What’s Happening At Home

We have been living on the job in the woods. I carried the fresh picked strawberries along with jam making tools and ingredients and made jam there. Nothing to it. And there wasn’t much. By the time I finished up, I got to wondering where else I could get my hands on more fruit of some sort to make into jam while I’m at it.

Living in the travel trailer has it’s nice parts. Like not having much to do for house keeping with everything miniature and in one spot. So housework takes a few minutes each day.  Finding plenty to do, though, so far I am not bored.
We took a drive the other evening further into the deep woods near the job. The timber is huge and in many places the underbrush has died out and you can see into the depths. It’s awe inspiring.
                         

I came home today to do laundry and hide away under the AC at home since it is so warm again today. Walked into the empty house and opened windows to get rid of the stale air. It feels weird to discover that for all your efforts to lock up and leave the property secure there is hard evidence that a little Indian boy found a way to get in and take over the living room for awhile. He forgot to take his dirty socks with him. I actually have a problem with it, but am powerless to do anything about it. I guess the old stone house is God’s anyway. He can use it for neighbors who need a break on the couch if He so chooses.

2011 Camping With Friends

Camping where the men cook...always!

Where couples can go out for a canoe ride anytime.

Watching the non-stop ladder golf.

Camping, where it's okay to ride the chainsaw.

Camping where the canoes are always loaded and always on the water.

This looks a little over the top, but it wasn't really.  The boats were too loaded and  not moving very fast at all....it ended up being mostly funny watching all those young men make waves for each other.

Like I said...men cooking.

Camping... where babies are allowed to get as dirty as they wish.

A place to watch the action.

Lawn Chair Bouquet

A juicy caterpillar.

Gideon is fairly mesmerized by Benny's devotion.

This is only part of the crowd of campers this year.

Someone supplied a little blue paddle boat and the smiles tell you what they thought of it

More boys playing in the water....I don't know what they're doing.

She played beautifully.

Sitting and visiting.

And playing games.

This is what happens by Sunday afternoon.

Good Taste Matters

Amy posted about choices and finding joy and contentment wherever we are today. Read it here. She did a grand job of saying it well.  
The quote at the top of her post set me back just a little.    A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves." -Henry Ward Beecher- 
Now I don't really have a pick with the quote itself, but this week our family had to reconsider the connection between pride and being deserving. 

Elv's work takes him a hour from home, logging in "blow-down".  I'll skip all the details of the storm and how the woods looks...it's bad.  He is expected to put in "marathon" hours on this job since it is a resort/retreat/convention center for an exclusive group of folks...never mind who it is.  Anyway, they were putting him up in this cabin or that motel room where ever they had an open room in the complex and feeding him too, in the dining hall, if he wanted to take the time for it.  The cabin/condo they suggested for us just never materialized due to other reservations.  Which doesn't matter here either, but the upshot of it is that we ended up taking the travel trailer up there and parking it by the warming shack at the back of the property where most of the trees were down way back in the woods.  We lived there for two days and decided that maybe we could be content like that for a few days every week till freeze up anyway.  We'd have family time in the evenings that way and the kids found blueberries to pick and there were acres of woods to explore. 

 As of yesterday word got around, I guess, that the gypsies (I don't know what term they used; but Bob assured them that we were not what they thought), had moved in on the resort till it reached the ears of the big-wig at the top who lives out of state.  Never mind that the gypsies were hired to log on their property to clean up their complex... it was not okay!

I told Elv that I am not homeless, as it happens, and I will not wait around for eviction notices. We moved home this morning.  As soon as the boss finds us a house to live in by the job we'll move back. 

But now I wonder if our contentment with travel trailer living just to keep the family together was taking things a bit too far.  I have a feeling that we should have had more pride than we did , so that we could have avoided the embarrassment we were headed for.  Seems to me that our zeal to get it right by the family over-rode good taste and made us look less deserving than was necessary. 

So I don't think I totally agree with Mr. Beecher, after-all.  Brother Andrew had to learn this lesson too, when someone finally clued him in that God isn't stingy and to have a few nice  clothes is okay, even for missionaries.  I believe that God has a plan for keeping our family together while this particular job gets done and we are ready to do whatever that is without making ourselves look gauche.  


Note:  It's generally considered okay for a logger to pull in a travel trailer and live on the job if he chooses. 

Family Times in July

     I cannot do justice to "Family Camping" in words or pictures.  I truly am not trying to do that here.  I am simply documenting that we had a good time, camped, and enjoyed the grandbabies.