Jewel # 373 (Sept. 10, 2019)

And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make make up MY JEWELS.

Malachi 3:17

To my dear grandchildren

The Stately Moose

"God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind . . .

and God saw that it was good.” 

Genesis 1:24-25 

Moose are often seen on roads and in towns of Alaska, but they keep more hidden in forests on both sides of the Canada - U.S. border.  They can be found all the way from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast.

The moose is the largest American animal.  A full grown one will be about seven feet high and weigh 1500 pounds or more.  Its antlers are immense, rising from the top of the head and spreading six feet wide or more.   They look like two gigantic hands turned upward like an armour of spike-like "fingers”.  They are a vicious weapon when a moose defends itself.

Because of its great size and strength, a healthy moose is not like to be attacked by other animals.  But if one is sick or weak from age, it is apt to become a victim of a hungry grizzly bear or pack of very hungry wolves.

The upper part of a moose’s muzzle extends three or four inches over its chin.  This muzzle has huge nostrils.  A short, coal-black triangular beard hangs from the neck.  The ears are large and, in contrast, its tail is just a short stub.  Its coat is a deep brown colour.  Sadly, the young calves are often the victims of wolves and other creatures when the parent are not close by.  Only about half of these younger ones make it through their first year.  But the mothers try to keep them from wandering off and have been seen helping them cross ponds too deep for their short legs by giving them “piggyy-back” rides all the way over.

Favourite foods include leaves and twigs of trees, as well as water lilies and other water plants.  This is why they are often found wading in ponds or along lake shores.  

Unlike most wild animals, a moose crossing a road or railroad track (sometimes alone and at other times a large group) usually pays no attention to traffic.  It may even stop in the middle of a road or railroad track to watch a truck, car or train approaching.  Experienced drivers of trucks and private cars, as well as engineers of trains, are always alert to this when going through moose country, and many drive more slowly so they can stop in time to avoid a collision with them. 

How interesting to look on these and other examples of the marvels of God’s creation and have the assurance that He has pleasure in creating and watching over them.  Psalm 36:6-7 tells us, “O Lord, Thou preservest man and beast.  How excellent is Thy loving-kindness, O God!”  Another verse tells us, “His eyes are upon the ways of man, and He sees all his goings” (Job 34:21).

What does He see as He looks on you?

Love you all - Grandpa  

Jewel # 372 (Sept. 2, 2019)

Chrysalis - - - - Butterfly                                                                        

And they shall be Mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up MY JEWELS.

Malachi 3:17

To my dear grandchildren  

Butterfly and Moth Facts - Part 2

The Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our corrupt body, that it may be . . . like . . . His glorious body  Philippians 3:20-21

In the last issue we looked at a pair of lovely moths and a pair of beautiful butterflies, but these are only examples of the hundreds of thousands the Creator has made.

What do they look like when they are first born?  They actually hatch, for they come from tiny eggs laid by the females.  There is a great variety of moth and butterfly egg shapes—some are smooth,  others are covered with hair, some are flat, and still others are round or oval.

These usually hatch in just a few days, but instead of a pretty butterfly or moth coming out, it is always a caterpillar (larva) that hatches.  This is the part growers of vegetables and flowers don’t like, for the caterpillars immediately start eating leaves, flowers and buds.  They can do a lot of damage, but quite often they eat invasive or useless plants too.  Some of the caterpillars become food for many birds and other insects.  And some caterpillars are camouflaged to protect them from their bird and insect enemies. 

As the caterpillars grow, their skins become too tight and split, to be replaced by looser coverings.  This may happen several times.  They finally attach themselves as cocoons to leaves or plant stems with a silk-like thread drawn from their heads.  In Japan, silk moths are raised from cocoons in great numbers for their silk threads, which are used to make silk clothing.

Before very long, the caterpillars reach a changing point in their lives.  Some make burrows in the ground that they can crawl into, and others crawl into curled up leaves.  Still others stretch-out on a plant stem and spin a silk covering around themselves and the stem.  In contrast to this, others do not make this kind of a cocoon but just attach themselves to a twig with a few strands of their silk thread, forming what is called a chrysalis.  It may have patterns that make it look like a leaf or some other part of the plant.

Inside the cocoons or chrysalises, these creatures begin to change from a caterpillar to a moth or butterfly.  In the spring they come out of their temporary homes— this time having wings, which at first are wet and soft.  But before long their wings begin to unfold, and now they are no longer caterpillars but fully developed moths or butterflies.  When fully dried they fly off and are the rest of their lives beautiful specimens of God’s creation—no longer pests.

The beginning Bible verse tells of a  wonderful change promised to each of us who know the Lord Jesus as our Saviour.  As we think of lowly caterpillars becoming something beautiful, how much greater will be a Christian’s change in that wonderful time!  

Will you be included in that change?

Love you all - Grandpa               

Jewel # 371 (August 23, 2019)

Cecropia                                    Luna

Monarch                                        Swallow Tail

“And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I

make up MY JEWELS.”

(Malachi 3:17)

To my dear grandchildren

Butterfly and Moth Facts (Part 1)

“The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.” Psalm 111:2

Butterflies and moths are often mistaken for one another, but there are several marked differences between them.  One way to tell them apart is that butterflies have a pair of black antennae that look like thin pieces of wire with black balls on the ends, while the antennae of moths are feathery and pretty.  Another way to tell them apart is to watch the as they land.  A butterfly at rest holds its wings upright over its body, while a moth lands with its wings wide open.  A butterfly has a tapered body, while a moth’s body is usually thick and hairy.  Another difference—butterflies are day fliers, while most moths fly only after dusk.

Butterflies and moths are often extremely pretty.  One moth in the eastern United States, called cecropia, is a beautiful blending of deep brown, tan and white over its large wings and oddly checkered body and is one of the largest in North America.  Another is the luna.  Its wings are a light green, but entirely circled with a dark brown border in front and light tan elsewhere, including its body.  The name luna (relating to the moon) tells us that it is active only at night.

One of the most outstanding and best-known butterflies is the monarch.  Great colonies of these, hatched during summer months in the United States and Canada, make quite a sight migrating in the fall to several places in California and Mexico, beautiful in their black-bordered, deep-orange wings and black bodies.  Their parents had flown in the opposite direction in the spring, but died before the fall.  How do you think the young ones know where to migrate or what direction to take without their parents to lead them?  This is just another example of the Creator’s care over all things He has created.  David wrote in Psalm 145:9, “The Lord is good to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works.”  Incidentally, these young monarchs, fully grown through the winter months in the south, will return to the same northern spots the next spring, hatch new babies there and die.  This same pattern continues year after year.

Another lovely butterfly is the swallowtail, common in many North American gardens.  Its wings are a delicate yellow, bordered and marked in black when seen from above, but from below, the border has a front band of black, then deep blue, followed by more black, with a row of bright-red curved crescents.

David, who wrote many of the psalms, enjoyed thinking about creation, as the opening Bible verse shows.  He knew who made the world and everything in it and that it is only by the Lord God that all living things have been brought into the world and are cared for.

(To be continued)

Love you all - Grandpa    

Jewel # 370 (August 14, 2019)

Horny-toed Lizard                    Jumping Spider                                     Anableps 

Eyespot Grasshopper              Butterfly fish

And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I 

make up MY JEWELS.

(Malachi 3:17)

To my dear grandchildren

Are Those Really Eyes?

“The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down.” Psalm 146:8.

The eyes of  many animals, birds and insects can perform in remarkable ways.  One of the most outstanding animals with unusual eyes is the horny-toed lizard, which makes its home in the deserts of Arizona.  It is an amazing creature not seen by many people.  This is a strange little fellow with a wrinkly brownish-tan body, capped with a pair of reddish ears on top of its horny, grim-faced head.  It also has two big areas of red flesh around its dark eyes.     

On occasions this lizard curls up into a wrinkly ball, its body resting on legs pulled underneath itself.  It confronts an enemy by sitting upright, and with its head raised, it will suddenly shoot out a series of dark red globs of blood over its head in such an amazing manner that the attacker is frightened away.  The bloody shots may shoot up six feet or more and can have a bad smell that makes the enemy leave it alone.

Another interesting example is the strange-looking jumping spider which has two big black eyes above its jaws and three secondary pairs of eyes as well.  It appears that the bigger eyes look ahead, and the smaller eyes see only what is behind.

A small fish called anableps spends much time at the water’s surface.  The upper half of its unusual eyes sees things in every direction above the surface, while at the same time the lower half sees only things below the surface.  Thus, while resting right at the surface, it can keep fully alert to everything in front, behind, above and below it.

The eyespot grasshopper has been provided with light-green round spots on the back of its dark brown body that look like huge eyes.  These keep enemies away that otherwise would attack it.  Something similar takes place with the silk moth, coloured mostly in bright red.  When a bird sneaks up from behind, it is suddenly frightened away when the moth, sensing it approach, opens its wings and two snake-like “eyes” are exposed.

The pretty yellow butterfly fish is often the target of larger fish.  On swimming closer, the larger fish discover two big, white-rimmed, coal-black “eyes” with a partly open mouth below then and turn away in fright.  But actually these are only markings.  The Creator provided these to preserve this pretty little fish from hungry enemies.  The actual eyes on the from of the fish are concealed by wide black stripes.

These are just a few of the many wonders of God’s creation.  Perhaps in the delights and wonders of heaven, we who know the Lord Jesus as our Saviour will hear from His lips about many other created wonders.

Will you be there?

Love you all - Grandpa

Jewel # 369 (August 5, 2019)

“And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I 

make up MY JEWELS.”

(Malachi 3:17)

To my dear grandchildren

What Goes On Inside a Beehive?

“We were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her Children.”

1 Thessalonians 2:7

A beehive may hav 20,000 to 40,000 or more bees, including the all important queen, a few male (drone) bees and workers.  The whole activity of a hive centers around the queen.  She often lays 2000 eggs or more daily.  In addition to the queen’s area, the section of the hive set aside as a nursery is also very important.  Here the queen deposits the eggs, one to a cell.  While she does this, “nurse” bees feed her bee milk from glands in their heads and keep her spotlessly clean.

The nurses also take care of the eggs until they hatch into grubs.  Then they prepare “royal jelly” which is fed to the grubs for two days.  After this the diet is changed to a mixture of pollen and honey, called “bee bread.”  When a grub grows large enough to fill its cell, it weaves a silken web around itself, and a nurse makes a wax cover for the cell.  Twenty-one days later a fully developed bee comes out.

What responsibilities these nurse bees have!  Although they have no leader, each one seems to have its own duties and knows just what to do.  Such wonderful instincts were given to honeybees when the Lord God first created them, and they never change.

The hive workers also take nectar and pollen from the outside workers, called “foragers.”  They change it into honey, royal jelly or bee bread, as required, using special chemicals in their bodies.  Other workers are used as guards at the entrance of the hive.  In hot weather they all  work to make air conditioning by continually fanning their wings to circulate the air.  When it gets cold, they group together and do activities that raise the temperature to just the right degree.  Who do you think taught them to do these things?

Some of the eggs produce male bees, called “drones.”   These drones do not work and are fed by the workers.  Once a year the queen chooses one of them for a mate.  The workers then get rid of the remaining drones, killing then or driving them out of the hive.

At the end of two or three weeks, nurses give up their inside work and become foragers.  Their life span in this activity is only a month or so.  During this time each bee collects enough nectar to make a teaspoon and a half of honey.

The beehive and its busy bees provide an amazing display of God’s creation.  It shows us His power in preserving His works over the ages of time.  The activities of the bees are also an example for all of us who know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour.  We see how the bees work together and are never lazy.  This is just what the Bible  tells us to do:  “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Hebrews 10:24).

If you have accepted the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, how good it is to encourage and work with others in ways that are pleasing to Him.

Love you all - Grandpa    

Jewel # 368 (July 27, 2019)

White-Tailed Ground Squirrel

“And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I 

make up MY JEWELS.”

(Malachi 3:17)

To my dear Grandchildren

The White-Tailed Ground Squirrel

“Thou hast made . . . the earth, and all things that are therein . . . and Thou preservest then all. ”(Nehemiah 9:6)

Many kinds of ground squirrels are found in the desert.  Most of them are harmless and curious and fun to watch.  One of these is called the white tail or antelope chipmunk and is often mistaken for a true chipmunk.  It is identified by its black and white stripes ending at its shoulders, where as the chipmunk’s stripes go to the tip of its nose.

The white tail is easily recognized as it scampers along with its white-backed tail held over its back.  It spends all its time gathering seeds and nuts, stuffing them into its cheek pouches and then carrying this food to store in its den.  It also eats parts of cactus and yucca plants, beetles, crickets and other insects.

It is amazing to see the white tail climb a spine-covered cactus, stuff its pouches with seeds, turn around and go back down headfirst to the ground, never getting a scratch from those sharp needles.  How can it possibly do this?  This ability is, of course, one of the special features supplied by its Creator who wisely provides for every need and who "does great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number” (Job 5:9).    

Like most other ground squirrels, the white tail lives in the rocky foothills.  The entrance hole to its den is always hidden under a boulder or behind the covering of a bush.  Since rattlesnakes, coyotes and hawks are a constant threat, it has other hidden entrances that are ready for any emergency.

In its underground den, it builds a nest lined with feathers, grass and other soft materials.  There are usually a dozen or more babies born each spring.  These are nursed by the mother until they are strong enough for the outside world.  Once outside, the little ones are great fun to watch . . . so full of life and amusements as they play together.  But the mother keeps a sharp eye on them to see that they do not wander from her hidden shelter.  The family stays together until the young ones are big enough to care for themselves.

As part of the wonders of God’s creation, these little animals remind us that “the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord" (Psalm 33:5).  Referring to that goodness, the psalmist also said, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6).

Have you thanked Him for His goodness to you?  He has promised that you may also live in His heavenly home for all eternity, but only if you willingly admit that you are a sinner in need of salvation and accept Him as your Saviour.

Love you all - Grandpa   

Jewel # 367 (July 18, 2019)

“And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I 

make up “My Jewels.”

(Malachi 3:17)

To my dear grandchildren

Whistling Swans

“When I applied mine heart to know wisdom . . . I beheld all the work of God,

that a man cannot find out all the work that is done under the sun.”

(Ecclesiastes 8:16-17)

There are seven species of swans, all graceful and lovely.  Many of us are familiar with the one called trumpeter.  The one we will look at today is a close relative, the whistling swan.

This swan nests around the Arctic Ocean and the Hudson Bay region of Canada and flies to southern Canada and the United States for the winter months.  It is strictly a water bird, larger than a goose and very graceful when either swimming or flying.

Among the seven species, the whistling swan has the sharpest, most piercing call, which accounts for its nickname whooper.  Actually it doesn’t do much whistling, but makes a loud, musical “woo-ho, woo-woo.”  Its the whistling-like calls as it flies that have given it the whistling name.

Although related to ducks and geese, this bird looks a lot different and is much larger.  It doesn’t mix with them except when they might by chance pick the same wintering home.  Migration follows three flyways—one down the Atlantic coast, another along the Pacific coast, and the third over the Midwestern United States.  They fly in long lines and at great heights, at speeds up to 50 miles per hour!

Watching swans swimming in a pond or lake is a lovely sight, with their long, straight necks and sharp eyes searching the water for a fish.  Beautiful snow-white feathers completely cover this lovely bird except for a yellow spot between the nostrils and eyes.  The feet, legs and bill are black.

Full-grown males may weigh 25 pounds or more and have wingspreads as much as seven feet across.  But in spite of their size, they float gracefully on lakes and ponds and are excellent swimmers.  Leaving the water is something to watch.  First, they flap their wings vigorously, to raise their bodies in the water.  Then, with wings still flapping, they run along the surface with their necks stretched out.  Finally, they pull their feet back under their tails and are airborne.  When returning to the water, they glide down, and when just above the surface, they extend their feet to touch the water first, then glide before coming to rest.

These birds mate for life, showing much attention to each other, as well as their young.  Cygnets (baby swans) are raised in huge nests, five or six feet across.  It takes almost five months of the parents’ protection and training before they are on their own.

The psalmist certainly enjoyed the creation of the Lord and often wrote about it.  “The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. . . . He has made His wonderful works to be remembered (Psalm 111:2,4).  

Do you remember to thank Him for His care over you, and have you accepted Him as your Saviour?

Love you all - Grandpa