Our very own fireworks!
When they said there were going to be fireworks on the 4th of July this year, I didn’t know this is what they meant!
We had left town and were about 15 miles away when I spotted smoke on the horizon. Now, smoke out here is never a good sign unless it’s the time of year the farmers are burning off ditches… This isn’t that time of year!
As we drove closer about 10 miles away, DH asked me if I saw the smoke and I said yes, I’d seen it earlier.
We then conjectured about where it might be. It could have been like I said along the highway. We hadn’t had any lightening this morning that we knew of… it was overcast (a rarity in itself out here!) Distance is a hard thing to judge where we live unless you know the lay of the land and even then it’s sometimes hard to do. I thought the smoke looked like it was northwest of our place. Perhaps one of our pastures.
As we drew closer to home, the larger the smoke seemed. I joked… “well, I guess we’re going to miss lunch now… it looks like it could be our house!”
About the time we turned onto the north road (going toward our house) my cell phone rang. It was our DN… when I saw his name come up on my screen, my heart sank and I thought, ‘Oh no! Maybe my little joke about it being our house is turning out to be true!”
Well, as it turns out the hay stacks by our house (across the driveway) had spontaneously caught fire. DN had driven by a couple of hours earlier and nothing seemed amiss. He then was coming down to restack (this hay seems to have difficulty staying stacked) when he realized the stack was on fire. He called the fire department and then us.
We are very blessed to have the volunteer fire department we have in Washington County. Though it is a very rural and large county, they make it to a fire in record time!
Across the driveway
The fire department shortly arrived after we did, assessed the situation and went to work! Spontaenous combustion happens sometimes, they say, with these stacks. That is apparently what happened here.
Though the stack will probably be lost, I’m still grateful that neither our garage (which is close to where the stacks are ) nor our house were damaged in any way. It’s a lot of hay to lose. However, even if our house had been taken, we’d have still had a lot for which to be grateful. Our DN was not injured nor was anyone else. No animals were caught in the fire. All in all that’s a LOT to be grateful for!
So, until next time, love God, love others, watch yer haystacks and keep your loved ones close!
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. James 4:14.
The reality of this verse came crashing down on us today. The fact that our life is so short yet we don’t know how short it will be…Though we all have an appointment with death, today we were made keenly aware of how short life can be.
Today, we grieve with the family of one of DD’s classmates. This young man was apparently driving last night in blizzard conditions on a highway known for severe travel conditions.
What we think we know right now is that he apparently rolled his car twice and was ejected from it. Though they tried to save his life in surgery, his appointment with death came all to soon for any of us.
As a mother, I grieve for his mother. This young man was not quite 17. I don’t know his eternal destination which makes it all the harder to grieve. In the natural course of things, children are supposed to be bury their parents, never parents to bury their children. It is a difficult thing for a parent to have to bury a child.
If you read this and have a personal relationship with the Lord, please pray for this family. There are no human words that can bring comfort at a time like this. I do not know if this family personally knows the God of all comfort but I know He is the only one who can bring them healing comfort at this time. Our thoughts and prayers are with this family.
Until next time, love God, love others, drive safely this Christmas season, your family needs you.
the smell of fresh manure on a crisp, cold breeze that says, “Christmas!” Doesn’t it? Think about it? Our Lord was born in a manger. Now granted it probably was a sheep barn He was born in so the manure smell was a little different than around here… but it did bring to mind Christmas to me.
We were in our county seat today so that DD could get her dl! Oh me… seems like just yesterday I got mine! Wasn’t it?
Now, let me ask you… who in their right mind takes one of their children to get a dl when there’s a winter storm warning out? .. Okay.. so that answers that question… I wasn’t in my right mind. By the time we finished in the county seat, fog was rolling in and DD was the proud new owner of a dl! Of course, I took great pleasure in making sure she obeyed the laws… It would be a terrible thing to just get one and have it revoked! Lol… 
She was not impressed!
I was glad to get home and brought out turkey from Thanksgiving out of the freezer and made Turkey Stew… it was vunderbar!
5-10 inches of snow forecast for over the next few days with 10-20mph winds and DH has a funeral to attend tomorrow… and I need to go to work. We’ll see what happens when we get up!
Well, until next time… love God, love others and stay warm and out of blizzards (unless, of course, they’re DQ!)
have been playing at retirement this week.. . Though it will probably be a long, long, long time before we will be able to retire, we had fun this week. He had Monday off due to the holiday and took Tuesday and Wednesday off as well.
DD is at Youth Camp! 
and DH and I’ve been playing… {giggle, giggle}
It was great just to get away even if it was only for a day and a half. We took one of the teenage girls up to camp on Tuesday as she couldn’t leave with the rest of the group due to prior obligations. This was her first time to be able to go to our youth camp. So, we did get to see DD while we were briefly at camp. Then, we went on our merry way. Relaxed with nothing else to do but enjoy each other’s company… which we did…. well actually, we had a list of things to accomplish before we went back home but we did spend the night in the Big City and did our running around the next day! It was soo fun.
Oh and we went by a Thrift Store… I love thrift stores! I bought and entire set of books in a series for less than the cost of one single book! Now that’s what I call a bargain!
Well, here’s some of the pictures I took while gone. ..
Isn’t this a cool looking house? We found this along the road to camp. It looks kind of medievalish, doesn’t it?
Here’s another, better picture…
We liked the look of this house, even though everything (you can’t see it by the pictures) was crooked. The bricks were, the line of the roof is, funny!
A mountain farm/pastoral scene. I just thought this looked so peaceful! The owners may or may not think it so but it looked that way to me.
Here’s a pic I took before we left.
My man and his best 4-legged friend!
I thought this was cute. DH sat down on the stairs to put his boots on as always and Odie just came up and laid his head on his shoulder!
Well, that’s all I have time for now, but stay tuned, love God, love others and pursue those relationships!
Hope you all had a great 4th of July! 
In the last few days, we have had fascinating and awesome displays of what God does with fireworks! Lightening shows have been happening all around us and even though they’re white and not colored.. I think they’re more fascinating than the colored ones.. We’d see “heat” lightening flashing and then all of sudden we’d see branches stretching out across the clouds!
Last night we had tornado warning sirens going off while we were sitting in church. Most of us couldn’t hear them because the rain was fearsome… and that’s much of what we heard was the rain hitting the roof. By the time we were out of church, the weather had cleared.
Well, this week dh and I are playing at retirement! lol. DD is off to Youth Camp for the week and we’re just spending time together. My dr is out of the office all week and my np is out til Wednesday, so we’re playing!
Well, now we’re only playing part time… I need to get to work… so, love God, love others and pursue those relationships!
to all those who made today possible. It’s good to remember where we used to be as a nation both in the distant past and most recently. For those who think our freedom is not worth fighting for, well… let’s just say perhaps you should live somewhere else.
There are people fighting even as we speak for the right to say freedom isn’t worth a fight. There are those who are fighting on a battlefield with weapons that kill the body. There are those who are fighting on higher plain for the ideals for which those who fighting the physical fight. To both groups of people, I say “thank you”…
Though thank you seems so inadequate an expression it embodies everything. Hopefully, there are actions that back up the words. For as most of us were taught when we were young “actions speak louder than words.” Honor our vets today both those who were called to the nth degree and those who’ve lived to tell about the nth degree.
When I was a youngster, we lived in a small town. Memorial Day was a big thing. Our house sat on Main Street and our local parades always came by our house. It was just a cool thing. When the High School Band went by and the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts and all those who wished to honor honorable men and women had passed our house, we joined them as they headed toward the cemetery that sat across from the elementary school in Concord, Michigan. There we saw respectfully and listened to speeches honoring those who’d given their lives for our freedoms. I loved it…
After all the speeches were done, and the crowds dispersed we headed back to my parents home, where we often found extended family coming to visit. Many of whom had served in the military… many were children of those who served in the military. Memorial Day is a day to honor honorable men and women and we did.
Memorial Day… we should remember those who’ve fought wars in other countries so that we wouldn’t have to fight them on our shore. We should feel gratitude that to this point, war has been averted on our shores. Thank God for our military.
Until next time, love God, love others, honor honorable men and women and pursue those relationships!
the cat out of the bag… yes, today is my birthday and I’m all of 25 … I’m sure of it… though I may be dyslexic here…
However, today is ALSO one of my sister’s birthday. My mother decided that on my second birthday, the present she’d give me was a little sister…. I’m sure I was thrilled at that time… but you know… I’m just sure mom loved her more than me… Sigh…. So, Marty, if you read this after your deep sea fishing venture… 
Hope it was great! I tried calling you early but….I have apparently not kept up with your phone number changes…. sigh…
On my agenda today is work, work, work…. you know me….
So, until next time…. stay warm, love God and love others today…. pursue those relationships!
Not because I planned it that way but because a very anxious and jealous dog did a whirligig around it while I was out helping dh cut, split and stack wood. I came in to find most of the tree ornaments strewn around the room. The angel at the top of the tree is now dead as she was decapitated in said whirligig.
Most of the ornaments survived but I did have a few ceramic ones that did not… life… ain’t it good?!
Filed under: Holidays
to all!
We have ushered in another year. The year 2009 is upon us…. We didn’t stay up last night until the ball dropped… or whatever….
We had our “adopted” grandson with us over night so we were home early (well, I really can’t blame it on him…) We did enjoy some food and fellowhsip at the church before we came home though…
I made my little cheesecakes to take… though I found that if you get the little tart cups with the graham crackers already made it makes it way easier and they only take about 20 minutes to bake.
I used to be afraid of New Year’s Eve… like something dramatically would happen the minute the clock struck midnight… Until I realized that time is only relative to humans…
Have you noticed that… God’s not on our timetable… we’re on His. Many changes have and will continue to take place this year. I think it warrants keeping an eye on the eastern skies…what do you think?
I have found that time is just a way that God allows us as humans to determine where we are in life… how old we are… what day it is. Time is only so that we can keep track of ourselves. God already knows where we’re at.
