Pondered In My Heart

Geraniums

Remember these flowers?

I cut them back hard.

And then I waited, patiently bearing their barren-looking ugliness. 

In due time, little green shoots began bursting forth from the seemingly dead stumps.

And then one day...

And now I have this pleasing sight to cheer me-

Hope springs eternal in the heart of every gardener, indeed.

Wordless Wednesday: Sisters

15!

Josiah turned fifteen today!

Fifteen years ago today it was Ash Wednesday. But we didn't get any ashes. Instead we went off to the Carolina Birth Center a surprising two-and-a-half weeks early to have our second child.

It's been an adventure ever since.

Faramir appeared briefly for the occasion.

Josiah is one of our most creative children. He's been making things with his hands since forever.

We used to call him Mr. Paper and Tape when he was a little boy. One of his early masterpieces was a camcorder made out of (you guessed it) paper and tape, complete with a flip out screen. Since then he has made countless creations of every kind - whole fleets of aircraft and carriers, battalions of soldiers, castles, rosaries, armor, weapons, miniatures, costumes, paintings,

drawings, models.... He takes dozens of photos every day, documenting our daily lives in a most thorough manner and experimenting with photography tricks.

His current project is directing and filming (and starring in) his version of the Narnia movie.

He's been known to do his Latin in runes. (I found this handy site for making his birthday notes in Elvish and runes.)

We also call Josiah our Reference Librarian, due to his amazing memory. He could recite the names of all the presidents when he was four.

Josiah prepares to slay the cheesecake.

A particularly voracious reader, he knows so many interesting things because he remembers so much of what he reads, and he's able to quickly to find the book and page for whatever quote or tidbit of knowledge is in question.

Present from Dad.

He's a talented musician. He's a lively comedian.

Present from Mom.

He loves to dress up.

He's completely unflappable. He's a jolly good sport.

We look forward to discovering what God has in store for this most talented, bright, endearing young man he's given us.

Happy Birthday, Josiah! We sure do love you!

One More for the Birds

We ended our counting for the Great Backyard Bird Count on Monday. Josiah caught this picture of the hawk bringing a long bit of something to its nest:

Lydia had the best count on Monday, sighting 124 birds of twenty-one species.

My brother-in-law is an avid birder and photographer. He came across my earlier bird posts so he decided to email me some shots he's been getting of his local birds. Here I am posting mourning doves and sparrows on my little blog while he's been shooting these:

Here's a juvenile Bald Eagle-

And one of the juvenile in flight-

And here's one more from him, which I just had to share as it's so lovely and peaceful looking-

Many thanks to Uncle Alan for letting me post his gorgeous pictures!

And since it's Lent I can't possibly even think of coveting his camera, right?!

Wordless Wednesday: First Up

What Kind of Homeschoolers Are We?

Take a peek at our day today...

9:30 am Do we use Traditional Textbooks?

12:18 pm Or are we 'CMers',

following the methods of Charlotte Mason?

1:00 pm Perhaps we are Unschoolers?

1:12 pm Or do we favor Kinesthetic Learning?

1:35 pm Is our learning style Hands-On?

3:13 pm Or do we pursue a Literature Based Education?

3:50 pm Do we aspire to Classical Education?

3:52 pm  Or do we take an Artistic, Notebooking Approach?

I suppose this is why they came up with yet another label - the Eclectic Homeschooler.

For the Birds, Part 2

This is what Lydia looked like for most of the morning. I couldn't drag her away from watching her beloved hawks. They were busy working on their nest, and she witnessed many of the pair's flights to and fro, bringing twigs and all to fashion a home for their young.

Red-tailed Hawk by Josiah via telescope.

Come feed the little birds,
Show them you care
And you'll be glad if you do
Their young ones are hungry
Their nests are so bare
All it takes is tuppence from you

The essentials: Black oil sunflower seed, water, empty suet wrapper.

Dawn wrote a wonderful informative post a couple of weeks ago about bird feeding basics. Feeding birds takes more than tuppence for sure, but it's worth every penny and it's such a simple way to foster a love of natural science.  I would heartily second Dawn's assessment, and studies show as well, that black oil sunflower seed is the best all-around food for backyard birds. We were in the habit of buying safflower seed as well, as squirrels and house sparrows were quite a nuisance at our previous house, and they won't eat safflower. But it is quite expensive compared to sunflower, and the birds seem to like sunflower as well. Lydia likes to fill the tube feeder with alternating layers of white safflower and black sunflower just because it looks pretty that way. Like Dawn, we stopped using thistle (nyjer) as the finches seem to prefer the sunflower or safflower. As it gets closer to March we will start putting out our hummingbird feeders and dishes of grape jelly for the catbirds, or Jellybirds as we call them. :-) Last summer we sighted an oriole a few times, so I would like to make some sort of oriole feeder this year as well.

We also provide suet for the woodpeckers. I just buy the least expensive cakes, as the woodpeckers don't seem to mind and it makes it easier to bear when the occasional flock of flying pigs starlings comes through and gobbles it all up in an instant. We regularly have Downy Woodpeckers, Hairy Woodpeckers (we call them Narnians as they look just like the Downies only larger, and the animals are larger than usual in Narnia, the talking ones that is), and Red-bellied Woodpeckers.

Pencil drawings by Lydia.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a most informative site with all sorts of information on attracting birds to your yard, choosing seed and feeder types, setting up nestboxes and much, much more. Their bird identification guide is really wonderful. Every so often we'll spot a new species that we are not familiar with, like the white throated sparrows that showed up during the snow the other day. We start with our field guide (National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds--E: Eastern Region - Revised Edition) of course, but it is not always clear what species we are seeing. The online site is handy because there are several pictures, such as a male and female and perhaps one of breeding plumage and a juvenile as well. You can also listen to the calls or songs of many birds to help with identification. If things are still tricky, I like to bring up close-ups of the possible species, and then looking at them side by side identification usually becomes crystal clear. You just can't do all that with a paper field guide.:-)

Our counts for the day:

European Starling - 20

Mourning Dove - 6

Dark-eyed Junco - 11

Ring-billed Gull - 1 (seen on the way to church)

American Crow - 11

Mockingbird - 1

Red-tailed Hawk - 2

Goldfinch - 1

Tufted Titmouse - 3

Chickadee - 1

House Finch - 19

White-Throated Sparrow - 1

Turkey Vulture - 1

Blue Jay - 1

Downy Woodpecker - 1

Hairy Woodpecker - 1

Red-bellied Woodpecker - 1

Red-winged Blackbird - 7

Eastern Bluebird - 2

Did your birds count? Who do you have at your feeders?

For the Birds!

Don't forget - The Great Backyard Bird Count starts tomorrow, February 15th!

From the website: "The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes. It’s free, fun, and easy—and it helps the birds."

We have been participating in Project Feeder Watch this winter, but the neat thing about the Count is you can include all the birds you see during the four days, not just ones at your own feeder site. So we can report Mr. Kingfisher who we regularly see perched on his favorite branch above the creek, and all the other interesting hawks and kestrels and vultures that 'fly over'. There is also a photo contest for pictures taken during the count.

This is a great opportunity to make your nature studies 'count' for the study of  ornithology.

Happy counting!

Valentine Views

Happy Valentine's Day to one and all!

It was a beautiful sunny day here with an incredible blue sky.

We saw some lovely creatures out in the snow.

They seemed to welcome the warmth of the sun as much as we did. Just soaking up some rays.

This, of course, cheered me:

 

I had never heard the legend that Dawn mentioned in her Valentine post, but perhaps there is a bit of truth to that romantic notion. Lydia spotted a pair of red tail hawks carrying twigs and such to a cozy spot in the top of a tall tree. Love is in the air, indeed!

Pencil drawing by Lydia, 2/14/08 

Hope your day was love-ly as well!

Crafting for Your Valentine

Perhaps you have been making Valentines with the children and have been planning pink everything for Thursday but you haven't quite figured out what to give your honey. With Valentine's Day nearly here, I thought I would share a Valentine card I made for my husband a few years back. You can get out your pretty scrapbook supplies, or your plain white cardstock if that's your style, and make a unique card that shows you care to give him the very best.

I started with a picture of the two of us on the front. I added hearts that say "Marry the one you love" and "Love the one you marry". If you need a little refresher on what that looks like day to day pop over to re-read Elizabeth's beautiful post on the Beatitudes for Wives. It will get you in the mood for loving your Valentine. :-)

On the inside I added more hearts with scripture verses. You could choose selections from Corinthians 13 (the Love chapter), or Song of Solomon ;-) (the Love book) or whatever strikes you as appropriate. Pick verses that inspire you and remind you well of the holy and sacred nature of this beautiful thing called married love. In the center I quoted How do I love you? Let me count the ways... I then wrote out a hundred things I love about my husband. The biggies, the little bitty things, the old, original reasons and the new ones more recently discovered -I wrote down a hundred of them. Give it a try. As you sit and contemplate and come up with your hundred, you can't help but thank God for every one of them. Thank God for the man he made just for you. Think about all those reasons why you fell in love with that man and all the wonderful new reasons you've discovered together through the years as you've lived out your married vocation together. Think about how much you love him and why and write it all down. Think of life without him. Think about how to love him better. Have fun counting to a hundred.

You will be giving your husband the gift of your love as well as the gift of a wife with a thankful and appreciative spirit. Thanks always leads to joy.

Give it a try - even if you just jot down your hundred on a plain piece of paper.

It will surely bless you both.

Saturday Views

A bit of snow-

A good book-

A new CD-

A playful du0-

And a hug-

And a kiss-

The juncos don't seem to mind the snow a bit - after all, it matches their bellies.

The girls are delighted to have fresh copies of favorite books. They thought it would be fun to read them all at the same time. Our original set was getting quite tattered, so I purchased some extras while I can still get the original unabridged editions. You should have seen the look on Mary Rose's face as her eyes grew wide with horror when I explained that abridged means they cut some of the story out. sssssssss.....

The guys are vegetating listening intently to Jonathan's soundtrack of The Two Towers. I ordered it in December for a Christmas gift but it just arrived the other day. (!)

The cuties need no explanation!

Hope you are having a wonderful Saturday, with snatches of delightful relaxation mixed in with the work of the day.

For Grampy

Today is my father's birthday. He would have been 94 years old! He always enjoyed listening to the children play the piano, patiently and attentively taking in the likes of Chant Arabe and The Happy Farmer.

Grampy listening to little Lydia, 2000 (That's me resting with newborn Mary Rose on the couch.)

Considering his fondness for his grandchildren at the piano and his passion for all things Hungarian, he surely would have loved this - Brahms' Hungarian Dance #5 in F# Minor for Piano Four-hands, recorded yesterday in honor of Grampy with love from Jonathan and Lydia.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Did you get up and dance? Grampy would have.

That Football Game...

...is one of a great series of books we enjoy, written about a hundred years ago by Father Francis Finn, S.J.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. You didn't really think I was going to post about sports, did you?

Heartfelt Prayers

Please pray for seven year old Kathryn, Jenn's niece, who will be undergoing heart surgery on Monday February 4th. This will be her fourth open heart surgery. Previous attempts to repair her valve have not succeeded and she needs to have it replaced. Please keep her and her family in your prayers as they endure this painful and frightening time. May the Lord give them peace and strength and Our Lady keep them comforted in her loving care. Pray also for the surgeon and other doctors, that the Great Physician may guide their hands and minds as they perform their life saving work.

Jesus, I trust in You!

To Cheer You

Splashes of happy color fresh off of Eliza's paint brush -

Girl in a Purple Dress

Puppy Dog

Kitty Cat

They sure make me smile on this dripping, grey day we're having.