Precious Memories

Our older granddaughter at her graduation ceremony last Friday night. She received a certificate for humility, What a wonderful character trait to exhibit!

For the past year, dil Debbie has been homeschooling our oldest grandchild. You can read all about this on Debbie's blog here. For the past four months the homeschooling took place in my home.

During the latter period the headmistress of the local Accelerated Christian Education (A C E ) school invited Debbie to assist with the pre-schoolers on a twice-weekly basis. Not only did this complement her schedule perfectly, it also gave our granddaughter the opportunity to socialise and interact with other children her age. At the same time, our three-year-old grandson and 7 month-old baby gd had the privelege of attending "school" as well. I think our baby was the youngest learner at this school!

After the graduation ceremony on Friday night, the learners entertained parents, grandparents and other family members with an end-of-year concert.

These occasions make you realise how precious family is.

After the certificates were handed out to the learners, the play school and pre-primary school entertained us, parents and grandparents with a concert

Our granddaughter, the angel at the back of the photo above and the dancing angel, (also the tallest) centre, in all subsequent photos,
As "Head Angel" she had to lead the smaller angels and took this role very seriously

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Nothing can seperate us from God's love

"What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?" Romans 8:31

Our security is based on God's unshakable love for us, The love God has for us is not just an emotion, but an actual fact. God proved His love willingly sending His Son to suffer and die for us. So why would He hold back on any lesser gift? In fact, there is nothing in the whole universe that can seperate us from God's love. What more could God say to us to make us more secure in His love?

Sunrise over the Orange River

The sun rising over the majestic Orange River at Upington in the Northern Cape. I took this photo on our recent biking trip

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Sociable Weaver, Sociable Structure

The Sociable Weaver is found in the arrid savanna and dry woodland of our country

The Sociable Weaver has a highly gregarious nature. It's breeding habits are colonial, co-operative and not entirely monogamous. Colonies of up to 500 birds build and maintain enormous structures in trees, on telephone poles, on windmills and sometimes on rockfaces or under bridges.

While travelling through the Northern Cape on our way to Namibia last week, we passed literally hundreds of these nests built on telephone poles. I photographed one such structure which I posted on Skywatch Friday under yesterday's date.

These nests are built almost entirely of grass and each pair builds it's own nest chamber within the structure, used either for roosting or breeding.

Normally a Pygmy Falcon takes up residence and breeds in this structure as well. The Sociable Weavers benefit from this unofficial guest, as these little raptors eat any snakes or reptiles which may try to gain entry into the nests. The Pygmy Falcons have been known to snack on the odd Sociable Weaver nestling but this is the exception rather than the rule.

It was rather fascinating to me that these nests were visible on almost every second or third telephone pole along the highway to Namibia. However, the minute we passed through the border posts and were on our way across the Namibian countryside, there were no more Sociable Weavers nests. I chuckled to myself thinking perhaps they didn't have passports! Further north though, the nests made their very obvious appearance again and petered out once we crossed the border into Botswana.

Having lived on the West Coast of Southern Africa (now Namibia) and having travelled regularly through this remarkable bird's habitat, I am familiar with this species and it's nests. However, the Sociable Weaver and their engineering feats never cease to amaze me.