On very windy days I've watched a Redtailed hawk as it hung, seemingly motionless, mere yards from the porch as if it were studying me.
It's very cloudy and raining off and on. Forecast is strong storms with possible tornados here tonight so we're in prayer that God will speak peace to the weather and protect everyone and safekeep us all from damage or harm. We certainly deserve no special favors from the Lord but pray for His grace to deliver us from these things. I've seen these storms herein the south since I was a child in Texas and they're deadly serious. As a babe in arms in Bonham Texas, my hometown, I vaguely remember someone holding me as several stood in the yard looking up into the clouds at a funnel cloud far above the earth.
On their Fannin County farm they called tornados "cyclones" they and everyone had an underground storm cellar. I recall going to one in the middle of the night many times with howling winds, rain and hail then staying until the storm passed by. My father said they'd come out from their storm cellar, not part of a house but separate, to see featherless chickens walking about and broom straws driven into the bark of trees.
The beauty of the spring here is wonderful and I can stand on the porch and hear wild turkeys gobbling. The barred owls greet each other at dusk and through the night with their "who cooks for you, who cooks for you all" query? If patient, you can call them up close with HOO-AHS.
The dogwoods are blooming now and the lime greens of the first growth of spring 2018, is covering the trees on the hillsides, in the hollows and river bottoms here in the Ouachitas (wash-it-taws, translates to "many horned beasts" in native American tongue).
Years ago, about 45 of them, the Lord gave me a little poem about this beautiful time of the year.
Dogwood Days
by Frank Lee Jennings
Dogwoods bloom now, petals four
to brighten barren hills
They shine alone this early month
and becon whippoorwills
Adore them daily, passing by
with sentimental gaze
that soft recalls blooms laid to rest
on distant Dogwood days
Like lights out in the forest
turned on by God's own hand
lighting darkened hollows
they're scattered cross the land
For all too soon they'll fade away
into the spreading green
Like loved ones dear,
now gone with God
Remembrance sharpens keen
And calls to mind a time of year
with mists and scented haze
when petals four on barren hills
bring back the Dogwood days
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