Some Fun Saturday Stuff

Mommie said it was my turn to write the blog post, so here's what's been happening today!

For a little while Mommie kept seeing this Log Yard Swing on the porch of our local building supply store, and she kept saying to Daddy how much she'd love to have a swing to put in the Secret Garden. 

Well, today my brother Scotty was off from work, and he has a pickup truck, and Mommie said, I sure would like to go get that swing before it disappears. And so Daddy agreed it was okay to buy it (with Mommie's share of the tax return money, LOL), and Scotty said he'd be happy to go pick it up.

My brother Scotty is so strong, he was able to lift that swing and put it in his truck all by himself, and take it out and set it up in the yard all by himself.

He said to be sure and get a picture of him flexing his muscles. LOL.

So here it is all set up in the Secret Memorial Garden.  Mommie and Scotty are swinging and Mommie is so happy.

Then Mommie talked Daddy into swinging with her. He was afraid he'd break it if he sat down in it.

Now there's a sweet picture! Mommie and Daddy sitting in a swing, K-i-s-s-i-n-g!

First comes love, then comes marriage...

Then comes Lily in a swinging carriage! Ha Ha. Had to make it rhyme!

I really like to swing! Remember the little poem by Robert Louis Stevenson? We talked about it HERE once before.  

"How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside...

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown...

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!"

This swing doesn't swing quite that high, but it is still high enough for me and Mommie:

Here we are trying to take selfies of ourselves while swinging. 

It was a very pleasant time in the cool breeze and shade of the Secret Memorial Garden.

Isn't it lovely?

Mommie said to never mind the sheets under those chairs. She still has to finish painting the undersides of them. Everytime she thinks she can do it, it acts like it's going to rain, so she can't finish them. But she will, she says. She will...

Now, guess what THIS is?

Yes, you are correct if you said it's another birdhouse for the chickadees!

Yes, Mommie and Daddy put up this other birdhouse today so the chickadees and the bluebirds will quit fighting over the one birdhouse.

Right away "Father Goose" came swimming over to see what was going on and if there were any intruders coming to his pond.

Once he saw it was just another birdhouse for the silly chickadees, he turned around and swam back to keep watch out for other bigger threats to his lady love sitting on her nest.

And guess who came next to check out the new birdhouse?

Yep, you guessed it!! Mr. Chickadee came right away and looked it over very carefully!

He even peeked inside to see if it would accommodate his wife and children:

And after all that work, he went and had a snack to build up his strength for the tasks ahead...

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bluebird is very busily gathering twigs and grass to build her nest in the old birdhouse, which is just fine for her!!

She stayed busy doing this most of the day, so I hope she really means business this time around!

I will say that both Mr. Bluebird and Mrs. Bluebird also flew over to the new house to look in the windows and check it out...but I think they decided their house was just fine for them and they got back to work building their nest.

Meanwhile, there is always a threat of danger nearby...This Red Shouldered Hawk was resting in this tree over on the island for quite a while. Father Goose stayed very close by, keeping a "hawk-eye" on Mr. Hawk, to make sure he didn't venture too close to Mother Goose sitting on her nest.

One other bird of note flew in to the neighborhood this afternoon and had a look around to check things out, and then he went on his way...Mr. Catbird. I don't know if he was interested in the new birdhouse, or just visiting...but he didn't bother anyone and they didn't bother him either.

Meanwhile, in between putting up new birdhouses and swinging in the swing, Mommie and Daddy also went to the local flea market this morning to buy vegetables and look around.

Besides buying more corn on the cob and cantaloupe, squash and tomatoes, Mommie spied this pretty big bowl and really liked it. She asked the nice lady who was selling it how much she wanted and she said $1.00.  Mommie thought that was a great deal, and so she bought it.

Isn't it pretty? That is a peony, which doesn't grow here in Florida, but Mommie loves them and wishes they did. Then there is a lovely moth, two butterflies and a dragonfly too, all things Mommie loves, so she was very happy to get this pretty bowl for just $1.00.

When she got home she looked up the information on the computer to find out more about the pattern, by looking at this label on the bottom of the bowl.  She discovered that this particular design and brand of dishes is VERY expensive, and this bowl would have cost  at least $25.00 if it was new! So Mommie really  likes that bowl a lot more now!! It doesn't even have a chip in it!

So that was her big bargain for today!

So now to finish this post out on a more "serious" note, I wanted to share this very nice little devotional book with you.  One of Mommie's friends from church, (I call her Auntie Opal), gave this book to Mommie especially because of me!  She said because my name is Lily Grace, when she saw this book she thought of me and thought we would like to have it.

It has nice little short daily devotions in it, and Mommie said we can read them together each day.

This is the first one, and Mommie and I really liked it.  It tells us that when we keep our minds set on God, He will help us to stay "completely whole", and "steady on our feet", because we don't give up. Even when we might fall or lose our balance, speaking about our spiritual walk, we don't give up because we know that God is there to hold our hands and help us get back up and stay steady and strong.  Sometimes when we make so many mistakes we get frustrated and want to give up. But God helps us to keep trying and not give in to fear or disappointment or even embarrassment. And when we trust Him to help us, we will surely be stronger and better!!

Those are some good thoughts for today, don't you think?

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little visit with us today. Did you do anything fun or different or interesting today? Mommie said to tell you she will get caught up with you soon. As you can see, today was kind of busy! But it was a good good day.

Thank You, Jesus!!

Amen.

Bye bye for now.

Love,

Lily Grace

 

Bluebirds, Blueberries, and Birdhouse Blues!

Welcome to the latest adventure with Lily Grace! We promise to tell you about our adventures no matter how blue they may be!

You may remember back in February I told you about the "Bluebirds of Happiness" and how happy we were to have the bluebirds taking up residence in our birdhouse! It was quite a happy time, and for a long while they kept house, coming and going and building their nest and sitting on the nest, and we thought for sure that someday we would see little baby bluebirds.  Well, sadly one day we woke up and saw only the remains of the nest pulled out of the birdhouse and no sign of the bluebirds anywhere.  That was several weeks ago, and there was no sign of them ever again, until yesterday! And all of a sudden there they were again, checking out the birdhouse and starting to bring in nesting material to start a new nest. (Mommie had cleaned out the old nest).  

We were so excited to see them back again, because Mommie and Daddy had actually moved the birdhouse to a new location.

My big brother Benton and Auntie Rose brought us this nice metal pole so we could attach the birdhouse to it, and put it in a new place so the predators would have a harder time getting into the birdhouse.  It is a lot closer to the house and away from the trees more, although it doesn't look like it in this picture, but it is.

Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird checked it out thoroughly and seemed quite pleased with the new location and began setting up housekeeping right away.

That's Mrs. Bluebird inspecting the house.

It was quite an exciting day... there's Father and Mother Goose down in the pond having their morning breakfast while Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird are inspecting the birdhouse.  All so happy and serene. (that's a big word Mommie taught me that means peaceful).

Doesn't Mr. Bluebird look so happy and pretty sitting there?

Well, that was yesterday.  It rained a lot last night and this morning, and we didn't see Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird at all this morning. But we figured they'd show up after the rain stopped.

But then we looked outside and who popped his head out of the birdhouse but Mr. Chickadee!!!

(Could be Mrs.Chickadee...they are harder to tell apart)  And all morning after the rain stopped he was flying in and out of the birdhouse and acting like it was HIS house! Mommie tried to tell him that it was already taken by Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird, but he just chattered away at her saying "chickadeedeedeedee" and didn't pay her any mind at all.

Mommie was getting worried that the Chickadee family would take over the birdhouse before Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird came back with their furniture. 

Then all of a sudden after lunch we see Mr. Bluebird show up again, and he flew right inside like he owned the place.  I don't know where Mr. Chickadee was, but he wasn't around right then.

So Mr. Bluebird started flying in and out again, and Mrs. Bluebird was  flitting around in the tree too, and so Mommie and I were relieved that maybe the Bluebirds would be able to secure the house before the chickadee family.

Mr. Bluebird sure looked like he was ready to take over.  

But then he flew away, and Mr. Chickadee flew back in, and now we don't know who is going to end up with the house!

So stayed tuned for the next episode of the Birdhouse Saga to find out who wins!

Meanwhile, we've sure been enjoying eating those blueberries we got the other day!

Mommie made some blueberry bran muffins and also put some on her cheerios along with some sliced bananas. Yummy! I loved that too!!

Look  how pretty our own blueberry bushes are looking:

Mommie and Daddy bought some pine bark mulch to put around the bottoms of the plants like the man said to do. He said they like "acidic" soil, and the pine bark helps make it that way so they will grow better.

The man also said to cut the bushes down like in half so they will grow better,  but Mommie said not until we are finished eating all these berries first!

Mommie picks them off the bushes and we eat them right then and there as soon as they ripen! They are so sweet and juicy and yummy.

And there are a lot of them!

We also put some pine mulch around the little azalea bushes that Mommie and Daddy planted a few weeks ago. They like pine mulch too.

Now, back inside,  because it was raining this morning we decided it was a good time to bake some cookies because Daddy said he wanted some of those good coconut pecan cookies again.

Of course I helped! I love to help Mommie bake things. 

And I really like to help Mommie eat the warm cookies right out of the oven! That's when they taste the best, don't you think?

Then I played with my little fairy garden friends for a while.

Have you met my little fairy friends?  This is "Flora" and "Fawna".  You've already heard about "Flora" in that little story book I read to you.  "Fawna" is another special fairy friend. I named her "Fawna" because she is holding a little baby fawn in her arms.  Mommie said that sometime maybe we will see a real baby fawn in the woods where we walk. I hope so.  Meanwhile, I like to play with my little friends. They are very happy and helpful little fairies who like to do nice things for people. Remember the other story I read to you before about Lily's Lovely Garden?  Well, these are some of my little fairy friends from those nice stories.  Sometime we will have to tell you some more happy stories.

Here's a happy picture...this is a beautiful male Wood Duck swimming in Still Waters Pond.  Isn't he really pretty?

Now here's an interesting picture. We took our walk today in our usual place where we like to walk, and all of a sudden we saw this animal over in the woods.  Mommie thought at first it must be a little bear cub:

As we got closer it sure looked like a little bear cub, or maybe a dog...but mostly a bear cub. But it was sitting very very still:

Upon closer look, we realized it was just a tree stump!

But it sure "stumped" us!! How about you?

Didn't you think it was a bear cub too?

Well, that's all for today. I have to go help Mommie get supper ready. She said we are having hamburgers and corn on the cob. I LOVE corn on the cob, don't you?

You can CLICK HERE for another story about that if you don't remember me telling you about it before.

Okay, that's all folks.

Wanna sing a little song with me?

"Jesus loves me, this I know;

For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong;

We are weak but He is strong!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

Yes, Jesus loves me!

The Bible tells me so!"

Hope to see you in church tomorrow!! 

Bye Bye for now.

Love,

Lily Grace