News

My cousin Judy Murphy’s newborn granddaughters, born prematurely, are still in the hospital after 3 weeks. They were born with twin to twin transfusion syndrome. Baby Reese is OK but baby Riley is not yet. We have been praying and sending prayer requests out for many days now.

Riley Murphy

Joanne Murphy with Reese

Rob Murphy with Reese

Last Saturday we celebrated Robert’s 23rd birthday with cake and ice cream, pizza from Pizza Hut, and a Turkey Shoot out back. We also watched the movies Madagascar and Madagascar II – they were a hoot. Takiyah is really coming along on the pregnancy (due in May.)

The gas heater in the living room quit working on Monday so I had to do all the maintenance on it after I got home from work to get it going again. Cat hairs and dust were blocking the air inlets. It was pretty cold the first few days this week going down to 20 at night, so it was important to get it going again. Seems OK now.

We also watched the movie “W” by Oliver Stone Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I thought the actors did a great job and parts of it were entertaining but I suspect Mr. Stone took creative liberties presenting President Bush’s life. I have a lot of respect for Pres. Bush – he was a real Christian man and did what he thought was the right thing to do according to how God directed him - - despite public opinion and all the liberal push back. I wouldn’t dismiss this movie entirely, but it seems to be mostly fiction. Why doesn’t he make a similar movie about Pres. Carter or Pres. Clinton?

I have been feeding the birds a lot in this cold weather – I have 2 feeding stations, a suet cage, and a 4-corncob stand. The bird are eating perhaps 10 lbs. of mixed seed and a 1 or 2 suet blocks per week. I also put out dried corn on the cob for the birds and critters too, but it seems like the squirrels aren’t around this winter like last winter. The grackles love the corn and the downy woodpeckers, starlings, and nut-hatches love the suet. The mixed seed mostly gets eaten by sparrows, chickadees, mourning doves, cardinals, and red wing blackbirds. The grackles also like the sunflowers seeds. My Mom always fed the birds and I carry on that tradition today. I enjoy having them around, even though they “bomb” my cars…

Here are some photos of some of the birds my feeding stations attract.

Tree Sparrow

Red Wing Blackbird

Mourning Dove

Grackle

Chickadee

Downy Woodpecker

Nuthatch

Here are the feeding stations. Corn on cob at the top, then the suet cage, and the 2 feeders filled with mixed seed. The far feeder I bought this year to double capacity, the near one is several years old.

I had an "apicoectomy" a week ago Monday. My endodontist cut and peeled my gum tissue back around my right eyetooth and drilled and cleaned out an old root canal at the tip of the root and repacked it with plastic. It took 10 sutures to get the gum tissue back where it should be. This had been bothering me since Chistmastime and I have been on penicillin and amoxicillin for weeks, with Vicadin to make it bearable. The day after the surgery I woke up ready to go to work but it was too swollen and sore (see my ugly photo) so I took a day off so I would be scaring anybody at work and I ice packed it constantly. I’m healing slow but I’m glad that’s behind me. I ice packed every couple hours all last week - even in my office at work.

Ugly photo - It was not fun but today I look normal...

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