Sunday's Psalm--Palm Sunday

Big Birds

Just enough reflection that I could link this to Weekend Reflections, but I really want to show off these birds that we saw at the Grass Valley Rest Area north of Weed on our recent trip. I am hoping that Martha Z or someone will identify them.

I had spotted some white birds and wanted to check on them--some more tundra swans such as we had seen a few weeks ago at the Wildlife Refuge.









When we pulled into the rest area I spotted the three tall birds out of the corner of my eye and thought they were blue herons. Once I got a good look, I knew they were not. But what are they?

ABC K will catch up the J

We returned last night from a week away--and I did not take my laptop with me. So last Wednesday I was all set to do my J post using my Kindle (That's the K!!!) and the Wi-Fi in the motel. And if you stopped by to check, you found that all I managed to do was post a title. I could not get into the editing box to open the Kindle's tiny keyboard to do any more. The picture I was going to use was one I used not long before when the Headbangers' theme was Leap. My Leap picture could easily become:

Jumping Jeff

And it was Jeff's birthday the day I was trying to post it as well. I thought that appropriate!

You can see Jumping Jeff in the blog right there on the Kindle Fire as I  pulled it up on Wi-Fi this morning at coffee.

Good for a quick internet visit, but not that great for updating your blog. I haven't had it long, so I am sure I will figure out more and more

 ways to use it.

In the meantime, it's main use is quite obvious. It is for a wide collection of reading materials, including Liz Hind's novel, This Time Next Year available here if you are a Brit and here if you are in the US.


 (You don't have to have a Kindle to read it. There are apps to read it on your computer.)

 

Another friend wrote Repeating History, a time travel tale set in Yellowstone National Park. Meg Justus is a librarian and archivist.We share a passion for quilting and the National Parks.  I got her book for my Kindle at Amazon, and highly recommend it. 

You can see that I have quite a few books on my Kindle shelf, including two different Bible translations and a Lives of the Saints.

So K is for Kindle which can show us J is for Jeff Jumping.

ABC Wednesday -- Round Ten  

You see some of the weirdest things in California

We were headed down Interstate 5 and saw a box truck (like a furniture delivery truck) with a pickup in it.

side view              back view

Then, the next thing we see is a box truck with a pickup in it towing a pickup.

 

Wow!

The next thing we saw was a dump truck that had a pickup in it towing a box truck with a pickup in it.

 

Now, you might think that was quite a deal. But then.

We came upon a flatbed truck carrying a dump truck with a pickup in it 

towing a box truck with a pickup in it.

Believe it or not!!!

Headbangers--theme Competition

 
My headbangers picture is not quite ready for "Competition"--my grandson's T-Ball team all aged four or five.



It reminds me of a game my oldest son was in when he was a first grader. Son was out in the field, and managed to get the ball several times during the game. He then threw it to first base. No matter where the play would be, he threw it to first. If the logical play was at second, he threw it to first. If the runner was rounding second, he threw it to first.

Later, when I asked him why he didn't throw the ball where the play was, he said "Larry is the only one who can catch it."

Abc-J--can't post--ABC-K will tell why next week.

Sunday's Psalm--Fourth Sunday of Lent

Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!


By the streams of Babylon
we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the aspens of that land
we hung up our harps.
 

Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!

 

 

 

For there our captors asked of us
the lyrics of our songs,
And our despoilers urged us to be joyous:
"Sing for us the songs of Zion!"
 

 

Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!

How could we sing a song of the LORD
in a foreign land?

If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand be forgotten!

Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!

May my tongue cleave to my palate if I remember you not,

If I place not Jerusalem ahead of my joy.

Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!

Headbangers Theme

The headbangers theme came from Imac this week. It is:

"Photograph THE WORD thats close to your heart of your hobby. "
The clarification:

Your Header needs to have this word or words on your Header photo.

No digging for this one, I had to set it up:

My brother makes the rustic signs. I make the quilts. The little Quilters Rule sign was a prize at a quilt retreat.

I'll be watching tomorrow to see what the rest of the headbangers come up with. You can check, too, from the links in my sidebar.

ABC I

I is for Island

These two are located in Crater Lake in Oregon. 

Above is Wizard Island. It is the peak of a cinder cone volcano within the lake, and got its name from an early name for the lake, the Wizard's Cauldron. The island peaks about 750 feet above the average level of the lake.

Below is the Phantom Ship.The source of the name of this rock pillar formation becomes obvious in a fog.

ABC Wednesday

Is it okay to say "Lent" and "treat" in the same sentence?

Homemade pretzels are fresh out of the oven.

The recipe I used is here, and though it calls for beer, I used water and they are fine.

Why pretzels for Lent? This article describes the tradition and its possible origins.

Sunday's Psalm -- Third Sunday of Lent

Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.

The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul;
The decree of the LORD is trustworthy,
giving wisdom to the simple.

Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.

The precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the command of the LORD is clear,
enlightening the eye.
 
Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.

The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the LORD are true,
all of them just.
 

Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.
 

They are more precious than gold,
than a heap of purest gold;
sweeter also than syrup
or honey from the comb.
 

Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.

John 6 and Psalm 19

Headbangers--My turn for the theme.

It's my theme this week and I had this one running through my mind a while back: "Now you see it now you don't." At the time, I was contemplating circumstances like this one:

See that cloud. It is just as likely to rise and let the whole of Mt. Adams stand out there giving us our Grandview as drop down and spread a bit and be a curtain that makes you say "Mountain? What mountain?" A sequence of images from the same spot on different days would be a Now you see it now you don't display. 

Then I got to thinking of this sequence of my grandson in his swing:

So while I was gathering those I thought about the time we saw a huge hunk of rock bigger than a house suddenly fall off the side of the mountain as we cam up over the ridge:

 See that lighter area in the center just below that snow field? That is where that chunk of rock had been the day before.

This one seems to say it best, though. You know you are from the Northwest when you know what they are talking about when someone says "The mountain is out."

My headbanger friends are linked in my sidebar. We'll have to take a look and see what they can do with this theme. They should all have their "Now you see it, now you don't." headers up by end of day on Wednesday.

ABC...H

H is for those shaggy 

highland cattle

we saw when we visited Scotland.

ABC Wednesday

Round Ten

Sunday's Psalm -- Second Sunday of Lent

 I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

I believed, even when I said,
 
"I am greatly afflicted."
 
Precious in the eyes of the LORD
 
is the death of his faithful ones.
 


 I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.
 

O LORD, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.

To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and I will call upon the name of the LORD.

 I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

My vows to the LORD I will pay

in the presence of all his people,

In the courts of the house of the LORD,

in your midst, O Jerusalem.

 

I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.

Warning! Danger! Who would have known?

The other day I replaced batteries in the clocks in the classrooms at church. They had all started behaving erratically because they had all been put up new on the same day--and that's another story.

But anyway, I went around and replaced batteries and had a couple of extras in my pocket, which I then transferred into my purse pocket.

Yes, not much difference between my jeans pocket and my purse pocket. Except my keys were in my purse pocket.

Last evening at dinner out with our friend, I felt like I was sitting on a hot seat. It felt a bit like the heated seat in our new car. I wondered a bit, found my jacket that I was sitting on to be a bit warm and shifted a bit in the booth.

When we got up to leave and pay our bill, I reached into my purse pocket for my keys.

My pocket was hot. My keys were hot. I fumbled around in the pocket a bit and found:

 

A battery was hot!  Really really hot! So hot that I would not toss it into a trashcan at that time for fear I would start a fire. (I know, you should recycle batteries.) The battery had shorted out--probably against the keychain and heated enough to melt and split the label covering and expose the bare metal casing. 

It's not something that would happen every day, because how often do you toss a couple of batteries in your pocket with your keys? But be careful.