A Mouse, A Mirror, and A Moral

The Mouse

We had a mouse in the house.  Kent called me into the bathroom one night and said, "Get a broom, there's a mouse in here."  I got the broom.  The mouse was hiding in the towels on the rack over the toilet.  He had poked his head out and he and Kent each gave the other a fright.  

With broom in hand, Kent began to take off one layer of towels at a time, the mouse jumped off and onto the floor, and Kent was after him with the broom.  Mr. Mouse skittled across the room, through the door, and immediately scooted under the linen closet door.  

We couldn't find him in there.

So, I set a trap there and another one in the bathroom.  Days went by, and there was no mouse in the trap; however, I started seeing mouse evidence in the kitchen.  So, I set more traps.  I bought different traps.  Mr. Mouse was very clever and eluded all attempts to capture him.  Mr. Mouse was making me mad.

This morning though, even before my 5:30 alarm went off, I heard noises from the bathroom.  Then Kent came out carrying Mr. Mouse by the tail.  "I got the mouse," Kent said triumphantly.  "He was back in the towels."  But then he said, "I broke the mirror that is in the bathroom."

The Mirror

The mirror has a story to it.  It was in my Grandma Opal's house.  The house that is falling down now.  I have always loved that mirror, and one day (years ago) I asked Uncle Jim if I could have it.  He said, "Yes."

It is old and foggy, and the frame is cracked in a few places, but I love it.  I hadn't hung it, because I don't really have a good place to hang it, but I planned to some day.

I was really sad, but I didn't tell Kent, because I didn't want to make him feel bad.  It's just a thing, even though it is a precious thing to me.

When I looked at it though, it wasn't any more broken or cracked than it had been, the mirror just came out of the frame.  It can be repaired.  It just needs to be secured.  After I do that, I will hang it.

The Moral

There is a moral to this story.  I have been thinking a lot about relationships lately.  There are some relationships near to me that are broken right now.  It has made me very sad.  I would really like to see them restored.  I don't know if it can or will happen, but the mirror gives me hope.  The mirror can be fixed.  With God's wisdom and grace, the relationships can be healed.  

Lord, haste the day, when there will be no more broken mirrors or relationships.

This is not what our "herd" currently looks like.  First of all, all of our cows (that is both of them) are black baldies.  We did have three head of cattle.   One cow (I will tell you that story in a minute), one heifer calf, and one bigger heifer (I already told you that story here). 

A few weeks ago I was mowing the side yard when I looked over and saw our mama cow laying in the barnyard lot.  She was laying in a strange way, so I stopped the mower and walked over.  She was dead...she was unbelievably just dead.  It must have happened fairly recent to my finding her because her calf nursed off of her while I was watching and seemed to be getting some milk.  Kent had suspected that she was older than the farmer who sold her to us had told us she was.  But whatever was the issue, she is now gone.  Well, she is in the corner of the field (which is where we dragged her to), and sometimes, when the air is very still, there is an unpleasant odor.  We are down to two head of cattle.  That is one reason we are nowhere near the label of "Homesteader," but are just plain ole' "Mom and Pop" farmers.

I really began this post to relate two different stories that happened to us over the last two days, but thinking about one of those two stories reminded me of the recent dead mama cow.

We had an event last night to attend.  Kent also had a meeting to attend (by Zoom) part way through the first event (which was a concert that my nephew, D. Jay, was giving at the Lemonade House Grill in town).  Our idea was to leave home quite early so that Kent could order his food, eat, and then sneak out to join his Zoom meeting.  And we did just that.  We left about 30 minutes before we would have otherwise.  But, as providence would have it, after passing Uncle Ken and Kenny Joe's house, we saw an old tree had fallen right across the road, effectively blocking our only exit.  Kent got out to see if the two of us could move the tree.  Nothing doing.  So, we turned around and headed to Billy's house to see if he could bring the tractor.  It was a relief to see that he hadn't already left for the same event, and he brought the tractor and drove to the tree.  By the time we got back there were already two cars lined up on the other side.  They were as stuck as we were, except they were trying to get in, not out.

The tractor was a trooper and moved that heavy tree, and we were soon on our merry way.  However, instead of being early, we were just barely on time, and Kent didn't make his meeting because his food wasn't even ordered until the music was well underway.  By the time he ate, it was nearly finished.  The other committee members were quite understanding!

Then today the Harding and Martin families was going on a float trip on the Sparkling Jewel (Current River).  I was sliding through the morning trying to get several things done before we left.  In the midst of my sliding, I looked out the front computer room window and saw a large black thing.  The large black thing, on closer inspection, turned out to be Chocolate Milk (our calf).  This escape entailed quite a bit of work repairing the fence using old roofing tin and old fencing.  Thank God for baling wire!  It is almost as good as duct tape to fix things.

But, again, we came skidding in just in the nick of time to the float office and didn't miss a thing from the family float.  In fact we had a lovely time!

But, it just shows to go you.  I mean it just goes to show you, to be grateful even in the midst of difficulties.  I thanked God all last evening that that tree didn't hit a passing car when it fell.  It could have killed one of us.  I also thanked God today that the calf didn't get out while Kent was gone.  I would not have been able to fix the fence alone, or at least would have had a much harder time doing so. 

The best laid plans....

 

A Season of Sorrow

I have been intending to write this post for some time now.  I want to capture for our collective memories the events and emotions of the past year for all of us here in Fernnook.

It was just about a year ago that we began to be worried about Uncle Jim.  He wasn't right.  He wasn't himself.  But, we were not sure what was going on with him or what to do about it.  As winter melted into spring, he became more and more erratic in his behavior and less and less stable in his ability to walk.  We began to take him meals, to get involved in getting him to his doctors, and to check on him multiple times a day.  

Then Aunt Jenny fell and broke her wrist.  That entailed a middle of the night trip to the ER for my cousins, an operation, and a hospital stay that was very traumatic for her and for her family.

So, the family was stretched...some caring for Jim and some for Jenny.  A couple of days after Jenny was released from the hospital, I saw an ambulance going down the gravel around midnight.  Cousin Sandy was staying with Stacy at Jenny's home helping to care for her.  I was sure the ambulance was for Jim, and called Cousin Kenny.  It wasn't.  He told me that it wasn't for Jim, it was for Jenny, and it didn't look good.  I was so grateful that Sandy was with Stacy when her mother died.

The next morning we decided that things had gone too far with Jim and we took him to the ER.  We were pretty sure he had lung cancer, but didn't know what was affecting his thinking and walking so severely.  Well we found out.  The lung cancer had spread to his brain and he had a tumor.  He was in a hospital in St. Louis recovering from brain surgery while we were at Jenny's funeral.

We fought so hard to get him treatment in time.  We all fought so hard for him.  But it was not in God's providence.  Two weeks of severe nosebleeds, two nose surgeries, and a stroke caused by one of the surgeries put off treatment for too long.  

We all came to the end of the summer tired, sad, and numb.  

For me personally, and for Kent, this was on top of a previous year which had us facing the deaths of Kent's father, Opa, and three very close church friends.  So, emotionally, when Jim died, it seemed our cup of sorrow was full to the brim.

In December, though, a series of events began that made us all feel like we were punching bags.  First, Andrew (our grandson who has CF) was hospitalized.  We were thankful to the Lord that what looked like a possible two week stay was cut down to four days, and he did get to be home for his family to celebrate Christmas a few days after the holiday itself.

Then, we were all heartbroken when Hattie, who was 12 weeks pregnant, miscarried two days before Christmas.  She and Ethan grieved deeply, as did we, over their loss.

Two days after Christmas, Uncle Ken (visiting his daughter Kelly in Houston) had a heart attack while he and Kenny were traveling home to Fernnook.  It happened in Tyler, TX, and he spent the next 38 days in the hospital in Tyler.  He responded well to a pace maker, but developed pneumonia, a UTI, a prostate infection, esophagitis, and ended up with a PEG feeding tube.  He was unable to swallow and lost the strength in his legs, and so was unable to walk.

Meanwhile, back in Fernnook, Papa (my dad) got a partially blocked lower intestine and was hospitalized for a week.  Then he also developed pneumonia.

One night, a few weeks later, Cousin Stacy called me at 3 am to see if I could come get her daughter Lizzie, because her other daughter, Emily, was unconscious after having a seizure.  Emily had seizures from bleeding on the brain 5 years ago, but she has been doing really well for several years.  That entailed a trip to the ER and a transfer up to Barnes.  Thankfully, there was no new bleeding and they believe it was a UTI that caused the episode with her.

Then I got a call from my Uncle David's caretaker.  She told me that they were putting David on hospice.  I have only seen him a few times in my life, but he is a dear, gentle soul, and this has been very sad for me.

Meanwhile, my brother Mike had a blood vessel growing toward his pupil that was affecting his eyesight and if left untreated could cause him to lose his sight in that eye.  So, he had a painful eye operation.

All this happened while Ken was still in the hospital in TX.  Just a week and a half ago, Ken took a rough ambulance ride to Van Buren to a rehab place there, but was immediately transferred to a different ambulance and taken to the hospital in Poplar Bluff.  They kept him for a week to get his heart rate back under control, then moved him to a rehab facility in the Bluff.  That was a disaster, and Kenny pulled him out yesterday and brought him home.

He is beginning to eat again, and, we pray, will be able to regain strength in his legs soon.  

If we have seemed distant or distracted or difficult to be with, forgive us.  We don't doubt the Lord's care for us, but it has been a long, rough season of sorrow for all of us here in Fernnook.

Opa and Oma Tidbits

The above pictures of Opa and Oma are from quite a few years ago.  They are both 90 now, and Oma has been in rehab with a broken femur while various family members have been staying with Opa.  I am with him this week, and I have been asking him some questions.  I do not doubt that most of the older Hardings know these stories, but I wanted to get them down as best I could.  He struggled a little in telling them, so forgive me (you who know the stories best) if I have told them wrong.

I asked Opa about what Christmas was like when he was growing up.  He said that his dad, Papa, would go out Christmas Eve to get the tree and then DeeDee and Papa would decorate it.  If Papa did not come home with a really nice tree, DeeDee was not happy.  Sometimes some of the gifts would be tied to the tree as part of the decorations.  

There are two gifts that really stick out in Opa's memory.  One was an electric car that he could ride in.  The other is part of a sad memory for him.  His dad gave him a really nice, rather expensive watch, and that was the only gift he received that year.  The girls though (Opa's 3 sisters), received several gifts each...toys, clothes, and various other things.  Opa feels bad because he hurt his dad's feelings over not appreciating his watch.  He was upset that he only received one gift.  He came to understand, though, the value of that gift in later days.

Opa's mom had a temper, but his dad was usually pretty easy going.  There is one time, though, that Opa remembers Papa being very angry with him.  When Opa was 17, the family moved off of Humphry Street where they had rented for years to a house that was outside of the city.  It took a ride on two different buses for Opa to get to his old friends.  One Saturday, Opa rode back into the city to hang out with his friends at The Pool, a pool hall they frequented.  Because it was a Saturday, when Opa headed home, there weren't as many buses running as there were during the week. This meant he had to wait extra long times to catch the two buses he needed to get home, and the outcome was that he arrived at the house past his curfew.  To top it off, he had forgotten his keys.  So, he knocked on the door.  Usually, when one of the kids was late, it was DeeDee who would answer the door and give the miscreant a piece of her mind.  This time, though, Papa answered the door.  He was so angry at having to get up in the middle of the night to let Opa in that he just hauled off and hit him in the face.  Opa said that was the only time that Papa ever struck him.

But, then Opa turned his mind to one of his favorite memories.  He was leaving for the army during the Korean War.  Oma was going to stay with Papa and DeeDee, and Papa drove Opa to the place where he was meeting all the other recruits to ship out.  Papa put his hand on Opa's shoulder and asked him if he was really sure this was what he wanted to do.  He told Opa that if he was not sure, he knew some people that would be able to work towards getting him out of leaving.  It was a very tender moment for Opa, and it made him feel very loved by Papa.  Opa, of course, chose to stay enlisted.  He felt that Papa was sensitive about the military because he hadn't served in WWII since he had a family.  Instead, his war effort was put in here in the States producing food.

And...just so they don't get lost somewhere, here are a few tidbits I learned today.

Papa and DeeDee met at work.  They both worked for a place that made car parts.  The business is no longer there, but the building is.  Opa said that DeeDee would come in late so often that she was fired.

His favorite cousin was Ardell Jr.  He could walk to Ardell's house from Humphry Street.

DeeDee really spent a lot of time and effort to make sure the girls were dressed nicely.

Then, a bit of a zag here, Oma has been talking with her half-sister, Bobbie, a lot since being in rehab.  Oma was an only child (we thought), and her dad, Addison, left her mother (Honey) and her when Oma was a baby.  She never saw him after that.  (He did come to Honey once and ask to see Oma.  Honey let him look at her across a school playground.  Then Addison left and was never heard of by the two of them again.)   Just recently, through some research on Ancestry, Bill connected with a half-sister of Oma's that we knew nothing about.  That is Bobbie.  They haven't met, but they do talk, and recently quite a bit.  Bobbie told her that some years ago, Addison's wife (who was from Ohio) and Addison were driving in Colorado when he had a heart attack and died in the car.  She drove him to a funeral home there in Colorado and left him.  

Nothing big or exciting or earth-shattering...just some family lore I would like to save for future generations.

  

And, here I was believing (wishing, dreaming, hoping, praying!) that
skunks hibernated all winter.  Well, they don't.

Season Mash Up

A few weeks ago Andrew was at Children's Hospital and the other
kids stayed with us.  The morning were a leeetle bit cool, not much,
but enough for the kids to rummage through my coat closet for scarves,
gloves, and hats.  But, underneath all of those cold weather paraphernalia,
they had on shorts and short sleeve shirts.  It got me to thinking about
seasonal mashups.

Of course, when the cold air moves in to where it is warm, or, when warm
air moves into where it is cold, it creates unsettledness in the atmosphere,
and storms and wild weather can be the result of the warm/cool mashup.

But there are plenty of other mashups as well.  For instance, baseball and
football.  Sometimes my poor dad and uncle are all nervousy just thinking
about which they should watch this time of year...football or baseball.  That
is especially true if the baseball Cardinals are in the playoffs as they are
this year.

But nature has its own mashups.  On the same day in early fall I can see
a late summer hummingbird at my feeder and an autumn glow-worm.  The last
hummer I saw this year was October 6th and just about that same time my
spider lilies popped up.  The lilies are a sure sign that it is autumn.  They are
like fall surprise lilies, because they do not even show their stems until
October and then they just shoot up, almost overnight and quickly blossom.

I love that summer has a toe hold yet and brings warm afternoons to top
off a chilly morning.  This is a mashup that could last for weeks, and I
would not complain.

D. Martin Lloyd-Jones says that, "What makes this universe a cosmos, rather than a chaos, is that the Lord Jesus Christ is holding it all together."

Romans: Exposition of Chapter 10 Saving Faith

I guess I can trust Him with my little corner of the world today.

"Everybody deserves a noon time!" Uncle Jim said very emphatically
in rebuttal to Papa Bob's claim that it would be fine if the United States
were all on one time zone, like in China."

Anytime one or more pot-bellied gnomes get together, the conversation
is sure to be wide-ranging.  Tonight it flowed from child prodigies to
angstroms, and from time-zones and daylight savings time to the
omniscient God of the universe.

Uncle Jim also wants to know where is all the time he has saved year
in and year out during daylight savings time.  Perhaps it is in the
Daylight Savings Bank.

That reminded me of one of the funniest little articles I ever read in the
Mayberry Times.

Last night there was g-nocchi soup for the pot-bellied g-nomes.  Tonight
we made do with tacos.

I also practiced shooting today with a 22 to train my body to not expect a
kick when I shoot with a shotgun during gun season.   I have a good trainer,
and I hit the target!

From Solomon comes a wise political commentary in regard
to the current situation in which our country finds itself.

Better is a little with righteousness,
Than vast revenues without justice.
Proverbs 16:9

This, from Against Heresies, is for those who love doctrine
...and...for those who don't.

Sometime ago I posted about judging a book by how hungry it
makes me get while reading it. There is one other very
important criteria I have for reading a book. The author
has to be able to write better than I do. If they can't
then they are not worth my time.

Before you judge me as a silly goose, listen to my reasoning.

Years ago, many, many years ago, I was sixteen. It is hard to
be sixteen and not be full of yourself. I remember writing
in my diary one day (thankfully that diary is hidden in a
deep, dark place, hopefully never to see the light of day again)
but, I remember writing something horribly gushy in the following
vein--Not an exact quotation by any means, but close in the main
idea---

"Dear Diary,

I know I am destined for some great thing. I have considered the
ways and have come to the conclusion that my destiny is to do
something that will contribute to mankind and beautify this world.
Maybe it will be singing, or dancing, maybe art, but I think it
most likely to be with words. Words make me feel alive." blah,
blah, blah, ad nauseam.

Oh, how I love being closer to fifty than forty. I wouldn't take
sixteen back again for all the tea in China. (Never use such cliches
they PROVE you are not a good writer.)

Well, it is obvious to all that know me that singing could not
be the great thing I do. I am the only one in my immediate family,
meaning by immediate my husband and four children, who cannot
sing. The poor ole' girl can't carry a tune in a bucket (there
I go again). However my dear niece in The Big City is going to
be singing The National Anthem for the River City Rascals in June.
Go Annie!

Dancing is also out of the question. Although I took dance lessons
for nine years sister Becky falls into the cockroach laughing position
when she remembers trying to teach me some basic dance moves
when I was a teenager. My lack of rhythm has continued to plague
Kent to this day. He has this dance step he loves and has had to
resort to dancing with Hattie-girl. Dancing does run in the family
though, as proven by niece Kinsey who will be dancing Sleeping Beauty with the St. Louis Ballet Company the same weekend Annie
is singing for the Rascals.

Art-now there is a field with great possibilities. There are several
professional artists in my family. Uncle David is a professional
artist in California, and niece Carolyn Fleetwood-Blake is one in
Florida (she even has a website devoted just to her artwork for sale).
My home is decorated with artwork by the two of them. Even son Billy
and daughter Hattie are rather artistic. But once again, the talent
fairy passed me by at birth.

You can easily see why I quickly narrowed my options to making a
splash in the world down to writing. Everyone can write. At least
they think they can. But what I've come to discover over the years is that, sure, anyone can write, but only a few
deserve the title of "Author worthy to be read".

I can easily be grammatically correct. I can even, once in a great
while, write a lovely sounding sentence. But to put together a whole
string of interesting sentences, page after page, and to connect those
sentences to a plot or idea worth continuing writing about, that is a
gift that relatively few people through the ages have been given.

In the long run, my writing is stilted and boring...even to myself.
If I cannot hope to amuse my own ego, how can I hope to amuse
others for any extended length of time?

Besides, there is something bewitching in the idea of having to make
a great impression on the world. God has given me my little spot and
it is His grace to me to be surrounded by my own little set of
circumstances. What I can be good at is doing the next job that is
set before me (kudos to Elizabeth Elliot). I can cook the next meal,
make the next bed, wash the next load of towels, attend the next
ballgame, teach the next VBS class, care for the next sick person,
share Christ with the next person I meet and enjoy the life I have
been blessed with.

Maybe I lack drive or intensity, but at least I am a happy and
contented little soul as I plod along through my allotment of days.

Having a headache takes the thrill out of life. There are so
many things that usually give me a thrill, yet when I have a
headache I notice them but really could care less. Even
on dark days, sad days, and difficult days the thrills
break through...but NOT on headache days.

Going over the two spots on the major highway to Mayberry
where the redbuds crowd up to the bridge and seem to hug
the road is worth a thrill.

Seeing herons and hawks and having Hattie point out "The most
beautiful bird ever" through the window ought to give me a
delicious shiver.

Lying on the couch at 5:30 in the morning whilst the coffee is
brewing and listening to the cacophony of songbirds is most
often a wonderful comfort...but not this morning and not yesterday
morning either.

Waking in the middle of the night to hear the soft breathing of
Hattie on the floor next to our bed, and the peepers in the pond,
and the dogs running the woods next to our bed is supposed to be
a joy, but it wasn't last night.

Watching the Mayberry Dons play an exciting game where the other
coach got thrown out and Tyler placed a sweet bunt for one of the
few hits the Mayberry Dons made was more of a chore than a thrill.

Having the first hummingbird of the year looking in at Hattie through
her bedroom window yesterday should have sent me scooting for the
feeders, but it didn't.

These things pass however, and then life will become full and rosy
again. Meanwhile, God is in His Heaven, so all must be right with
the world; the thrills are there, my feelings actually have nothing
to do with it.

A Political Commentary for Today from Plutarch's Lives
Vol. I...

"For a ruler's first aim is to maintain his office which
is done no less by avoiding what is unfit than by
observing what is suitable."

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.

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.

Kent and I are not originally from Mayberry. (True
Mayberrianites still shake their heads at us and wonder
about our strange ways.) We both were raised in The Big
City. When we first moved down here we would lie in bed
with the windows open and say, "I feel like I am at camp."
The sounds and smells were so different from those in The
Big City. That feeling still haunts (in a delicious way)
us.

This morning, as I was sitting on the love seat with an
open window at my back, I felt the sweet, cool breeze
blowing in, I smelled the dust and pollen floating upon
the air, and I listened to the outside world waking up
with its riot of bird calls, rooster crowings and dog
barkings.

That is what I would miss most if I ever had to leave
Mayberry, the smell and sounds and softness of a spring
or summer morning.

It is funny though, because there are other sounds and
odors that make me homesick for places that I have only
visited for short periods of time. I am homesick for the
ocean. A few times I have been able to be in a hut or
a motel right on the beach and listen to the incessant
swooshing of the waves and feel and smell the salt laden
air blowing in the window. Sometimes I ache with missing
those sounds and smells.

I miss The Big City too. Even though I grew up in the
suburbs, there is something I miss about being "downtown"
with all the energy and creativity of the people, the outside
restaurants, the folks walking their dogs, the highrise
apartments that make you wonder what is happening inside
all those windows.

I guess this feeling of being at home and yet never feeling
quite at home is just a symptom of living on this earth.
When even creation itself is groaning for its completion
(Romans 8:22-25)how can I expect to be totally comfortable
in it? Oh, may that day, that day of completion, hurry!

I've read some interesting articles over the past few
days. This one, by Po Bronson in New York Magazine
is extremely though provoking. If you have children,
or you work with children, you need to read this article
on the negative effects of praise.
Tip of the bonnet to The Beehive.

I found this article on great reasons to have kids at
Mommy Life.
Tip of the bonnet to Amy's Humble Musings.

I pulled a book off the shelf that we've had
for probably over 20 years yet I've never read.
It is Christianity & Liberalism by J. Gresham
Machen.

I can't give a full review here because I am
only on page 8, but I was captivated from the
first paragraph of the introduction.

"Light may seem at times to be an impertinent
intruder, but it is always beneficial in the
end. The type of religion which rejoices in
the pious sound of traditional phrases,
regardless of their meanings, or shrinks from
"controversial" matters, will never stand amid
the shocks of life. In the sphere of religion,
as in other spheres, the things about which men
are agreed are apt to be the things that are
least worth holding; the really important things
are the things about which men will fight."

Already I have used my underlining pen a lot.
Expect to read more about Machen's book in the future.

Order from chaos. That is my usual Monday routine.
The house, Hattie's schoolwork, my brain and my life
in general need some straightening out come Monday
morning. There is a lot zipping around in the grey
matter this morning and perhaps to pin some of it
down would help to bring a little order. That would
be nice.

1. I was just reading in the Missouri Conservationist
a little article about introducing kids to the "Outdoors".
It had oodles of suggestions and then emphasized that,
of course, you want to protect your kids from snakes and
black widows etc. That reminded me of the time that
Joel caught a black widow and put it in a jar. Then he
said, "Now if I can get a brown recluse I'll have a
collection of all the poisonous spiders in Missouri."
And there is no end of times he has picked up snakes in
order to either move them to another spot or protect
his precious chickens. My dad once came home from school
with a snake wrapped around his pants as a belt. Snakes
aren't always so bad!

2. My brother and sister-in-law popped into Mayberry for
a surprise visit this weekend. We've had a lovely time
with them. (Hi, Debby! you lurker!) When we stopped in
last evening to say, "Howdy!" and to enjoy some of Tandy's
delish popcorn, I heard a new springtime sound. Bullfrogs.
They were just getting cranked up. They are not loud yet,
but they will be soon. Sometimes, in my yard, the bullfrogs
are so loud a person has to almost yell to be heard.

3. I've been reading several books lately on "Finding the
Will of God." There is certainly a lot of garbage written
in this department, but when you come across a statement
like the following you sit up and take notice.

" Is it not Biblical to suggest that peace in taking the
next step arises out of knowing God rather than in finding
the right set of rules for guidance? Do we not in
retrospect see that some of life's greatest doors swung
open or shut on hinges too small for us to perceive at
the time--hinges that were set by the Sovereign God?

God, the Sovereign. The Great Initiator.
The Awful Interrupter. The Shepherd who leads
His flock. The Predestinator. The One who
opens and no man can shut, who shuts and no
man can open.

'This God is our God for ever and ever; He will
be our Guide even unto death.(Ps. 48:14)'"
This is from the preface of Essays on Guidance.

Oops, I forgot a few things in that last post, but,
then really, it was quite long enough already.

1. I knew I was home when I got out of the truck
and heard the blessed music of the peepers. They
were peepering with all their might and it was
be-yew-ti-ful!

2. Dad says I get preachy sometimes on this blog.
Sorry. I won't promise to quit, but I do apologize
ahead of time for doing it. I don't really want
to be said of me what Churchill said of Sir Stafford
Cripps, "There but for the grace of God goes God."