Newsletter - 4/15/11

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Hello Dear Friends!

Thank you to all who prayed for Squeek and for your kind emails of concern. She's back to normal and doing great. Don't know what the problem was, but she's back to normal. As an FIV kitty, she has done so well. FIV is the equivalent of human HIV, so keeping her immune system supported is our best prevention program for her. She will be 15 in July so she's a little miracle kitty.

Squeek aka Kitty Girl

She's been a precious cat, the first feral we've ever had. All of our cats were strays, but we never converted a feral to a house kitty. We sing/song a phrase to her since we moved her from the woods of Alabama to Virginia over ten years ago: "You're a happy, healthy house kitty!" She seems to have taken it to heart.

We didn't know she was FIV until years after moving when she had her first super infection and the vet told us she wouldn't live through the weekend. This cat is definitely working on making sure she gets all nine lives. She's certainly stolen our hearts.

We celebrated our 34th anniversary with an overnight trip to eastern coastal Virginia. Another place we've always wanted to go was the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. It was a bit chilly the day we were there and we were a bit early for the onslaught of migrant birds that come through there, but it was lovely walking around knowing I had made another dream come true. I'll get a post and album link out next week.

Donna at Great Dismal Swamp, Suffolk, VA

One thing rheumatoid arthritis has done for me is that it has made me realize that setting priorities is important and the day-to-day stuff that we get wrapped up in actually has an exit door. Not that we don't work hard in our businesses, but we've found that we work and enjoy work more by making our leisure time a priority also.  Since we work from home we have to be extra diligent to separate our work and play time.

I heard a teaching on honoring the Sabbath by taking a day each week to rest as God did from His labors because it's a time for RE-creation. A time to recharge our bodies and minds and enjoy the fruits of our labors. A study was mentioned that was done in Russia when the government mandated that people work seven days a week instead of the six they were already working. They found that production was greatly reduced. When they went back to a six-day work week, the production increased again. Our bodies and minds were never meant to focus on work all the time. That was a hard lesson for this workaholic perfectionist to learn, but I'm grateful that God doesn't give up on teaching us and guiding us in the right direction.

© 2011 Donna L. Watkins - Brown Thrasher at Suet Feeder

The leaves are greening out on our trees here in Central Virginia and the birds, squirrels and everything else are busy getting mates and making babies to keep Creation moving along. The sounds are music to my ears and the sights as luscious as strawberry shortcake. Oh, yeah! We're also buying a lot of strawberries for our morning smoothies. I'd say it's one of my favorite fruits, but I love fruit, so they're all my favorites in one way or another.

The Brown Thrashers are back and the first I saw of them was seeing the pair eating from the hanging suet feeder. They're usually quite secretive birds so they looked very funny swinging around and around on those feeders, but I'm sure they were tired and hungry at arrival, so I'm so glad we have that front porch buffet available so I can see who's coming and going. Now ... where are the catbirds? I've been looking for them also.

Have a grand and glorious Spring!

Love and Hugs,
Donna

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The photo(s) and article are copyrighted. You may use either of them if you include the following credit and active link back to this website: © 2010 Donna L. Watkins - This article was reprinted with permission from TheNatureInUs.com. The link to use is: www.TheNatureInUs.com.