Tag: animals

Fearfully and Wonderfully

I’m so amazed by how God loves us and in awe of His creation.

July 22, 2018

Fearfully and Wonderfully

Have you ever stopped to ponder (seriously think, dwell on thoughts) about creation?

I love to watch nature.  I love to watch our animals: fish in their tanks, guinea pigs in the run, chickens in the yard, dogs in the house.  I love to watch my plants grow.  I can’t wait to have roses again!  (Roses are my absolute favorite in the world.)   I enjoy the cycles of life that create our world and the natural beauty of it.

Take plants; they need special nutrients in the soil from decaying animals and micro or trace nutrients left from other plants to reach their best.   Animals eat plants.  Plants “eat” decaying animals.  We harvest food from both plants and animals.

The cycle of water amazes me.  Water is evaporated from the oceans and other waterways, stored in clouds, and poured out onto the land where it gathers in creeks, rivers, and underground aquifers.  The water underground rises (or we drill for it) and we have clean drinking water filtered by the air and rocks.

Each of these systems were spoken into being when God spoke creation into action.  Yet He chose to form each one of us by knitting us together in our mother’s womb.  Does that boggle your mind?  All of these awesome forces of nature spoken into existence yet He takes the time to craft each one of us.  He cares for each of us.

God set up our world to provide us with animals and plants for food, trees, rocks, sand, or thatch to make shelters, and a boundless supply of fresh drinking water.  (Even in the desert, cacti carry water, the ground holds water, and native peoples have amazing techniques for pulling water from the sand!)

Yet He fashioned us.  He molded Adam from dust and breathed life into him.  He knits us together in our mothers’ wombs.  He knows us before we are born.  He surrounds us with examples of His majesty in our natural world.  We have been fearfully and wonderfully made.  He loves us.

To think that Jesus enjoys it when I speak to Him totally blows my mind.  I am amazed by His love.  Thank you, God, for Your awesome love!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

Red n Rex Company

June 28, 2018

Red n Rex Company

So I just discovered the name of our chicken flock: Red n Rex Company

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This is Red (Rhode Island Red Rooster)

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This is Rex (Plymouth Barred Rock Rooster)

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And this is Company (all the other hens, but all the colorful ones like our Buff Orpingtons, Pheonix, and an Easter Egger are not in this picture).

Red is a newcomer who has claimed Prissy and the red hens as his.  Rex didn’t like that, but we love it because Red will make full blooded Rhode Island Red babies!

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These are some of Rex’s baby brood, notice the full-blooded Plymouth Barred Rocks.  Next batch will have some of Red’s full-blooded Rhode Island Reds!

A cock-fight (the two roosters stare at each other and fluff up their feathers until one backs down) erupts.

Red is the dark side.  (He’s red)

Rex is the light side. (He’s got some bluish feathers)

I’m listening to the girls narrate Jedi battles as they watch the roosters negotiate over hens.

I am inspired by their vivid imaginations.  And, yes, we are a nerdy family… who else sees lightsaber battles when roosters are doing the wing thing?

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

New Release: Alena’s Baby

March 28, 2018

New Story Release!

Yippee!  My illustrator team (Christina and Rebeccah) did some awesome cover art again! This time for the fourth story in The Devonians series!  It’s currently available in ebook and paperback format.

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The Devonians are space castaways who have developed a colony on a strange new planet (they name it Devonia).

This newest story, Alena’s Baby, begins a few days after the end of A Foundling Furball.

It seems that Joseph Taylor has been leaving his work because he knows his younger brother, Charley, will do it.  Charley thinks he’s tricking Joseph into having to take him fishing in the afternoon since he does Joseph’s chore.  Both boys think they are tricking the other; they are manipulating, and that isn’t right.

Alena and her sister, Janine, and brother, Michael, are taking care of Tawny, Alena’s baby dengee.  The children had rescued her from Ice Cube Creek (this story is in A Foundling Furball!) a few days ago and want to ask the council for permission to raise her.

In the afternoon, while Janine is catching a fish that almost takes her into the creek, the Taylor children’s father comes and gets to meet Tawny.

For a peek into Devonia, read this excerpt from “Alena’s Baby!”

“I’m always funny,” Janine giggled, made a funny face that only little sisters can make, and skipped back toward the house. 

Sandy smiled.  “Michael,” he grabbed the attention of both boys and Alena, “Tawny is a growing infant.  Think about how most babies grow.  They grow far more quickly in their first few weeks with the growth rate slowing down as the baby ages.”

Sandy balled his fist, “see, if you could draw a circle around the first joint in her paw like a fist, that’s approximately the size of her stomach.”

“Wow,” Joseph gasped.

“Don’t baby animals digest milk quickly so sometimes they eat more than their stomachs can hold?” Alena asked.  She remembered something about that from raising the rejected lambs.

“Very good,” Sandy nodded, “yes, they do.  Milk is usually a perfect food for the baby.  Since this is Brown-Sheep milk and Tawny is a dengee, she may not digest it as easily as she would her mother’s milk, but she’s appearing to do rather well.”

“So, we should feed her until she doesn’t want any more?” Michael asked.

“Yes sir,” Sandy nodded, drawing out the word “sir” into two syllables, “she won’t take any more than she needs.  You have to care for her completely until she can eat herself,” Sandy reminded as he stroked the tiny blind creature.  Tawny mewed gently, pawed Sandy’s hand, and attempted sucking on his knuckle.  Sandy chuckled, “once she opens her eyes, she’ll start to get some independence.”

“Daddy,” Alena sighed, “she can’t even crawl well yet, she scoots like she’s swimming.”

“And lambs are not born blind.” Michael added.

“They are up walking just after they are born,” Joseph remembered.

“Yes,” Sandy was walking about, checking the lambing boxes to see if any ewes had birthed, the children trailing behind him. “In the wild, Brown-Sheep are born in the meadow or forest without any protection so they have to be able to follow the herd.  Dengees stay in one area and mark a section for their den where the pups are born and cared for until they can leave to join the pack.”

“So how long do you think Tawny will be an infant?” Alena asked.  Michael had refilled the bottle with a little milk and returned it to Alena.  She was now feeding her gurgling dengee pup.

“A few days at least,” Sandy replied, “maybe a few weeks; we’ve never been able to study a dengee pup.”

“So you’ll be my baby for a long time,” Alena whispered to the brown-tan blob of soft fur.

… (continue reading Alena’s Baby here!  Or browse all titles and formats here!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

Meet Tawny

The backstory of the little dengee adopted by Alena in A Foundling Furball. Meet Tawny:

January 18, 2018

Meet Tawny

On Devonia, a world far from here, but more deserving of the name Earth’s Twin than Venus, a dengee (a strong, wolf-dog-like creature) female birthed a litter of pups.  One of those tiny, sightless, nearly deaf, fluffy balls was a tan-brown female with black rings on her tail and black markings.  Her first two days of life were normal for any dengee pup.  She shoved her way to her mother’s warm belly and warmed herself inside and out with her mother’s milk and thick soft fur.

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But then something unexpected happened.  She was too young to understand, but the lead pack male was forced out by a trio of incoming younger, stronger males.  In the dengee world, those males would then destroy all of the previous male’s young.  Although some of the mother dengees had been wounded while trying to fight them away alongside the pack male, others resigned themselves to their fate.  The new trio of males, one lead pack male and the other two his cohorts, hunted down and destroyed all the six dens with the old male’s pups.

What the pup knew was that mean teeth snapped at her and a rough angry paw tossed her out of the warm den and into the cold early morning where it was just as dark to those with open eyes as it was to her blind self.  Miraculously, the tiny female pup, now heavily injured, managed to elude her pursuer and slide into the edge of a frigid creek.  She called for her mother.  She cried will all her might.

Her new mother heard her cries.

Alena Summers, a human child fishing on the bank of the Ice Cube Creek that early afternoon, heard the pitiful calls of this lonely baby and followed the sound.  Joseph Taylor, another human child, swam into the cold water to rescue the blob of tangled fur from her prison in the bushes on the edge of the water, and there Tawny became a ward of the humans.

This little three-day-old dengee pup whose eyes had never seen her own kind was rescued from drowning by two children and warmed in her new mother’s soft apron.  Tawny’s life had already been so full of turmoil!  Even on the bank after being rescued, the other children considered tossing her back because dengees were deadly foes to the humans – attacking their livestock and more than once, even the humans themselves.  Thankfully, Alena wouldn’t have that; she took full charge of this tiny creature.

With slow, tender, loving care, Tawny’s wounds will heal.  Four days later, at only a week old, and without yet opening her tiny eyes, little Tawny will face another challenge as the council of elders on Devonia has to decide if Alena can keep this dangerous animal.  Of course, Alena and her friends will swear that this pup is nothing dangerous – but that remains to be seen.

For now, Tawny, the newest member of the Devonian settlement of Covenant, is resting with warm Brown-Sheep milk digesting in her belly laying on a soft rag-blanket-bed on straw in the Summers’ barn listening to the sounds of Alena’s pretty lullabies, Brown-Sheep ewes, and baby lambs and dreaming of new warm sun on her body and the soft, warm love of her human mother.

If you want to read about how Alena, Joseph, and their friends find and rescue Tawny, you can read A Foundling Furball!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

Silver Springs

Exploring the Real Florida at Silver Springs

November 10, 2017

The Real Florida

What comes to your mind when you think of Florida?  Sunny beaches, theme parks, high priced T-shirts, Publix supermarkets?

How about alligators, turtles, cypress trees with diameters of fifteen feet, shimmering sunlight streaming through dissolved limestone particles in gushing spring water to give a silver blue tint to the crystal clear water?

This is Silver Springs. 

As the sign says (it’s the Florida State Parks logo) “the Real Florida!”

History is alive with the mementos of past years when numerous television shows and movies were made in the beautiful surroundings.

Tourists were riding on glass bottom boats in the 1870s – and if you want to feel like you are swimming with the critters without braving the cold springs water, you have to take the glass bottom boat ride!  (And you are safe too; the alligators, turtles, and snakes are outside the boat and your windows have bars!)

The Captain will say “this is 81 feet deep,” and you stare down at magical swirling waters pushing fish up in rising natural roller coasters.  (You can hear them squealing “weeeeeee” as they spiral up from the bottom with their tails wagging behind them.)

If you want to get even closer to the water wildlife, rent a canoe or kayak!  In one of these sleek craft, you can paddle down the beautiful river and feel like you are part of the unscathed beauty of nature.

There is a boardwalk through the swamp where you can get close to the huge trees and look down into the water.  Amazing birds are easy to hear but hard to catch on camera when your assistants are pretending the boardwalk is a drum for feet!

On the magnificent nature walks, you will see gigantic ancient trees and could possibly run into the wild monkey troupe!

(Or you may have your own wannabe monkey riding on you.)

Some of these trees have fallen and create amazing obstacle courses for the more adventurous in your group.  (You can play “don’t step on the ground” and jump from fallen log to fallen log – just be very careful not to fall off!)

Or you can sit at the top of a leaning stump where no one can reach you.  (Unless you are surrounded by wannabe monkeys who race to see who can reach you first!)

The cost to get in is only $2 a person!  It is extra to ride the glass bottom boats or rent a canoe.  This wild, historic destination is a perfect setting for a wedding among the wild flowers and rustic wooden arbor.  Research this gem at www.SilverSprings.com and check out the Real Florida any day of the year!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

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