That's what my son-in-law, Josh, calls our house - Spicer Sanctuary. For him, our house on Sunday is a place to escape from the stress and pressure of every day life and to rest and relax.
Not that the place is as peaceful as a monastery. With eight adults - my wife and I, three kids and their spouses, my in-laws - and four grandchildren, our place is a noisy place.
Yesterday, we celebrated my father-in-law's 85 birthday. He is a generous man and an inspiration to us all. We're glad the Lord gave us such a nice day to celebrate (it was also the first day that we had the air conditioner on, something not worth celebrating!)
In the afternoon we retreated to the cover of the backyard porch so that my oldest grandson could play in his sandbox. A mother Quail decided to use one of my wife's handing pots as a nest for the 14 eggs she laid. Earlier in the day we noticed that the eggs had hatched and we watched and laughed as we saw those little heads pop up and down in the nest. It looked like Mom was having quite a time keeping track of all of them.
Suddenly, Mom seemingly became quite agitated. We thought it was because so many of us were near to the nest. Then, without any warning to us, one of the little baby fell out of the nest. Mom was on the ground making a racket, and so were we.
What do we do, we screamed! If we pick the baby up and put it back in the nest, Mom won't have anything to do with it, said one of my son-in-laws. Soon we were brainstorming - surely there had to be a solution to this problem.
Before we had a chance to assist with the situation, a second baby fell out of the nest. Then a third. Our problem was becoming unmanageable.
Then we started to watch more carefully. The babies were falling out of the nest - they were leaping out! While we were in a panic, Mom Quail had everything under control. It was time for the babies to leave the nest. And over the course of a few minutes, the nest was empty and Mom was herding the baby to the north-west corner of our back yard.
We went out this morning to see if the family was still around but they were gone. Peace has returned to Spicer Sanctuary. But every once in a while, it's nice to have a little commotion going on. Especially if it involves baby quail.
