Saturday, September 23, 2017

Fall Scribblings


 Beautiful autumn is here. There are not words for the color and perfect weather we have been having. It is almost surreal here on our patio.
  Here I am today on a surprise free day on Saturday to rest and read and write. Just me and the dog and these falling leaves and awesome mums.
   The Saturday traffic swishes by as usual, the breezes, and this quiet when I notice that two police cars pull into the neighbors yard. Odd things happen over there a lot including visits from the police like this. And I feel bad for the sin and sorrow that goes on all around us here on the rez.


 So, I feel almost silly writing up a thankful list, yet I am thankful and legitimately so.

~ For Prayer, because this is what we have for our thankful times as well as the sad and questioning times.
~ For Quiet. Just the breezes and the leaves falling.
~ For lovely weather. Amazingly perfect temperatures.
~ For family who love Jesus and each other.
~ For a Saturday to sit here on the patio bench and just rest.






 ~ And for a chronological reading-through-the-Bible program. I found a story in Kings and Chronicles that I hadn't noticed before.

          The King Who Had A Green Thumb

    King Uzziah was made king of Judah when he was sixteen years old. Just for a little timeline knowledge here, he appears after King Joash, the little boy king, and before Hezikiah, with a few others in there, too. He had two names, Ahaziah and Uzziah. For today, we'll stick with the Uzziah name.
    So at sixteen, with a godly dad who was King Amaziah before him and his mom, Jecholiah, he was ready to dig in and make good on this big job. Which he did. He sought God, and built cities, and prevailed against the ever-present, troubling Philistines. And as long as he sought God, he was prospered.
    Some of his adventures included gardening and planting parks and orchards. He loved the soil and so he hired farmers and vinedressers to create farms/parks/vineyards in the mountains and in Carmel.
   He also built towers in Jerusalem at the gates. And then he built a few towers in the desert, for good measure.  And he dug wells in the desert. I am rather inspired by this well digging in the desert. I think you have to be a young, ambitious and visionary person to do it. We older folks get a little lazy along these lines and can think of a million reasons not to dig a well in a desert, don't you think? Not so with Uzziah. The Bible says he became quite famous.
    Besides these things, he was a brilliant military general. He ushered his army into divisions and made sure they each had proper body armor and shields and weapons: bows, spears, and slings to cast stones. They became a rather formidable force, says the Bible. Besides having a top notch army, Uzziah made "devices" invented by skillful men to be placed on his towers and at the corners of the walls to shoot arrows and large stones.
  Evidently though, all this brilliance and power went to his head and he got the notion that he could be his own priest. I'm sad about that, because this happens to us today too, when we get too carried away with our own prowess and supposed brilliance. He became so angry when God's priests stood up to him there that the Bible mentions it specifically.
        It's hard to see any grace in what happened to Uzziah as a result of his big-headedness, but truly, having a few years to live quietly in solitude as a leper provided him time to reflect on how God had blessed him. Hopefully he became humble and gentle there living alone and watching his son, Jotham reign in his stead. Hopefully he had time to go over the things Isaiah the prophet had been trying to preach all those years to find hope for himself and his people. The Bible says that when he died he was buried with his fathers in the family tomb.






Saturday, September 16, 2017

Saturday Evening Musings

Our world is in color now. The weather turned amazing this week and we're reveling in it. We are especially appreciating the days of no rain and Indian summer. I want to somehow capture this perfection against a somber, snow-less, frozen November day.
    The continuing story on Ruger is that he seems to have learned his lesson about running off making the shock collar seemingly unnecessary. He is happy and comfortable at home now that he has had a large dose of attention and combing. Besides the last time he tried sneaking off after he supposed we were all off to bed, received a severe reminder from his collar. I'm sure it was worse than usual. So for those of you who wanted to see him; here he is devotedly lying at my feet. I am forgiven for my administrations to his painful sore. Must be a lesson in here somewhere. Just kidding.
    Monday I worked on short notice. Amy might tell you why, but I'll just say here that she had a happy first weekend of time spent with her boyfriend, Tim Troyer. They found excuse to spend parts of two days together and their smiles were rather wide.




Elv and I found a minute to sit on shore of Lake Superior this week. We made Elv's machine maintenance day count in our favor by running up to the cabin to fetch a needed tractor. We stayed the night. Coffee by the fire in the morning and Elv's bacon and eggs for our breakfast. Perfection in catching our breath in our crazy week.
Thursday morning we got word from Dru's that their flight plan was changed last minute.  So after work we drove down to Eau Clair to get their van from a friend who drove it up that far. Elv drove the van, I drove the car and we sped through the night across I94 one behind the other to the MSP airport to leave the van in the short term parking. We got home at one in the morning. Dru's dropped out of the sky at midnight, packed into their waiting van and got home around 3:30 AM. There's some managed or controlled chaos for you. It worked just fine. Elv lost a minimal amount of much needed rest and after Lisl was unpacked and had her children down for naps on Friday; I stopped in to see her all cool and collected, safely home.
    So this moment we had by the cabin stove Wednesday morning was not wasted. Even the memory of a blue mug of hot coffee, quiet time, and visits with Elv keep me going later in the week.
    It's been an amazing summer and now fall of happy times for Elv and I. I won't bore you with the details, but we have our reasons to feel richly blest. I thank God upon every remembrance of you! to the best husband in the world.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Interruptions

 I have a nifty, little tablet for groceries, to-do lists and on-the-spot scribblings. Every page is entitled "Brilliant Ideas". I have used it all summer and I like it a lot. I made a nice long list on it Sunday night of the things I wanted to at least get started on for Monday. Now it's Tuesday, late afternoon. Never did get started on that list; besides, I can't even find the notebook just now. It's hiding under the couch or in one of my handy baskets, or somewhere laughing at me.
   For one thing, I discovered the dog sitting around trying to lick something off his ruff under his chin. Looked really odd. I took off his shock collar to discover that it was irritating his neck to the point of some kind of drainage. (TMI there for you, sorry.) Everything else went out the window for my evening accomplishments. He got a much hated bath and brushing. Not that it did a lick of good. We locked him in Brad's shop where he got so dirty by this morning I couldn't believe my eyes. Still draining, still dirty.
    All I've gotten done so far today on this @HomeDAy is to work on this dog problem. Ruger isn't nearly as impressed with the results of two hours of combing and cleaning and sprays and salve and a bandage as I am. He's feeling and looking quite respectably better now, though quite humiliated and distrustful. Each time I step out the door, he gives me this, now-what-you-gonna-do-to-me look and if looks were killing; I'd be dead. 
     I actually enjoyed this interruption to my grand plans to conquer that list. It doesn't even matter anyway.




I have far more things to do on top of what is on that list anyway. Sewing and cleaning are forever with us. The Jeep is bombed again, mud outside, dirt inside and Elv and I plan to spend tomorrow together running errands with it. At some point this evening I'll have to carve out another hour or two to made the rig date-able.
    This morning while I still nurtured happy dreams in my heart of getting that list going I drove by these cows. Couldn't drag my eyes off this scene so I wisely pulled over and took several pictures. They're just boring old cows, I suppose, but I'm seeing so much more in this. Here we are running around conquering lists and dying for a break in the rat race while the cows get to do exactly what we are only dreaming of doing. It is not fair, nor is it remotely intelligent of us. We can choose, and we haven't the sense of an ordinary cow to find the nearest meadow and sit there for the day enjoying this absolutely, awesome fall weather.
   Now I really do need to find those "Brilliant Ideas". Some of it better happen despite the dog and the cows. Have a good fall. Don't forget to stop the car on one of your crazy errands to breathe in the autumn beauty. God made it just for you. Don't ignore it.

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