Bird Brains

Ever since I took Dr. Terry Maxwell's Ornithology class at Angelo State I have been enjoying watching, counting, and tracking birds.  One of the things I remember from this class is that birds actually have very small brains.  Almost everything they do is because of innate instincts.  They cannot actually think through situations.  Dr. Maxwell told us that the term "bird brain" was actually pretty accurate.  But that doesn't mean that birds cannot learn anything.  In fact, here is proof that some birds can indeed learn something.

September 1 was the beginning of dove season.  Where we live now has a lake behind the back yard.  On the back side of the lake is considered "out of city limits."  Our side of the lake it is considered to be "in the city limits."  Now the reason this is important is because you can't discharge a gun within the city limits.  On Sept 1, you could hear the shotguns going crazy on the backside of the lake.  The guys who have that land leased for dove hunting were having a heyday!  But there was no hunting on our side of the lake.

After only one day of hunting the backside of the lake, I began to notice the doves that were lighting in our two dead trees in the back yard.  Yep, they had learned that our side of the lake was safe and the backside of the lake was dangerous.  I had seen four or five dove fly over our yard that last few days.  But ever since Sept 1... take a look below.

There were 52 Mourning and White-winged Doves sitting in these trees in our backyard on Sept 2.  Yep they can learn.

The Plague of Frogs

Well, this may not be the real plague of frogs that God brought on Egypt but it does remind me of it.  Since the good rain a couple of weeks ago, we have had numerous little frogs or toads (not sure which).  Now, when I say numerous...I mean hundreds.  They are in our yard, flowerbeds, in the garage, on the driveway, and out in the street.  This is definitely a population explosion. 

Susan says she feels like a murderer every time she backs out of the garage and driveway. 

They're kind of cute and don't make a sound. They are about 3/4 of an inch long.  Check out the picture and video. 

Yep, each little dark spot is a little toad.  I found it interesting that they were all going the same direction. Also, since I couldn't find these in my Field Guides, I am assuming they are all young and not adults yet.  This probably explains, why they are not croaking.  Just guessing!

New Orleans Mission Trip 2013

I was blessed to be asked to go with our youth group on a week long mission trip to New Orleans.  Here are some of the highlights from the week. #NOMT2013  #17G2G

We loaded up and departed Saturday morning at 5:30am.  The first bathroom break was at 7:15!!!!!  Yeah, this is not the way I'm used to traveling.We arrive in NO about 8:00pm.  We met John Martindale.  He took us on a tour of the French Quarter. We did avoid Bourbon Street itself.

Jackson Square with St. Louis Cathedral

Austin and Allison Marlett

Sunday morning we go to the Jefferson Parish Juvenile Detention Center. We met Chris and Sister Cathy.   Stephen and Abby led the group in some praise and worship.  Hayley gave the devo.  We then prayed for Cathy and her ministry.

Chris and Sister Cathy (not a nun, everyone just calls her that)

Re-enactments: We couldn't take pics while inmates were there.

 

That afternoon, we spent time doing small group team building.  Yes, the Camo team was the winner of the play-dough Bible story. (That was my group!)

Then we ended each night with a message and worship time.

Monday through Thursday we worked at an elementary school (priming, painting classrooms, cleaning out storage buildings, sorting books, etc.), visited a Pregnancy Counseling Center, played with kids at a projects playground, toured the 9th Ward devastated by Katrina.  Probably the most eye-opening experience was the two times we went to the homeless mission and overpass hangout.  The job for our group was to divide into groups of three and each group had to go talk to the homeless and find out why they were there, give them water and food the second trip, pray with them if they wanted it.  It's a strange feeling to go see almost a hundred people staying under this very long overpass and walking up to them. But this turned out to be the best experience for just about all of our group.

 

John giving info about Katrina and the 9th Ward.  We broke into the abandoned church in the background and prayed.

 Then Friday was our "fun" day.  It started with us going to a couple of old cemeteries.  Then we went to a swamp tour and then an alligator ranch.

Then on our way home on Saturday, we made a slight detour through West Monroe to visit the Duck Dynasty scenes.  Us and about 300 of our closest friends!

GREAT MISSION TRIP

Click on Flickr at top for many more pictures.

Helping Moore, OK

Seven people from Sweetwater, six from our church, recently went to Moore, OK to help with the cleanup for a couple of days.  We got connected through the Methodist Church's relief organization.

The devastation is really beyond words.  Our job was to gut a house.  What we found out when we got there was that "gut" meant demolish everything down to the foundation and move it to within 15 feet of the curb.  The city of Moore was picking up the debris with large equipment from the street.

We were told that insurance pays for the demolishing between $3,000 and $8,000.  But now, the families are able to use that money to build a safe room in their new reconstruction. Safe rooms cost about $5000 extra to build.

The house we got assigned to was also being worked on by a group of FCA from Kansas and Missouri.  The other group left at lunch on Friday.  They had been in Moore all week.  We finished that house (with a little help from the dozier operator busting up the foundation next door) by the end of the day Friday.

Saturday morning we went to another house that had been torn down but the roof remained to be drugged to the curb.  We worked with two men from Moore and group of ladies joined us from Cushing, OK.  We were able to clean that house all the way down to the foundation by 11:00am.

We then returned our tools and cleaned up and headed home.

We asked the director of UMCOR in Moore how long they planned to be set up there. (We thought we might try to get another group to go again.) His response is very telling of how bad it is there: 2 1/2 years.

 On the way to the first house.

 We found some things what we thought the family might want to salvage.

 Praying for the family (single mom with two children.)

Plaza Tower Elementary School.  This is where 7 children lost their lives.

Our Group

 Across the street from the elementary school.

 Our sleeping quarters in Goodrich United Methodist Church in Norman, OK.

 The Saturday house.

Also check out the four videos on YouTube.  Click link at top of page.