Of Birds and Flowers

Here is Bonz watching the neighborhood from his perch on our deck. It has a chin rest so he can really chill out as he scans the horizon. It's becoming one of his favorite spots. (click the pics to enlarge them.)

Yesterday we slowed down some. Dee went to exercise at Contours and I went to Rotary at noon for the luncheon meeting. Our speaker was from the Mars Historical Society. It was very informative as he told about the purchase, relocation and restoration of the old train station in town.

Afterward, Dee and I went shopping. While she perused the department stores, I went into the religious bookstore and purchased a book about Rick Warren and his Purpose Driven approach to church life. It was a summary of his life story, his theological approach and then a series of responses to criticisms leveled at his approach and theology. It was a good read. Only 120 pages and doable in a day. Actually it was good stuff. In case you don't know he is the pastor of the largest church in America, Saddleback Christian Church in California. Interestingly after his books started selling very well, he gave his church back all the money they'd payed him during the 20+ years he was there and now takes no salary. He and his wife also do reverse tithing. What's that you ask? It's when you give away 90% and live on the remaining 10%. As someone said at the Rotary luncheon earlier, "He's the real deal."

As the day got hotter, we decided to turn on the air conditioning. It was only on for a while then it started to cool down outside. We had dinner on the deck. Grilled chicken Dee made with the new George Foreman kitchen Grill she'd purchased earlier in the day. (I think it has several different kinds of griddles for different kinds of meals.) While on the porch we saw some beautiful birds. I'm still trying to figure how to get the best pictures of them. Here are two pics. One of the gold finch on top of the feeder and the other of a downy woodpecker eating from the feeder. Here is a pic of the orchid plant delevered by Betty Wingate from the Womens Mission Society in NJ for Dee in honor of Dee's mom's life.