Sometime ago we lost our little Maltese to liver cancer, she was a couple of months short of her eighth birthday. It was sudden and we were left with a big hole in our hearts and our lives. Our first thought was “no more dogs”, but as time went on we knew that wasn’t what either my husband or I wanted, so we started looking around.

As we are getting older we thought about the possibility of taking a dog (rather than a puppy) from Pet Rescue. There are so many pets surrendered for numerous reasons who are in danger of being euthanized. Most are not cute puppies and many are old dogs whose owner could no longer care for them. Here in Australia we have many organizations who work with the R.S.P.C.A. to arrange foster care in homes for these animals until they can be placed permanently with owners who will take them and love them.

And so we found, Millie a four-year old female – I’ll let you decide the breed. She has a silky terrier head and a black and white fox terrier body, but is very cute!

Millie’s story was sad, coming out of a puppy farm where she was simply used for breeding. She was emaciated and neglected when she was first placed in a foster home. It took her time to get used to walking on grass! She was quiet when we first met her. Now she is a fit, happy, healthy, fun-loving little dog. She loves to explore the garden, go for walks and sit with us at night. Millie loves her food and lots of pats.

I’m sure her prayer to God her Creator would have been something along the following lines:

“Vindicate me, God, and defend my cause ….rescue me from the deceitful and unjust man.” Psalm 43:1 (Holman Christian Standard Bible). Puppy farming is a despicable practice! There is nothing good about breeding for the sake of making money without consideration of mixing breeds that may lead to genetic problems and charging a motza!

Just as we have rescued Millie from an uncertain future, Jesus Christ died to rescue us. It’s good at this Easter time as we celebrate the resurrection of Christ to give thanks that not only did Jesus die for us but He also overcame the grave that we may live and have eternal life. Not only will we spend eternity with Him, but He is always there for us through every trial during our earthly existence. He loves His children. He will hold us fast! He will never leave us or forsake us.

Happy Easter!

Marilyn

I love rainbows.

In the photo below we can see both ends of the rainbow. It’s a pity it was low tide and distance makes it difficult to discern all the colours of the rainbow.

Whenever I think of rainbows I can’t help but remember Kermit the frog singing the “Rainbow Connection”. As a mum and a singer, I used to sing it to my children when they were young. Take a trip down memory lane and see Kermit and Deborah Harry singing a duet on the Muppet Show.

Rainbows feature in the Bible. Not only did God use the symbol of the rainbow to strike a covenant with man, but a rainbow also features in the heavenly throne room.

“Look, for I am now going to make a pact, a special covenant, with you and all your descendants. This covenant also extends to every living creature in the world—the birds, the domesticated animals, and every wild animal on the earth—as many as emerged with you from the ark.  As part of this covenant, I promise you I will never again wipe out all living flesh by means of flooding waters. Never again will a flood destroy the earth.  As a sign of this perpetual covenant I now make between Me and you and all living creatures along with you, as well as all future generations,  I will hang a rainbow among the clouds. When that rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember this eternal covenant I have made with all living creatures.
Look for the rainbow, and remember My promise. With it I sign the covenant I have made between Me and all the living creatures residing on the earth.

Genesis 9:12-17 The Voice Version

Same rainbow – closer view of colors

How do we get rainbows? (this is the simple answer)
Rainbows are spectacular rays of color. Sunlight looks white, but it’s really made up of different colors…red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The sun makes rainbows when white sunlight passes through rain drops. The raindrops act like tiny prisms. They bend the different colors in white light, so the light spreads out into a band of colors that can be reflected back to you as a rainbow.

http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-optical-illusions.htm rainbow

God is a great artist and loves color. Just look at the flowers and trees, sunrises and sunsets….

Even God’s throne in heaven has a rainbow around it.

Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald.
Revelations 4:2-3

Someday we’ll find it the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me!

Blessings,

Marilyn

I love to listen to the wind! When I do I can’t help think of our awesome God.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8 ESV)

My bed is between two windows which I have open on hot nights.

Our Summers produce some really hot weather and heatwaves. Currently we are going through one of these where our temperatures are 35 degrees plus (Celsius) – over 100 degrees in Farenheit. These are “the lazy, hazy, crazy days of Summer” that lead us to craving for relief.

After a hot day or a series of them we are often gifted with a “southerly buster”.  We literally crave a southerly buster. These winds from the south are blustery, refreshing winds which usually eventuate at night or in the early hours of the morning.

One of Australia’s most celebrated poets, Henry Lawson wrote about just that – entitled “Southerly Buster”. Below is an excerpt.

Oh, the city is baked, and its thirst is unslaked,
Though it swallows iced drinks by the score,
And the blurred sky is low and the air seems aglow
As if breezes would cool it no more.

Old Southerly Buster! your forces you muster
Where seldom a wind bloweth twice,
And your ‘white-caps’ have hint of the snow caps, and glint of
The far-away barriers of ice.
No wind the wide sea on can sing such a paean
Or do the great work that you do;
Our own wind and only, from seas wild and lonely—
Old Southerly Buster!—To you!

You can find the entire poem on Poem Hunter.com

It is such a buzz to hear this powerful wind coming from afar.

The fearsome clouds gather in the darkness.

Then far away there is a lonely distant sighing. My ears prick and hope soars. Is it the southerly I hear? Within the space of 15 – 30 minutes the sigh becomes a moan. As it picks up speed the moan becomes a series of powerful gusts setting the leaves on the trees outside to rustle. A slight cooling breeze finds its way through my windows. Yes it is coming! And then in all its power the southerly buster arrives with a howl rushing unimpeded across the lake which is at the rear of our house and blasts through my window. Instant relief!

Sometimes this cooling balm takes the form of a strong cooling wind, other times it is gale force and may be accompanied by a severe storm with crashing thunder and forked lightning. At times there may be hail. These are times where you heart thumps in your chest and you begin counting the seconds between the lightning flashes and thunder.

Job describes it well in Chapter 37:1-6,11-12 (ERV)

37 “The thunder and lightning frighten me;
my heart pounds in my chest.
2 Listen to God’s thundering voice!
Listen to the sound coming from his mouth.
3 He sends his lightning to flash across the whole sky.
It lights up the earth from one end to the other.
4 After the flashes of lightning you can hear his roaring voice.
He thunders with his wonderful voice!

God’s thundering voice is amazing! he says to the rain,
‘Pour down on the earth.’
He fills the clouds with water
and scatters his lightning through them.
12 He orders the clouds to be blown all around the earth.
The clouds do whatever he commands.

It is as though God is making us aware of his power before he brings the cooling rain and provides the relief in temperatures. Everything cools like a refreshing wave of forgiveness as His mercy and grace wash over us.

Amazing!

If you haven’t heard the sound of a kookaburra. You are in for a treat. Watch the You Tube video below. The handler really has the ability to get not just the kookaburra laughing but the crowd as well.

The video is called Distraction:Laughing Kookaburra and can be found on You Tube, just in case the video does not reset correctly.

Kookaburras flourish in our bushland. On the Quiet Side we have our own  kookaburra family.

What appears to be joyous laughter has also been described by experts as a territorial call. Aussie’s also believe kookaburras laugh when it’s going to rain. But regardless of the reason, their laughter is uplifting. You cannot but feel a sense of happiness when a kookaburra laughs. When a whole family of kookaburras laugh together, it is pure magic.

I found an old bush poem called – what else? “The Kookaburras” by J. O’Brien. These are beautiful lines and sound as though God wrote them Himself:

“Comes a buoyant peal of laughter from the tall, white, slender timber,
Rugged mirth that floods the bushland with the joy of brotherhood,
With the rustic notes sonorous of a happy laughing chorus,
When the kookaburras bless the world because the world is good.”

http://australianpoems.tripod.com/kookaburras.htm

Joy is a choice even in hard times! The Bible tells us “The joy of the Lord is your strength and stronghold.” (Nehemiah 8:10 AMP) . God will give you His strength to ‘hang in there’, and that joy of the Lord can be found in the Word  as we read our Bible each day. “Your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart.” (Jeremiah 15:16).

When you find yourself downhearted and struggling on a slippery slope to depression, nine times out of ten you will find you have let your prayer life and Bible study deteriorate. Get back into the Word! Bring your problems to God in prayer.

The writer of Proverbs tells us ” A happy heart is good medicine and a joyful mind causes healing.” (Prov 17:22 AMP)  Another reason we need to stay uplifted, joy has medicinal and healing power. Isn’t God good! He is indeed a “good, good Father” as the popular worship song tells us.

So today take a leaf out of the book of the kookaburra. Keep laughing. Choose joy!

Have a joyous day!

Marilyn

And……..

THE SONG OF THE BUSH!

The carolling of the Australian Magpie is the sound many Aussie’s associate with the Australian bush. These lines from an old Aussie poem by Frank S. Williamson describe it nicely:

“Just to hear the magpies warble in the blue-gums on the hill,
When the frail green flower of twilight in the sky is lingering still,
Calling, calling, calling to the abdicating day:
O, they fill my heart with music as I loiter on my way.”

On the Quiet Side of the Great Lake there are lots of trees and we have many magpie families. This year there have been many babies and it is a delight to watch their diligent parents raise them.

The other morning I was watching some of the magpie parents teaching their new fledglings (i.e. young magpies that are growing up).  Magpie fledglings are still a brown/grey colour, and have not yet taken on the distinctive black and white of the adults. They run about on their long legs exploring and have loads of curiosity.

This particular morning the adults began giving their young a lesson in carolling and so I was treated to a concert of non-stop carolling and warbling magpies as the juniors tested their voices encouraged by the dulcet tones of their parents. Magpies are very musical!

Their tones were so beautiful they brought joy to my soul, as this little guy above carolled to his siblings and his parents in the trees around him. Their birdsong seemed so filled with goodness, it brought to mind a scripture from the Bible.

May your words today be filled with encouragement and love.

Have a blessed day,

Marilyn

Acknowledgements: Backgrounds of banners from Graphic Stock. Photos are all the work of the author.

And…..

Whenever I see an owl, I think of the story of the “wise old owl”. The moral of the story is “You should be observant, talk less but listen more. This will make you a wise person.” You can check out the story in full on:
http://www.english-for-students.com/a-wise-old-owl.html

The Tawny Frogmouth is not actually categorised as an owl, but is closely related. While we don’t see many owls on the Quiet Side, we are visited periodically by these amazing birds. To me they look wise. So I will use him as a substitute.

The Bible urges us to “Get wisdom!”

However, it is not the wisdom of the world that we should seek. So many people wish to appear wise and indulge in eloquent speaking filled with lengthy, but empty words. The wisdom the Bible speaks about is the wisdom that comes from heaven.

This heavenly wisdom is about being kind and helpful.

The thing about heavenly wisdom is, it’s freely available!

The writer of the book of Proverbs urges you, to seek that heavenly wisdom, “..though it cost all you have, get understanding.” (Proverbs 4:7)  And remember, “…the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom.” (1 Corinthians 1:25)

“Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding,” Proverbs 3:13 Be blessed!

The wisdom on the Quiet Side of the Great Lake was endowed by the Great Creator on Matthew Magpie (see books on the Gallery page). Magpies are a major part of the bird community on the Quiet Side and are permanent residents. Matthew showed his wisdom in the way magpies raise their families (better than some humans) and keep order in the environment.

Be blessed and enjoy the rest of your week!

Marilyn

MISTY OF THE QUIET SIDE

This was Misty as a pup. I found her in a pet shop where she had been for some time. She was 4½ months old when we took her home. Because she had been in transit through pet shops (she began her journey in Melbourne and ended up on the Central Coast of NSW), she had a great many phobias. So in some ways she was a rescued dog that we paid dearly for, but she was worth every penny.

A bundle of fun she never really grew from the puppy stage to maturity, but it took her little time to take over the household. While she obeyed a few commands, “sit”, “drop” and “stay” (sometimes), she was very good at looking away when she didn’t want to obey, as if to say “I can’t hear you!”

She grew into a beautiful, loving companion. To Misty, “Life was a lap”. She just loved to be near you.

Sadly, we lost our little girl on February 4th after a very short battle with liver cancer.

It came out of the blue and took us by surprise. After just a couple of weeks illness associated with drastic weight loss she underwent an exploratory laparotomy on 4th February only to find a significant tumour in her liver. The alternatives were virtually nil.
To say the least we were devastated – not at all ready to say goodbye. She would have been 8 years old in May.

Our little girl was a bundle of joy and love. Not a day would go by that she didn’t cause my husband and I to laugh at something. A robust little dog she happily worked 5 km each day with her dad (my husband), stopping from time to time to talk to neighbours. He became known as ‘the man with the little white dog’.

She was an attention seeker and a people pleaser and was forever up to mischief. She would look in wardrobes to fish out any tissues left in the pockets of my jeans. Once found she would take them into our living room and proudly shred them. She ignored all the toys we bought her and her favourite game was fetching a pair of socks I threw for her. She walked backward on tiles and backed out of doorways (the tiles terrified her). She loved a good bark and liked to try to out-bark the Chihuahua a couple of houses away. There was also a black dog who walked with his master each morning which was one of her favourites and she knew exactly what time to expect him.

Her favourite ploys to get attention were finding a forbidden something, showing it, then doing donuts around the living room when asked to “give it”, together with chasing her tail in ever decreasing circles .

Misty just loved people. She waited for one of us to sit down so she would have company. Wherever you were she was either on your chair with you, on the floor or on your lap. She became hysterical with joy when people visited. Very needy! Riding in the basket on the back of my bike was loads of fun.

Helping with bed making in the mornings was fun when she could disappear into the bed-clothes.

People walking on the reserve along the lake at the back of our house always received a mouthful. As soon as the plovers gave the alarm she was at our upstairs window waiting, primed and ready to go.

She knew when I was going out. She watched me get dressed up, then when I left she would bark me off as I got into the car. My husband would then walk her down the end of our long driveway and they would wave ‘goodbye’ as I drove out.

We needed to be so careful nothing landed on the floor that she shouldn’t have. Once found she shredded them or chewed them up. It was embarrassing having to ring the oral surgeon and ask for another OPG referral as the dog had eaten it. On a couple of occasions she got her head stuck in the handles of a shopping bag when she became overly curious and began investigating the contents of the bag.

Misty loved her coats and had a collection of nice coats and t-shirts for ever kind of weather.

She loved her groomer,  Jo who would always send her home with a bow and she would leap into her arms front first as a baby does and cuddle up.

She hated wind and barely tolerated storms but was happy cuddled up to my husband sharing his armchair knowing he would protect her.

Our house is strangely quiet now. We will miss her terribly. She was taken too early. But I give thanks to God for the eight years we had her and the joy she brought into our lives.

Give your dog or cat a special cuddle today and thank God for them! Love extravagantly!

Marilyn

Hi and thanks for stopping by my blog!

Meet Roger Over and Out! He’s a pretty neat Aussie pelican and the protagonist of my first book. So he’s rather special! I thought I might use him as a sort of  ‘icon’.

Hear the Word of the Psalmist!

Let the earth join in with this parade of praise!
You mighty creatures of the ocean’s depths, echo in exaltation!
Lightning, hail, snow, and clouds, and the stormy winds that fulfill his word.
Bring your melody, O mountains and hills; trees of the forest and field, harmonize your praise!
Praise him all beasts and birds, mice and men, kings, queens, princes, and princesses, young men and maidens, children and babes, old and young alike, everyone everywhere!
Let them all join in with this orchestra of praise. For the name of the Lord is the only name we raise! His stunning splendor ascends higher than the heavens. 14He anoints his people with strength and authority, showing his great favor to all his godly lovers.
Psalm 148:7-13 (The Passion Translation)

Love the Passion Translation!

What a beautiful vision the words of the Psalmist brings, where all God’s Children, His living creatures, living things, and the elements together praise the Lord their Creator. To him a king is no more important than the most impoverished of us. We are all sinners and He loves us unconditionally. To Our Creator of the animal world the tiny humming-bird is as intricate and unique as the great elephant. The whale as splendidly made and revered as the tiny sea-horse! All are perfect in His sight!

The ability and the freedom to praise God is a gift that we often take for granted. How wonderful it is when your world is falling apart to be able to lift your hands and praise and worship the King of Kings. As believers, praise is an integral part of our existence, it is what fills us with joy. We praise Him for His provision, for His mercies, for His forgiveness, for His love – so undeserved.

Just recently I did a little exercise on listing the letters of the alphabet and naming the thing or things I could praise Him for that matched each letter. Try it! It will surprise you.

If you can’t think of anything to praise Him for, start with the works of His hands.

The beauty and intracacy of a flower.

Sing along with the music of the breeze as it rustles the leaves, hear the gentle sighing of the approaching wind in the distance. Soak in the beauty.

Marvel at the brilliant colours in this little Australian Rosella.

The little guy on the railing is an Australian Lorikeet.

A beautiful sunrise or sunset serenaded by a symphony of birdsong.

The drum beat in the pounding of the waves, the swishing of the ocean as waves wash up on the sand.

The soft hiss of the sea spray.

Learn to listen for the works of His hands in motion and feel the beauty as it soaks the soul. Take photos on your phone or tablet that bring joy to your heart and on days you feel down, review them and give thanks and praise to your Father in Heaven. Feel God give you a big hug in your spirit!

Marilyn

Hi and thanks for stopping by my blog!

We have been in a heat wave down here in the Land of Aus this week. Temperatures of 39 degrees C – 42 degrees C (102 degrees F – 107 degrees F) But then it is Summer and these temperatures while not unusual for us, can overtime exhaust us of all energy. We become dry and depleted.

When the hot weather hits we seek shelter from the sun and refreshment whether it be a beach, a soak in the ocean or swimming pool. Or we just go to our local mall and enjoy air-conditioned comfort.

Isn’t life much the same. Troubles strike, they may be financial, result from illness, addictions, marital problems, issues with children – and the heat is on! We struggle with our worries, we hit out at everyone, we moan and grumble, we try to go it on our own to find a solution. But in our own strength we become weak and ultimately the constant pressure squeezes us dry.

We tend to seek solutions everywhere else than where we should. As a last resort we take our troubles to God. The God who created our universe. The one true God who knew us before we were even born. The Good, Good Father who knows our hearts and needs better than any other.

The Bible tells us in Isaiah 41:17-18:

Let’s take some advice from this little Australian Magpie. He is only a fledgling but he trusts his Creator to provide for him no matter what. He has found the fountain which will provide relief from the heat, refresh his soul and tomorrow I will hear him singing a new song.

HOT FEET!

BETTER!

PERFECT!

A last word. Before you try to take on mountains of worry on your own. Come before the cross, lay them at Jesus feet and feel His strength wrap around you. We are made perfect in His weakness. In Christ, nothing is impossible!

May your yoke be easy and your burden light this week!

Blessings,

Marilyn