AWANA Chickens

On Wednesday night this week during our AWANA kid's ministry one of our church elders brought in a rooster as part of his object lesson. At first the rooster wouldn't come out of the cage to greet the kids, just kind of stuck his head out to spy around. In order to help the object lesson along a small potato was offered to the rooster to get him to come out...it worked!

The church elder talked to the kids about how this particular rooster was raised as a pet and used to ride on his daughters' shoulders like a parrot wherever they went. Of course, now he's too big to do that although he doesn't realize it. The kids wanted to know if the rooster had a name, of course....Baby Red. (I wasn't sure if the rooster was named after his beautiful coat of colors or the fact that he liked eating baby red potatoes.

It was explained to the kids how Baby Red was wonderfully made by God and had unique features that only a rooster could have for a specific purpose. The kids asked many questions about the rooster and found many answers. In the end the big question of the night was could they pet the rooster. Everyone was surprised as the answer was Yes! (The rooster looked a bit more surprised than us.) A line was formed and believe it or not Baby Red handled all of the affection quite well. I even saw a few adults in line to pet the rooster. All in all it was a wonderful night for everyone.

The Package

Typically on a Saturday morning I'm sleeping in late to catch up on sleep from working late and rising early during the week. Had a three egg white breakfast which I washed down with a cup of java as I headed out the door to visit with our Pastor for prayer time. It wasn't a large gathering of men for prayer, but its never been a requirement when meeting in His name. We discussed what it means in Psalm 18 on how God is our strength, rock, deliverer, and shield when in times of trouble. Afterwards we prayed to God with earnestness that He we would know Him more deeply in the days to come than the day before. That we would also love others as He has loved us. We spent the rest of the time setting up the chairs for Sunday services.

Then I spent time with one of the guys in the group at his home to help him get familiar with computers. Two hours of talking and demonstrating various applications went by very quickly, even if part of that time was focused on maintenace issues. I then headed off to get some grocery shopping done and stopped by the library. It was a bright sunny day so I went out back and took several pictures of Ketchikan Creek flowing near by. One of those days where standing in the shadow of a building was too cold, but too bright standing in the sun. Not! I sat down on a rock along the creek and just spent the time soaking in the sun like a lizard.

After struggling to get the bags up the stairs and in the house (at the same time trying to keep the Hillside Gang from knocking me down) Patricia informed me that a couple of packages arrived for us today while I was out. Don't aksed me what Pat got in the mail as I was too focused on the packaged that arrived from Colorado. Been interested in playing the Japanese bamboo flute Shakuhachi for quite sometime. So this past week I gave in and purchased one. Well...not a real bamboo flute which can run anywhere from $300 to $800 dollars so I ended up shelling out about $100 for one made out of ABS plastic.

Bamboo Shakuhachi flutes easily contract and/or expand depending upon weather. Seeing how temperatures can vary quite a bit in the rainforest of Southeast Alaska the plastic Shakuhachi ABS flute was the logical choice as a beginner.

Winter's Balance

Its been sometime since posting to our blog site as we've been quite busy between work, church, and homeschooling about 20 kids (more about that later). Much has happened but nothing of importance in light of pervious events in town with the plane crash. There is still some controversy surrounding the air worthyness and weather conditions leading up to the crash. Since then the weather hasn't been able to come to some sort of balance as we've been through a few snow storms to spring like tempertures in the 50's lately. We woke up one day after a night of sleet to a fresh layer of snow. Decided to go out and take a few snap shots of the freshly fallen snow before spending the time shoveling the deck.
After spending some time shoveling the snow off the deck it was time to brush the off the cars and defrosting them for our ides into town. Going down to the driveway I came across Patch at the bottom of the stairs eager to play.
Patch and I had a great time playing fetch in the driveway while the vehicles were defrosting. She is an easy dog to get over excited so it was a great time, especially getting her to chase snowballs. Of course Patch had worked things out so I would slipped on my butt a few times as she was jumping to get the stick out of my hand. Ended up get a bit wet down one side of the old body. We both had a good time but it started to rain so decided to call it a day. I headed into the house to dry off and get into some warm clothes.

Mardi was sitting on the couch pillow getting some shut-eye on this cold snowy day. Poured myself a spot of hot tea and sat down to read a bit of Google news. (Wonder what our grand parents would think of getting the world news via a black box sitting on a kitchen table?) Finding that the world news hadn't changed that much over night I decided to sit on the couch with Mardi. He ended up crawling on my lap and falling asleep. In many ways I think cats know how to take full advantage of snowy days...crawl up on the couch with the help. Winter's balance should include a quick play in the yard with the dog and a cup of tea on the couch followed by a long nap with a cat. Keep your balance.