30 days of beautiful: day 6

~golden beans~

Tomorrow I'll be off for Canada. I will try to remember to take a picture a day--I'm sure there will be lots of beautiful things! 

30 days of beautiful: day 5 / Update #11

~poor Bella~

Why a chicken, you may ask. Even more so, why a bad picture of a chicken? To answer the last question, the camera was running out of batteries, so I had to do it quick. The first question will take little longer.

Li'l Bella has sour crop crossed with impacted crop. Or something like that. It's a little gross, so be warned. I isolated her (on our front porch) for two weeks, giving her only water with apple cider vinegar, yogurt, and olive oil. I also massaged her bulbous crop everyday. I was trying to make her throw up, but it only worked twice. She seemed to get better at one point, but in the end we were right back where we started. I let her rejoin the flock (where she was pecked almost incessantly) to see what would happen. Yesterday, I successfully made her throw up four times, and this morning she looked so much better. 

As the day wore on, her crop filled up with food (like it should), but it got bloated again (like it shouldn't). I think earlier in the spring (it's been like this for at least a month and a half) she ate really long grass and then ate straw in her little cage, which created a hard ball in her crop. It can't pass on, so she still looks big.

After lots of hard work, it's wonderful to see her doing even the tiniest bit better. I hope and, yes, pray that she will continue to be all right. Update later.

30 days of beautiful: day 4

~Zephaniah 2:11~

I've been reading through the minor prophets lately, and it has been really good. They are constantly describing God's might and works. It makes me in total awe of our Lord.

30 days of beautiful: day 3

~lone flower~

30 days of beautiful: day 2

~wind art~

30 days of beautiful: day 1

This month I'm going to do a blogpost a day highlighting at least one beautiful thing I saw that day (though I'll probably have to write a combined post for the days we will be in Canada). I came up with this idea in March, when I was just longing for color and light (you know how dreary that middle month can be...). Enjoy!

~some of my favorite colors~

At the Back of the North Wind

""Why did you leave me, dear North Wind?"

"Because I wanted you to walk alone," she answered.

"But it is so much nicer here!" said Diamond.

"I daresay; but I couldn't hold a little coward to my heart. It would make me so cold!"

"But I wasn't brave of myself," said Diamond, whom my older readers will have already discovered to be a true child in this, that he was given to metaphysics. "It was the wind that blew in my face that made me brave. Wasn't it now, North Wind?

"Yes: I know that. You had to be taught what courage was. And you couldn't know what it was without feeling it: therefore it was given you. But don't you feel as if you would try to be brave yourself next time?"

"Yes, I do. But trying is not much."

"Yes, it is--a very great deal, for it is a beginning. And a beginning is the greatest thing of all. To try to be brave is to be brave. The coward who tries to be brave is before the man who is brave because he is made so, and never had to try."

"How kind you are, North Wind!"

"I am only just. All kindness is but justice. We owe it."

"I don't quite understand that."

"Never mind; you will some day. There is no hurry about understanding it now.""

--At the Back of the North Wind, by George MacDonald