January 14 More Birds, more snow, NO church

Sunday:  It's very rare that Calvary Church cancels services on a Sunday morning--but this was a very wise call. First of all, visibility is less than a half mile and the snow is coming down pretty hard this morning. With a church the size of Calvary, just keeping the parking lot clear of snow is a challenge. And where do you put all that snow? How high can you pile it in parking lot corners? How do you ensure safety for older folk who are walking from their cars into the building? The elders are the ones who decide closing matters and did so early this morning. Most of Grand Rapids is totally shut down! Hundreds of churches, and even some restaurants. Evidently, Altitude closed early last night as well.

Pastor Jim did make it into church this morning to record his sermon from Matthew 19, "Our First Priority." It was streamed at the 9AM hour and I was able to watch and listen to it. Thankful for this! It's such a challenge for me to put God first, but I need to.

Afterwards, I went outside and shoveled (for about the fourth time in 48 hours). Our "park" plow guy (Greg) has a big job keeping our streets clear, and he can't help but close driveways in with piles of snow as he plows on by. One of the times I was out shoveling today, Greg did come back and scoop out the biggest piles of ice from my driveway--ONE big scoop did it! That's one of my biggest jobs of winter--clearing out the bottom of my driveway after the plow has gone by. For some reason, I really enjoy it! It makes me feel like I have accomplished something, with the added benefit of being able to back my car out of the driveway without getting stuck in two feet of ice and snow.

I took more pictures today of my bird friends:

Yes, I took about 200+ pictures sitting at my dining room table, just across from this window. It was an absolute feeding frenzy for awhile out here! Birds were EVERYWHERE!

One of these days I will get around to identifying all of these lovely little birds.

This one below might be a female cardinal (inside the plastic house). There was a male here just a bit ago.

Look at the long beak on this guy! He should be easy to identify.

See the male cardinal on the lower feeder?

Little sweetie!

I love these pictures--not very professional--but good enough for me.

Here are a few pictures of how deep the snow is. It's only about 6 degrees or I would take a REAL hike out in the DEEP woods! My bird feeders look like ice cream cones.

My back steps have NOT been cleared ... I probably should but most likely will NOT.

My little lighthouse is almost completely buried!

I was finishing up digging out my stairway from ice and snow when I missed the bottom step (going down backwards) and landed in a snow heap (see the indention?). I've been on a diet the last 7 months and have lost 15 pounds--you'd never know it by looking at how DEEP I sank into the snow. Good thing my neighbor was outside to help pull me out--nothing serious, obviously, but I'm not as agile as I used to be.

Thank you, again, Lord for all of this beauty. You are an amazing God.