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Monday, 03 January 2011

Tuesday, 09 November 2010

  • Currently
    Count Your Blessings
    By Bill Gaither, Gloria Gaither, Homecoming Friends
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    Count your blessings

    Laid off again. Oh well not much to say but that and grit your teeth and pray your way through it.

    Hubby went to a pretty emotional company/crew meeting. Following his co worker's death last Tuesday and funeral this past Sunday the meeting today was still tough for all the guys. They got through it and he came home to tell me he's laid off again. After two whole paychecks and not that much time back he's back to being laid off. I'm applying for a part time job right now. Going in to take a test Friday morning. He called about a job tonight when he got home that he walked away from to start this job We'll see what we'll see. He's going hunting tonight. Still no venison and he's been going out pretty regularly. So he'll try again tonight.

    I find myself thinking of the song, "count your blessings."
    1.Jesus as my Savior so I know I have the hope of eternal life when I die and the hope of a life with a purpose here and now and the Holy Spirit to guide,protect and comfort here and now. All things work together for good for those how love the Lord.
    2. The Bible. God's love letter to us. I sure have been flipping through it and reading it and looking for answers to my questions lately a lot. Also have been finding a phrase or a word coming into my mind and I look for the rest of the word or phrase lately a lot. I treasure my dad's letters I have read some of them and it is so much of a comfort to be able to read them and see some of what he was thinking and feeling and experiencing now that he's dead and gone.  I think having those letters makes me value the Bible all the more.
    3. My friends and family          some of whom have gone out of their way recently to be a comfort and to show they care about us.It started right there in the township hall Tuesday with Ben and Molly and Patty. The kids all are praying,my mil is praying,my niece and her hubby responded with prayer and he called to talk to Dennis, friends at church stopped to ask how is it going. One neighbor called, one stopped by, one couple offered to go to the funeral with us and did it! Some have written in response to FB. Nice to know we are not alone. The devil sure wants you to feel alone. As a matter of fact one of my early thoughts was,"If this had been Dennis who died who would be his pall bearers." I know  he and the other guys need friends at a time like this and I tried to think of who to steer him towards so he would not feel desolate. I think it helped.
    4. Our home here in the woods surrounded by those things God made. Makes God so much more real. It's a great comfort to both of us to just look outside or step outside. We are nature worshipers. God seems closer and better in the wild. Dennis and I have been cutting wood and he has been hunting. He has not bagged a deer yet but he has been comforted each time he goes out and really that's not normal. He usually would be distressed by not getting a deer yet.
    5. The woods where my Daddy hunted. Sitting, walking, cutting wood and hauling there. It just comforts the dickens out of me. I can see my Daddy and hear him when I'm there. I just love being able to do that and I'm so glad my oldest sis got that piece of land so I can feel free to go there.
    6. My oldest sis being a Christian with me. I'm so glad to not be alone in that aspect of my life. It can be lonely to feel like I'm one of Noah's son't wives and I'm on the ark and I can hear the screams of the dying outside. I'm glad she has chosen to get on with me. I cherish that.
    7. I'm glad my kids are on that ark. I'm glad for the scattering of other relatives on it. I'm glad for the friends I have who mean their faith too.
    8. For others who understand that God is not a genie in a bottle that you take out of your pocket and rub when you want something and that I have matured to the point that I know that now. It was certainly not always so. Now I know that God is wise and I'm not so wise.
    9. A flock of hens who are laying well. Food in the freezer, food in the cupboard, cars we can drive, a trailer, saws, hammers, etc Dennis can use to take care of us and make some $$.
    10. A woods right out the door where Dennis and or I can go hunt. Lakes close by where we can fish. Woods and fields where we can gather mushrooms and apples and glean or have gleaned for us corn, as a friend just did for us and gave us 1/2 bushel of corn.
    11. I started the process of applying for a job and have a test to take Friday morning in Gaylord  for it. Even if I don't get it I am glad to be trying this and feel like it is a step in the right direction to make some effort.
    12. Dennis got his builder's license this year so can work on his own!!
    13. Work he has been doing on the side that gives us a little bit of work and $$
    14. Wood all cut and heaped in our yard from the cutting and hauling we've done and Steve has done too this fall.
    15. Chickens we slaughtered, and butchered and canned this week while Dennis was off work.
    16. Good health me, Dennis, Stewart and Melody all healthy at this point.
    17. The job I had last Tuesday as a poll worker at the election both for the money and the experience.
    18. The things this accident is opening our eyes to such as survivors' remorse and how painful that can be for the folks who don't die and all the aspects of that issue and as I said to hubby today," I never thought about all the people an accident like a mining accident or the oil spill accident affects. It puts lots of people out of work and makes lots and lots of people unsure of their future when something happens suddenly like this." It's not just the miners stuck in a mine who are in need of prayer but all the families of the guys who would have been working in that mine and now suddenly aren't . " I think I'll look at accidents differently now.
    19. My marriage. That it is a strong as it is so we can help each other through tough times. I am better at helping Dennis through this messy time now than I would have been before now. Time and God have worked together to strengthen our marriage.
    20. Stubbornness.  I don't give up easily. I don't sit down and whine easily. I may not be the most gently and sweet person in the world but I will be right there in the thick of it till it's done and so will Dennis.He's not real subtle either. When he was told he couldn't go back in to the job site last week he drove as far as he was allowed to and walked in the rest of the way to be with the guys and pray with them I was proud of him for that action.There's some  thing very right about that kind of tenacity.
    21. And I was pleased that he said today and in days previous, " I would not mind being dead. I know where I would be now if I had been in that fella's place.." I do too and I'm glad of that. This is a rough tough world but heaven will come after and it will be no more sorrow, no more tears. Fully in the presence of Christ!!!



    So that's how it looks from the north woods where times are lean and we are gonna make it because I know God loves me and I love Him back.

Friday, 05 November 2010

  • There was an accident today.....

    "There's been an accident......."  and then a look of pain and confusion followed by,"and a guy was killed and another one was hurt." Life changed then and stayed that up in the air kind of tense stance since then. This pulls everybody out of what they were doing and thinking about and into looking at the fact we all die.

    When I got the news from hubby I was at the polling place being an election official. Later a young friend of ours told me a story to illustrate the point that we all die when not if. We talk as if some of us won't face death but we all do. He said he works with trees and they all die too. He's had experience with a client who wanted to be promised that his tree would live. The client was a dr of medicine. The friend said he told the guy.Doc if I walked into your office and tried to get you to promise that you would make sure I would live forever would you promise that? And the dr said," of course not...." The friend said he told the dr that it is the same for me with your tree. Living things die. And just like I will at some point this tree will at some point and you and I can't change that fact. God sets those limits.

    Pretty profound words and sort of comforting in this situation.

    There are all kinds of words tossed back and forth in this situation of course. And some are awful and some are quite comforting.

    The greatest comfort some hold out is that they are glad it was not my hubby. Others that they are glad he was not the foreman or the owner of the company. And actually he was not even there when the fellow worker died. He had just left to go buy some materials for the job and passed the emergency workers headed to the job. Then he came back to the news that the guy he was just talking to about hunting and their mutual friendship with our neighbor was now dead. Eerie.

    But it hits me that when my hubby dies if he dies first. This kind of sudden death would, yes, be a shock but not be the worst kind of death to have and is in a way for the person who dies a blessing. It was over in a few minutes. The slow gradual deaths are so much harder.

    Also he pushed another coworker to safety and then died before he could scramble to safety himself which is a noble way to die. So a second plus about it. So many die senselessly doing something sort of stupid on a dare. This was not that way.

    Third but not least in importance. As hubby and I were talking today I told him again that when he dies, when it is his turn and if I don't die first I will not be sad for him. He's going to be gone. He's not going to be feeling any pain at all. He's going to be out of this world of pain and in the presence of Christ. The tears I cry, and I'm sure I will cry many, will be for me. They will be selfish tears because I will miss him. But that is my nature as it is everyone's. We look at it from our point of view and we are sad for us. That makes sense totally.

    The person who died is gone. He is not the one in need of comfort. In this case it is his shocked coworkers, relatives, his two daughters, his parents and folks are saying his ex wife who are all grieving in their own way. Their loss. They feel responsible for cutting short the opportunities the man who died would have had to do this and that. They are talking about all the things he will not be able to do for others that he would have done. They are grieving for each others's losses.

    Sorrow is like that. And that's how it looks today from up here in the north woods.

Friday, 29 October 2010

  • Pecking order

    This week started with new chickens to introduce into the old flock of hens. I picked up two friends' chickens they no longer wanted and put them into the house with the hens I already had at night and turned out the light and went to bed myself knowing that they would settle in for the night ok but there might be trouble in the morning. Remember the old sayings about establishing pecking order? Well it's not just talk they do establish a pecking order just as people seem to do too.

    In the morning some of the hens were crowded over in the corner of the far end of the henhouse behind and beside the long roosts. These are rather bashful and I don't know their breed but they are very pretty. Several of the hens are white with black heads and wing tips. Very stunning and slender bodied. One is a polish with feathers on it's head and one is part Bantam I think she looks kind of like a hen I had years back all brown and grey and gold. There is one with a flopped over crown which I'm thinking is a rooster but is very docile.

    So gradually I have convinced the new hens to mix with the flock by standing by them for a while every time I went in to feed the flock which I did every couple of hours the first day and every three or so the second day. I also threw them so  corn since they didn't want to come to the feeder and they came out and pecked it a bit and found out nobody killed them. They did get pecked a few times but they started sticking up for themselves after a bit.

    What is happening in the henhouse is so much like what happens with people. There are some bullies. There are some bashful ones. There are some middle of the roaders. Some bad hens who want to eat eggs too. Some virtuous hens who just want to lay eggs and get on with hatching them. Some grouchy hens who try to peck me and anything and anybody. With about 50 hens it's a mixed bag and takes some boldness on my part to manage them. I have to give one or two a cuff or three every once in a while. I have to keep them from getting too bored and pecking each other . I have to keep an eye out for hens being picked on too much who could even end up dead if I didn't watch out for them. One of the bashful ones had to be rescued by me this week when she strayed out of the house and was stranded and shivering in the pen.

    God watches over me and I watch over my flock. That's how it looks from my perch this week.

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

  • Currently
    Best of Helpful Hints (Mary Ellen's Best of Helpful Hints)
    By Mary Ellen Pinkham
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    Homespun cleaning

    Yesterday because I wanted some of my friend's irises I stopped in to help her divide the lifted rhisomes.. I explained why and what to do as I helped her with the three baskets of root clumps. Which I was excited about doing because I got to have a box full of these dark bloom Iris rhizomes to plant here as  payment for my time!!!

    When I walked in, she was sitting on the couch covered with and surrounded by her long and large curtains and she was busily pinning them together down a ripped seam. She explained she had not washed them in years and when she did they tore and the backing came off too. Now she was afraid she'd have to replace them but in the mean time she was pinning them in prep for sewing them where they had ripped.

    I was and am incredulous. I explained to her that my house gets really dirty really fast!!! Not just out of order but dirty. And so do my curtains. I'm totally amazed at other people who have clean windows, clean floors, clean counters, clean curtains and who hardly ever have to clean to make it look that way. Maybe it's the dust baths the escape artist hens and one rooster take under the south window (in spite of my efforts to chase them out of there and plant an assortment of things to hold the dirt in place). Or maybe it's the kittens scampering in and being tossed back out. Or maybe it's the wood heat. Or maybe it's the lazy inhabitants, including yours truly, not wiping feet and removing footwear. But my house has good old fashioned dirt on the windows and window sills and the stairs, counters, chairs. It has to be swept up and washed up and chased from the house daily or it builds up in a hurry. Anytime I get distracted, am away for a while or am ill it REALLY builds up.

    This month I've been gradually trying to catch up on some of the chores I put off when it was lovely out and summer called my name. But at the same time I have leaves to rake, bills to pay, writing to do and groceries to purchase and put away as well as feed to buy and stash away. Then there is the fall project of getting enough wood in the yard to tide us over till spring. And this week we took the beginning of the week off so Hubby could hunt and I could not hunt. No, there is no venison on the table or in the freezer either. He missed one and otherwise had a very disappointing time not even seeing deer.

    But it was a good visit from an old friend of his family and Uncle O who told us , well, sometimes, just me, stories, which I never tire of. I do tire, but not of his stories. I really truly wish I could remember his stories better so that I could pass them on. But at least I have time to hear them and enjoy them even if I can't remember all of them perfectly.When he comes he tells about growing up in the big family on a farm and hunting with his brothers through the years. He recounts the fish they caught and where they caught them and how big they were compared to how small they are now. He talks of moving up to the Upper Peninsula and out south and back down to the border of Indiana. Then that makes way for talk of his farm and his hunting cabin and all the renovations he made and how it sold and his brother's cabin. Now and then and now and then compared, contrasted and mulled over. Then there are slices of advice and questions about what we've been doing and why we did that. More advice. Valuable stuff!!! These talks and this advice. Worth it's weight in gold and I find myself wishing that I had more of my family gathered here to hear it. Because it isn't often available. It isn't going to be here forever as he won't be here forever. I'm amazed by the yearly treks up to our humble home as it is.  Each year as he comes he moves a little slower but the talk flows at about the same rate. And hubby and I try to soak it in as well as we can so we can pass on and make use of some of the wisdom Uncle O is tossing our way.

    But I digress, don't I, from housework. Well my secrets to cleaning the house are
    #1persevere.
    #2Use lots of dish soap.
    #3 Use a vacuum cleaner when needed.
    #4 Use a feather duster. Stick it in the empty vacuum cleaner tubes to reach high places and it will twirl around as you clean.
    #5Start from the top and work down.
    #6Baking soda works well for tough stuff stuck on a counter or table.
    #7And a dab of vanilla is a great way to freshen the air inexpensively without having to buy anything extra and it seems to be a scent that allergic people are not allergic to.
    #8 There is a book called Mary Ellen's Household Hints which was given to me by my Aunt in Law. Happens to be Uncle O's wife. It's my secret weapon when I don't know what to do I look it up!
    #9 If I get really discouraged I go to the Fly Lady website for inspiration.
    #10 I have another book called something about fast cleaning I like too when I'm overwhelmed and impatient.
    I gotta go now I'm working on cleaning up the kitchen and I don't have it done yet!! :) When I get the house done I need to clean the henhouse so the chickens stay healthy and happy!!!

    Oh and if you want to divide Iris rhizomes you work from the edge in looking for Y shaped fingers with little plantlets on the outside edge or single fingers and you toss the middle of the clump. Iris die from the middle out so the center is dead useless old and decaying. Then replant in a threesome shaped like a triangle. The single fingers won't be likely to bloom next spring but the double will probably bloom the first year. Singles will bloom the year after. Divide every 3 years again. August is the beginning of the time when it's ok to lift iris for dividing and replanting. Don't replant too deep. Iris like to have their roots laying on top of the ground. If you lift them earlier than this and there are large leaves still on the plant trim back some of the greens so the plants won't be top heavy and tip over.  I better go now and get some firewood and plant my own iris too!

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