Immanuel Lutheran Church ~ Cresco, IA
My favorite days are those ordinary days where I somehow manage to be more mindful…of the way I spend my time, of my thoughts, of my words & actions and their effect on others.
The entire day feels like a prayer.
1 year ago:
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Georgia Emma Metz Carter July 27, 1915 – October 21, 2010 My grandma was a huge influence in my life. We were fortunate to live so near to her, and being the only grandchildren my brother & I spent a lot of time with her. |
| She instilled in me an appreciation for the world around me. When I was little she & I had an ongoing project, creating a scrapbook of bird species with pictures cut out from magazines and calendars. She & Grandpa liked to take Kyle & I camping. I loved spending time with her in her flower and vegetable gardens. (I wish she had instilled in me her touch with violets and houseplants!) I think her love of travel stemmed from this joy and wonder at the beauty and variety of many places on earth…she visited a majority of the states, including Alaska & Hawaii, many of the national parks, and even England & Ireland. | |
| Grandma was a very creative person, and shared that with me in so many ways. We made dollhouse furniture out of things like milk caps and empty thread spools. She made beautiful quilts for my brother & I; she helped my mom sew my junior prom dress and my winter formal dress. She taught me a craft called “quilling” for a 4-H project. I’m especially grateful that she (& my mother) taught me how to sew – it’s a skill I’m so glad I have now. | |
| She was a torch bearer for family history and traditions and honoring those who’ve come before us…writing our family histories for local history books; making the traditional Carter “Plum Pudding” at Christmastime; and arranging to have a headstone placed on one of my grandpa’s ancestor’s unmarked grave. She was the family genealogist and story teller. | |
| As I sat and thought about all of this, it was amazing to see how many of the things I find joy in – national parks, photography, writing, craftwork, and genealogy – have their root in experiences I shared with her. | |
| But there’s one area where I’m especially inspired to follow in her footsteps. Grandma was a model of the Gifts of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. (Galatians 5:22) She lived out each & every one of these qualities in her daily life; in her relationships with family and friends; in her service to her church, her community and her world. | |
| She always said, “I don’t say I’m lucky. I say I’m blessed.” It might be just a bit of semantics to most people, but to her it was an important distinction. It was her way of acknowledging that God was the source of all good, and of strength and comfort in her life. I have a long ways to go to meet the standard she set. I’ll miss her terribly. But I know as I work to claim these Gifts for myself she will be always present with me. |  |
Harvest
Some days, signs just seem to be everywhere.
1 year ago:
for sitting on the porch swing, reading the mail and enjoying the last warm days of the year. The combines hum in the fields, the Canada geese honk overhead.
1 year ago:
Spanky
This is a gratuitous kitten photo. Matt says people don’t like to see pictures of dead, headless chickens on the internet. So there you go.
Unfortunately it’s not all kittens and rainbows here, of course. You might recall the predator problem we had last month. We’ve been hit again. This morning there were 6 headless chickens…2 outside the pen, 2 inside the pen, and 2 right inside the shed. The nerve! I came back in the house and told the girls it was like the horse head scene from The Godfather out there. Blank stares…ah, the generation gap!
So the Big White Dog is back on duty. He actually fell right back into his role as guardian, which makes me happy. No whining or pacing this time…he was too busy giving the pen a thorough sniffing. Why, you may ask, didn’t we put him out there the first day these chickens were on pasture?
What can I say, except that we’re optimistic people.
1 year ago:
Certainly seems that fall has arrived. The beans are turning in the fields.
The mornings are cool – I grab a stocking cap for morning chores. The ditches on my walk out to feed chickens are filled with golds and browns,
and cattails, too. The 4 or 5 dozen Canada geese that have been camped in our pasture for the past month have now moved on to warmer climes.
1 year ago:
Last March we gave Rafe this book for his birthday:
He’s since bookmarked many things in it that he wants to try. This weekend he & Matt worked on one of those bookmarked things.
There was measuring, and cutting, and nailing.
And the beginning of a treehouse.
So far it’s more of a tree platform, but they aren’t finished with it yet.
Even as a mere platform it’s already making a good hangout for an 8-year-old boy!
I like school being back in session. A return to routines is good for me. A quiet house is more conducive to productivity in the work I do from home.
But I think what I like most about it is when we all come back together, around the supper table, sharing the highlights and lowlights of our day. I hadn’t realized until tonight that suppertime is just not the same in the summer as it is during the school year. I hadn’t realized that I’ve missed it.
Well, since we last were here, the third batch of broiler chickens has moved out to the pasture. The first night we always shut them inside their shed so that they know where shelter is. The next day we feed them inside but water them outside, so that they get used to going in and out of their shed. And then they’re pretty much left to their own devices. If we’re expecting bad weather – especially if we’re expecting it overnight – we’ll feed them inside the shed, just to encourage them to get out of the weather. (Because they aren’t always smart enough to think of that themselves.)
This time, on their second night in the pasture (i.e. the first night they weren’t shut in the shed for the night), we lost 4 birds. I got out there to do chores the next morning and there were 3 headless birds strewn about outside of the electric poultry netting that surrounds their range area, and one more inside of it. Owls or hawks, I’m not sure, but usually we have owl problems in the spring and hawk problems in the fall. But there’s been a full moon, so it could have been owls.
Regardless, we can’t allow that kind of death loss. So out came the Big White Dog. And he was not happy about it. There was much whining and pacing when we left him out there with the chickens. But he’s settling in. When I go out to the pasture in the morning now, it’s such a peaceful scene.
Cows. Dewey grass. Chickens. And the Big White Dog, on alert from inside the chicken shed.
How now, brown cow?
How now, brown calf?
While I wouldn’t exactly say he’s relishing his role of flock guardian, he does seem to have accepted it. He walks calmly through the birds now, so that they won’t startle and scatter. When he naps, they like to cuddle around him. (I wonder what they think he is?)
And then there’s the peanut gallery:
Stinkers.
1 year ago:
So…I’ve switched registrars, I’ve switched hosting companies. Unfortunately I’ll have to re-enter all of the posts I’ve made since May, and I’ve lost all the comments left on those posts. But hopefully I’ll be back to blogging shortly!!
