Tag Archives: Tree Swallows

A Song of Spring Once More We Sing ~ Hymn

A Song of Spring Once More We Sing

A song of spring once more we sing
As winter flies away,
And changeful hours bring sun and showers
To weave a crown for May;
With heart and voice we all rejoice,
On this returning day.

For once again the promise-strain
Floats down from days of yore,
That fruits of earth shall wake to birth,
To bless the toiler’s store;
Each annual round with bounties crowned,
Till time shall be no more.

Thee, Lord, we praise for springtide days,
And life’s yet fairer spring;
These golden hours, these opening powers,
We in glad service bring,
Thine own to be, from sin set free,
Our Father, Savior, King.

Words: William H. Grosser, 1905.

Seek First…

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

~Matthew 6:26-34 (ESV)

It has been such a treat to enjoy the variety of birds that fly and perch in our back acres. How is your week coming? We are having a heat event with temps predicted in the 90’s tomorrow and Thursday and upper 80’s for Friday and the weekends. We are doing yard work in the early hours and watering in the evenings.

So far we haven’t managed to kill off any of the pretty things that are blooming in our yard. We purchased some rain bird sprinklers to use in our front acres so that they can do the watering for us. Gradually we are learning what are the best techniques and devices to use for the upkeep of our country bungalow.

Spring Visitors

In April, before we drained our pond, we had 3 real ducks land in it. I had to look up their name on google images. They are Common Mergansers.

In May we had some more visitors. This Quail sat on top of this birdhouse for the longest time calling out.

This turkey kept pacing our side fence and it seemed like it’s bird brain could not figure out how to get out of our backyard. Dear went on the deck and made some noise and it finally realized it could fly over the fence.

Finally caught a Tom Turkey fanning it’s tail feathers!

Colville claims the title of the Turkey Capital of the Pacific Northwest.

The Swallows continue to entertain us with their flying.

Our Spring clean up continues. We are working on getting the pond liner cut and removed. It’s a toilsome job especially because of the scum. Pond scum is a real thing.

We’ve been in the 70’s and there are predictions of soaring in the 80’s on the weekend!

Hope the merry month of May is going well in your corner.

The Swallows

Birds have been very active in our back acres and we’ve enjoyed watching them fly and sit for a while, too.

We have a couple electrical wires that run the length of our back yard and birds perch there.

The colors on this bird are so pretty.

Thank you for sitting pretty little bird.

I’m pretty sure this is a Swallow and they seem to really enjoy flying and they are so fun to watch. Tree Swallow or a Violet Green Swallow?

We’ve been working hard outside and the temperatures are getting warmer everyday. We have a forecast for Saturday in the upper 80’s. We’ve started draining our pond and will have our work cut out for us to pull out the liner. It is a man made pond and the liner is huge and thick and after being covered with water it is very slimy. We rented a trash pump and two 50 foot 3″ hoses that emptied the pond at 400 gallons per minute. We stopped with a few inches left in the pond and will let that naturally evaporate. We plan to fill in the area with material we have on hand and then we will have to bring in fill dirt to finish the space off.

The pond could be pretty but that requires a lot of work that we do not have the energy for. It’s enough work for us to mow and weed and clear brush. We also are concerned about attracting too many mosquitoes or worse yet breeding them in the pond. Last but not least, I don’t want to worry about my little grands falling into the pond.

How’s your May coming?