A Day Filled With Blessings!

What a special day I had today!  Every day, no matter how hard it's been, before I close my eyes at night I can always find something to give thanks about.  No matter how many tears I have cried and no matter how hurt I am feeling, even with things so unsettled,and while dealing with grief, there is always something to remind me of God's amazing love and goodness.  Even right now as I type these words, I hear kookaburras laughing.  Kookaburras are my favourite bird for a reason that goes back many years ago which I won't go into right now.  Suffice to say, when I hear a kookaburra laugh, I am reminded that God loves me so much and cares about me, to even the smallest things of my life.


Today was a lovely day with warm weather, blue skies and sunshine. My friend Carolyn, with whom I've been friends since we were about 5 or 6 years old, took me to a train carriage cafe that was set out in the bush with gum trees surrounding it and magpies that would swoop to the ground, then fly into the trees and sing their pretty song.  As we sat there talking, riders on their horses would go past and I'd be reminded of my horses and the fun it was to ride them.  Being so close to my brother's home, we drove there to catch up with him.  Carolyn had never been to the campsite before.  

While they chatted over a cuppa, I decided to go visit the horse in the paddock who was once known as "Mad Max" but then they renamed him to Max.  Max is about 26 years old and doesn't have as much energy has he once did.  It was good to run my hands down his neck, have his nose nuzzle into me and even had his tongue lick my arm.  It was good to feel his mane and to smell the distinctive smell that horses have.


Warren took us over to the large paddock where the sheep, lambs and  ram were grazing.  The dog tried to get up close but generally, the ewes were protective of their newborn.  We got up close to the ram and were able to pat it while my brother took a photo of us doing that.  

There was a lamb that was only one day old and another ewe had twins that were almost a week old but were still smaller than the day old lamb.  When I tried to get up close to take a photo, the mother ewe would get up to go with her lambs following her but when my brother got close, she even laid down in the long, green grass and kept her lambs close to her.  

Warren explained that if foxes got in, the ewes wouldn't necessarily fight back unless they were cornered.  He was hoping the lambs would get to be a few days older when they would have more strength and be too big for foxes to eat before a fox ventured in to their paddock.  Sometimes the mother ewe would leave her lambs unprotected so they had to learn to fend for themselves, quickly.


When Carolyn and I got back home, we went inside and I began uploading photos.  Her son and husband came in and then the kookaburras came to sit on the porch railings outside.  

The kookaburras let us get up close to them and I even got to pat one!  We didn't have any meat so we tried feeding them very tiny portions of a cracker.  They would take it in their mouth and then spit it out again because it wasn't their kind of food.  


A little later I sat there looking back over the day, thinking how blessed I was:  Getting to pat and play with a horse, getting to pat a ram and watching sheep and lambs skip over the paddock and then, to top it off, getting to pat a kookaburra and have it take 'food' from me!  Then there were the relationships that I had enjoyed that day: I got to Skype with Mom and Dad Flowers, got to spend a lot of time with Carolyn, got to chat with my son Nathan, visit my brother Warren and got in contact with my friend Karen.  Wow!  How blessed I am!  


To top it all off, tonight there was a most beautiful sunset!  I said to John, "Wow! Look at that sunset!!!!" and his reply was, "We get them all the time".  

What a beautiful day it has been.  Thank you, Lord!!!!