We have traveled to North Port Florida to baby sit cousins Dennis and Laura’s dogs while Dennis has prostate surgery on Friday. It is hot here in North Port… We arrived alive after crossing the Everglades and are going out for Dennis’ ‘last meal’:… Surgery will be on Friday. SALPF Dennis on Friday (Say a Little Prayer For Dennis). God bless you!!!
Pray God bless America today. Think about what Jesus would say today: "Have peace in your heart. Keep faith in your heart that our Father has a plan for mankind, and it is eternal life". I walked about the cemetery at Woodlawn Park on 8th street while waiting for a Memorial ceremony to begin, and I read tombstones of WWI and Korea and Vietnam veterans, and I pray they are "on eternal patrol". Wouldn’t it be amazing to meet St. Michael? Let us pray today for peace in our hearts that only Jesus can give. Peace in our hearts that leads to loving behavior. Let others be peaceful too. God bless us.
Just like that! Around 6pm yesterday I rescued a sick chick who was laying down and couldn’t walk. Chick was ocvered with flies…. I brushed all the flies off, wrapped chick in a rag and carried chick to Kathie the animal whisperer, my neighbor. She is feeding the little chick.. Between 7 and 8 pm while we were out on the lake…. Mama and the chicks took off for parts safer? unknown? witness protection? She actually left 7 eggs and all the broken eggs that her chicks hatched out of so I put 6 eggs back on the nest and one that was broken into… I threw that one and all the fragments away. During the night the eggs disappeared. SSSSSSnakes? iguanas? who knows. Maybe they even hatched … donnnno. Today I think I saw Mama with 15 babies down on our boat ramp sipping water. Kathie names the ducks, birds, iguanas. To me they all look alike. So I wish you well good Mama duck. What an adventure for us!!!!
Back to normal in 90 degree heat. I can barely move outside. Hope your spring is a little more temperate. We are praying today for 28 Coptic Christians martyred just south of Cairo Egypt today, and for the young people killed in Manchester. The church is praying for a cessation of the attack on Christianity and we ask the Lord to crush the head of the serpent who persecutes and martyrs Christians. God bless you.
9 babies "out and wanting to play". Mama still sitting on eggs and the wind blowing. It’s hilarious!!! Thank God. God bless you.
Mike went to feed Dolores the duck and he says he counted 13 babies!!!! The winds are blowing bad out there, but she is all fluffed up and covering everybody including some still unhatched eggs. What a victory and with all the hoopla of her leaving the nest for fear of the visiting dogs!!! Thank you benevolent God who takes care of his little ones. I remember after Hurricane Andrew, we were all standing outside the Gables house looking at the destruction of the trees. Tree branches were 10 feet high covering the streets…. and we heard chirping… a bird had huddled under a torn up bush up against the house in the storm. A little headache and chirping again. God bless us.
Today about 6 babies hatched… and tonight mama has to defend the babies and the rest of the eggs against a high wind coming in from the south. Right now she has all her feathers gathered over the nest and her back to the wind fending off a storm coming in from the south directly against the back of my house. Elation over babies has been replaced by worries about the babies in the storm. Isn’t this the way life is? God bless us as we fight against the elements and defend the young ones. God bless us.
On the terror in Manchester England: My dear British friends who are so much our family, we are praying for the children and families of Manchester England. We are so baffled by the evil that strikes out at children. We can only lean back on the chest of our Lord who promised he loves little children. He loves the peaceful. He loves his own. Draw strength that eternal life belongs to us the ones baptized in Christ. God bless you my dear friends.
In 1886, Pope Leo X111 wrote this prayer to be prayed daily: "Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil; may God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls."
On September 11, I left work and went into my parish church and prayed. I realized that my anger wouldn’t help. Only this prayer to St Michael the warrior angel whose job it is to protect heaven and the souls that are to go to heaven. We all have angels, and angels surrounded the ones who were hurt and killed last night. We must be at peace over the souls that were lost. We must pray, and I for one, support the combined efforts of heavenly powers and NATO forces aligned with the forces of the Middle Eastern people who hate terror to wipe out the scourge that is ISIS. God bless us.
This morning I was hanging a few things on the clothesline and I heard a very noisy Martin chirping above me in the Martin house. "She or He" was sitting on the corner of the house chirping very loudly and behind him or her were two tiny birds with their mouths wide open! "Feed me!!!" their tiny chirps sounded! Yesterday a mama duck marched her 6 babies past our Mama duck … tiny yellow chicks picking in the grass at my door… waiting to be fed. I certainly hope our mama gets some duckies soon. I hope and pray the nest isn’t full of non-viable eggs. That would be really awful, and we would have to let the mama duck take care of that problem. Whatever they do in the wild. Well, today is a day of putting photos in albums. It’s time to do that as we are going to launch into another round of visiting everybody and traveling great distances (we plan to visit Laura and Dennis to help take care of dogs while Dennis is having surgery… Pray for Dennis’ health and safety). And we will be visiting my sister Sarah who is having an art show in June in Neptune Beach! So I better be ready to take more pictures!!! Happy spring! God bless you.
We are still waiting for mama duck to hatch the chicks and now I’m hoping they are viable…. She was off the nest for 3 whole days and nights, but it was hot… So all we can do is wait. I just read online that it takes up to 35 days or longer if the heat wasn’t high enough or if it was rainy…. Interesting that we have seen mama turning the eggs. That is what you do if you incubate the eggs … People actually raise ducks and chickens in incubators instead of buying eggs and chicken at Winn Dixie. hmmmmm. So… hang in there mama. You get a medal girl.
Today Chuck was honored for having been a qualified submarine sailor for more than 50 years. He was inducted into the Holland club in his USSVI (United States Submarine Veterans) meeting. Holland was the first designer of United States submarines and the honor is for anyone who qualified and has served as a submarine sailor for over 50 years. (once a submariner… always a submariner). "Passing Quals" or "qualifying" means you could work every piece of machinery on the boat… You can navigate, fix machinery, fix electronics, load and shoot torpedoes, raise the boat, tie the boat up, and dive the boat. Submarines are a boat not a ship as they can be loaded onto a ship. Qualified submariners were able to do anything on board a submarine. I always love watching submarine movies… they were often held together with bubble gum and wood chucks. Anything to keep silent and under the water. Every meeting we honor the submarines and men lost as "on eternal patrol" and we keep the splendid memory of undersea silent service alive. Thank You Chuck for your service!!! Thanks to all veterans for service to the United States of America. God bless America. God bless you.
We had quite a drama this weekend, but all has turned out beautifully! On Friday afternoon, our cousins Laura and Dennis came to visit with their sweet, albeit large, white shepherd, and cute, albeit active, blond cocker spaniel. We put up a light fence around the walkway area to keep the curious dogs away from the nesting area, and we put up a doggie fence between our house and Mike’s to keep the curious dogs IN. All went well for about 35 seconds after we settled down when the duck, creeped out by a sniffing cocker spaniel, took off for regions unknown. She hung out under Mike’s big tree and occasionally went swimming, for the whole weekend. This morning, Monday, when family and dogs left, Chuck and I took down the fences and started praying. A mama duck with small teenagers was near by, and our displaced Mama was hanging out with them so I went out into Mike’s yard with bread crumbs and drew them 1/2 way across Mike’s yard toward our house. Then I left them for about 15 minutes and went back out again casting the crumbs into my yard. Sure enough the hungry little teenagers came a’running, and the 2 females with them. Our mama duck hung back, but sat for a long time watching the teenagers eat. Chuck and i then left for morning walks and when I got home, I peaked out the window and…. she is on the nest!!!!!!! Now if nature works right, those eggs should hatch this week, as it takes about 28 to 30 days for hatching. We found them on April 17. Today is 28 days…. I don’t know if a nest can be un-sat on for 3 days. All we can do is wait. As if this is all that consumes us!!! We will be going to Northport Florida on June 7 to eat a last meal with Dennis. Chuck says not to call it a last meal. Sounds too ominous. I mean… He has to be on liquids only after that meal until prostate surgery on Friday. Chuck and I will baby sit the 2 dogs allowing Laura to take her hubby to the hospital and feel free to stay there until surgery is finished and Dennis is settled into recovery. One overnight is planned and he will be back home Saturday the 10th. Dennis is a big teddy bear of a man. I can’t say "big" any more. He has lost 100 pounds he says in 10 years…. but it sure is a good thing to be entering our 70s at a good fighting weight!!! Hope you aren’t too hot as this spring has been hot in South Florida. God bless you.