Hodgepodge for the birds

 

 It's Wednesday again, and time for the Hodgepodge -- the linkup where Joyce, at  From This Side of the Pond, asks the questions and bloggers provide the answers on their own blogs.  This week's Hodgepodge questions cover a variety of topics.   Here goes:

1.  April 26th is National Audubon Day, honoring John James Audubon, the French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter known for his detailed study and illustration of birds in their natural habitats. Do you have a bird feeder? Any birds in your home decor? Have you ever owned a pet bird? What's your favorite bird?   

We do have a bird feeder.   It's strategically located in the middle of a clothesline strung from a balcony to a tree -- thus, inaccessible to bears, and even to squirrels for the most part.  I once saw a very determined squirrel making his way along the rope hand over hand -- well, paw over paw.  He only tried it once or twice before deciding (apparently) that it was too much work.

I have a number of tiny ceramic birds in various colors that I use in decorating for various seasons.  They are fun to tuck into a vignette to add a note of color.

I have never owned a pet bird.

Favorite bird: possibly the chickadee.  They are such friendly, agreeable birds.

These bird books are from my childhood.

2. What's something you took to 'like a duck to water'? 

I will say cooking.  I think I was around 10 years old the first time I cooked a meal all by myself.  I used the cookbook below.

 But speaking of ducks, which we were, I feel like a proud great-grandma (joking, folks) as I share the above photo of grandson's Josiah's ducks which he incubated and which hatched in December. (He's their foster parent, so I'm the great-grandparent -- get it?) Aren't they beautiful?

3. Empty nest, nest egg, proud as a peacock, free as a bird, birds of a feather flock together, or the early bird catches the worm...choose one and tell us how it currently applies to your life. 

The early bird catches the worm.  Even in retirement, we are so busy that we rise between 5 and 5:30 am in order to have good quality time with the Lord before jumping into our day.

4. Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds, sesame seeds, poppy seeds...your favorite seed and a favorite food or dish made with that seed or topped with that seed? Have you tried all the seeds on the list? Any you don't care for? 

Probably sunflower seeds would be my favorite.  I like to put them in homemade granola.  Lemon poppy seed muffins are wonderful but I seldom have one.  I've tried all of those seeds and the only one I really don't care for (though I will eat it) is flax seed. 

Beautiful sketch of a saw-whet owl by my friend Cyndy 

5. Something in the past week that made you 'happy as a lark'?

Seeing the "field daffodils" blossom in a field adjacent to my childhood home.  The house has been torn down but those daffodils don't care.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Every one of my thoughts feels random today.  But speaking of thoughts (and this one is far from random), I was so blessed to come upon this quote from preacher-of-old Charles Spurgeon: 

"It should fill us with adoring wonder and reverent surprise that the infinite mind of God should turn so many thoughts toward us who are so insignificant and so unworthy!"

Spurgeon wrote this in reference to Psalm 139:17-18a: "How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God!  How great is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand."

I find that truth -- that God's thoughts toward me are "more in number than the sand" -- does indeed fill me with reverent surprise.  How about you?

And that's the Hodgepodge for this week!  We were working at our volunteer jobs on Tuesday and Wednesday, so that's why I am a day late.