Perseverance

Perseverance

February's last week
Bright sunshine
Gentle breeze
Warmth flows across the frozen earth
Out of Season.

Teasin'.

The heart leaps! Spring is near!
Be not deceived
These latitudes are not relieved
Of winter's ice and cold
This soon.

A respite brief
Yet some relief
From long chill
Set in the bones.

We'll take it.

Then hunker down
'Twill soon be past
Prepare for next cold
Snowy blast.

We'll survive.

Spring, or Winter?

Snow forecast for this weekend.  (Why not? It snowed last weekend.)  But here is a bit of Spring indoors, thanks to Mark and Patty who sent the pretty little pot with a bulb inside.  Set it in sunlight, watered it, and voila!

Whatever the storm outside, maintain your inner tranquility

Daily Prayer #T

It never gets old.  Our capacity for surprise is never filled.  No matter how many times we have experienced freezing cold, damaging winds, torrid heat and unbearable humidity we are always surprised when one of these events befalls us.

Take today.  Lovely bright sunlight pouring through my east windows.  I stepped outside and almost immediately frost formed on my mustache.  Surprised?  Of course.  Why would one expect it to be thirty-five degrees below freezing on a January morning in Indiana?  I mean it happens on an almost-annual basis and yet we somehow are surprised.  Yet again.

The "news" media are full of it.  (Read that again.) The weather readers go on and on about it.  And on.  Amazing, isn't it? That we have weather, I mean; and that we have winter weather in the winter time.

You know what surprises me?  Another day in my life in any weather conditions.  My father used to say of a man beyond three score and ten, "He's living on borrowed time."  Yes, I am living, well past four score now, in that zone of life.  Actually, this is scriptural, for the Bible says a man's years shall be seventy, eighty perhaps by dint of strength.

So this is me, heat, cold, wind, rain, or snow:

"Heavenly Father, I thank you for each day of my life, and I thank you now for this new day which You have granted me.  I pray that I may honor You throughout this day and reflect Your grace and love to those I may encounter.  Let it be so, in the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ."

Photo: S4 Android by JoAnn Lacy, my BBBH,

Rockport's Unwelcome Visitor

 

 Rockport seems like our second home, so many years we wintered there.  Ground zero when Harvey made landfall, Rockport is in shambles.  Hurts our hearts and we pray for the good people there, those we know and those we don't know.

It will take months to clean up and who knows how long to rebuild.

Now Houston is being pummeled with rain and some models predict the possibility of 40 inches of rainfall by the time Harvey is through with Texas.  Some places have already received more than two feet of rainfall.  Heartbreaking.

 Port Aransas where we have stayed on several occasions is also victim of terrible destruction from the storm.

The Big Tree on Goose Island near Rockport is said to be over 1000 years old.  A spokesman for Texas Parks says it survived the storm.  "Didn't get old by being weak," or words to that effect.

On this date I usually note that it is the anniversary of my mother's birth.  Sometime in the middle of the night August 27-28, 1908 Vera Morrell was born near Hartman, Colorado.  In the excitement of the moment no one checked the exact time.  She always celebrated the 28th as her birth date.

Mama with Dad, their children and the first four of their grandchildren.  The youngest person in this picture is now 58 years of age.  Mom would have been 52 here.

I can take the heat,

after all, I grew up on the High Plains. And, I am not saying it is muggy, but when you jump into the pool and nothing feels any different, something's just not right. 

--Bob Warr

 

Winter Weather

"The wind bloweth where it listeth," (KJV) or "The wind blows wherever it pleases," (NIV)  said Jesus.

As I write this, the wind is hootin' and hollerin'.  What it portends I know not, but it is late January  and in all likelihood it is up to no good.

To date we have been blessed with a mild winter.  I approve.  The inch or so of snow we have had so far is plenty enough, I can do without more.
But.
We take  what we get.

Blessings.  May your day be exactly as you would wish it  to be.




Brisk Breeze, here in Perfect, Indiana.
January 25, 2917, 3:15 p.m. 

The Blizzard of '78, this date 39 years ago.

Wind. Again

Last night I listened to the forecast: Storm to begin about one a.m.  Severe winds up to eighty miles per hour; much rain, possible hail up to two inches in diameter. tornado watch.

I prayed the Lord would protect the sixty million people who might be under this threat.

I snapped off the tv and went to sleep.  At one o'clock I heard the rain battering the house; BBBH came up and told me to come downstairs.  The next-door-neighbor was going up the street knocking on doors to warn people of "possible 100 mile per hour winds."

To please the Lady I came downstairs, cleaned the oil lamp and trimmed the wick, went to bed.  Sleep?  I think not.  Wind?  Yes, indeed, but nowhere near eighty mph.  Rain?  Bucketsful.

Morning assessment:  No damage on our premises and sixty mile winds gave us lots of rubble a year ago.  However, it was reported that ten miles to the west of us there were winds near 100.

Man, am I tired and sleepy.

A bit over two years ago I posted the following story under the title "Wind."

Wide awake, body desperate for sleep.  The mind kicks into gear.  These words of Jesus impinge themselves upon my consciousness:

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: John 3:8a (KJV)

And finally sometime before dawn I slept a bit.  Yet I will have a long morning, nodding and groggy, for I was short-changed of sleep.

The scripture quoted here is wrested and wrenched from context, such doings being the sport of many Christians who are too concerned with finding a tidbit in the Bible that seems to support what they want to believe.  But that is another chipmunk running across the trail.  The big game to be pursued here is this.  The third chapter of John recounts the incident in which Nicodemus sought Jesus out by night and asserted that he knew that Jesus was from God.

Jesus outlines precisely what one must do to enter the Kingdom, stating that one must be born not only of flesh, but he must be born again, in the Spirit.

The entire message of salvation is delineated in this chapter.

WOOO.  WOO.  Weee.  The wind still blows. And the truth of Christ's teaching still endures, and shall endure aeons after this wind ceases.

Rain Falls on the Just and the Unjust

Oh, my, you may be thinking.  Why the picture of such a dreary day in downtown Hometown?  And you would be wrong, for it is a day of jubilation!  Having gone for weeks without significant rainfall, it is now raining!  We are pleased, nay, thrilled to have an abundance of life-giving moisture falling from the skies.  Thank you, Lord!

Word of the day:  jubilation

The picture was taken Saturday morning.  We have now started another predicted stretch of dry days.  Fall may be my favorite season.

Weather Whether or Not

Three years ago today I posted an article entitled "Hot Enough For Ya?" in which, I am sorry to say, I came close to carping about the weather.*  Today's post may approach that level of thinking as well.

I have lost track though I am sure the weather bureau could tell me, of the number of days in which we have had significant rainfall.  I stopped counting a couple of weeks ago at 41 consecutive.  I am quite certain that we have had in excess of 16 inches of rainfall since the first of June.  We have now had two glorious days without precip!  But it is scheduled to be back soon, along with temps that will rival those of the summer of  '12 about which I came close to carping.

A walk in the meadow in the evening or a bicycle ride along the streets in the morning, the pleasure of either is diminished somewhat by the foetid aroma of the decaying vegetation which has lain too long under water.

A week ago Purdue agronomists had estimated crop losses in the state at over 430 million dollars.  I did not get this week's report.  Like it or hate it, the weather is a big deal, and we do not control it.

*Complaining about summer heat is a violation of my policy whereby I try to confine my gripes to the winter weather, which I hate

Bedtime Chapel at St. Mattress

This was Saturday afternoon just before the total whiteout.  What you can't see in the pictures is the wind, about 70 kph.

Setting this to auto-post, going to bed, and pulling the covers over my head.  Think I may not look out in the morning.

Heavenly Father, keep us safe and warm.  Oh, Lord, hear our prayer.

Really?

Yesterday

Today

Saturday: 78^o 

Sunday: 78^o

Monday: 68^o

This morning: 29^o  

Is this Mother Nature's April Fool joke?  She's late; but then, everything has been late this Spring.

Anniversary of a Tragedy

In spite of the skip-to-my-Lou, Pollyanna-everything-is-hunky-dory facade this blog presents, my life's experiences have not all been beer-'n-skittles.

Forty-nine years ago last night, we were sitting in our living room, possibly watching Ben, and Hoss, and Little Joe, and the boys, when the lights went out.

 Peru Daily Tribune, April 12, 1965

  Peru Daily Tribune                     

               Eastern High School Yearbook, Aurora

vanilla's personal photo album, 1965

White loop drawn around my classroom windows.

The 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Outbreak took 271 lives across the Midwest and caused five and one-half billion dollars in property loss.  Our family had no losses of lives or property.  Tragically, some friends and acquaintances did have.

Go, Snow!

If there were a method whereby one could date the falling of this snow, it would tell us First Week of January.   I am fairly certain of this, because that snowfall drifted a serious mound of the stuff into this spot, following which we had another four feet or so of snow over the course of the winter and lots of serious cold.  So there was no real opportunity for this patch to melt.

Now we have had two days in the sixties and another one or two in the fifties during the past ten days.  Our snow decor has been reduced to this blob on the north side of the barn.

Tuesday afternoon it was perhaps six feet wide, fourteen feet long.  Today, Wednesday, it is predicted that we will have rain.  Likely, therefore, the snow will be gone this evening!  Well, it has been a long winter, and I for one hope that this is really the end of the snow.  For this season.

Sawmills, Dogs, and Calves #T

Wherein the dog is the hero.

"Hand me that one-and-a-quarter box wrench, Boy."  Uncle Jep held his left hand toward me without raising his head from beneath the frame.  Grandpa and Uncle Jep have this old sawmill they cobbled together years ago.  We are getting it ready to saw some logs we've had stacked for a couple years down by the river.  Those two old coots have got it into their heads that they can erect a new chicken coop and storage barn with the native timber they have collected.  I am not exactly work-brickle, but I hate that sawmill.  You would too, could you see that 48-inch blade in action!

So anyway, I am told that years ago Uncle Jep and Grandpa argued the merits of building their own sawmill as opposed to carting the logs miles away and hauling the lumber home, and paying someone else to do what they could do themselves.  Well, as they travelled about the countryside doing their work here and there, junk started coming home with them, a few pieces at a time.  Rails for a carriage, scrap iron for frames and beds, the old rusty Buick.  And now here stands the testimony to their ingenuity and perseverance.  And here we are, Uncle Jep working on that old Buick straight eight that powers this monstrosity.

"I ha'n't tole you I went over t'see Eldon last night.  Been two months now since we carried him home from that field yonder.  Eldon's doin' right well, now.  Doc Barrett tells him that fer a man what suffered a stroke like he did, he is right lucky.  Well, you've seen him a time or two and know that his right leg is a bit game.  Speech still some slurred, too.  But he is right alert, and determined, too.  Since you saw him, his gait has improved a good 'eal.  We walked together to his hen house last evenin'.  He made it fine.  His talkin' is easier to follow now.  Du'n't seem to have any memory loss or mental lapses.  Fact is, he tole me what he was up to in that field the day he was struck.  Gonna put 'er in broomcorn, can he get all that yucca and tumbleweeds cleaned out.

"Now crank that thing while I crawl outta here."  I jerked the crank once.  She fired immediately.  Uncle adjusted the idle, revved it a bit and she was purring like a kitten.  Then we set to getting the belts down, installing them and dressing them.  While we were attending to the task, Uncle Jep said, "Did I ever finish tellin' you about the time my dog, Budge, brought in that red calf durin' the snowstorm? Yep, jes' comin' on dark and the snow was fallin' perty good, not a blizzard, but definitely gonna pile us up some snow.  I was jes' comin' up from the hen house with a bucket a eggs when here come Budge a pantin' and a whinin'.  I set my bucket down an' start rubbin' his ears.  But he turn back to the barn lot and start barkin'.  'Okay, Boy,' I says, 'let's go see what you want.'

"Well, doncha know he got me back a the barn lot an' layin' there in a snowbank is this little red calf.  Could see she jus' been born a little while ago.  I could see from the tracks that Budge had got her to walk to here, but then she musta drop an' could'n go on.  Well, sir, I pick up the calf and take her to the house an' set Grace to workin' on her.  I start to set down by the farr, but Budge won't have it.  He grab my jacket cuff and he tug me toward the door.  Long story short, he take me out in that snow storm and lead me plumb down to that elder stand by the crick.  An' what do you think?  Layin' there up agin her Mama's body is another calf!  Ol' Maudie had done had twins, but hit were too much for her.  The cow were dead, but the calf were still alive.

"Anyway, those two are Jennie and Jodie, and you well know they are our best milkers.  Good ol' Budge.  He were some dog!

© 2014 David W. Lacy

Headed the Right Way!

 Through the clerestory, 5:53 A.M.

9:37 A.M. Almost home (see the RV?).  This is what we've looked at for six weeks.  Well, new top layers from time to time.

And. . . 

Ta da! We went out last evening and for the first time in six weeks I went out without my parka!

Again with the Snow

The poor RV wishes it were in Texas.  Okay, perhaps that is a bit fanciful, but I wish it were in Texas with me. 

 The little tree and the grasses in the neighbor's mound.

And a closer look at the grass.

The forecast for one to two inches of snow Saturday night/Sunday morning was accurate up to the point where the two inches was reached, then it went on to pour another four inches on us. Shoveling again.  Got the walks and drives done in four sessions this time.

We have a couple of granddaughters who "love" snow, and they are "so excited" every time a new batch falls.  They are in their twenties and thirties.  We love them anyway.

I've lost count of the total snowfall so far this winter.  One gets numb after while.  I have also lost count of the number of times I have posted about snow.  You may skip it when you're bored with it.

The world's coat is white, 

new wrap around her shoulders; 

hiding grey and slush.

We may be weary; 

nevertheless we are blessed; 

warm and green will come.

It's Done It Again

Break

Warming now, and the temperature is above the freezing point, 34^o.  This is a pleasing development.  Pictures are included for those guys and gals who love the "beautiful snow."

Back to the house.

The coming rainfall is almost certain to create more problems.

Snow Rules

 At the front entry.  The sidewalk is at the bottom of the yardstick.

All of yesterday's effort wasted.  Better hope there is no need to get a car out.

Please, no adjectives such as "beautiful" or any of its synonyms. 

Foggy Morning

All sorts of things have been said, and written, about a foggy morning, little cats' feet and all that.  I'll not add much to it.  But one good thing about such a day is the way in which water droplets are captured in the spidey webs.

 I like this.

Visibility: quarter mile.  It is clearing.

No fog, but the leaves are pretty.