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As mentioned before, we have a little house guest- NoDoze the rat. She doesn’t live in the best of circumstances because the only place we can keep her is in a small cage at the far end of the kitchen counter.
Since her cage is small, we have to give her other opportunities to get some exercise. One way she gets exercise is by spending time rolling around the house in a large plastic exercise ball. Sometimes she'll explore and other times she will follow us around. She loves company and attention. Twice now, she has surprised us during exercise time.
The first time was a few weeks ago when she had been rolling around for a while and it was time to put her away. I went looking for her and this is what I found:
Exercise ball open, no rat in sight!
Fortunately, as I turned around to look for her, she poked her nose around a corner and waited for me to pick her up.
Saturday, she was having exercise time again while O and I were working in the garage. She has a hard time getting the ball to go over ridges and bumps so we don’t worry about her getting over the thresholds and out the doors. We had the door to the garage open because we were going in and out a lot. Suddenly we heard a clatter at the bottom of the garage steps. Somehow she got her exercise ball over the (rather tall) threshold and must have overshot the steps because she landed at the bottom of the steps without rolling down them. She didn’t seem worse for the wear. All we can figure is that she must have had the smarts to know she needed a running start. Too smart for her own good, I guess.
The little guy spent the day with grandma a few times this spring. Once, we went to Uncle D and Aunt K’s garden to take care of a few things. The fence between the garden and the yard next door is a short chain link fence, so you can see the other yard really well. Uncle D’s neighbor was on his back porch, off and on, sitting in a chair or standing and smoking. His thin brown hair was pulled back and tied behind his neck and I think he may have had a slight beard. He was thin and seemed weak. He was wearing a simple, thin, mid-calf length robe and slippers. A couple of times he walked to a shed at the back of the property, and Little J watched him with interest each time the man was outside. Then, while the man was walking to the back of his yard again, little J turned to me and asked, “Is that Jesus?”
Cute, humorous and thought provoking. Here are a few of my thoughts.
First, J is two, but he has a mental image of what Jesus looks like. And he thinks it’s no big deal to see Jesus walking around in the yard next door. Second, why do so many artists portray the Savior as emaciated or feeble? Third, why is my first reaction to chuckle to myself when J asked the question? I mean, aside from the cigarette, why couldn’t it be Jesus? That’s probably the attitude that caused problems for people during Christ’s ministry.
Maybe, when I’m irritated with someone, or feeling superior or judgmental or whatever, I should ask myself, “Is that Jesus?”
JJ is learning to be a great little garden helper. He developed a passion for picking strawberries last year, and still loves to check the berry each time he comes over.
One day in early June, he helped me pick sugar snap peas and strawberries.
Before we started our road trip I told my neighbors that they could come over to our garden and help themselves to our lettuce. I figured the weather would warm up and the lettuce would get too mature and bitter while we were gone. So I figured someone should use it up while it was still good.
When we got home, it didn’t look like anyone had taken any lettuce (it turned out they had once, but you couldn’t tell). And the weather never got warm while we were gone so the lettuce grew and grew, but didn’t get bitter.
So we ate our way through it, one tasty salad at a time.
With a saddle
Uncinching the saddle (look closely, those are his legs by the front legs of the horse) 
Bareback
The final dismount
