Animal Sightings....focus

Cool Animal Sightings at our house!  God always gives us such wonderful teaching moments in the midst of a busy day.  Do you take time to enjoy them or see them as a bother?  We try to enjoy them...like the turtle that a friend of my daughters found crossing the driveway.  Turtles are known to be slow, but let me tell you, this one was Quick for a turtle!  We tried giving him an apple, but he didn't much care for it.  Then we put him in the kiddie pool we had in the front yard.  He swam for a bit, looking for the edge so he could run away!  My poor kids tortured played with him for about 15 minutes, until we left to enjoy the pool for the day!


The bird or hawk you see in the other pictures has a fish in its talon!!  This was quite a sight to see!  He was perched up on this dead tree, resting from his hunt.  We live across from the lake, so his journey wasn't far, but I'm sure it was heavy!  He sat up there for some time, flew away and came back.  When he returned I just knew God was granting me the opportunity to take his picture!  Hee Hee  OK....maybe not just for that purpose, but I took full advantage anyway! 

It's always amazing to me, God seems to speak to me at those times when I am in a hurry and losing focus of what's important.  On both these days I was busy going about my day.  First day it was me trying to get all the kids and friends off to a day at the pool, the second day I was hurrying the children to shower and bathe while rushing to get dinner on the table.  How about you?  Lose Focus much?  I do and it takes an Awesome Animal Sighting to get me back on track!  Thanks God!

O LORD, how manifold are your works!In wisdom have you made them all;the earth is full of your creatures. Psalm 104:24

Where do butterflies go......

....when you release them from your children's captivity??

They flutter off your hand and into the butterfly bushes in the yard, of course. Then they flutter around some more so that you can admire what beautiful and spectacular creatures they are and how good God is and thank Him for your "science" experiment.

Arrow Number 4 was sooo proud of her butterfly. She stood there watching her eat nectar for the longest time.

We have enjoyed watching the caterpillars develop into chrysalis and then into beautiful butterflies.


We had 5.....3 males and 2 females. How do I know you ask? Females have larger abdomens then males. Almost immediately after emerging from their chrysalis they quickly find a mate!!! Then a few days later, the females laid their eggs allllllllll over the butterfly basket. (You may have to click on the image to see it in life size to see the turquoise looking eggs. They are tiny, but you can still see them without a magnifying glass.)


We are hoping to see the full circle of a butterflies life. We watched our butterflies for about 2 weeks before letting them go today. It was a sad, but beautiful thing. We still see them fluttering about in the yard.

Lake Norman State Park Fun

We went to the Lake Norman State Park a few weeks ago with a couple sets of friends. We had a BLAST!! I thought I would share the slide show of all our fun! Enjoy!

Spring has Sprung!! God's creation is in full bloom, from the flowers, trees to the animals!

Chickadee Rescue

Yes, I said Chickadee rescue. Today after finishing up school and the youngest arrows waking from their nap, my oldest arrow found a beautiful little chickadee stuck inside the bird feeder. I didn't believe it at first. I thought it was just on the opposite side of the feeder and it only looked as if it were inside, but I quickly realized the bird needed help. My oldest arrow volunteered to release the bird and I said "Sure, but not before I get a picture!" I love taking pictures of our wildlife with my fairly new camera.
Here you can clearly see the bird is stuck inside the seed cylinder. She looks so peaceful, doesn't she?


The Chickadee Rescuer....


She tried to fly out a number of times, but she couldn't go anywhere. Poor Chickadee


Here you can barely see her flying out of the cylinder....I think she was very thankful to her rescuer.


After releasing her back to the wild, we filled the feeders back to maximum capacity as to ward off any other victims. Let me also add that the feeder she got into was filled just Monday afternoon and emptied yesterday. We have 4 bird feeders, 3 suet feeders and 3 thistle seed socks. All were filled on Monday, but gone by today. The poor birds just don't have any food around, so we have to feed them, plus we don't mind feeding them since they let us watch them so closely. 3 of the feeders hang on the window to our kitchen, so we watch the birds all day long. They don't seem to be frightened by the kids noise inside. They just eat and go on about their business with wide eyes looking on at them. We are sure to thank Lord Jesus for our birds, he made them so beautiful, so tiny, so strong and so different. The girls enjoy our hands on nature study.....right on our kitchen window sill.

Here are a few other pictures we got today after filling the feeders. I was sitting in the middle of the yard just waiting. As I waited, I said a prayer for the birds to not be frightened of the camera sound. Let me say that He answered me! The birds were afraid of nothing! They sat right in front of me, looking at me, eating away and even flew by me that I could feel the wind from their wings. They are such beautiful creatures! God is so good, all the time! Enjoy God's Creation! Blessings!