Standing sentinel…

I haven’t been getting out much, content to mindlessly ‘pace’ on the elliptical trainer upstairs while I survey the street below… so it's slim pickin’s picture-wise, unless we fixate on buds opening in the windowsill…This one is surely morphing into something..a lilac I believe!

But sitting here one afternoon idly looking out the front window while I chatted with Jim I spied our lone neighborhood gull looking picturesque, though out of place, on the neighbor’s roof… We have lots of crows around but only this one gull.  He’s wandered in from the ocean to join the regular flock of crows that feed on my stale bread and the quantities of left-overs I toss out as I learn (slowly) to cook for a smaller household…

He clearly lords it over the competition here.  Perhaps that’s why he’s decided to stay.  He’d make a fine subject for a children’s picture book, about the gull who didn’t like seafood, or some such thing…Maybe we should give him a name…hmmm….

And such is life in the Wildwood as February runs down to its finish.

--LS

“I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me…” Hab.2:1

Hope springs…

Hope springs, because of a promise:

"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." Gen.8:22 

And so the seasons cycle ‘round in a never ending succession.  Winter cannot stay.  Stark leafless branches raising their limbs skyward have only to wait for the sun to do its bidding…

 

It’s amazing what a little warmth will do!

 

 

 

Though I may seem at present to be obsessed with blooms of the botanical sort, there is another kind of bloom I’m watching, as my youngest prepares to leave the nest…

Amazing what a little love can do….

--LS

And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Rom.5:2-5

But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Rom.8:25

Rumors of spring…

There’s something underfoot, quite literally…rumblings that spring is on the way.  A great underground network of workers is on the move, tunneling and depositing their waste in neat little mounds that polka-dot our lawn…

Quiet Snowdrops raise the ensign—winter is surrendering.

And I was so tickled to walk into my ‘studio’ and see an Artist other than me at work!  

The Old Farmer’s Almanac suggested that I gather branches full of buds and put them in water for a winter bouquet. It worked!  The forsythia have graciously yielded up their blooms to adorn my dreary windowsill!

I never tire of the wonder of an opening bud!

And I’m glad for the chance to hibernate and dream up flowers of my own that don’t require weeding!

 

--LS

When the Sun Shines…

One somber day this week I went out just for the quiet stroll of it—not looking for exercise—but just to stretch my legs and chew on memory verses…”You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.  And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.  But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”  Hmm…dying on the outside, but very much alive within…

Kinda like a day mid-winter when the cheeriest sights are sad little ponies in raincoats.

…and the brightest things around are the roadside grasses, long dead, but still stalwart and bright…

But when the sun shines, as it did today, I remember what SKY BLUE is!

And even a common laurel hedge glows chartreuse!

Donkeys will always find something to be glum about I suppose…

I know.  I can be a bit of an Eeyore myself, but not today! It’s just too wonderful to see the sun so unexpectedly ( :

Speaking of unexpected, what’s this! A mini magenta ‘poof’ out the end of an otherwise humdrum bud…

 

Delightful the unexpected things one sees, when the sun shines…

--LS

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Mt.5:16

Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. Is.60:1

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Oh, and having mentioned donkeys, can I make an addendum?!  Recently I received this G.K. Chesterton poem from a friend, written from a donkey’s point of view… As only G.K. could say it:

The Donkey

BY G. K. CHESTERTON

When fishes flew and forests walked
   And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
   Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
   And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
   On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
   Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
   I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
   One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
   And palms before my feet.