September 3, 2014

My Favorite Backyard Visitor

September 3, 2014

God sent me another special treat today.  In my sewing room I have cafe curtains - curtains which start about 1/3 of the way down from the top of the window, leaving a gap between the top of the curtains and the top of the windows.  This cute little blue female budgie (Budgerigar) likes to sit in the same area of the huge Royal Poinciana tree every day, right out the sewing room windows.  She is not as afraid of people as the other birds, leading me to believe she is an escaped pet.  Where she sits in the tree, I can see her above the curtains so I get to enjoy her beauty before I even open the curtains in the sewing room in the mornings.  This morning it was very gray and overcast with heavy clouds, but there she sat as if to greet me in the morning.  Several years ago I read in a book that little treats like that from God to brighten our days are God Breezes.  That is a name someone made up, not something from the Bible, but seeing the bird was like a breath of fresh air.

The tropical disturbance that has been to the south of us in the Gulf of Mexico, along the coast of Mexico, went ashore last night about 250 miles south of us, but some of the rain bands were coming our way.  The first time I checked the weather radar this morning, it looked like most of the rain was going to stay  to the south of us.  For a brief moment the sun peaked through the clouds and I grabbed my camera to see if I could find a rainbow created by the sun shining through a light drizzle.  It had rained during the night and everything was wet and dripping.  I did not find a rainbow, but did find many pretty things.

This hibiscus plant is going to be in full bloom shortly.  It has a few flowers that are open currently but with this rain, it will soon be covered in red blooms.  I went to the back yard and took a few photos.  The yard is so beautifully green after the rains of the last few days.

I returned to the sewing room and downloaded an assortment of photos and in a few minutes looked out the window to see that it had gotten very dark.  The rain clouds were thick and dark gray, to a point that it was getting too dark to get good photos.  My camera will take good photos in low light situations, but then the photos don't show the true darkness.  I texted my husband and suggested he check the weather radar and maybe get the sand bags out at the office.  He managed to get them out in time to keep water out of the warehouse.

The rains started and quickly became very heavy.  What a soaking the yard got!  A friend north of town said they got 2 1/2 inches of rain today.  My guess here would be at least 2 inches.

My husband and I exchanged some texts and he offered to let me stay home.  I jumped on the offer and spent the morning cutting out fabric squares for a couple of quilts.  This afternoon I started to assemble one of them. Since the area around our shop floods, I expected him to have few customers.  Later, after work, he told me he stayed very busy all afternoon.

Mid afternoon I went to our son's house to take some cookies to my grandchildren and a few other things to the family.  I stayed for about an hour visiting with our daughter-in-law while some of the children worked on their school work.  They are home schooled, so they were working at the dining table on their assignments. 

Our grand children's other grandmother showed up to let them all see her new car.  The little boys thought it was great.  She needed a little more room for transporting grand children.

Our youngest grand daughter gave her approval to the new car...

as did our oldest grandson - the newest driver in the family.

The evening was quiet.  Ron came home exhausted from moving around sand bags and seeing that all the rain water stayed outside our shop and not inside. 

Late in the evening I was able to talk to our youngest son and we discussed wedding plans.  He and his fiance are making progress on the long list of decisions that need to be made.  It was good to talk to him.  I did have to have him repeat several things and a few of the things I would not want to pass on for fear that I didn't hear them correctly, but it was so good to hear his voice.  We just have not had enough time to visit lately.