Tuesday, May 31, 2011

God's Wonder in the Yard



No time to write today, but I wanted to show you the Eastern Painted Turtle we found in our backyard.  That's right, folks, we can't afford to go anywhere, but God is determined to give these children a summer they will remember, once again!  The Lord is so faithful!  He gives us a life from just the beauty of his hands.  I bought 4 bags of sand and new sand toys, thinking it would give my children something to do. While they do appreciate them, when the turtle showed up, I realized God plans on keeping my kids amused and full of wonder; I needn't worry about buying them a thing.  Why complicate things?  God's wonder is enough for any child.  








 Here is my Beth with her allergy shiners (the tired-looking line under her eye, and puffy eyes).  I took her to the doctor last week to confirm that she's suffering from seasonal allergies.  He used her shiners as a clue, and the fact that her nostrils show swelling inside, which is not the case with the common cold. The swelling is a classic allergy sign.  I didn't realize it was so easy to distinguish the two.  He gave me some Claritin syrup, which the pharmacy sold me in generic form (loratadine). It makes her gag and vomit, so I have to call today for another solution.




We gave him fruits and veggies at first, but then consulted our field guide to learn that he lives in ponds and marshes.  Peter then went to get water laden with tadpoles and snails from our drainage ditch (aka frog pond).  We filled the container with a few inches of this water and decided to keep our little friend until Daddy came home and could enjoy him a little.  They eat snails, tadpoles, small fish, algae, leeches, etc. and bask on logs.

Compassion Blogging Trip
You will find a Compassion Blogging Trip button at the top right of my blog. Click on it to read all the posts from the current Philippines trip. The blog authors are from these blogs:  Inspired to Action, Passionate Homemaking, Simple Mom, Keeper of the Home, and Chatting at the Sky.  Shaun Groves leads these trips, and he also writes wonderful posts about them, at ShaunGroves.com.  The first posts went up yesterday morning, detailing the bloggers' visits with their own sponsored children, during which they visited the Manila Zoo and a restaurant.  Today they will each write about their visit to their sponsored child's home.

3 comments:

Sandi said...

Love the turtle! Sorry ot hear about the allergies. My dh started having allergies one spring 6 years ago out of no where. Hope you can find something that works for her.
And one of the compassion bloggers (Steph @ Keeper of the Home) is a dear local friend of mine. So excited for them to be on this trip.

Katherine said...

So much fun! We had a thrill a few years ago when we discovered a desert tortoise in our backyard. We had always been told to leave them alone, because they are endangered and will completely void if disturbed, losing a good amount of their water stores. But I looked around and saw all the crowns perched on the telephone wire and called the turtle rescue to find out what to do. They told me to pick it up and bring it over so I did, all the time with a little fear in me that I was "breaking the law", LOL

Katherine said...

oops I meant to say "crows", not "crowns"