Michigan Wildlife

The Eastern Fox Squirrel

It looks like Squirrel Girl has moved in and brought her friends. Mr. N saw several squirrels partaking of the bounty of my suet feeder yesterday. She was out there while I was passing the time before I had to take Homer to a class this morning.

She was very curious about me. The other squirrel with her was curious, but not that curious, so I stood therer for a moment while she cautiously scampered closer and closer to me. “Cautiously scampered” does sound oxymoronic, but I don’t know how else to describe it, not being up on my squirrel lingo. Suffice it to say that she slowly but steadily came as close to me as I was willing to allow before she high tailed it up the basswood.

I was afraid she was going to run away, so I slowly stepped over to the tree. She didn’t run, but she did keep flicking her tail and chattering at me. Eventually, I got all of the pictures I wanted, talked to Daisy for a sec, and went back into the house.

When I went back outside on the way to take Homer to his class, Squirrel Girl was raiding the feeder. I have yet to see how they are getting up there, but I suspect they are jumping from a basswood branch. I had trimmed them back, but they apparently have a longer range than I thought.

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A “God” Thing

Homer and I went to a park and visited the ducks and geese this afternoon. That’s always fun. Until you get this feeling that you should run to the van and lock the doors when you see someone coming, and you turn out to be right to listen to that feeling.

The thing about it is, I was ready to go anyway, but we were lingering just in case a good shot presented itself. (I’m always attempting - in vain - to catch clear shots of birds in flight, and those blasted ducks always seem to take off or land as I’m leaving.) I saw the guy walking along the road when he was about a block away, but I wasn’t worried. Once in a while, when we’re just goofing around, one of us will say, “Look out! Somebody’s coming!” So, when I first saw him, I said, in a somewhat hushed tone, “Homer, let’s get out of here! Somebody’s coming!” I immediately felt bad for judging the guy for no good reason.

We turned around and headed back to the van, but I wasn’t in a big hurry. We got to the van and hopped in, still not in a real big hurry. As I shut my door, I saw the guy out of the corner of my eye, walking up to the driver’s side door. I was startled and put the van in reverse, thereby locking all the doors and preparing for a hasty getaway.

The guy motioned for me to put my window down.

In the space about 1/1000 of a second - I know how long that is because it’s a setting on my camera, I thought, Thank You GOD for looking out for us! Thank God I didn’t dismiss the idea of going back to the van as my own intraverted personality related paranoia; What’s this guy going to do? Should I scream? Is he reaching for the door? Is he going to try to stick his hand in the window? Should I scream? Make sure when you open the window a crack to hear him that it doesn’t do that auto-open-all-the-way-thing; Should I scream? Thank God Homer* is with me! lock the doors; get this thing in gear!

I put the window down just far enough to hear, but so that he couldn’t fit his hand through. As he got closer, it looked like his eyes were bruised. His lids were blue, whatever the case. He said, “Do you have a smoke?”* I said, “No.” He said, “Okay” and walked off.

Isaiah 30:21
Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Thank You, God, for looking out for us!!!

* Rereading this again, it sounds lame, but seriously.  Judging from the bag in his hand, fresh from the store, the guy had just bought something.  Why does he need to bum a cigarette off me?  Where I live, scraggly looking men with eye shadow, or very symmetrical bruising, don’t just walk up to strange women in somewhat isolated places and ask for a cigarette without some other intention.  Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure  he was after my camera.

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Birdies

Prior to that heart stopping instant, we were having an enjoyable time socializing with the ducks and a Canada goose.

Except for a few geese and the lone swan, the birds were all resting when we got there. It was pretty breezy so feathers were ruffling.

I haven’t seen many Canada geese up close and personal lately, so one of my goals was to lure one as close to me as possible. Am I the only one who thinks that birds are almost as fascinating to watch as water in motion? I mean, dogs rule, but birds are pretty amazing. Not all birds are necessarily interesting at the same time, but it seems like there’s always one that stands apart from the rest. This guy was perturbed at my boldness, but he was willing to take my bread anyway.

Homer was standing right behind me and I’m hoping he got some good shots of this one. His images are almost always better composed than mine pre-editing. It’s the art class paying off.

A Request

If you happen to read this and it is still the weekend after Valentine’s Day, would you please swing by Dream Big and post a note of encouragement to Carey, Chelsea’s Mom? She and Chelsea are stuck in the hospital in isolation. Carey’s not a little bummed.

Oh, and, by all means, please pray for them, too.

A Must Read

It seems that our friend, BC, is an artist in more ways than one!

 The Annual Weight Loss  for Summer Issue

The Previously Untitled Post

Friendship

Heidi has a really good post today. Be sure and take a minute to read it. Lesson learned in hindsight

Better Late than Early

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the book Better Late than Early by the late Dr. Raymond Moore, and his late wife, Dorothy Moore .

In Better Late than Early, the ordinary person version of School Can Wait, the Moores promoted the idea that children learn best when they are ready and that pushing them into academics before they are ready can do more harm than good. Based on their research, they advocated waiting to begin formal education until somewhere between the ages of 8 and 12. Most children are physiologically ready for formal education within that time frame.

When we began homeschooling, I was convinced that the right way to educate my children was to “do school” for hours and hours each day. That got old very quickly and was stifling to one of my kids’ natural curiosity and natural desire to learn. It was discouraging, but back then I thought that a good homeschool involved lots of worksheets covering subjects too numerous to count.

Charlotte Mason, who lived several decades before the Moores were born, was a great educator in England. Though her methods were different, she agreed that young children required more slack than older kids. She also agreed that children will learn even if they don’t have tons of boring, dry, lifeless seat work.

When I first heard about these people, I thought their methods were too good to be true. Surely you can’t learn while seated on the couch in pajamas! And surely you should begin teaching formal reading at birth!

Well, I did end up lightening up and ya know what? My kids kept learning! Time after time I would try to implement “school at home” when they were younger. It never worked. We invariably ended up frustrated and exhausted. I think it was Ruth Beechick who said, “If it’s broken, don’t copy it,” or something like that. Why emulate a system that is only truly effective for about half of the kids who go through it?

“In Conclusion,”

Anywho, this school year has been really good so far. Gabe doesn’t have nearly the demands that the other two have but he is growing by leaps and bounds. I am amazed at the improvement in his reading and vocabulary alone just over the last 6 months. There are certainly areas that need to be refined, and many will be eventually, but it has been somewhat of a relief to let go of the bulk education model for these guys. We are no longer bent out of shape, constantly trying to keep up with the Jonses’ classroom, but are relaxed in the knowledge that God has given us the ability to determine what’s best for our kids regardless of what everyone else seems to be doing. We are truly enjoying life this school year. God is faithful to guide us if we will pay attention and follow his leading.

I hope this sounds somewhat coherent. I’m kind of tired but I wanted to take a minute to encourage anyone who may be where I’ve been and feels overwhelmed. It can get better!

Stardate Tuesday

In case I never mentioned this, Dogs Rule.

Adelheid loves to have a stuffed animal. There isn’t an attitude around people or Noah with it so we let her carry around her favorite.

Last night I went shopping for some stuff I needed for the church Christmas thing tonight and saw that the dog toys were marked down. I picked up one that most resembled her old one. When I got home, I said, “Heidi! Come and get your dolly!” (I may have mentioned before that she reminded us of a little girl with a doll when she was a puppy, so we have always called her MFT (most favored toy) her “dolly”.) She came running and sniffed the thing for a minute and walked away. I called her back and offered it to her again and she took it and walked around the house with it. Since then, she has spent most of her spare time in her kennel with the thing.

The Church thing

We had a great time at our thing tonight. *Ella went with me, and my mother in-law brought 4 other people. That was cool. All of the tables were so pretty and each was unique. I have yet to see a table decorated the same way twice. One was actually mostly black! It was striking. Simple, yet interesting. (It was that hysterical older redhead, **Guinevere.) Our guests seemed pleased with the table so that was a relief. (I always worry about disappointing people when it comes to stuff like that.)

*The Asterisk still means what it always has, but I have to put something here so that I can get on with the double asterisk.

** Not your real name, either, but 10,000 blog points to the person, blogger or nonblogger, who knows where this came from, who said it and who she was saying it to: “I’m Guinevere _______. My friends call me Jenny. You can call me Guinevere.”

I was pleasantly surprised to hear my contribution to dessert being raved over. I made cupcakes using the Cocoa Crazy Cake recipe and the Vegan Buttercream Frosting. They did taste exceptional. I am not sure if it was because they were refrigerated, which I don’t usually do, or if it was the recipe change, or if they were that great.

If it had to do with the recipe change, this time I substituted the 1/2 C of shortening for Soy Garden. I was a little leery of doing that but I didn’t have a lot to lose because I had already started dumping ingredients into my mixing bowl. (Take it from me: THINK FIRST.)

Everyone at our table also really enjoyed the entertainment. Every song the singers sang pointed to Jesus. No one could walk away from there wondering what it was all about, or at least not knowing the Object of our celebration.

Speaking of Jesus

Something I read in my email today caused me to look through the Bible for answers. Flipping through, I read some verses today that were an encouragement to me. Maybe they’ll be an encouragement to someone else.

Hebrews 4:14-16

14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Colossians 2:13-15

13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Something I think about quite often lately is that satan doesn’t have to turn me into a baby eating devil worshiper to win; he just needs to get my eyes off Jesus.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.