wildlife – Nancy Tart: Writing for Life

Wild Turkeys

Wild Turkeys! And other wildlife that crosses into our yard…

December 14, 2018

Wild Turkeys!

We live in a slightly rural area. There is an apartment complex across the street, but our backyard is taken up with half of a pond. To our right is a gorgeous undeveloped swampy forest that the girls love to explore and the escapee chickens always disappear into if given the chance. Well, it is swampy if it has been raining.

Because of our neighboring forest and pond, we end up with a myriad of wild creatures in our yard. One morning we had seven deer in our driveway! Colorful birds love our trees. Majestic hawks eye the chickens. Huge owls show up at night to prey on the rodents and feral cats that are attracted to the chicken pen. (These guys are giant! The biggest guy we’ve seen has a head larger than ours! But we’ve never been able to get a picture of the owls.) We’ve moved (from the driveway) and examined several varieties of turtles, lizards, frogs, and toads.

One day a lost rooster decided to claim our hens. No one claimed him, so Red has been a part of our flock for almost a year now. A beautiful peacock thought he should join our chicken flock too, but I hope he made it back to his farm (several farms are down the road past the forest).

Then we had the wild turkeys! They showed up and in our chicken-farm-mentality way, Jaquline shrieks, “Mom! We don’t have to buy a Christmas turkey! We can just eat one of them!” (Of course, you can’t hunt wild turkeys without a license, so no, we didn’t get a wild Christmas turkey.)

Becky tried to sneak up on them and get some close up camera shots.

Aren’t these turkeys beautiful? I love watching wildlife!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Relax and Rest

June 13, 2018

Relax and Rest

Sometimes I just feel overwhelmed with thoughts. I feel like my mind is going to blow a fuse (or already has blown through a few and I’m on the last one, staring at an empty box and praying this one holds).

I’ve taught myself that when I start to feel concerned for the future, I stop, hand it to God, and refocus on the present. Usually that involves song. Sometimes, it just involves quiet.

In nature is my quiet place. At a beach, at a park, walking through a forest, or just sitting in my backyard watching the dragonflies dance around in their pursuit of mosquitoes while birdsongs, crickets, chicken noises, and guinea pig squeals form a nature symphony. (Okay, maybe more like a rock concert or a three-year-old on the kazoo, but still, it’s relaxing to me.)

I think that’s why God tells us to rest in Him and cast your cares (aka worries) on Him.

He knows we have to recharge (relax) our minds in order to have good mental health. (Interesting, isn’t it, how God mentions lots of things in the Bible about health that science later proves is true?)

When I observe nature, I can’t help but notice how perfectly God made everything to work together cohesively in its environment. We are made with a unique purpose in our environment. We can’t be our best in our purpose if we are super stressed and worried.

Relaxing can be different for each person and each time. I can relax laughing with Becky while playing a video game, writing a blog in the backyard, reading my Bible on the front porch, singing along to music, baby-surfing with Lucas, or walking through a Florida trail trying to spy different wildlife. Just reminding myself that the problems of the future are in God’s hands and if I can’t fix it now, I just need to rest from worry and trust Him: that is relaxing.

God understands my mind, my heart, and my desires. He knows what relaxes me, what stresses me, and why my triggers get set off. He is the quiet voice reminding me that I need to lay a train track with Lucas, help Becky name the new hens, watch lizards with Jillian, or just sit on the ground and look up. I constantly remind myself that I need to live in the present – pay attention to today because I won’t get another one. Once the day is gone, it is yesterday; while it is here, it is a present God has given us to enjoy.

Enjoy your present and rest in God’s love.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Matanzas Inlet

May 19, 2018

Matanzas Inlet

I thought I had visited all of the beaches in the Saint Augustine area. Vilano Beach Pier, Vilano at the Crossover, Saint Augustine Beach, Anastasia State Park Beach, Crescent Beach, and Butler Beach. (At least, I think I’m not leaving any names out.) But then we went to Matanzas Inlet.

Oh my goodness! This place is so beautiful! We were able to walk the inlet onto several sand bars with our rolled up pants. Okay, so the adults and wanna-be-adults rolled up their pants and waded carefully, but the children just jumped into the water and got every strand of hair on their body soaking wet.

In the inlet we observed turtles in the sand, crabs and fish in the water, birds overhead and in the dense bushes on the other side of the inlet, and humans floating on boats and a giant duck float in the inlet.

Lucas is running from the water to Daddy, who is building a sand castle in the middle of a sand bar. Beautiful place, isn’t it?

Blue water is slightly deeper than the muddy-looking water. Louis is on the far sand bar, that big yellow blob is the duck float, and the figures headed to Daddy are Jillian, Jaquline, Kimberly, and Lucas.

This picture reminded me of me and one of my little brothers, Charley, as kids! It’s Kimberly helping Lucas get to Daddy.

Our wanna-be-adults carefully wading like Louis and I were. (Christina and Rebeccah, the lovely young ladies who suddenly appeared in our house – where did the toddlers go?)

Another sand bar, another picture of my completely wet fun-loving crew and Daddy guarding the far side (actually, he’s either taking a picture or dispatching to Papi).

Matanzas Inlet has become a favorite place for lazy-day water fun. It’s not the ocean with fun waves for the thrill of surfing, but for lazy, wander-through-the-water days or days when the ocean is still a little too cold for Daddy’s liking, this will be our go-to!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

A New Spot for Adventures

Naming their school work spots! Today is at the Tortuga past the Black Spots and the Outer Rim…

January 23, 2018

A New Spot for Adventures!

Today we discovered the Tortuga! Lucas and Jillian spied dozens of turtles from this vantage point. We were also visited by a crane. (Lucas screamed “Baby bird is cold!” because the crane folded his long neck up like Becky hiding in a blanket.)

Here in the middle of a long walkway over a gentle pond, sits a pretty octagonal wooden pavilion with two benches. Kimberly and Jaquline have been naming the locations where we do schoolwork and wait for Christina and Rebeccah to come out of class.

Kimberly: “It looks like a turtle.”

Jaquline: “No, The Dead Marshings, because the water is black.”

Kimberly: “But it’s so fun. This place should have a fun name.”

Jillian: “There’s bunches of turtles here!”

Kimberly: “What’s the name of the turtle in Wild Kratts?” (A favorite TV show about animal-loving brothers who turn into cartoons to save animals.)

Jillian: “Tortuga!” She jumps around. “Let’s call this place the Tortuga! It looks just like it and we can see turtles.”

I tell them that Tortuga is Turtle in Spanish.

Kimberly: “Perfect! It’s shaped like a turtle and we can see turtles from it!”

Jaquline: “So this is our Tortuga, the turtle ship to see turtles from.” (Jaquline decided the benches on the outer ring overlooking the water would be the Outer Rim since they “needed a Star Wars spot.”)

Three more turtles rose to the surface.

Lucas spied them, ran to the edge, and introduced himself to them.

Jaquline and Jillian peeked between the floor planks to watch turtles swim underneath them as they created their sentences for Language.

Lucas announced the arrival of every turtle, bird, crane, and bug.

Kimberly took a break from arithmetic periodically to point out new sunning turtles on the edge of the pond.

So now they have the Stone Table, the Black Forest Table, the West Wing, (all of these are picnic tables), the Black Spots (we are reading Treasure Island right now and the black metal tables are round – so they are the Black Spots), the Tortuga, and the Outer Rim. I wonder what other imaginary places the girls will find hidden on the college campus!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Tag: wildlife

Wild Turkeys

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Relax and Rest

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Matanzas Inlet

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A New Spot for Adventures

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