible.

My book "Good News Comes to Pohnpei" documents the history of these early years of the Church in Micronesia. The stories are exciting and heart warming.

For the last 30 years my husband, among others, has been leading teams of Christians from the US one or twice a year, to help the churches in these islands. He helped establish the Morning Star Institute classes which train Micronesian pastors, who have churches on many tiny islands throughout Micronesia. When my husband retired as the pastor of the Carlsbad Community Church seven years ago, he founded the non-profit organization, Morning Star Messengers and increased his involvement in the islands. His ministry of this nature has now expanded to other countries of the world where he has been invited to help encourage other struggling churches in a number of countries of the world.

Want to learn more?
Read "Good News Comes to Pohnpei"
Revised and edited by Christine A. Jones.
You can get it on Amazon.com

This is Quite a Mixture!

First, we have the display my husband and I put together for our Missionary Conference at the church last week. There are photos on this from Micronesia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, South Africa -- and the one on the bottom row, 3rd from left is what my husband insists is a photo of a Contemporary Worship Leader !!! (Please, no offense intended! It is actually an Australian Aborigine playing a diggerydoo). Better view below.









































Next, we have two photos of the mourning doves who have been visiting us for the past week. Notice Bailey is keeping a sharp eye on them.


















This next photo matches Wanda's 'UGH!' quality for the picture of licking a pig.














OH HENRIETTA! This is the third such deposit we have found on our patio in three days. Each piece is about three to four inches long. After the stormy weather we had last week, my husband saw a bedraggled looking coyote not a block away from our house. We talked to a neighbor who lives just two houses away and he leaves for work every day at 5:15 a.m. He says he sees coyotes every morning on our street, which is just a small circle. There used to be rabbits playing in the circle, but if this is what we think it is, then Henrietta had better take care! I have hardly seen her for three days. Today she just came and hurriedly picked up the food and took off again, and is now nowhere to be seen. Bailey was highly agitated about two nights ago, and we thought he must have seen or smelled another cat. The neighbor asked us if we had a rooster and we told him no, that it was two houses behind us. He hears it crowing every morning.

My son said, "Well you wanted to get rid of Henrietta didn't you?".... Well.... yes, but not by having a coyote eating her, and I certainly don't want to see or hear it happening!!






















On a happier note, Bailey is an indoor cat, so he at least is safe.

The Little Blog Cat

href="http://webneko.net">Neko

The little blog cat
Did you notice the little napping cat in the upper left corner of this page? Click on it and see what happens. If you want one for yourself, you can get it here. (You can click on it again and it will head back to the corner for another nap.)It is slow to down load, but is cute.

Quick Comments

Boy! Did we get a sharp rebuke by the weather today!! We have had temps in the upper 60's and 70's for two weeks now and the weather man said no more rain this month. Well today it poured down and the wind blew like crazy and blew my daffodils over three times. (Man of the House had bought another five the other day). Not only that, but the temperature was 45 degrees at lunch time. The temp dropped five degrees in less than an hour. That will teach us!

I should explain about my previous blog, that the red crested cardinal is found in Hawaii, and on some islands this bird does not have a crest.

BY REQUEST

Red-crested Cardinal as requested by Sandy

Beautiful Weather -- New Birds

Cassin's Kingbird
Such excitement, because this is a new bird to be found in our back yard. This picture taken from one of my bird books. He has an olive green back and head, different from the Western Kingbird. Haven't been able to get a photo yet, if ever, but there were a pair of them in a tree and flying around for about 10 minutes. Very kingly looking bird, but like the scrub jay his voice doesn't match his looks. All the other birds are busily singing their spring songs since the weather has been so wonderful for a week now, but when the king bird arrived and let out his squawk, there was suddenly silence. They did start up again after a moment or two but I wonder if he is a predator (on eggs). Probably not, because he is categorized with the flycatchers.



















Heerman's Gull He is really a very sharp looking gull. The red beak sets him apart from other gulls. I took this photo a week or so ago when I was visiting the beach.

Unlike most birds, he raises his chicks in the Gulf of California (south of us,) then meanders northwards. Found mainly along the Southern California coast.

SPRING IS HERE!

The man of the house arrived home Monday from the islands (Micronesia). He really had a fruitful time there. I bought these daffodils on the Saturday before, as a coming home present. We are part Welsh and both love daffodils. They were only $3 and all except one were tightly budded. I keep flowers out on the patio because of my allergies and they last longer. On Sunday night I almost brought them inside because of the rain and 'cold' temps we were expecting, but the next day they had just perked up so brightly that I'm glad I didn't. They obviously loved the rain. Anyway, here we are a week later and they are just beautiful.

The little greenery in front of the flowers is my Maiden Hair Fern which shriveled up and died in the fall. But when I bought it, the lady in the line behind me said, "It will die off, but just cut it back and it will bounce back as bright as ever. " And it has!








Here it is when it was thriving in the summer:

HENRIETTA: The Saga Continues

Between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m. every evening, Henrietta has a last scratch around for a few more morsels, then gently cawing a lullabye to the few birds that are still flitting in and out of the bushes, she toddles off around the back of the house to her roosting place.



"The 5:00 p.m. flight to the Olive Tree is now boarding. Please have your tickets at the ready."

















Whew! That was a steep flight up to the 6 foot level for take off!























Hmm. Got a good way to go yet. Better just catch my breath.





















"Fasten your seat belts, as we will be taking off momentarily."




"Flight Attendants, please prepare for take-off"























Woosh!! Made it! It's so nice to be home!

































(She's in there somewhere. I saw her go.)




If that was Henrietta's Saga, then this is the 'Cat's Tale'

Groundhog Day in Carlsbad

These petunias and geraniums have been blooming all winter long.
Yes, that is scarecrow mingling with the blossoms in the picture below.

It is a good thing that Groundhog Day wasn't yesterday as it poured with rain all day and half the night. But as you can see, he did see his shadow on the 2nd of Feb.

Last night, about midnight, another squall blew in and the wind rattled the windows and howled around the house. I lay there and listened until I thought I was back in Flamborough.

Speaking of which, I am so pleased because I have been receiving email from people who either lived in Flamborough about the time I lived there, or they would visit for holidays. Equally important, they found me through my website. I had over a thousand hits on my web site in January!

Posts Coming Soon

Sorry I haven't posted since Sunday. Will try to do better this weekend. I have been working on my website http://www.flamboroughhead.com (What a pain to work with! I need a better web program) and also on "Homesick for Flamborough" my blog of particular interest to Flamborians: www.blogstoday.co.uk This will take you to Flamborough Today, then click on list at the left : Blogspot
I'm not sure how to use links but am hoping these will automatically take you to those sites. If not, please look at the right hand side bar of this page, scroll down to FLAMBLOGGER'S LINKS and you will find them listed in my Flamborough Links and they should work from there.

More stuff coming up -- (more snow coming down in Toronto as I understand it. What a winter they've had!)