Opening Eyes

 The kittens' eyes are
opening and they are
getting bigger. 

They are little, but they are CATS!

Their cat-claws are pointy but not strong enough to hurt if they scratch you.  They are like tiny pins.  So, they look sweet, but let me tell you God has given them great instincts of biting and scratching to protect themselves from danger.  Little kittens CAN be quite ferocious.... 

When our cat Alex was little, he was the only kitten to survive the litter, and he was probably a survivor because he was a spit fire. 


He was only a few weeks old and I remember him hissing.... rearing up like he was being attacked by the worse thing ever... a human!  He was afraid and always ran away.  He is still like this today.

I am handling these little ones... petting them, everyday to get them used to me


Poor Alex never met a human until he was much older and he decided early-on that he hated people, even if they gave him food.   He does still  come around for food though. 
Here he is today.... the ferocious beast...  Alex.

Baby Goat

It's a boy! 



It's a bouncing baby boy!






 Do you get the idea that it is spring on the farm? 


  We have a nice little heard of goats, but this is the only one born so far this year.   Most of our goats... eight of them... now nine, them are fainting goats, although we have one named Annie who is a Nubian/Sonnen cross.  She is bigger than all the rest, but not pictured here.

The little guy, born about two weeks ago, is a fainting goat.

Here he is with his mom:

Baby goats love to bounce.

Here he
is bouncing
on top of a
bucket....

We have been having a lot of fun watching this little one bounce around.



He's cute as can be!

Kittens

Here is momma cat.
  Her name is Tanzania, but we mostly call her Kitty.

She's been a bit big around the middle lately, that is until March 11th when she gave birth to four kittens.  Now she is skinny again.



 Here are her babies:

There is one gold, one gray, one white with a blackish face and one white

Springs the Thing...

CNN reports that the earthquake in Japan shifted the earths axis.  That is interesting.   You can read the article that I read here.  Here is another one  with a snippet of info on the shifting as well.  I am not sure of the ramification of that if it does happen to be accurate information;  sure has me wondering.  However, it is beginning to look and feel a little bit like spring.where I live...

The red breasted robins are racing about, and I even saw two geese flying in to town, just this morning.  Not only that, but the road to my house is pure silty mud.  It must be spring!

                 

In anticipation of the warmer weather, I planted seeds a few weeks ago.  Here they were then:

and here they are now:

These are tomato and basil.

In The End

I am in shock about the earthquake in Japan a couple of days ago.


It grieves me to think that a day could suddenly be so turned upside down, but I know it happens.


It's certainly possible.


I just never imagined I would see this.... and I have been seeing photos...

(These are all from google)

 ....and  as you know, this blog IS Four Season Day.
It is inspired by things that change.. variety... but this is a little overwhelming to say the least.  

Anyhow....


Japan is having quite the catastrophe...
in fact, much ofwhat started as a normal day was turned upside down and it didn;t get beeter from there.  People have died unexpectedly, friends and family members are missing, people have no fresh water....roofs over their heads and a lot of debris, toxic in most cases, is everywhere.


I am a little bit surprised that with all the warning systems available, there seemed to be no warning about an earthquake to the people of Japan.  It just hit and caught them by surprise.

Some of the earthquake video showed people in their normal day to day lives... sitting at the computer terminals... sipping tea or coffee, when suddenly the earthquake hit...rooms were shaking... and no one had an idea how big it would be until it shook and shook, never seeming to stop.  Certainly, no one knew how the rest of their day would be from there.

Videos I watched later, after the tsunami, showed how the surging seawater washed cars and houses and planes and railroad cars adrift all over the city.  Cars were rolling in waves being washed over bridges, and people were in despair.  It was all so sobering to watch, and a reminder to value our time here on earth in this day.

A friend of mine, Rick, was in Hawaii  and he took this video of experiencing the small tsunami that hit there after the earthquake....You can view it here.


It is hard to believe the devastation, hunger, pain, cold, upheaval that people are feeling right now in another part of time and space... but as i ponder that, it's that way always.... isn't it? ....Somewhere someone is hurting. Someday it may be you... or me.


Yep, people are in turmoil and me?   I am in my little home typing on my computer, warm fire crackling at my side,  little dog resting by my feet.  It is raining.

 I pray for calm and restoration to the people of Japan.

I  have a special appreciation for things Japanese, and not long ago I picked up a book called The Road of the Tinkling Bell.   The book was haiku, short poems and paintings by a Japanese man.  I didn't know this until I had been reading the book for a while, but the author, Hoshino Tomihiro, had a special ability of painting and writing with a tool in his teeth and that is how he created the paintings in the book, and how he wrote the poems.

Tomihiro was born in Japan in 1946, was an avid gymnast in his youth, even a gymnastic coach until an accident in 1970 left him paralyzed from the neck down.  He spent nine years hospitalized, relearning how to live and how to use the brush in his mouth to write and paint. I also learned that he was a Christian.

I have to say I truly appreciated the personal insights into the Japanese world as well as the  heavenly light he shed in his poetry about his personal journey, which was, to say the least, a long and difficult road.  It was one of persevering in the darkness, one of enduring trauma and great difficulty... one that easily could have left a person in despair.  But He knew Jesus... and he had a hope despite the tragic situation he found himself in.... one he never expected for himself.

I pray this same spirit of comfort, peace and hope.... to all the people of this devastated land tonight as I think of them.  May they come to know Jesus if they do not... and if they do, may they be comforted by Him and the promises we have in Jesus Christ that one day God will right everything that has gone wrong.

The television is on, I can hear it over the hum of my conputer...and I find myself listening to reports of a nuclear meltdown taking place at their nuclear power plant in Japan.  They say radioactive waste is going into the atmosphere...

Watching now, re-runs of the catastophy, over and over there is joy in watching rescues in the turmoil of this event.  It's great to see an awestruck world community triy to figure out how best to render aid.  There is a mother with her baby smiling on the screen, glad they are alive.... a father, being reunited with his daughter.

I love happy endings!

Which reminds me...

When you know the God who raises the dead to life, you cannot help but have a happy ending... no matter how bad or how bleak things get to be.  God knows, the world is full of trials and tribulations,  but God , he is love.... and his ways are not the ways of this world we find ourselves in... every changing and hanging every instant.... with death waiting in the end.  No.  God has "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV). this is his message.... to us, just as it was to those he wrote those words to.

Those who believe on the one whom he sent, will be saved.  He will give us "beauty instead ashes [and] gladness instead of mourning" (Isaiah 61:3, NIV) in the end.

Harley Dog

Food Wars

I played Food Wars with my little buddy David the other day.  He is eight.   I didn't know how to play Food Wars until he explained it, and then I  still didn;t quite get it, but I played and we had fun.

The game began as we each devised our team of food fighting fiends and drew them on paper.  David already had his planned and drawn out, so he worked directing me in planning mine.

I made three main guys, one over-lord who was in chage of them and a health bar... to show how healthy I was or not as we played the game.  When the game began, it as a matter of battling it out between us... in a fast food, freindly fighting sort of way.  It ended up that what we did was draw pictures of food on small squares of paper, and then we would ball them up and take turns trying to hit each other and running away.  The health bar helped us keep score.

David won the game.




This is his Sumo Egg man.



And the head hauncho....



The Hambeuger Guy
with the french fry claws....

Ooooohh scary!  He is a rather crabby character you know!

This is the Pear Guy.  Look at those teeth!

Here is the extremely dangerous Killer Candy....



and his chocolate Kisses....

h

Killer Candy is a tootsie pop guy who shoots out little tootsie pop suckers....

Fried Egg man....





and the Evil Bacon are heading our way....

but not to fear...


Oranges Smoranges are ready to roll into action!

And with them, the Big Cheese....









and the hero of our story.....

Sandwich Sam and his sliced tomato slinger.... and his sidekick OREO.


 These two fended of Sumo Egg man, as long as they could, but the Sumo man was just too good of an aim,  I ran and ran, but he got me, twice.



The End