10 year old misquote of an overused figure of speech:

"Oh, that's just a turtle path."

I think what she meant was....

The majority of the men folk left this morning for the Reality
Check Conference in Chattanooga, TN. Some friends went with
them and they all met here at 6:00 am for a breakfast send off.

I made them bacon, sausage, biscuits, scrambled eggs, and
gravy.

But while they're gone I get to take over the outside chores.
That is always fun, or funny, depending on your point of view.
First, I get to load the wood box. That's not so bad. In fact,
I often do it just for the exercise, but over the last few weeks
the boys have been doing it for me.

More fun by far is feeding and watering the cows. The mamas and
the goats are not too hard. I just have to open the gate to give
them access to the hay, and then after about 40 minutes I have
to shove them back through the gate and into their own section of
the field. A can of feed will help me to shove them through.
Kent reminded me that our hay has to last a long time and if I
leave the cows, by accident, with hay access all day IT WILL NOT
BE A GOOD THING.

But, the most fun of all is taking care of the bull. He is not
really mean, but he is big and he wants to get right up in one's
face. So his hay I just drop over the fence, and then at some
point when he is way off and his attention is elsewhere, I am
to climb the fence, pour out a can of feed, bang the post so he
knows it's there and then slosh through the mud as fast as
possible and get over the fence before he arrives.

I'd show pictures, but the guys took the camera with them to
the conference. However I do have a picture that will work,
now that I think about it. You can find it here.

And now, to strive to bring order out of chaos, perhaps
more inside my being than outside, although the outside
needs a Great Attending To.

These verses from Romans 11 bring order, beauty, and
wonder into our lives.

Vs. 33-36
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past
finding out!

For who has known the mind of the LORD?
Or who has become His counselor?
Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?

For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to
whom be glory forever. Amen.

On the finished pile--

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

What a fun and rollicking read. I am still trying
to catch up on what I was never offered in H.S. or
College.

I did not even know that Twelfth Night is the source of
the following quote.

"Some are born great,
some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."

You know you live in Mayberry when your son asks for
the following menu for his birthday bash:

Pot of beans
Fried okra
Fried bread
Earthquake cake

We rounded it out with:

Corn casserole with jalapeños
Homemade applesauce
Canned pears
Festive cranberry salad

AND--G'ma Opal's Chocolate Pie

G'ma Opal herself couldn't come; she wasn't feeling very
well. But she stirred herself around enough to put
together the pie.

We finished the night off with two games of High Five.
Kent and Joel beat Mama and Hattie in both.

Happy Birthday Joel!

Billy sent us this You Tube video on Monday morning.
We watched it several times. It features Steve Saint
speaking about his father's and his daughter's deaths.

Steve Saint is the son of Nate Saint. His father was
one of the missionaries that were killed by the Waodani
Indians. The movie End of the Spear features Nate and
his companions. Jim Elliot is perhaps the better known
of the five men killed because of the writings of his
wife Elizabeth Elliot.

This video is especially meaningful to us right now because
we just found out that my mother's cancer is back and she
will be starting chemo treatments again within the next
two weeks. The doctor basically said, "You had a good
seven months without chemo, you'll never go so long without
it again."

It is a bulwark of strength to know that all things come
from God's hands. He is not rushing around trying to put
out fires that Satan starts. He is not swinging His head
from right to left saying, "Oh dear, now look what I need
to attend to over there; how could that one have slipped
by me?" It is not just that He "won't give me more than
I can handle", and it is not just that "He will walk with
me through the dark days", it is that He is completely in
charge and all things are working toward a glorious end--
they are all working toward His glory and exaltation. That
does not make Him impersonal. It brings Him very close.
He can be depended on. He began this good work of salvation
in my mother and He will complete it until the day of Christ
Jesus.

Kent and I wandered down to G'ma Opal's place on Sunday
afternoon. Sunday is just made for visiting-so we went
a-visiting.

G'ma was in the middle of cleaning out her spice cabinet,
and she took the old ones she had found, tossed them
in the trash and sat down with us at the kitchen table.
The evening was coming on and the kitchen was growing
dim. G'ma started to reminisce about days gone by. She
told a story that I've heard before, but never really
paid much mind to.

The Christmas she was four, which would have been 93 years
ago, there was an older, childless couple that lived a mile
down the gravel from them. This couple came up to my Great
Grandma and Grandpa Simon and begged them to let little Opal
spend Christmas Eve night at their house. And so they let
her.

She carefully hung her stocking at the fireplace and then she
crawled between them in their bed and slept all night. In the
morning she found her stocking stuffed with goodies. There
was an apple, a banana, a sawdust stuffed dolly, and way down
in the toe of the stocking a bright and shiny nickel.

I asked G'ma if there was more for her from Santa at her own
house when she went home on Christmas Day, but she couldn't
remember. That stocking though, with the fruit, doll and
especially the nickel is a memory that has been very precious
to her through the years.

A little later G'ma started speaking of all her neighbors and
friends that she lived in this community with all her life. One
by one they've all passed away. She said she often feels like
the last rose of summer. Then she quoted the poem by Sir John
Stevenson and Thomas More.

'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming all alone,
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone
No flower of her kindred,
No rose bud is nigh
To reflect back her blushes
Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the stem,
Since the lovely are sleeping
Go sleep thou with them,
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow
When friendships decay,
And from love's shining circle
The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone!

But we didn't part on a sad note. The conversation turned
to bacon grease and salt and she duly noted that those
two things must be good for you. She said she decided
when she turned 80 she'd just eat whatever she wanted.
Mostly she wants bacon grease and salt and the two have
keep her going now for another 17 years!

Yesterday, glorious yesterday, the sun shone for about
37 seconds. We've had rain and clouds and then clouds
and rain for days without number. But for 37 seconds,
as I was driving down a marvelous curvy road in Mayberry
County, there was sunshine. I started singing. Hattie
said, "Mom, you're scaring me."



















Then last night, when Tyler was getting a load of wood for
the woodbox, he found this little fellow in the rafters
under our carport. We've seen him before. I like owls.
I like the fact that they eat rodents. I do not like rodents.

Evangelism Mayberry Style

Chains of events are interesting. Yesterday a neighbor's
cows got out and it is all my fault, yet I wasn't even
there.

A week or so ago Hattie and I were chatting and I mentioned
to her that I've always wanted to have all the neighbors on
the gravel over during Christmas. It would be great to have
a little Christmas party, sing some carols and share the
gospel with them. Somehow it has just never happened.

Hattie thought for a bit and then asked if she couldn't
deliver invitations to our church Christmas program to our
neighbors. What a great idea!

So we made invitations and printed them off the computer. We
rolled them into little scrolls and tied curly ribbon
around them and she went out delivering.

A day or so later she was thinking about it again and asked
about delivering some on the gravel road that is opposite
ours across the highway. That was a little farther afield
than we felt comfortable with letting her roam alone, so
yesterday Kent and Hattie hopped on their bikes and rode
across the highway and up and down that gravel road.

When they got to the Hopkins place they left their bikes
at the beginning of the lane and walked up to give the
invitation. The problem was that two large dogs had been
following them for awhile and they followed them right up
the lane.

The dogs went ballistic when they saw a pen of newly weaned
calves, and the cows went loco when the dogs started barking
at them. One burst right through the fence and broke it.

Kent ran up and blocked the way so the rest couldn't get through.
He yelled to Hattie to go get the men that lived there and she
did. Then Kent helped to mend the fence. It was exciting all
right. Just another fun day in Mayberry.

It would be hard for me to leave my home. I mean it would
be hard even to build a new one nestled back against the
woods that are behind us. We've talked of this on and off
for years because our place is a burned-out mobile home
that has been rebuilt. We could build a snug little place
back behind us and be away from all the dust of the gravel
road...but...

What about the sunrises and sunsets that I can see from my
window?

Would the peepers be as loud?

I like looking out the window to see who is driving by. You
may call me nosy-Nancy, but I think I am no different from
most Mayberrians when it comes to seeing who is driving by.
I've seen G'ma Opal leave a sentence half-spoken to run, as
fast as a 97 year old can run, to see who is driving by.

I love looking out my bedroom window, as I lay in bed, in the
month of May, and seeing all the stars of heaven flickering and
flitting about.

I just wonder if my little place here can last another 50 years?
I hope so.

A Book Review and a snide comment on the Prosperity Gospel

Finally on the finished pile is History of Christianity
in the Middle Ages: From the Fall of Rome to the Fall of
Constantinople by William Ragsdale Cannon.

It was informative and interesting though not written in an
absolutely fascinating style.

And now I am all excited to read The Reformation of the
Sixteenth Century by Roland H. Bainton. His writing goes
down very easily. Probably in part because of the time
period. What a crucial, crucial time in history. And how
thrilling to understand it was part of God's big plan.

Anyway I loved this bit from the Introduction.

"Prosperity itself corrupts. A medieval monk formulated
the law of the monastic cycle: "Discipline begets abundance,
and abundance, unless we take the utmost care, destroys
discipline; and discipline in its fall pulls down abundance."

The next day, the day after G'ma called being so
cold, she called again. This time she asked for
Kent. She needed him to come down and blow out
her little gas furnace. Hopefully she is toasty
now.

I haven't talked with her myself, but Hattie rode
her bike up yesterday and beat Granny in a game
of Rummy. I'll bet that heated the old girl up
a bit!

We moved the cows again yesterday. It was a cold
soupy day and when I said, complainingly to Kent,
"We might as well live in Scotland with this weather."
He shot back, "After the hot, dry weather we had
this summer be grateful!" So, I am trying.

G'ma Opal called yesterday evening. She was cold; she was
just shivering. She thought making some peanut butter cookies
might warm her up. She asked me if I remembered the recipe
that the Mayberry Times had printed some weeks ago for
Easy Peanut Butter Cookies. The recipe just happened to be
under a magnet on my refrigerator door. I cut it out when
she did, but I am not as industrious as she is. I have been
contemplating removing it from my fridge door because
I don't like cluttered fridge doors, but I am glad my
non-industriousness had me leave it there this long.

I hope baking those cookies warmed her up. I'll have to
call and ask.

I offered for her to come to our house which was somewhere
between 90 and 110 degrees due to our wood furnace. She
said she'd rather stay home and bake cookies. That was
probably a good idea; we'd have wasted her time with a game of
High Five.

The Boundless Line blog has some interesting news on the global
warming conference to be held in Bali.

Tip of the bonnet to Challies

BC:AD
by U.A. Fanthorpe
from The Oxford Book of Christmas Poems


This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazardly by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

Every time I leave town I come back and forget to
blog. It seems to take forever to get back on track.

But here and here are two really fascinating articles by
Wittingshire.

Enjoy!

Added to the finished pile:
King Lear by Shakespeare (I don't know why I was
never required to read Shakespeare in either
H.S. or college, even though I took tons of
English and literature classes. All the "End
of the World" books were the rage back then.)

The Legacy of Sovereign Joy: God's Triumphant Grace
in the Lives of Augustine, Luther and Calvin by
John Piper.

Contending for Our All: Defending Truth and Treasuring
Christ in the Lives of Athanasius, John Owen, and
J. Gresham Machen. by John Piper.

All three are highly recommended by your friendly blogger.

The Piper books are laced with marvelous quotes by the
great men of faith, but I'll only repeat one of them
here.

On the day before he died J. Gresham Machen said to his
friend Sam, "Sam, isn't the Reformed Faith grand?"

Indeed it is.

Weather Report from Mayberry:
Warm, moist and blustery. This afternoon will see sharply
falling temps to lead us to a cold Thanksgiving Day.

From the kitchen in preparation for the Feast tomorrow:
Fresh cranberry sauce (nothing is more beautiful than fresh
cranberry sauce in a cut glass bowl.)
Caramel Pecan Pie (one of Hattie's and my faves!)

And there you have it. A day in the life of a sometime blogger.

In case you are wondering how G'ma Opal,
Fernnook Farm, and Mayberry are all doing I do
apologize for the sparse updates. Being in a
travel mode this year is making it hard to keep
up with writing about the adventures of everyday
life.

But here is a quick overview.

1. G'ma Opal is well. She beat Hattie at Rummy
big time yesterday. She is still gloating over
her pile of birthday cards from her #97 birthday
party. I haven't gotten an update on the mouse
situation lately, but I know the Japanese beetles
are driving her batty (as they are me).

2. The farm is doing okay. We are hurting for hay
this year and sold several of the cows. We are
hoping to limp by 'till spring if possible without
selling the few we have left.

Our billy was suffering with foot problems, and though
we'd tried some home remedies, the problem wasn't
clearing up. So, we broke down and hit the vet's
office for some antibiotics that we don't normally keep
on hand and gave him all kinds of shots and foot
treatments. Yesterday, the head farmer told me
that Zac (the billy) was doing a lot better.

3. Mayberry is still there and as fun and funny as
ever. It is nearly deer season (gun season) and
life literally stops in Mayberry for deer season.
The kids get out of school for an entire week, everyone
plans their vacation for this time. It is really
rather amazing that you can even buy gas or groceries
during this week. Entire families go out and hunt.
It is definitely THE SOCIAL EVENT of the year.

But...we are going to miss the biggest chunk of deer
season this year because my niece is getting married
in Orlando this Saturday. So, we're off again, at
least as many of us as can get off are off. Some have
to stay and work. Poor Joel!

How can you help being ga-ga eyed over a guy who
not only understands the following comment, "Kent,
yesterday I got so hungry for Ephesians,", but
responds in like manner, "Laurie, you would not
believe how lonely I get for the book of John."

The last time I was in the Philippines was during a
rather tenuous time. I wasn't able to use public
transportation or visit a lot of public places.

This time Becky and I traveled using every imaginable
form of transportation. We had a lot of places to
get to in order for her to meet with all the people
she needed to meet with, and in order to get to those
places we walked, rode public city buses and public
city to city buses, we took the overnight boat, we
rode the LRT and MRT in Manila, we rode in jeepneys,
we hopped on motorellas, we mounted tricycads, we
were in taxis more than I like to remember (we found
out that taxi drivers in Manila work 24 hour shifts),
we were escorted in numerous private vehicles, and
we got in an out of airplanes a number of times. It
was fun and enlightening.















Here I am in a tricycad in Cagayan De Oro.

And here, in the very midst of Autumn, the promise
of things to come.

It has been the tradition in our family for Kent to
take the boys on special Father-Son trips when they
turn 10 and again at 13. It has also been the
tradition for me to take the girls on trips at
the selfsame ages. However, up to this point,
since we have only one daughter and since she is
the baby of the family, I've not had the opportunity
to do so.

This past week, though, I finally got my turn and Hattie
and I went on a jaunt to celebrate her being 10 years
old.

We had a marvelous time. We talked some about what it
means to grow into a woman of God. We touched on issues
such as not drawing too much attention to ourselves with
our speech and actions, dressing modestly, and feelings
we might be facing in the next several years. I didn't go
overly heavy on such things though, because these are
topics that are best dealt with in the heat of the moment.
Since I am blessed with getting to spend hours of every day
with my girl, I can deal with these things as they come up
in a very natural way.

We visited the Laura Ingalls Wilder home, we went shopping,
and we stayed in a motel. We are not very good shoppers.
Hattie said, as we were driving to Springfield, "So what's
a mall anyway?"

I did splurge on her though. At the Wilder gift museum she
fell in love with the bonnets, so, after trying them all on,
I bought her the one in the picture. And, at Kohl's, she
stood in front of a cute little shirt, and said, "I wish I
didn't get so many hand-me-downs that I never need to buy a
new shirt."

We walked out of Kohl's with one new shirt (and some socks).

The highlight of our trip, though, was eating pizza in bed!

Why was I never told what a rip-roaringly lovely read
Beowulf is? It is the earliest extant poem in a
modern European language, but the modern
translations today (the one I read was translated
by Burton Raffel) are not difficult to understand.

Beowulf is the hero who rescues the Danes from the
monsters Grendel and Grendel's mother. He then,
after a long and glorious reign, kills the dragon
that is assailing his own people.

Following is a sample of this little book:
...The monster would have murdered again
And again had not God and the hero's courage,
Turned fate aside. Then and now
Men must lie in their Maker's holy
Hands, moved only as He wills:
Our hearts must seek out that will. The world,
And its long days full of labor, brings good
And evil; all who remain here meet both.

HAPPY REFORMATION DAY!

Challies is hosting The 2007 Reformation Day Symposium.
Dig deep and enjoy!

The title for this photo is: What a princess looks like when
she grows up with three older brothers.

P.S. No, she didn't get a deer during youth season, but one of
her brothers has promised to take her out at least twice during
regular season.

It is hard to restart a habit that has been broken.
I don't even know how many weeks it has been since
I've blogged; I guess I've needed an impetus to
restart the engine and this weekend I received one.

G'ma Opal's 97th birthday party is a good place to
start over with.

My mother decided that 97 was a pretty special age.
Plus, as she said, "I don't know if I'll be around for
G'ma's 100th birthday and I don't want her to forget me."
So, with Mom as the driving force, we put together a
pretty special day for Old Granny.

She had friends and family and food, and she has her
faith in Christ, so what else can a girl ask for? Well,
maybe some cards and money to go shopping with, but she
got a ton of cards and I know some of them had greenbacks
in them.

I do want to write a bit about my trip to the Philippines,
but there is a lot I can't say for privacy reasons, so I'll
just pop some tidbits in as time goes by. I will just say
that Becky and I had a truly wonderful time.

Sometime ago both Principled Discovery and LeftCoast
Onlooker tagged me with naming 7 Things That People
Probably Don't Know About Me. I am woefully behind
on this but here goes...

1. Flies-I am pretty good at killing flies with my
bare hands. It is easy really; you just need
to realize that flies jump up and back when
they are spooked. First, hold your hands apart, as
though you were getting ready to clap, about 10
inches above and slightly behind them. Then,
clap hard. Open your hands up and you've got a
dead fly! This is really a necessary skill when
you have cows and goats in the yard most days. A
lot of flies make their way off the critters and
into the house. It is truly a more foolproof way
to eliminate a fly than a flyswatter is.

2. The number 5-Kent asked me one day which number I
most disliked writing. After considering for a few
moments I said, "The number 5."

"Really?" he asked. "Me too!"

It is hard to keep 5's from looking like S's. They are
just plain messy numbers.

3. Staid-I am, and always have been, rather staid in my
personality, and besides that, I think it is a lovely and
underused word. I'd like to bring it back into fashion.

4. Stayed-I am stayed on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the
foundation of all life.

5. 500# Pig-I once, in the dim and dark past, helped Kent to
lift a 500# pig into the back of a truck. It is a great
story...but I will sum up. We had been trying to load
these pigs for hours and we had tried everything people
had told us to do. The only thing left on the list of
"Ways to load pigs 101" was to have a person on the left
side and a person on the right side, reach under the porker
and grab wrists and lift quickly. I saw Kent look out of
the corner of his eyes at me in a speculative manner. "Oh
no," I thought, "he can't really be thinking what I'm
thinking he's thinking." He was.

But he modified it. Joel, who was probably 11 at the time,
and I took one side and Kent took the other. Kent yelled,
we grabbed and Billy (age 8) stood behind and pushed with
all his strength. After we got Mr. 500# loaded, Mr. 4 hundred
and something pounder was a breeze!

6. Banana seat-I won a banana seat bike when I was a kid. One
of my favorite things to do was to get going really fast
down the street and then stand up on the seat with my arms
raised straight up in the air and careen through the
neighborhood. It didn't kill me, but I can't imagine why
not.

7. Going to the Philippines-I leave next week for the Philippines
with my sister. I am going as her traveling companion/protector.
She has a lot of work to do there for the Church Planting
Mission she is with and we will be doing a lot of hopping
around and meeting with people. I love the Philippines and
am very excited to go. May God bless the trip and allow it
to be used for His eternal glory! I probably won't have much
access to a computer, but if I can snatch a minute here or there,
I'll try to post some about our time there. I'll just be gone
a little less than two weeks.

From the reading pile:

"Each one looked very much like the other (except for
the color, of course) and some looked even more like
each other than they did like themselves."
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
(I am reading this to Hattie)

"'Miss,' said Jimmy Waites breathlessly, 'Eileen Burton's
knicker elastic's busted, and she won't come out of the
lavatory she says, until you brings a pin!' Miss Gray
put the ring in her bag and hastened away, while I returned
to my room to choose the morning hymn, observing, as I went,
how seldom one can indulge in the inflation of any sort of
emotion without life's little pin-pricks bursting the
balloon.

'And a very good thing too,' I was moralizing to myself,
'emotions cannot be enjoyed without them becoming dangerous
to one's sense of proportion,' and I was about to develop
this lofty theme, when I caught sight of Ernest, and was
obliged to break off to direct him to wipe his nose."
Village School by Miss Read

"I have a feeling that childhood has been robbed of a great
deal of its joys by taking away its belief in wonderful, mystic
things, in fairies and all their kin. It is not surprising
that when children are grown, they have so little idealism or
imagination nor that so many of them are like the infidel who
asserted that he would not believe anything that he could not
see. It was a good retort the Quaker made, "Friend! Does thee
believe thee has any brains?"
Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings by
Laura Ingalls Wilder

"The most salutary social institution to emerge in the
West during this period between the fall of Rome and the
pontificate of Gregory the Great was Benedictine
monasticism. This institution became the primary, if not
the sole, preserver among the barbarians of the classical
writings of antiquity. Rome employed it as its chief
agency of evangelism and instruction in the Christian faith."
History of Christianity in the Middle Ages
by William Ragsdale Cannon

Telling the story on Sharon and her baby chicks
reminded me of a baby chick story of my own.

One spring we decided to buy chicks. We bought
quite a few probably two dozen or so. If you have
never bought chicks through the mail that is an
experience in itself. They send them to you really
quick and they are all stuffed in this tiny box to
keep them warm.

We always kept our chicks in our New Room because
that was the room with a wood furnace in it. We'd
keep them in a tall box with a light bulb in it
to be sure they were warm. They are sensitive little
critters.

That year by Easter they were getting pretty big,
but not yet big enough to put out in the chicken coop.

Easter morning we left early. Our usual Easter schedule
begins with breakfast at my parent's church, then we leave
Hattie there for an egg hunt and drive to our church. My
folks drive Hattie over and drop her off during the middle
of our Sunday School. After church we go straight to
my folks for dinner and then after eating we head to the home
of a family in our church where we always have a church egg hunt.
We usually relax there for several hours and then meander home
to get ready for Monday morning.

This particular Easter Sunday, though, Kent was called out
to do some counseling and I dropped back over at my parents
before going home because they had out of town company. Part
of the company were my sister's in-laws. Judy, Becky's MIL,
wanted to see our house. She'd never had the pleasure of being
in it.

So, she and I drove the mile down the gravel and went up on the
porch and opened the door. We stepped inside and then turned
around and walked back out. I said, "Judy, I think you'll have
to see my place another time." She agreed.

The box sides and fallen down and those chicks, all of them,
had gotten out. They had been running around all day, and
they had been depositing little chicken piles all over the
house. It was incredible. Under every bed, under the furniture,
behind everything they could get behind, all over the carpet,
in every single room of the house they left their mark. It
was an amazing mess. One I hope to never face again.

None-the-less I love chickens. They are a lot of fun to have
around. I don't have any right now, but maybe someday soon
we will again...especially if egg prices continue as they
are now.

From Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered
Writings by Laura Ingalls Wilder:

As New Year after New Year comes, these waves upon
the river of life bear us farther along toward the
ocean of Eternity, either protesting the inevitable
and looking longingly back toward years that are
gone or with calmness and faith facing the future
serene in the knowledge that the power behind life's
currents is strong and good.

And thinking of these things, I have concluded that
whether it is sad to grow old depends on how we face
it, whether we are looking forward with confidence
or backward with regret.

Psalm 119:16
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.

I realized that I haven't really been giving a
colorful picture lately of life in Mayberry. I
thought maybe a few posts on stories of life
here would give a better perspective. First,
I offer you a story of my friend Sharon. She
and her family moved here from a city in LA some
20 years ago or so.

Sharon has always been a friendly soul and she
has many friends in the community. One particular
friend hales from a town even smaller than Mayberry.
She(the friend) is as hillbilly as you can get. I
can't remember her name (the friend) because I've
never met her, only heard about her from Sharon.
So for the sake of the story I'll call her Miss Billy.

Sharon wanted to raise chickens and she has now for
about 20 years. Towards the beginning of her fowl
career she was hatching out an incubator full of eggs.
(We've done this several times and it is great fun
and a LOT of work.)

As so often happens, this particular batch of eggs had
several chicks who ended up being splay legged. When a
chick has splayed legs they just get worse and worse
and end up hardly being able to walk.

Sharon was devastated. She loved her little fluff balls.
She needed advice. She called Miss Billy. Miss Billy had
been raised around chicks and she was a true blue country
girl, not a transplant as Sharon was. Surely she would
have some words of wisdom.

The conversation went something like this.

"Oh, Miss Billy I have such a problem," said Sharon.

"Tell me all," replies Miss Billy.

"It's my chicks. Some of them aren't doing so well."

"Go on."

With a sob in her voice, Sharon elaborates, "Some of them
are splay legged. What can I do to help them? Please
tell me what to do!."

Miss Billy has the answer. "What to do? Why pitch them
outside in the bushes, that's the only thing to be done
with a splay legged chick."

It was a rude awakening for Sharon. Miss Billy probably
does not know to this day how much she hurt the sensibilities
of my poor friend Sharon.

I'm sorry, but I just have to do one more baseball post.

This one comes straight from the first page of the
Sports section of The Mayberry Times. If you are not
a true baseball aficionado you may want to leave now,
and it will not be held against you.

Anyway, here it is.

There is a picture of two players from the Mayberry Team,
along with one of the opponents. The caption under the
picture reads as follows:

Senior B.J. plays third base for the Mayberrians on
Tuesday, Aug. 28; as Senior C.W. plays right
field during Mayberry's game against Neelyville at the
Mayberry High School Ballpark.

Only in Mayberry.

You know your daughter has spent too much time watching
Mayberry baseball games when she suddenly takes a
batter's position and says, "Who's this?"

And you know you've watched too many when you know
immediately who she is imitating.

A blur of orange grabbed me by the hand, while I was
sitting at the computer in the office, and dragged me
out as it said, "Hurry or you'll miss it."

"What? Miss what?"

"Look," said the blur which was quickly focusing into
Hattie.

She pointed out the front door.

And there they were.

Cute as could be.

A family of quail tiptoeing through the front yard.

"Look at the quail, Mommy."

I was.

It was worth the dragging.

Sunday we went a visitin'. Hattie headed first to
G'ma Opal's kitchen, as she so often does. She squealed,
"Sugar cookies!"

G'ma corrected her. "No, peanut butter cookies. I got
the recipe from The Mayberry Times. Laurie, didn't you
see that recipe? They are truly the World's Easiest
Peanut Butter Cookies and they are good!"

Hattie and I had one, and G'ma is right they are yummy.

Then Hattie raided the microwave for cold biscuits. She
turned her nose up to the salmon cakes on the stove.

G'ma and I lost at High Five to Kent and Hattie, but G'ma
won in the two rounds of Polish Poker we played.

So below, straight from The Mayberry Times is the recipe
for The World's Easiest Peanut Butter Cookies.

1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter

Mix together till thick. (Will leave sides of bowl)
Roll into balls. Flatten with fork tines; bake 10
min. at 375 deg. on ungreased pan. Yummy!

We were driving to a ballgame way down in the boot heel
of Missouri last week. Mayberry is in the Ozark foothills,
which is why we are called hillbillies, but that is
beside the point. We were headed for Steel and as I was
looking at the map I noticed that not too far away was a
town named Hornersville. That struck a chord with me.

"Who was just talking to me about Hornersville?" I asked
Kent. "Don't know," was his reply, "it wasn't me."

Finally I remembered; G'ma Opal had told me a story about
Hornersville just a few days earlier.

About 74 years ago, when my Dad was three and his brother
Billy was a crawling baby, G'ma and her husband, and the
kids, joined with several of Grandpa's family to go pick
cotton in Hornersville.

They were given an 100 acre field to pick. There were 16
people in all, counting the children. They set up a big,
open-sided tent next to the field and they all slept under
the tent. All the adults, except for G'ma Opal, picked
cotton by day. She was the designated cook.

She cooked on a little wood heated stove that they sat
outside the tent. The oven in the stove didn't work, so
everything made had to be cooked on top of the stove.

They didn't have much in the way of money, and they couldn't
get to a store easily so their fare was limited indeed. They
went through 25 pounds of flour every two days, and G'ma said
she peeled and sliced two 2 and 1/2 gallon buckets full of
potatoes daily.

Fried bread and fried potatoes with water gravy were the eatin's.
There was the occasional loaf of bologna that someone would go
pick up at the grocers.

The adults could mostly pick 300 pounds of cotton a day per
person and they were paid 50 cents for every 100 pounds. It
took three weeks to pick the field clean.

It was a hard way to make a living, but they were glad for the
opportunity.

Life in Mayberry has been busy, but not too busy for
me to notice the incredible moonrise last night, nor
the glittering star studded sky tonight. If I had
to ever actually more into town I would miss my
night sky terrible much.

Four ballgames in one week and especially with three
of them being away games, makes for a lot of driving
time. When you live in small town America you
sometimes have to drive 2 hours to get to a ballgame.
If we had won some of the games 't'would have been more
palatable. Actually I make it sound worse than it is.
I love going to watch my kids play ball; win or lose
it is fun, but I do not deny that it is MORE fun to win.
Oh well, we won all three games the week before.

Billy left for the Big City and the University this
week. He wasn't gone long though. There were only
two days of class and so he found his way back home
for a nice, long, leisurely weekend. He had a rather
interesting experience today. He took some friends
out on the river and then the friends had to leave
early so he was puttering up and down in the boat
by himself. As he was motoring under the bridge,
(those of you familiar with Mayberry will know exactly
where this happened) a man asked him how much he would
charge for a boat ride. The fellow said neither he
nor his children had ever been for a boat ride. So
Bill had them all pile in and gave the man, his wife,
and their four children a ride up and then back down
the river. Of course he didn't charge them anything,
but he did invite them to church.

Today was parade day in Mayberry. It is so fun to
see people you know on nearly every float or in every
group going by. It was a perfectly lovely day and
the parade was one of the best I can remember. Hattie
collected a LOT of candy...enough to nearly fill a
gallon pickle jar that is home to whatever candy she
gets from various events.















When we first sat down I looked across the street and
saw my cousin Stacy and her crew sitting there ready
for the fun.















Hattie and her friend waiting for the parade to start.
















In the midst of it.

And thirteen innings later we lost...by one.

ODE TO A SEEDTICK

We feel him here;
We feel him there;
We feel that seedtick everywhere.

Will he bite?
Or will he not?
That cursed, illusive, crawling spot.

Snippets from The Spreading Flame by F.F. Bruce.
(Which is a history of the rise and progress of
Christianity from its beginnings through to the
conversion of the English.)

P. 294
Nor can any Christian or group of Christians contract
out of some share of responsibility for these scandals;
un-Christian behaviour on the part of any Christian
is a disgrace to all Christians. (Ouch)

P. 296
Doctrinal controversies which should have been confined
to the calm consideration of synod and lecture-room
were bandied about in the market-place and became the
playthings of popular turbulence. (Perhaps the market-
place has been replaced by blogville.)

P. 304
For Arianism reflected a temporary phase of thought,
and by conceiving of Christ as neither God nor man,
but something in between, it deprived Him of any real
mediatorship or saving power. (It always comes back
to who Christ is and what His relationship to the
Father is.)

P. 309
Athanasius stood for principle at any price; Constantine
for concord at any price. (Time to examine myself, I fear
I am weak.)

P. 311
On the one side and on the other attempts were made to
accommodate the Christian faith to current modes of
thought, but these accommodations usually proved, on
scrutiny, to be basically inconsistent with the substance
of the faith itself. And this was just as well, for the
current modes of thought to which people tried to accommodate
the faith sooner or later went the way of most modes of
thought;...(This sounds like a commentary on post-modernism
and the attempt to align Christianity with it.)

P. 314
The various heresies that sprang up in the earliest Christian
centuries are by no means out of date. They reappear
regularly in one form or another from generation to generation;
as Miss Dorothy Sayers has emphasized, they are "largely the
expression of opinion of the untutored average man, trying
to grapple with the problems of the universe at the point
where they begin to interfere with his daily life and thought."
(Not only do I agree with this, but, I had to include the
quote from one of the greatest mystery writes of all time.)

Last night the full moon was beckoning me.

Wanted to sit on the steps and just enjoy her.
Wanted to let the cares of the day drain away
in her moonshine.
Wanted to dream the hours by right through 'till
morning.

Instead, went sensibly in and to bed.

Regretted it last night. Glad this morning.

'Twas a copperhead kind of weekend.

Kent and the boys moved the cows to the Old Homeplace. That
is Dad's 40 acres that corners up to the northwest of our
40 acres. They were cow sitting for a bit and they saw a
grand-daddy copperhead in the cistern. They done away with
the old boy (of course they collected him and he was so big
they had to show him off.) When they went to Uncle Jim's to
show him off they found that Jim had just gotten one in his
and G'ma Opal's yard. A bit later Kent killed a third one in
the cistern. This hot dry weather has them on the move and
angry. (My Dad asked how I know they are angry this time
of year.) I replied, "I just know it!"

The view of the front yard of Fernnook Farm these days.





























The reason my front yard is decorated with cows these days is
because of the following.

AUGUST LO HIGH PRECIP
1 69.5 96.8 0.05
2 70.3 98.3 0.4
3 71.0 98.3 0
4 71.2 98.7 0
5 72.9 95.8 0
6 72.7 99.5 0
7 74.4 98.7 0
8 73.0 101.5 0
9 73.0 103.5 0
10 72.6 104.5 0
11 72.0 103.6 0
12 71.5 106.0 0
13 74.9 107.5 0
14 72.0 105.8 0
15 72.9 106.7 0
16 72.4 104.1 0
17 72.7 99.6 0
18 73.6 100.5 0
19 71.3 97.8 0
20 77.4 86.7 0
21 72.3 100.3 0
22 73.4 102.2 0
23 71.5 102.3 0

There is nothing to eat in the fields. We tried to lead
this set of cows to my Dad's property, and finally one day
this week Kent did get them to follow him there, but when
we looked out the front door 20 minutes later they were
turning back into our yard from the gravel. I guess they
felt out of their element back on the old homeplace.

Kent is feeding hay and grain, but they are still finding
bits to nibble here and there in our yard.

By the way, we've not mowed since the beginning of July.

OH, and a big Thank You to Uncle Jim for the weather updates!
He tells me the average high for August is 100.8 and the average
low is 72.5. Mighty hot for SE MO weather.

From Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered
Writings, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

"Why should we need extra time in which to enjoy
ourselves? If we expect to enjoy our life, we
will have to learn to be joyful in all of it, not
just at stated intervals when we can get time or
when we have nothing else to do.

It may well be that it is not our work that is so
hard for us as the dread of it and our often expressed
hatred of it. Perhaps it is our spirit and attitude
toward life, and its conditions that are giving us
trouble instead of a shortage of time. Surely the
days and nights are as long as they ever were.

A feeling of pleasure in a task seems to shorten it
wonderfully, and it makes a great difference with
the day's work if we get enjoyment from it instead
of looking for all our pleasure altogether apart
from it, as seems to be the habit of mind we are
more and more growing into."

She wrote this after having a discussion with Almanzo
that began with grumbling because there was too much
to do and ended in seeing that their parents had
worked harder and longer than they did and yet their
parents had still had time to enjoy life and people.

Yesterday we were out and about in Mayberry. We hit
a Mayberry grocery store, a Mayberry hardware store,
the Mayberry High Baseball game and finally alighted
for a few moments at the one attraction of which
Mayberrry can actually boast (at least she can boast
of it in my dear Mom-in-law's mind.) She, my Mom-in
law, is a concrete and Big City sort of girl. The
big family joke is that after my in-laws get Alzheimer's
disease we'll pour a big slab of concrete in the field
behind us and move them here so we can care for them.
They shudder in disgust and despair every time I remind
them of our plans.

But, my MIL does like Snappy Tomato. That is our local
pizza joint. And yesterday evening, after the baseball
game, which we won by the way, we ended up at Snappy Tomato.

After we got home, Hattie came to me just quivering with
indignation. "Mom," she said, "you know that one boy that
was on my ball team this year." Then she described him
to me; I didn't know him from Adam. "Well, when we were
at Snappy Tomato he winked at me. I am so mad!"

Now I have to admit that if I happened to be in a public
place and saw a similar slip of humanity just quivering
with personality I might also wink at them. Yet I understand
the offense. We do not encourage our children in boy-
girl relationships at all. They know that these are mysteries
for adults to deal with. Friendship and fun are the stage
the Princess is in now.

So I gave her some solid motherly advice. "Next time a boy,
strange or not," (though of course, she and I both know that
he was a boy ergo he was strange...Paul Michael, look at that,
twice I've used that word in two weeks, you should be proud)
but back to the advice, "next time, honey, there is only one
thing to be done. Give him back a right wink, and then a
left, then shoot him with a double blink. That ought to take
care of him. He'll never have the guts to try such shenanigans
on you again!"

She is processing that piece of wisdom and I think will load
it into her "How to deal with difficult situations" gun soon.

What I really want to do is to write a post on intentional
living, and I want to post the video I made of the gazillion
hummingbirds that have a feeding frenzy every morning and
evening at our feeders.

I also have some neat links I'd like to direct you to...

But, due to extreme lack of posting time I will just mention
that in 10 minute increments I read Murder Must Advertise by
Dorothy Sayers. It was nice to find a new Dorothy Sayers (well
not new, just newly acquired) at the Mayberry Library.

And now I just want to tell you that if you have never read
the Miss Read books then you are living in an arid land. Read
this quote and then go beg or borrow or buy all the Miss Read
books you can find.

"'I always speaks fair of folks when I can,'" continued Mrs. Pringle
self-righteously, putting down her dustpan and settling herself
on the front desk for a good gossip. The desk groaned under her
thirteen stone but knew better than to let the lady down. 'There's
mighty few these days as can be spoke fair of in Fairacre-a proper
lazy, shiftless, godless, money-grubbing lot as they be. As I
said to Mr. Pringle only last night: "If this is the age of
flatulence," I says, "then there's something in being poor but
honest!"'"

Yesterday I smelled like a goat all day long. We
went out in the morning to look at a wierd growth
on Hattie's mama goat and I put some antibiotic
cream on it. Then we decided to work on Zac's (the
billy) hoof because he was hobbling. Billy and
Kent tipped him and Billy held him down, with my
help (well I did help a little), and Kent trimmed
and cleaned out the gunk from the hoof.

There is no smell quite like a billy (especially a
big billy) in July and August. His odor permeates the
entire 40 acres, and when you touch him it sticks
with you all day long. You cannot wash it off.

So I shopped in Mayberry smelling like a goat. I cooked
dinner, with Hattie's help, smelling like a goat. I
played cards last night smelling like a goat.

But what matter, Kent and Billy smelled like one too.

In the Mayberry Times this past week a question was
asked of parents, "What do you think is the best way
for parents to be involved in their child's school?"

The answers given were of the typical, "Get to know the
teachers...get your kids involved in sports," type answers.

Admittedly, Mayberrians consider our family as rather
radical for bucking the system and homeschooling. Nobody,
that I can remember, has ever asked why we have chosen to
do so. Perhaps they aren't wanting to be subjected to
a LONG lecture on politics, religion, social issues and
learning abilities.

As a gal with an extremely non-confrontist personality I
have never tried to initiate such conversations. I figured
I'd just leave well enough alone.

But I had to respond to this particular "Street Talk" in the
Mayberry Times. Even approached from the direction of one
who went to government schools her whole "educational" life I
can offer some far better advice than that.

I offer a personal story.

My own Mother was a baby when she married and had her first
baby 10 months later. Baby number two came 12 months after
the first. Mom then went on to have two more of us. She
had not been around children much but she knew one thing. She
wanted to give us a gift. That gift was to be able to read.
It really doesn't matter what system she used, but that woman
taught all four of her children, even my handicapped sister,
to read before they entered kindergarten.

I knew, from this, that by teaching my own children to read I
was offering them the world on a silver platter. Once they
could read nothing need hold them back.

My Father wanted us to learn math. Car trips, when other families
would play games or sing, saw us having math drills. I remember
being astonished in 7th grade math that my fellow students just
couldn't understand the concept of a square number. It was a
part of the fabric of my life. Dad would bring home a math book
from the drugstore and I'd think the candyman had arrived. Granted
getting a thrill from doing seatwork in the summer is a very "girl"
thing. My boys would rather have participated in sword fighting
until they actually drew blood, but the girl in the family is known
for saying, "Where's my math book?" even in mid-July.

And so, my answer to the question of how parents can be involved in
their children's school is simple. Teach them. Whether they go
to government, private or homeschool, it is your responsibility,
not someone else's to see that they learn.

Billy, middle son in the family, wants to be able to speak Spanish
on a pretty high level the next time we go to Mexico. So he is
studying Spanish. I mentioned this to someone the other day and
they said to me, "Oh, is he taking a class?"

"No," I said, "He is not taking a class; he is learning Spanish."
Those do not need to be mutually exclusive, but they often are.

He know how to read ergo he knows how to learn. The whole world
is before him on a silver platter. All he needs is the "want to".

From Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings,
by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

We heap up around us things that we do not need as the
crow makes piles of glittering pebbles. We gabble words
like parrots until we lose the sense of their meaning;
we chase after this new idea and that: we take an old
thought and dress it out in so many words that the thought
itself is lost in its clothing, like a slim woman in a
barrel skirt, and then we exclaim, "Lo, the wonderful
new thought I have found!"

"There is nothing new under the sun," says the proverb.
I think the meaning is that there are just so many truths
or laws of life, and no matter how far we may think we
have advanced, we cannot get beyond those laws. However
complex a structure we build of living, we must come back
to those truths, and so we find we have traveled in a circle.

So...how do you like the birthday present that
Billy gave me. It's a whole new look.

It's from an actual letter that Uncle Jim found
in the old barn. And, by the way, I asked Uncle
Jim when the barn was coming down and he said,
"Soon."

This weekend we had friends from Ohio visiting. We took
them four-wheeling on Saturday, had a fish fry Saturday
night, and went floating on Sunday.











































Sunday night we were in the house playing cards when Jenn
called to let us know that the Perseids Meteor Shower was
on. We all ran outside and ended up laying down on the
concrete of the driveway to watch it. The heat from the
concrete was soaking into us and we watched the great
heavens that God has created. It was incredible. We
turned off the lights of the house and there were shouts,
every few minutes, of, "I saw one," or, "There goes a
big one."

Our big country sky is rather incredible. If you were to
lie under it and watch the stars for the night you would
appreciate even more Psalm 148:1-6

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
Praise Him in the heights!
Praise Him, all His angels;
Praise Him, all His hosts!
Praise Him, sun and moon;
Praise Him, all you stars of light!
Praise Him, you heavens of heavens,
And you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
For He commanded and they were created.
He also established them forever and ever;
He made a decree which shall not pass away.

Then He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make
you fishers of men." Mark 4;19

If you live where the temps are in the high nineties
and low hundreds, the best advice I can give is to go
jump in the river. A nice cold spring-fed river is
best. Today we can't, but tomorrow we'll be there!

Second on my list of cooling off options is to make
Tropical Splash. I created this drink years ago to
accompany High Five games, but it fell by the wayside.
However, yesterday, after walking to get Max (Joel's
dog), I was so hot that I dug out the recipe and mixed
up a batch. It is great!

Tropical Splash

1 (6 oz) can frozen lemonade
1 (6 oz) can frozen limeade
1 (6 oz) can frozen orange juice
10 frozen juice cans of water
1 (or more) banana/s
vanilla ice cream

Combine the 3 juices and 10 cans of water in a blender.
(It won't all fit in the blender at one time, so really,
combine them in a huge container and then pour into
the blender as needed.) Put one banana into blender for
every blender-full of juice. Blend on high until frothy.
Put 1 scoop (or two) of ice cream in desired number of
glasses and fill to the top with the juice.

Enjoy!

Let's be cheerful! We have no more right to steal the
brightness out of the day for our own family than we have
to steal the purse of a stranger. Let us be as careful
that our homes are furnished with pleasant and happy
thoughts as we are that the rugs are the right color and
texture and the furniture comfortable and beautiful!

This is from Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered
Writings by Laura Ingalls Wilder and edited by Stephen W.
Hines.

I found this book several years ago and Becky and I gave
it to G'ma Opal as a gift. She regifted it back to us and
I have read it several times through the years. It is
mostly comprised of newspaper articles that Wilder wrote
while living as a farm wife in Mansfield, MO. It is strewn
throughout with jewels such as that above.

This morning Tyler had to be at work by 5:00am. I roused
him from his rest and he got dressed and headed out the door.
I had turned the outside light on for him but didn't want
to leave it on, so I stepped out to watch him drive away.
To turn out an outside light on someone before they are
out of sight seems rude and cold.

After he was gone, I went back in and turned out all the
inside lights and then turned off the porch light and
stepped back onto the porch. The old moon, looking sleepy,
was in the eastern sky. The warm 80 something air clung like
a blanket. The crickets were chirping madly to keep up with
the temperature. What a delicious moment in time.

Then I gladly stepped back into the AC, climbed into my little
nest of a bed, and fell asleep until the alarm went off at
5:30am. 'Twas a lovely morning.

The problem with digital cameras is that one so seldom
actually gets around to printing out the pictures. At
least that is the case with this one, but I wanted to leave
the camera clean before the Mexico Mission trip and I ran
off a huge pile of pics. I had this picture printed and
took a copy down to G'ma Opal. She said, "I look nice in
that dress, don't I?"

Hattie, as usual, talked the group into a game of High Five.
It was G'ma Opal and Mama (my mom) versus Kent and Hattie.
It was a good, close game. The grandmas won it in the ninth
inning by setting Kent and Hattie.

On the way home (which takes all of about 3 1/2 minutes), Kent
was advising Hattie on the finer points of bidding. He was
hitting especially hard on when to and when not to bid on a
hand that has really nothing to bid on. I think she got it.

Some family traditions come and go. High Five, I am afraid, is
here to stay.

From The Spreading Flame by F.F. Bruce in his discussion
of the early Roman Christians:

The Christians were regarded as incurably perverse
for their insane refusal to conform to Roman
requirements in this simple manner. Outward
conformity was so simple, and (in other people's
eyes) it meant very little. The majority of
pagans who took part in such ceremonies did so
quite unthinkingly. It was the keen religious
awareness of the Christians that made them recognize
the ceremony as essentially idolatrous, and therefore
forbidden to those who worshipped none but God
in Christ.

It gives one pause for question. With what areas of
modern society am I going along unquestioningly that
I should recognize, if I had a keen enough awareness
of Christ, as outside of true Christian behaviour?

Up and Down the Gravel

1. It's beginning to sound like a broken record 'round
here. Everyone, and that includes absolutely everyone,
says the same thing when they pull into our driveway
and hop out of their cars. It doesn't matter if they
are friends, neighbors, relatives, the merest of
acquaintances, the UPS man, the mailman, the gasman,
or a salesman, he first words they say are ALWAYS the
same. "You've got cows in your yard."

Of course we've got cows in our yard! It's in the high
90's, and we've not had but an inch of rain in weeks and
weeks. We're graining and haying them, but the yard grass
still has some nutrition in it, so everyday either we
purposely let some out or they escape over or through the
fence. They pretty much stay by the house, but a few
times we've had to chase them out of the road.

2. Last night, after coming in from putting up the lone cow
that was in the yard, I looked down and saw some cow
manure on the floor. "Kent, you just tracked manure in
the house," I helpfully informed the man of the house.

He checked his shoes...clean.

"Hattie, you just dragged in some manure."

Checked...clean.

"Oops!" My pretty little sandals are sitting on the porch
until I'm in the mood to clean them. That may be sometime
next spring.

3. Dad was bush hogging on The Home Place (his property that
corners up to ours and is where both he and G'ma Opal were
born) when the tractor broke down---again. He had to walk
to our place and hitch a ride with Billy to get his truck
to pull the tractor back to his place to be worked on.

4. Uncle Jim has been holed up in his house nursing a sore thumb.
He got his grand injury in a fight with briars and stickers
around the old pond on his and G'ma's acreage. He says he
won the battle, but lost the war.

5. The 4 young'uns have been spending time on the river. When it
is 97 in August there really is no other place to be. They
borrow Dad's boat and go a'boating and swimming. Hattie loves
being old enough to be included.

6. We have lots of donated garden tomatoes. Oh my, I think we
could be buried in tomatoes and be happy. We have zucchini
from G'ma Opal and other neighbors, AND this year G'ma is
giving us butternut squash. Oh my! Good eating.

You've seen the work; here is a picture from the
fiesta that Torre Fuerte threw for us. They
surprised us with a mariachi band and Billy, funny-
man that he is, snuck his way into it.

There wasn't a lot of time for reading while I was
in Mexico, but I did manage to reread Agatha Christie's
Thirteen at Dinner.

Reading anything by Dame Agatha is like coming home to
a meal of chicken and dumplings. It is satisfying. I
actually prefer Miss Marple to Hercule Poirot, but I'll
take either.

Since Thirteen at Dinner is a mystery, I can't divulge the
plot it its entirety or the punch will be taken away from
your reading. The book includes Hastings, humor, the lovely
English society and Poirot's grey matter, and so, what else
does a book need to be good? Nothing.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy is an incredible book.
The translation I read, translated by Constance Garnett
is 870 pages long. It does not seem 870 pages long.
The compelling story line pushes one along as surely as
a tug boat pushes a barge. The only difficulty comes at
the beginning in sorting through all the Russian names,
surnames, middle names and nicknames. They are used so
interchangeably that it takes a bit of a mental effort
to master them.

This book, though, should have been named Levin. He, and
his wife Kitty, are the characters that shine as gold
through the whole sordid love affair of Anna and Vronsky.
Surely Anna is beautiful, charming, and delightful, but she
is also cold, calculating, selfish and extremely needy.
Vronsky is rich, handsome and devil-may-care, but he is also
self-centered and in love with himself.

Levin is tortured by his own failings as a man and a husband
and a member of society, and it is this very torturedness that
makes him so real and likable. His coming to grips at the
end with his Maker brings the entire novel to a satisfying end.

I am not clever enough to understand all the societal ramifications
of the book as far as Russian culture and politics are concerned.
I do know though, that I am glad to have this book on my bookshelf.

Turkeys sauntering through the back field, Snake Doctors
flitting through the air, a full moon on Monday night,
Hattie whooping as she flies down Joel's gravel lane on
her bike, the grandmothers (G'ma Opal and Mom) beating
the grandchildren (Tyler and Hattie) at High Five (and
it was a good thing too, G'ma Opal has been on a tich of
a losing streak the last few months, winning always makes
her sleep better), a fish fry from fish caught when Dad and
my kids went fishing last week, falling asleep in the
rocker on Dad and Mom's front porch while watching the
kids play with Joel's puppy Max...life has been rather
distracting lately.

For those of you wondering how G'ma Opal is doing,
I have an update. She is doing fine. We were down
playing cards the other day and she and Kent were
comparing their arthritic feet. Each was trying
to get a one-up on the other.

She has come down on the side of both his mother
and mother-in-law in not liking his beard. I, on
the other hand, have always liked him in a beard.
The grey only makes him that much more distingushed
looking.

I asked G'ma how the mice situation was going. She
said that at the beginning of the month she killed
four or five, but now she has a nice big black snake
that Uncle Jim put under the house and it seems to
be taking care of the population. A black or king
snake is a good solution. You don't have to invest
in cat food and yet your mice are kept under control.
Personally, though, I think she misses dealing with
the mice on a daily basis. She is still setting the
traps.

She mentioned that she had called her son Ken earlier
that day. They talked for a long time. Then she said,
"I don't know how big the bill will be, usually I wait
and call during the week to his business on his 1-800
number." Savvy ole' thing.

Finally, she mentioned that she had made a list of the 10
women that used to ride the senior citizen van to town
and to Poplar Bluff together a few years ago. Out of
the 10 she is the only one left. I think she was feeling
a little lonely. I reminded her that she still has us,
but, she was melancholic all the same.