One Less

There is now one less muskrat in the neighborhood thanks to Josh's skillful marksmanship! :)

Heron High Rise

We had another nifty nature experience recently. A friend told us of a nesting phenomenon that she had seen north of Lapeer, so we headed out to find it one afternoon.
In a small section of trees surrounded by a corn field we came upon an amazing sight - a community of nesting Great Blue Herons!


Although we couldn't get very close, Grace was able to capture some spectacular pictures. You can't see it in this photo, but there were well over 20 of these high rises.

We were able to pull off onto the edge of the corn field and got out to get a better look. It was amazing to see those big birds perched so high in the trees!

Here you can see one of the birds coming in for a landing. Look at the birds sitting above or on their nests.

Gliding in over the budding tree tops . . .

Engaging landing gear . . . putting on the brakes!

Whoa! Catch your balance . . .

Kind of tricky to sit in this tree with such long legs!

*GULP* I'm not so sure I would want to be raised in that flimsy looking nest so high off the ground!
I found out that these large Heron communities are called (appropriately enough) "Heronries," and that they are used year after year by the same birds.

We were so grateful to be able to witness this incredible aspect of God's creation! If you live in the area you can e-mail or call us and we will give you directions so you can see for yourself. They should be nesting through mid -late May.

Ta ta for now!

~Faith

An Afternoon Hike

Saturday afternoon found us tramping around "Beaver Lake" with Mr. Reiche. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, especially back in the woods. We discovered a few pretty spring flowers,

and enjoyed being serenaded by the spring peepers and tree frogs that frequented the many ponds/swamps along the trails.

But the absolute highlight of the day is when Faith found a patch of Wintergreen berries . . .and a snake. Well, the snake kind of found her. :-) She had bent down to pick one of the berries, and was paused there, her face barely a foot from the ground when everyone started yelling something about a snake. She glanced over, expecting a cute little gardner snake to be hiding near by, and saw, with it's raised head a mere 2 inches from her extended hand, a very large, silvery/gray snake.

Here is a picture of the handsome fellow . . er . . lady. (We're not sure.)
This is a Blue Racer. An incredibly gorgeous snake! This one was easily over four feet long and a hefty 5-6 inches in circumference at the largest part.

It put on quite a show, vibrating it's tail in the dry leaves to make us think it was a rattler. Josh caught it and we were all able to pet it. (well, all of us who wanted to) So beautiful! You can not clearly see it in this picture, but the under side of the snake was a lovely shiny light blue/gray color. The scales were so smooth and soft. We couldn't stop exclaiming over how pretty this snake was! We let the snake go soon after and finished picking some wintergreen berries. Mmmm! They were very yummy!


Here is another picture I found so you can see it up close. Pretty, ain't it?

So if you are walking the trails at "Beaver Lake" some day, and come upon a wintergreen patch, keep an eye out for our friend, and be sure to say "Hello" for us!!

Genesis 3:1a "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made."

Christianna - 17

This year Christianna got to spend the majority of her birthday at the goat farm as we helped out for their farm work day and enjoyed seeing all the new little kids.






This one really wanted it's picture taken! :)


The birthday girl!


Yummy carrot cake in the shape of one of our little horses.




For a special treat for the March birthday girls, dad took Christianna and I out to The Parlour in town (which has yet to add the first thing on their sign back on the menu).


Mmm! The one and only...Moose Tracks!


Cherry Almond Streusel ...yummness!

Happy 17th birthday to our family's sweetest, lovable, thoughtful, compassionate and dreamy "little girl"!
May God grant you your hearts desire and bless you with many more years on this earth as you serve Him with your whole heart and seek His face everyday.

You are a blessing and beautiful gift to our family!

Love,
Grace

The Keeping of Bees

Life is sure getting exciting here at Lily Spring Gardens and Farm. The newest addition to the "family" being two Bee Hives, full of bees of course. Italian bees that is. Our good friend Mr. Ostrander supplied the hives and bees and the back corner of our meadow supplied the residence. We are kind of Bee-sitting you might say. :-) (hmm, that sounds a bit painful)
Anyway, Mr. Ostrander brought them over today, and despite the high winds, (it is not recommended that you work with bees in high winds, makes them more liable to sting) we got everything set up, and the bees in their new home.


Here is one of the Queen bees in her little box. Sorry the picture isn't more clear.
Due to the fact that the boys had just left for a dentist appointment, and the other female members of the house were not as inclined, I (Faith) got to assist in the relocating of the bees. (Kicking and screaming I assure you :-)


Here is a picture of me being very helpful as Mr. Ostrander gets the hives ready to cart to the back. (the bees are NOT in the hives at this time:-) Notice I am wearing black pants. That is actually not a very wise thing to wear when working with bees, you see they are attracted to dark colors - in a bad way. Notice Mr. Ostrander has a white suit, (you will see it better in another picture) but at least I did wear a white shirt. So even from the start I was a bit leery as to how this was going to work out.


Notice that one of the frames has honey comb already in it. That is for the bees to eat while they find the local restaurants . . . I mean flowers and trees.


Here we go, trundling the hives off to the meadow. See his space suit . .er . .I mean bee suit? It is very white. Good thing.


The bees wait patiently (?) in the back of the truck. It took us a while to get the hives set up *just so* as bees are very picky about their homes. No gaps for rain to get in, no extra spaces, no tilting, and always face south.


Hey! How do you like my new hat and gloves!!?? So stylish and just in time for the Kentucky Derby, yes? The hat was a bit big and kept falling in my eyes, (which made it hard to see where I was going) and the gloves were quite stiff, but I was VERY happy to have them, let me assure you!!! (Do you know how frustrating it can be for ones nose to be dripping and no way to wipe it, or to have ones hair blow in ones eyes or mouth and have no way to dislodge it? Try wearing a bee hat for few minutes on a cold windy day and you will know.)



Off we go with the bees! See how nonchalantly Mr. Ostrander is carrying his case of bees, and how carefully I am carrying mine? Well, he is a seasoned bee keeper, and I am not. Also it has been observed that I am not always the most steady and coordinated person in the world, thus the added caution on my part.


Part of the trek to their new homes included carrying the bees though our "swamp," and being very careful not to splash water on them. Notice the white stripe on my lower legs. That is white duct tape, so that the bees can't get down inside my boot. The duct tape is white because it is the only color we had at the time, and I think it is very practical and quite stylish at the same time. :-)


Here are the cases of bees sitting atop one of the bee hives while Mr. Ostrander puts the first Queen in the other hive.


And in go the bees! They were all getting very vocal by this time. I don't think they liked being shook so violently out of there nice, snug little case.



This hive gets settled in. The metal can contains a thick syrupy substance that the bees fed on while traveling.

Here are some of the bees trying out their cute little front door.

Praise the Lord that neither Mr. Ostrander or I got stung today! And what a wonderful thing to be so close to this amazing part of His creation! Plus I really did enjoy myself . . to put it in the vernacular . . . it was sweeet!! :-)

~ Faith

(pictures by Christianna)

Psa 119:103 How sweet are Thy words unto my taste!
Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Our Journey to the Mighty State of Texas

(Scroll down for picture slide show)

Dear Blog, I will here record for the benefit of the readers of this site, the history of our family’s latest adventure, namely a week trip down to the very large and uniquely beautiful state of Texas. The reason for this long, exciting, yet rather costly trip was that John is Interning with College Plus! and is currently working at their headquarter in San Antonio, and desperately wanted to see us and to show us where he lived and introduce us to the people that were impacting his life down there. Unfortunately it did not work for all of us to go, so on Wednesday the 11^th of March at around 1:30 in the afternoon a delegation of us (Dad, Mom, Grace, Josh and Christianna) rolled out of the driveway in our faithful van Ginger, taking leave of those left behind on the home front.

The journey started out cheerfully enough as we passed through Indiana and Illinois, until it started to get dark outside and the futile attempt of sleeping in a moving van began. As we traveled through Arkansas it commenced to rain, and a most miserable downpour it was. At around 2:00 AM we halted at a rest stop to try to get some sleep; which turned out to be impossible. I thought the sound of rain was soothing, and it is, just not when it is pouring onto the metal top of the van you are trying to sleep inside. As we continued on the rainy voyage that morning and into Texas, we passed many large cattle ranches and drove over the vast Ray Hubbard reservoir. We finally arrived at our host family’s house, weary and happy to be at our destination.

The Fowls who were friends of John’s were very kind in opening their house and giving up their time for us in the next five days and we appreciated it immensely. Josh and Daniel Fowl found they had a mutual interest in fishing and so Friday afternoon, despite the chilly and rainy weather, they started out toward Canyon Lake on a fishing expedition. Much to our disappointment they came back empty handed (unless you count the bag of hotdogs they brought back which they had used for Cat fishing ;) but on Saturday they headed out again and this time came back with a rainbow trout which Daniel filleted. Friday evening we were blessed by having the Marshalls (long time friends from Michigan) over for dinner. We (young people) had a wonderful time playing “spoons”, “Dutch Blitz” and a mysterious, intriguing and somewhat frustrating game called Chinese Numbers after dinner!

On Saturday John took us on a touring trip up to Fredicksburg a quaint city filled with small shops, a museum and other tourist attractions. It was a very nice being able to spend time with John and I only regret that all of us were not able to be there. Sunday afternoon after a wonderful worship time that morning, the Fowls had all of the Interns from College Plus! and Vision Forum over for Volley Ball and Christian fellowship. Volley Ball was great fun even though I didn’t play, but I enjoyed watching, laughing and taking pictures for your enjoyment.

Monday Morning Josh, Grace and I went for a walk with Kristina and Daniel along Canyon Lake. Daniel caught a small snapping turtle and we picked many shells which were strewn all over the beach, as the lake was way down. It was breathtakingly beautiful on the cliffs and when we reached the peninsula the boys could not resist the temptation of the cool water and jumped in. As soon as we arrived back to the house we took off with John to down town San Antonio to tour the Missions. The Alamo was very crowded so we did not get to go inside but toured through the gardens and Bowie Knife displays. The Concepcion Mission was being worked on but we were able to go inside anyways. There were some very interesting paintings on the walls which were done by Indians who were hired by the monks there. Unfortunately The San Jose Mission was closed by the time we got there, but we were able to peak through some gateways and saw some incredibly beautiful architecture throughout the compound and chapel. After that we went and saw the Espada Aqueducts, some of which were still in use, and then headed down to the river walk for dinner.

We had meant to leave on Tuesday morning, but there was so much to do and so little time to do it, that we did not end up leaving till 6:00 that evening. We got to tour Vision Forum and John’s apartment in the morning and in the afternoon Josh and us girls went rafting down the Guadeloupe River with Daniel and Kristina. It was a blast, we were soaking wet by the time we were done, but it was not from the rapids on the river but from splashing and scooping of paddles. At one point the boys had broken one of their paddles, so Josh was paddling with a broken turtle net and a short handled tiny paddle (which we nicknamed “teacup”) and Daniel in the front was dipping with a wooden pole. The resulting effect was hilarious! Unfortunately, due to the wet environment we did not get any pictures but the soggy memories will be forever imprinted in our minds.

Exhausted and happy we left the Fowls that evening wishing we had more time with John and them, but grateful for the time God gave us. On the way back we took a slightly different route and crossed over the Mississippi River at Memphis then up through Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio in to our dear native state of Michigan. It had been a wonderful trip and we were very thankful to God and the kind people down there for making it so enjoyable.

So there dear blog ends the extensive account of our journey to the mighty state of Texas.

~ Christianna

Happy 23rd Birthday Grace!

Grace's 23rd Birthday was Sunday, the 8th of March.
We ate her tasty Chocolate cake and "Dirt cake" with the Ostranders and Fultz' after church.

A toothless Yesenia with the Birthday girl.



Dessert! The "dirt cake" is in a real flower pot with gummy worms. :-)


A happy "little" brother with Birthday girl.

A new compact disc by Rescue!! (featuring some awesome human percussion!)

O.K. is THAT big enough for you now?!

The lovely birthday girl!

I'm so thankful to the Lord for you and the gifts and talents that He has given you. You are such an asset to our family, and a blessing to so many people. I pray that God will give you many more years of joy and service for Him.

Love,

Faith

Post to come....

A lot has happened since the last post, and actually there have been several in the making and in draft that have just never gotten to the publishing stage yet, but I hope to get those out here soon. Birthday pictures and a peek into our crazy-fun, quick and adventurous trip to Texas last weekend are up and coming! Stay tuned!