Rumpy Red Star Hen

I'm told by the resident walking encyclopedia that manx cats can be rumpies or stumpies, and Purrle is a stumpy, possessing a blurb of a tail, which is the only small thing about the fat feline. Believing there aren't such classifications for chickens but having from our original flock a surviving red star hen who lost her tail to a predator back when we had that barrage of attacks, I'm taking the liberty of borrowing from the cat world, and I present to you our rumpy red star hen.

While we've already established I'm no photography genius (and you should see the shots I keep to myself), in my defense, the little lady wouldn't stand still. I wanted you to get to see the profile, though, of a rumpy red star, so you're stuck with a piggledy image:

clickable

I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. ~Psalm 138:2

BloggingNot

Sometimes a wifemomnana is too busy for blogging. *raising hand*

With new irons in the fire (read: fire) and taking up a most stringent and longer schooling schedule this past week, I've quickly discovered there's no time carved out for blathering. As other bloggers know, though, there's a handy tool for pre-scheduling posts, and one can time-date stamp any post to suit oneself anyway (it's magical), so a sabbath rest might include meandering thoughts and availing myself of the opportunity to weekly store blogbits for later posting. You never know, I may have a burst of energy some evenings and toss in a wildcard post from time-to-time. After all, Joycie must have something to read during her lunch break. We can't be letting Joycie down. ºÜº

Let's begin with the pretty little cloud, trying ever so hard to become a thunderhead early this week.

clickable

Hanging clumsily sideways but clinging to the saddle,

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. ~Jude 1:24, 25

Yo Zeus

Who's Guiding the Olympic Vision?

by Berit Kjos

Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen. ~Jeremiah 10:2a

Weeding Cake

Son2 and his bride were hosting a cookout in celebration of their recent marriage. Wanting Cousin Annie to know what time I thought we'd arrive at the event, I'd mentioned needing to make a travel stop for fresh flowers, which I would use to decorate my piggledy little stab at creating a pineapple upside-down kindasorta wedding cake. "Aren't any of your flowers still alive?" she'd asked.

Brilliant! But Cousin Annie is like that.

So mid-morning on the day of the cookout (because I'm always running behind on everything), I plucked a leaning-ugly black-eyed Susan and set it in a dry ramiken to see how quickly it might or might not wilt. I didn't dare choose a nice one, because a quick survey of God's flowers that He tends revealed that not so very many were looking small, perky, and bug free. When my specimen still looked like a flower an hour later, and I hadn't even showered and dressed, and we still had a two-hour drive ahead of us, I decided these weeds flowers would serve my purpose. I could mark off one travel stop.

Son3 and Son4 helped me choose and fist a modest number of the blooms, while I whined incessantly: "I dunno. These kinda look like weeds. Do these look like weeds? This is awful. I'm putting weeds on their wedding cake. I don't know about this. Are there any more? We don't have very many. Keep looking. Oh man, I'm putting weeds on a wedding cake. Is this bad?"

I did it. With lots of love, good intent, and trepidation I poked straws, then weeds, into the wedding cake. It wasn't the sumptuous offering I'd envisioned when I hatched the flowery plan, but we were out of pristine weeds, and I still needed to powder and puff self before we left, so it would have to do.

*brushing sticky hands*

Kinda looks like a stack of biscuits in the photo.

It's a cake; if'n' it was a biscuit, I'd own up to it.

As if to taunt me, when we exited the freeway onto the street which would take us to the newlyweds' home, we were surrounded by islands planted with weeds black-eyed Susans. "Look at that! Look! All that time we spent hunting for perfect specimens and worrying about whether or not they would wilt before we got here, and we could have just pulled over and gotten basketsful, a few blocks from their house." Of course, we might have been arrested. At least someone thought they looked enough like flowers to purposely adorn the city with them. Whew!



Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. ~I Thessalonians 5:21

SchkReEEek

Something like that. It was loud, and it was scary, so I lay paralyzed on my floaty for about the 4 seconds it took me to decide I did want to know if a dinosaur was standing beside the pool. I threw myself off the floaty and into the water in what I hoped would be a big and frightening maneuver to behold, and I spun in the direction from whence had come the awful noise. There sat perched on the edge of the pool a red winged blackbird. I think. Or a crow. I'm not all about knowing which bird is what, but I'm just sure I saw a patch of red on that bird. None to be seen in the photos, though, so call it what you will, and if you're all about birds, you'll call it what it actually is.

I'd taken the camera and Diana Waring to the pool with me. Diana was in my CD player, talking about the canon of Scripture and Attila the Hun. Olympus was still in the bag. And I was in the water, sad to be parted from the camera when there was a bird standing on the edge of the pool, staring at me.

I watched as it hopped and flew from one point on the edge to another. Clearly, it wasn't thinking about leaving. Just as clearly, it kept turning its back on me, at which points in time I was hoping I wasn't about to get a birdseye view of it making a deposit in the pool. And it was just that thought which prompted me to climb out of the pool to get the camera: A) Just stand here and watch that bird make a deposit; B) Risk scaring it off by getting out of the pool. I chose B.

Of course, by the time I got the camera from the bag, the bird had flown into the neighbor's cornfield. Since I could see it, I decided to zoom my point-and-shoot, on the chance I'd have a reasonable focus. Sort of reasonable:


Here's a close crop.


I discovered a dragonfly when I cropped.


While pointing, shooting, and not having a clue whether or not I was actually capturing a photo of the bird, I noticed a barred rock hen beneath one of the halfapple trees. Well, I'll just take a picture of her.

Hello henny...and August.


Goodbye July.

The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him. ~Nahum 1:7