Spiritual Lessons from a Dead Bird

Jake found a baby bird on the ground in the driveway. :( He pushed it into the shade and came running to find me. Tom went to get his gun. "Mercy kill!" he was yelling. Jake wanted to try to save it. It didn't seem hurt, just exhausted and not in his nest. So we picked him up and found shoebox and put a blanket in it for a nest. The poor thing had plenty of feathers on top but not much on the bottom. We got a dropper and got a little water in him and let him rest a bit. A few hours later, he was calmly sitting there looking around but not wanting to eat. We called him Popeye because his face looked just like the cartoon character.

In the morning, he was dead though, as I suspected he would be. We had looked up on the Internet how to care for a fledgling bird, but all the sites said there was not much hope for the little thing, so both the boys were not surprised to find the little guy dead when they got up. I told them that was probably why he was out of the nest in the first place, either something was wrong with him physically and the parents kicked him out to save food for their other babies, or it was stupid and jumped out too early.

A thought came to me, humans (well most humans) don't do that naturally. It isn't our instinct to get rid of a "useless" or sick child. Could this be part of what the bible says? That we are "created in His image"? If you consider how useless or ill-formed humans are compared to what the God of the Bible is, he should kick us out of the nest as well, but he cares for us anyway and gives us a chance to be near him and learn from him. He cared so much for our inferior bodies that He gave us his Son so that we may be redeemed and live forever with Him.

That's what we do with our young. The conversation with the boys went on to discuss about children and adults with terrible infirmities that render them useless to themselves. Why should we continue to keep these people alive? Why do we let a baby, just born and obviously not going to ever be healthy, live on? Because we are compelled to show mercy to that human life as God has shown mercy to us. Who knows what the Lord has in store for that life? Maybe they will be miraculously healed. Maybe they will continue in their state and some one's mission in life is to care for them. Maybe, just by that invalids presence, another human being will be brought to Christ. There is no telling. But if we kill of the sick and infirm, we will have more physical wealth, we will be more productive, but we will be dead spiritually. We will cut off from us an avenue that the Lord could have used to some great purpose. He doesn't do things by accident. Just like finding that baby bird was no accident.

Grasshoppers & Economics

I forgot to mention bugs yesterday! So I'm out there trying my best to put a mesh fence around my garden, scratching my hands, frustrated with wire, to keep the dogs and rodents out. Then I see a grasshopper. And I know if there is one, there are a thousand. I threw up my hands in despair and came in the house. The boys were worried about me. :))

And this leads me to economics of course! The other day I saw that dumb commercial with Michele Obama telling kids to grow a garden if they want their own fresh vegetables. Grr. That doesn't make any sense (for the reason given). I mean, if you want to experiment and see how vegetables grow, or if you want to have the experience, or know how difficult it can be, etc., that's a great idea. It is fun to grow plants. I love it! But if you want fresh, organic food, growing it yourself is not always the best idea. If you live in the city and have a small space like a patio or balcony, you can grow one salad for a family over the spring. That's helpful! And if you live in an area that is not conducive to a vegetable garden, like mine, you are going to be spending a lot of money on little produce. Wouldn't it make more sense to support an organic farmer and buy their produce? I mean, the more customers that guy has, the cheaper his product will be. It is hard these days to know if the produce you are buying is truly organic, but you can try. And if more of the general public is asking the sellers about the produce, aren't they going to attempt to satisfy the customer if they want to stay in business?

Desert Gardening

I have a garden in my desert yard. I know you're thinking "What? Isn't it always hot and dry in the desert?" It isn't always hot, actually part of the year it is extremely cold compared to Southern California temps, and part of it is very very nice. Only those three months of summer get pretty warm and only two of those get stinkin' hot. As for dry, yes it is, pretty much all year around but I have city water, so I get what I pay for and can water plants, but that isn't the problem. The problem is rodents and birds. Anything green and leafy attracts attention for miles and there is no keeping those things out. Mice and kangaroo rats can get into a space half an inch wide. Rabbits can jump. Birds can fly in, grab and go.

There is another problem, soil. We have sand, lost of it. Nothing really decomposes in the ground or on it. I'm pretty sure you can leave a piece of lumber laying on the ground for about 100 years before it falls apart and it will be from sun and wind. All the nutrients just drain right through the sand with the water you put on it. You can use a container garden but it has to be pretty deep and wide to grow anything of good size. And that is a lot of soil to buy from the garden center. You can keep it up with compost and chicken droppings.

Anyway, it isn't cost effective. With the money I'm spending on water, soil, protecting the plants, not to mention time and effort, I might as well go to the Farmer's Market in town and buy whatever vegetables I want. And that is what I will do....next year. :) I'm not going to scrap it all just yet. I do like to grow things in my green house, so I'll keep that going. Maybe put more effort into that next year. And the plants I have going now, I'll try to keep up. But I'm not going to spend any money on more.

Movie Night!

 Does this look like fun?! Grandpa and Grandma came over and brought a bunch of old films and slides to show the kids. We made pizza, ate, talked, and watched the boys try to kill each other to pass the time until it was dark enough. My living room does not have curtains, so it was going to be a long wait. We got impatient, of course! So I brought the quilts off the bed and duck taped them to the windows. :))

The boys were fascinated by the projector and slide machine. I have to admit that the clicking sound the projector makes brings back memories. I had put some of the old movies on DVD but I sure wish they had an option to put that sound in the back ground instead of music or nothing.

The slides were great! It was so fun to see my brother and sister and I when we were little. The kids thought it was hilarious! My Dad takes great pictures. :) The only thing that made me a little sad was Tom asking why we don't see all these people (my aunt, uncles, and cousins). The family has grown so large, I guess. We rarely see each other anymore. Almost makes me want to call everyone together...almost. ;)

Thanks for the GREAT evening Dad and Bonnie!

Baffle Gab

We played Baffle Gab. I'm not real fond of this game but the boys like it. You need to be able to write fairly quickly to play by the rules, so it doesn't work well with our family. We pull out cards for each of us and have one minute to use all the words correctly in a story told out loud. It's a little too easy though so you always get all the points available. But it does make for some pretty funny stories.

Games

We played "Postcards from North America" today. Our game closet is over full of games we rarely play. I've decided that we will play one game every day until we get through it. If we can't stand a game, we shall get rid of it and thin them out.

Postcards is a fun game. We like reading the postcards when we get to a place on the board. And it was fun watching the boys get all excited about the one's from places we have been. One downside, I want to go to the places that are on the board that I haven't been. ROADTRIP ideas abound!

The Salt Shaker Incident

On Sunday, Tom dropped the salt shaker and broke it. No big deal right? Wrong. He starts bawling. You'd think that he was afraid he was going to get in trouble or that he felt bad that he had broken something valuable. He was upset that he broke the “salt shaker we have always had”, “a part of his childhood”. These are his words. He was inconsolable for quite some time. I tried to be supportive. I know how sentimental he is. You can't even imagine what went on when we moved from our house in Anaheim. They don't remember any other house.


I started throwing away the pieces and he was getting them out of the trash. He insisted we could glue it back together. It was broken into at least 50 pieces. It just wasn't going to happen. I got him to let me clean up the mess and throw away the pieces. The whole time he sobbed out things like, “I will always remember it.” “It's the only salt I've ever known” “...so many memories”, as if it were a special toy.

I went back to making popcorn and turned around to find him grabbing pieces from the trash and running out of the room. Then I heard him put the pieces in his drawer. I shook my head and jokingly told him he was nuts. We went to watch a movie and the rest of the evening rolled on.

Later that night, late, everyone was asleep, I wake up to hear him rummaging around in his drawers, wait, then I hear him sobbing into his pillow. I go in to him. He has the pieces of the shaker and he is just so pathetic. I gave him some love and told him we could find a new one that was even cooler than the old one. I didn't mention replacing it with the same one since I wasn't sure we could or if it would be healthy, I mean the kid is freaking out. He went back to sleep.

I heard nothing about it the next day. We did joke with him about breaking the new one, the paper container from the store. I looked up a replacement for the old one and it was $30 since they are from a set that is discontinued. He saw it and I told him it was too much for a salt shaker I wasn't attached to anyway. We should just get ourselves a cool new set that we love.

Late last night, he came into my room and woke me up. He said he wanted to give me half the money for the new set we found online. The kid has issues. I'm joking really, he's just very sentimental like his Dad, but seriously, how do I comfort him?