Happy Wednesday! I chose the Blue Jay for today’s post because it is Caroline’s favorite bird. We have them year round at our feeders, but they are especially noisy in the autumn and spring. True to form, the Black Eyed Juncos left to go back north right around April 15. Now we await the arrival of the Rose Breasted Grosbeaks for the summer until they leave around October 15. If you are learning about birds with your children, don’t miss my neat bird-themed learning materials.
Sickness
David and Caroline helped with our church’s Easter outreach event for children the Saturday of Palm Sunday weekend. It was very well attended and a great blessing. They both promptly came down with colds a few days later so we missed all of the Good Friday and Easter events at church. Thankfully I have avoided getting sick so far. I keep instructing my brain and body to fight it off. (Seriously.) Both David and Caroline seem to be past the worst of it this afternoon and are on the mend.
This has, of course, derailed another week of homeschooling. Hopefully we’ll get a few days in yet this week. I’ve learned over the years that Caroline isn’t worth much for schoolwork when she’s sick and know that we just have to wait it out.
Newsletters
I added a newsletter option back to my site after taking it off last fall. If you weren’t here at that time, I had a nightmare scenario develop and it was the last straw. I just dumped it all. The combination of using MailPoet and WPForo for my (previously open to registration) forum made a NIGHTMARE of my WordPress Users info on my back end. I mean it was truly a nightmare. So I just closed the forum to registrations and comments, nuked MailPoet, and said forget it for the past many months.
Anyhoo, I went back to MailerLite yesterday and was able to simply reinsert the forms I had already created when I used them before. I like MailerLite so it’s fine. There were things that were great about MailPoet, but the very things that made it great also made it a nightmare (if that make sense). Even if you’ve ever signed up for one of my newsletters, you still have to sign up again. I deleted the entire subscriber database on MailerLite for reasons I won’t try to explain. Just know that if you haven’t signed up this time, you aren’t on the list.
That’s it for today. What’s up in your world right now? I hope you’ll leave a comment and share. ♥
Thanks so much for the update Sally. We are very busy at our home – working full time, planting our garden and stocking up our food supply.
Hi Sallie,
We like the Jays too but too many can be a little aggravating especially to the smaller birds. We counted 23 species in our garden one summer. Amazing animals that entertain us all summer long. We have a 9/10 ft. cedar hedge fronting our property ( aprox, 170′) and several species have nests there as well as a rabbit family or two. just sitting on our terrace with a good bottle of wine with a good view of the hedge is better than t.v.
Hope you are feeling better. Blue Jays are so pretty. They are one of our favorite birds. We had a nice Easter. The weather here in new York is cool and comfortable.
Joan,Marion and Marilyn
We are trying to finish our homeschool year, too. 11th grade with my youngest, and I’m finishing my granddaughter’s 5th grade.
The weather has been beautiful but pretty chilly and we have had rain.
I’ve had appointments for cataract surgery, which is happening in early May.
Oh , how we love watching the birds- blue jays, cardinals, wrens, black birds, mockingbirds , red-headed wood peckers, etc. I still haven’t forgiven a local radio station when two young radio personalities lamented (this was during early covid lockdown) that “life has been so bad that people are reduced to observing the birds”. Stupidity thy name is youth!
I too am busy stocking and reorganizing my pantry and making plans for gardening which I know so little about. Thank you for referencing Appalachian Homestead with Patara. With the combined encouragement from you and Patara, I am encouraged each day to “keeping on”, looking to the Lord for his goodness and grace, and to be an encouragement to friends and family. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Oh , how we love watching the birds- blue jays, cardinals, wrens, black birds, mockingbirds , red-headed wood peckers, etc. I still haven’t forgiven a local radio station when two young radio personalities lamented (this was during early covid lockdown) that “life has been so bad that people are reduced to observing the birds”. Stupidity thy name is youth!
I too am busy stocking and reorganizing my pantry and making plans for gardening which I know so little about. Thank you for referencing Appalachian Homestead with Patara. With the combined encouragement from you and Patara, I am encouraged each day to “keeping on”, looking to the Lord for his goodness and grace, and to be an encouragement to friends and family. Thank you, thank you, thank you.