By Quiet Waters

14. Strong warm hands taking my cold, tired hands, enveloping them in strength and love, not so tiny hands pulling mine, in vibrant, come with me I want to show you something in excitement and love.
15. Flickers of wisdom, understanding and discernment, knowledge and love growing brightly in young eyes.
16. Witnessing the sisters embrace in their play, reaching out in love during the joy of the moment.
17. Answered cries for help, morsels of helpful truth whispered in the early morning.
18. Anticipation and planning, a 6 day family adventure is brewing…and shhh, it’s a surprise!
19. Letting them play until the chill drives them in. They burst in with the scent of outdoors and flushed cheeks, cold hands reaching for an embrace of welcome.
20. Popsicles after poetry. A popsicle for mom during poetry to encourage them on 😉
21. Science Tuesday! Our favorite thing on Tuesday, that with staying home all day.
22. Snuggling through the “Big Woods” one more time, with a sweet 7yo, the youngest, the last…savoring this time, so rich, so precious.
23. Success! The pancake men didn’t become pancake blobs this time  Practice makes improvement, even in pancake men cooking.
24. Letting the surprise slip and hearing the children say, “oh Marme, it’s still a GREAT surprise.”
25. Planning family retreats and being more excited about what the LORD has planned during that time.
26. Sweet, wise hubby hugging me firmly and asking where the failed science experiment is, then quickly, kindly explaining the reason for my failure.
27. And despite his fatigue that is even greater than mine, cheerfully doing the experiment at 8:45 pm, with giggly, eager, excited, energetic daughters ~
28. And of course, the experiment succeeds, and the children go several layers deeper than this mother could have led them.
29. Sleepy snuggles in the early morning to chase the bad dreams away, then tucking the sleepy snuggler in to Daddy & Mommy’s bed

But we did not get our nature walk in. We drove to the Mill Pond after a quick run to town for electrical tape and distilled water to find that the mosquitoes were FIERCE.

So, we spent a few minutes peering at the ones swarming the windows from inside the van. We all agreed, mosquitos are…GROSS and SCARY.

We drove home and I pondered…when will we get in our nature walks without being eaten by 6 legged animals. And it came to me!

I woke the girls at Wednesday morning at 6, we grabbed muffins and hot drinks and headed out. The weather was cool, the breeze was light and the sun was UP. As we approached the Mill Pond from the North East I noticed some swift swimmers…yep, beavers.

We watched for awhile and then headed to the west beach area. What delight met us there. A red winged blackbird flitted and flew all around, singing his song. Ducks and Loons and other unidentified birds swam, dived, called.

And the beaver approached. Closer. Closer still. It appears that Shiloh (our dog) and the beaver were quite interested in one another. There was a lot of nose twitching going on.

Then he did it….SPLASH.

Watch all the way to the end of the video, we think it’s well worth the minute or so wait 🙂

What we are reading this spring…

Where we live at this time…

Another of the “welcome home” signs along the driveway.

WHAT we saw as we drove, in the waterway along the driveway

No one, but 2 beavers!And some rustling in the brush nearby has me wondering if we will watch a beaver FAMILY this spring and summer!

Oh the sweet gifts of God.