{ On the porch }

 I think in the last couple of weeks I've only missed one morning of my front porch sitting. One of my favorite things is listening to the birds. They're waking up and welcoming the day with what I think of as praise. I think of my Daddy... he loved the birds! He especially came to mind yesterday when I heard a mourning dove... he really liked doves. If you love bird watching and listening, you might want to download the Merlin app. It's absolutely free and all you have to do is hit the sound identify button and it'll pick up and list the birds it hears. It's so neat! Here are a few I heard this morning....

Hope everybody has a great SONday! 

 

{ Friday Foto Friends }

 I'm worn out, Y'all, after working outside all week long. It's been a glorious week....well, except for the pollen. East Tennessee is covered in a layer of greenish yellow and we're all breathing it in. Did you see the pic I posted on Facebook and Instagram of the young man covered in pollen with a grin on his face? That totally sums up living here right now, but I can't imagine living anywhere else - well, maybe somewhere on a hill with a view....but I'm totally digressing. I guess you might want an explanation of the foto I'm sharing.

I'm loving my new swing and it's where I've sat to take a break this week from doing yardwork. Yesterday, just about as soon as I sat down this bluebird landed in the dogwood tree above me. Now, that's not odd, right? But, the thing is I don't see a lot of bluebirds in our yard. Secondly, yesterday was my Daddy's 95th birthday....and thirdly, he loved little bluebirds. I remember when I was very young, he had bluebird boxes in the back yard. I think I'm gonna have to ask my brother to build me one so that I can have them living in my backyard, too!

  We have storms predicted for our neck of the woods today, but we do need the rain. I'm kinda glad because I need a break - this old gal's bones and muscles are hurting!

HOPE everybody has a great weekend!

{ Friday Foto Friends #131 }

It's good to be back hosting our Friday Foto Friends Link-Up! Again, thank you for letting me take a little break. I mentioned yesterday that I'll be having a giveaway because of a blog anniversary, but I'm gonna wait and share that on Monday!

I took these fotos of the baby robins on Saturday before Mother's Day. Late in the evening on Mother's Day, I told Pappy that I needed to go check on "my" babies and they were gone! There was barely enough room to hold the four little birdies!  

And, here's Momma (or Daddy, I'm not sure) making sure I don't do any harm to their kiddos.....

It's just amazing that a bird can create this.....

Not the clearest foto but here's one of the hawk before her babies flew away.....  

A blackbird taking a bath..... 

The wisteria blossoms didn't last very long before the heat got to the blooms.....

I'm pretty sure this is the first time we've had double red hot pokers and there were two like this.

Doesn't it look like a "red hot" heart?

An extreme close-up of a clematis!

.

Have a great weekend, Sweet Friends!

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{ Friday Foto Friends #123 }

Where in the world did the last week go? I can't believe I've not posted anything since last Friday's Friday Foto Friends.  My blogging seems to have been somewhat put on the back burner with so many other things going on around here lately. HOPEfully, I can get back to a more regular schedule soon.

In the meantime.....

look what built a nest in a nearby tree.

Yes, that's a hawk.

I dug out my better camera but the fotos still aren't the best quality.   I've been fascinated watching this bird of prey get up off the eggs to stretch her wings and reposition herself.  

  

Thanks so much to everybody who's so faithful to link up here each week.  I'll try my best to visit each of you sometime over the weekend.

Happy Friday!

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{ Friday Foto Friends #93 }

Y'all how in the world can it be Friday already.

This has been a very full week for me.

Monday was the eclipse and I took my Momma to the doctor on Tuesday.  I came home and dusted, vacuumed and mopped the house, cleaned the windows on the outside of the sun room, and went to my Mom's and did her push mowing (just around the house, garage and well house). Wednesday was spent running necessary errands then I stayed with the kiddos while Pappy went with our daughter late in the day to pick up her father-in-law from his first aggressive chemo treatment (prayers appreciated for him).  Yesterday was busy, too, and now here we are celebrating Friday Foto Friends!

Whew!

I'm tired just typing all that!

LOL

I didn't get a ton of pics this week but have a few to share.

What an amazing difference a week makes.

These are baby sparrows and their Momma and Daddy are taking really good care of them.

The nest is in one of the ferns on our front porch and they do a lot of fussing at us when we're out there.

This is one of the few fotos I got of the eclipse. I think the images in the upper left corner are reflections on the lens, but I think it's kinda neat. It looks like the crescent that the moon made over the sun during the eclipse.  I actually didn't look at it but just a few moments at a time because even with the eclipse glasses.....

that were over my sunglasses, by the way.....

I was afraid I'd do more damage to my eye.

Our kiddos cat keeps bringing baby snakes onto their front porch.  Does anybody know if this is a rat snake? The ONLY way I got such a close-up picture was because it was dead!

Last Saturday Pappy and I went to a little place in Knoxville called Architectural Antics. Y'all, I wanted one of almost everything this place had. It was ah-mazing! It was so interesting to walk around outside and through the buildings looking at all the goodies.  Here's a link to their Facebook page.....

Architectural Antics

Want to know what I liked best?

The dogs, Brillo and Bear!

Check them out in their Facebook fotos.

My sweet Friend, Ms. Sylvia, tagged me in this foto on Facebook because she knows how much I love sky pics!  She took this one at FDR State Park in Pine Mountain, GA. Isn't it gorgeous!!!
(you can visit Ms. Sylvia at A Grandma's Blessings)

So, that's that about that, as my Mammie used to say!

HOPE everybody has a great weekend!

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{ THANK-full Thursday}

*thankful that one of the three little hummers has finally found the feeder on the window and just sits quietly and drinks while the other two fight it out!  And, he/she seems perfectly content to let me get a foto.....

even kinda poses for me!

*so grateful to be invited to tag along to Dollywood yesterday.....

including free passes.....

to spend the day with several of our Special Friends group from church and their director. We absolutely love these people and are so blessed to be a part of that ministry.

*thankful for the precious Lady who donated money to pay for all of our lunches yesterday. She'll never see this, but I HOPE she does know how much we love her!  Please say a prayer for her and her husband.

*more birdies in the yard.....

actually this time on the porch.

Pray I don't drown the little fellows/gals when I water the fern.

freshly hatched

just like a kiddo.....

mouth wide open wanting to be fed.

(reminds me of our grands.....;-)

*grateful for the wisdom and discernment that can come only from the good Lord because this old brain just ain't functioning on all levels these days!

*sooooooo thankful that I'm "seeing" an improvement in the lines and squiggles in my eye. Thanks to all of you who are praying!

*read this gratitude from another sweet Lady, but I've gotta agree.....

it's such a blessing to have a Dollar General Store just down the hill from our house in such a rural area.....

it's so convenient.

Maybe even a bit too convenient, if you get my drift!!!

 😀

*so thankful to still be getting maters and cukes and peppers from the garden!

*y'all, I'm so thankful and blessed to have  been able to "retire" early.  I know that between that and Pappy losing his job in 2012 and then permanently in 2016, it's been a struggle at times.....

no vacations, cutting out cable and the weekend newspaper and a land line phone.....

but God.....

aren't those amazing words?!?!

He has provided in ways that I could have never even imagined, showing up at just the right time.  I told somebody I'd much rather depend on Him than to think that I'm doing anything on my own.  Plus, I'll never regret all the time I get to spend with our grand-kiddos and being "on-call" when needed.

Okie, dokie.....

I'm gonna stop right there before I write a novel.

Well, except to say.....

life is good, Y'all.....

because God is good!

Happy Thursday, Y'all!

P.S......

If any of you followed the link in the photo I used last week for my Thank-full Thursday, I want to apologize for the site it led you to and the language that was used at the top of the site. I was flabbergasted when I went there and I've since removed the photo from this blog.  Just goes to show that we need to ALWAYS check out the link when we use images from Google.

{ Friday Foto Friends #86 }

Has this week gone as fast for y'all as it has for me?

How can it be Friday again already?

Here's my offering for today.....

This was taken with my cell phone camera so it's not too plain.  The sun came out while it was raining the evening of the 4th of July and I knew there'd be a rainbow.  It's faint, but it's there.....

 Just when I thought the birdies had quit having babies this happened.....

I dug out my good camera for these pics of the birdies.....

I did a bit of research on this one because he had more black than normal on his head and what I found wasn't too pleasant.  
Sometimes the feathers don't grow on the cardinals head because of mites. 
 😞

I had an incident with a cardinal this week that showed up at just the time I needed a bit of encouragement.  
I know that some people probably think that's simply crazy, 
but I know in my heart that God is speaking to me through those birds.....

part of His creation.  

“Our sorrows are all, like ourselves, mortal. 

There are no immortal sorrows for immortal souls. 

They come, but blessed be God, they also go. 

Like birds of the air, they fly over our heads. 

But they cannot make their abode in our souls. 

We suffer today, but we shall rejoice tomorrow.” 

~~~ Charles Spurgeon ~~~

HOPE everybody has a great weekend!

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{ Friday Foto Friends #82 }

Not a clear picture but look at my little chipmunk  friend who visits me when I sit on the front porch.

(pay no attention to the unfinished landscaping - it's a work in progress)

The wisteria "tree" is blooming again.

This makes twice this spring that it's bloomed.

It's hard to get a really good pic of the entire tree. 

First harvests from our little garden.

I believe the mockingbird babies will be leaving the nest soon.  There are actually four of them and I don't see how they all fit in this nest other than they're kinda piled on top of one another.

Isn't it amazing how God designs His creatures?

I'm sure this moth was made to look like it has huge eyes as some sort of defense.....

simply awesome!

That's it for today.

HOPE everybody has a great weekend! 

Shared at Serendipity is Sweet.

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{ Friday Foto Friends #81 }

Y'all, I almost thought I'd be sharing pics of snow today because it's been COLD around my neck of the woods.  Okay, cold is an exaggeration but the temps this week have been nothing like you'd expect for the month of May. All day yesterday, it only got to around 66 degrees and with the wind it was sweater weather once again.  

So, here's my offering for today.....

A big "hen" and lots of little "chicks".

These originally came from my paternal Grandmother.....

we called her Mammie!

I know you're tired of all of my birdie pics by now, but this should be the last nest full.  These are mockingbirds, not robins, though.  It's not a very clear pic because the little fellows were moving thinking I was their Momma and gonna feed them some yummy worms! 

My lilies are bursting into bloom.  

I've told y'all before that we don't live where I can get good pics of the sunset, so I had to go on our back porch, raise the blinds, tiptoe, stand on a ladder, then stand on my head.....

no, I'm just kidding.....

but, it really is difficult to get a good view from our house. 

This was the sky one morning on my walk.

(Yes....I'm trying to keep it up....yay, me!)

Look at this bloom!  Mercy, it's gorgeous and HUGE. No, it's not in our yard but the garden center at Lowe's.  And, for close to $40, it stayed in the garden center at Lowe's!  ;-)

This just made me smile.  I was sitting in the car waiting on Pappy to get some blood work done and glanced over to the side of the doctor's office and saw this "face"!

Another sky pic..... 

And, you know I rarely post pictures of myself.  Why are we girls like that, though?  So, against my better thinking, here's a selfie I took yesterday to show my sweet friend, Stephanie, a picture of the owlie scarf she gave me recently.....

unfiltered so you get to see ALL of my wrinkles!

That's it for today, sweet Friends.

HOPE everybody has a great Memorial Day weekend!

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