Yum?

I noticed Opossum in the index while finding the Stollen recipe this afternoon, so I looked it up and found this recipe.

While it is comforting to know that I have a resource if I ever need to cook opossum, or, for that matter, bear, racoon, muskrat, woodchuck, beaver, beaver tail, peccary, or wild boar, which were in the same section, it is a little odd to me to think of eating a 'possum. Usually, when I see a 'possum, it's on the side of the road, either road-kill or about to become road-kill. (This recipe doesn't seem like you could use 'possums that met their untimely end on the road, however.)

While I don't plan on cooking up any opossum, I was curious. Have any of you ever cooked or eaten a 'possum?

*Groan*

Helpful sibling: "Is there anything else you need?"
Me: "Yes, cinnamon."
Helpful sibling: "Here it is."
(I quickly unscrew the cap and with a flick of my wrist put the first of three or four planned shakes of "cinnamon" into the breakfast bars, before he stops me in alarm.)

Initial response indicates that the one shake of red pepper did not ruin breakfast.

Life with siblings is never boring!

(Yes, he knew he brought me pepper. He figured I'd read it to make sure it was cinnamon. The look of alarm on his face was pretty funny, looking back at it now.)

Merry Christmas

"And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins." ~Matthew 1:21

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." ~John 3:16

Merry Christmas!

Well, the other Natalie tagged me for this, so here goes. :-)

Seven things I hope to do before I die:
1. Truly know the Bible.
2. Get a good grip on why I believe what I believe, one issue at a time.
3. Marry a Christian man.
4.If God blesses my future husband and I, I’d love to have many, many children.
5. I would also love to watch them grow up as faithful Christians, marry believers, and have many children themselves.
6.Learn to sew well.
7. Disabuse everyone I know of the falsehood that I am passionately fond of canned spinach.

Seven things I cannot do well:
1. Sew.
2. Knit without getting distracted and losing track of stitches.
3. Count the stitches when I’m crocheting.
4. Fly a kite
5. Finish stories I’m writing.
6. Go to bed at a reasonable hour.
7. Get up on my own without two alarm clocks unless I know I have something important to do.

Seven things that would attract me to my future husband:
I liked Natalie’s answer to this, and I’m passing on this section too.

Seven things I say often:
1. Okay...
2. Stop running in the house! (To brothers at intervals during the day.)
3. Would you pleeease make me green tea/coffee? (")
4. Did you ask mom if you could do that? (")
5. Did you call me, Mom?
6.What?
7. Time to eat!

Seven authors, books or series I love:
1. The Bible
2. My Life for Yours, Praise Her in the Gates, Her Hand in Marriage
3. Pride and Prejudice
4.Chronicles of Narnia
5. Anna Karenina
6. P.G. Wodehouse
7. Dorothy Sayers’ mysteries
(Ack! Only seven? But I couldn’t fit The Scarlet Pimpernel, or A Tale of Two Cities, or The Hobbit, or...)

Seven movies I watch over and over again:
I’m modifying this to a list of seven movies I like enough to watch once a year or so.
1. Signs ("What if there are no coincidences?")
2. Raising Arizona ("Well, alright then.")
3. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Beautiful music and big ships.)
4. My Big Fat Greek Wedding ("So, there you go.")
5. Gladiator (great agrarian themes)
6. Pride and Prejudice (either the new one or the old one)
7. A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit (fun, friends, rockets, and cheese, cheese, Gromit!)

Seven people I want to do this:If you want tagged, leave a comment saying so and I’ll consider you tagged and update the post to reflect your tagged-ness. :-)

I'm Loved

You know you're loved when your younger brother spontaneously gives you a handful of rubber bands out of his stash.

One of the things I've been intrigued with in my photography is perspective. With my new camera, I can put it in Macro mode (to help it focus on objects close to the lense), and I can also choose to put it in portrait mode which makes the background less clear. This helps when I am interested in different ways of looking at the same object, in this case, a blade of grass. In the picture above, I'm looking down on the grass, with a background lacking contrast (you can also tell that the background is blurry because I had it on portrait). In the picture below, however, the blue sky makes the grass really stand out. I don't know that I like the angle on the blade of grass in the bottom picture, but I was holding the camera through a barbed wire fence to take it, and I was having trouble getting things just right without getting the fence in the picture.

Thank You

This beautiful can of spinach was one of my birthday gifts this year. I appreciate all the thought that went into this gift! I was amazed to see that it did, indeed, have Popeye on the can. I had never before seen a can of spinach with Popeye on it. Truly special!

Thank you, Mr. JFC!


(Note: if you find yourself bewildered as you read this, I suggest you read the comments on the previous post.)

Quote

"But conversion and spiritual growth are not only through the mind. There is a correlation between being willing to accept and practice God's revealed truth and being able to understand it. People who are unwilling to change either their thinking or habits to accord with what the Bible says, cannot advance spiritually. This is true both in becoming a Christian and in growing as a Christian...Understanding is limited by the degree of willingness to be humble."

-Being Human: The Nature of Spiritual Experience, by Ranald Macaulay & Jerram Barrs

The Christian Origins of Christmas

"We are not here today, marking the approach of Christmas, because the early Christians compromised with paganism. It is not the case that our fathers tried to sanitize some pagan celebration of the winter solstice. As it turns out, the Romans did not celebrate the solstice, and their Saturnalia was on a different day entirely. There was one brief abortive attempt by a pagan emperor to start celebrating the solstice (with a feast to the Unconquerable Sun), which was almost certainly a response to the Christian celebration of this day. This day is ours, so unbelievers may be cordially invited to keep their hands off it."

-Pastor Doug Wilson, here.
(he also wrote an excellent post titled "Merry Christmas" As Insurrection)

"Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival. Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.
Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Son” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance."

- Quote from the December 2003 issue of Touchstone Magazine, hat tip to Cognizant Discourse, who blogged it here.

Merry Christmas!

Fall Plowing

Grant Wood

Yesterday...

The sunset and the cows.

Snow on grass.

Yesterday my brothers and I went down the hill to the creek. I took the first picture while Hank and I were waiting at the gate for the boys.

It was the first real snow of the year, and we were eager to see the ice in the creek. It turned out that the ice was fairly thick, although there is still running water, so the cows can drink there as well as the stock tank. I tried to get pictures of the ice but they didn't turn out too well, so I'll have to try again. No worries- I don't think the ice is going anywhere for a while!

Narnia

...Lucy thought the Beavers had a very snug little home...there were hams and strings of onions hanging from the roof, and against the walls were gum boots and oilskins and hatchets...and fishing rods and fishing-nets and sacks. And the cloth on the table, though very clean, was very rough...

_________________________________________

"a pair of tiresome beavers with Cockney accents who engage in sitcom-style banter."
(TIME magazine describing the Beavers in the movie version)
_________________________________________

I love Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia are the first series of books I remember digging into again and again throughout my childhood. My copy of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has water stains from being forgotten in my "fort" overnight once. I regularly imagined going to Narnia myself. Once, when about nine or ten, I saw a tree which had rotted almost completely away. All that was left was a spire about nine feet high, with an oval rotted out in the middle. I went through it, hoping it was a door into Narnia. Sadly, it wasn't. Even at the age of fourteen or so, visiting my aunt's huge old home, I tried to open the door of a big antique wardrobe in the dining room. It’s probably best that it was locked. It would have been very difficult to convince my aunt I wasn't insane if she had found me inside the wardrobe, tapping at the back. Imagination is a wonderful thing. It works within the framework of the story to fill in the gaps. What was she wearing? What color are her eyes? (I have always imagined Lucy’s eyes as green.) What do Mr. and Mrs. Beaver look like?

That's something movies lack. The only imagination you'll need is regarding the plausibility of the plot or the believability of the characters. During a movie you don't stare into space, reveling in trying to see Lucy's face, enjoying imagining Trumpkin. As I told friends when the movie version of LotR came out, my imagination may never be strong enough to clearly see the faces of those characters. And my imagination may never be clear on the faces of Lucy, Polly, Eustace, Aravis, Reepicheep or Puddleglum. But do I want to endure Andrew Adamson (the director) barging in over my imagination and slapping actors' and actresses' faces, voices, and costumes on the characters? Do I want "a pair of tiresome beavers with Cockney accents who engage in sitcom-style banter" in my Narnia? No, thanks. I prefer the Mr. and Mrs. Beaver of my imagination to remain the wise, wonderful, hospitable, kindly couple they really are. It’s a good thing the books will be unaffected by the movie. But won’t the movie impact the imaginations of the readers? Won’t they, henceforth, read through the imaginary filter of the movie version?

Wonderful, well told, well conceived, thoroughly Christian books, with the capacity to captivate readers through the beauty of the story and the nobility, courage, and humor of their characters, do not come often. Should they be trivialized into popcorn-n-soda fast food moving pictures? Why waste such treasure? This strikes me like someone transforming the works of Leo Tolstoy or Jane Austen into comic strip format. The medium blunting the message.

As with Middle Earth, Narnia is, if you haven't guessed, dear to me, so I don’t plan to tamper with my imagination of it by seeing the movie.

(the upper pasture this afternoon as I walked)

The Mighty One, God the LORD, Has spoken and called the earth

From the rising of the sun to its going down.
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God will shine forth.
Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent;

A fire shall devour before Him,

And it shall be very tempestuous all around Him.

He shall call to the heavens from above,

And to the earth, that He may judge His people:
"Gather My saints together to Me,

Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice."
Let the heavens declare His righteousness,

For God Himself is Judge. Selah

~Psalm 50:1-6

Reflections

Frost covered leaves this morning.

"Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth." ~Genesis 8:11

"But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away." ~Isaiah 64:6

"The people of God, in affliction, confess and bewail their sins, owning themselves unworthy of his mercy. Sin is that abominable thing which the Lord hates. Our deeds, whatever they may seem to be, if we think to merit by them at God's hand, are as rags, and will not cover us; filthy rags, and will but defile us. Even our few good works in which there is real excellence, as fruits of the Spirit, are so defective and defiled as done by us, that they need to be washed in the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. It bodes ill when prayer is kept back. To pray, is by faith to take hold of the promises the Lord has made of his good-will to us, and to plead them; to take hold of him, earnestly begging him not to leave us; or soliciting his return... God may delay for a time to answer our prayers, but he will, in the end, answer those who call on his name and hope in his mercy." ~Matthew Henry, on Isaiah 64 verses 6-12.

"Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper." ~Psalm 1:1-3

"To meditate in God's word, is to discourse with ourselves concerning the great things contained in it, with close application of mind and fixedness of thought. We must have constant regard to the word of God, as the rule of our actions, and the spring of our comforts; and have it in our thoughts night and day. For this purpose no time is amiss."
~Matthew Henry on Psalm 1:1: Verses 1-3.

Twister

FedEx delivered my camera this morning, and it is working great. This is a picture of our barn kitten, Twister. I took it while walking this morning.

I took this earlier in the month, but it seemed to fit the weather today well.
[My camera is still away for repairs, although I did get an email and it should be returned to me soon.]

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I made yams, my mom made rolls and stuffing, and we enjoyed a feast at the home of friends.
Friday I went to a barn dance (the concluding dance of which was a Marathon Posties Jig, the winning set being the one which danced longest. We went for 45 minutes before one of our number had to leave, so we weren't the longest dancing set, but it was still lots of fun.)
Saturday we had a family from church over for dinner, which was delightful. We enjoyed sharing a meal with them and getting to spend time with them.
Today I've crocheted, helped little ones with school and listened to them reading, have read myself, and taken a walk in the wind.

Psalm 95:1-6
O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.
For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.
The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.
O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.

My Day

(The sunset November 5th.)

We cut firewood today. We almost doubled the size of our wood pile! There is a large fallen oak tree part way down our hill that we are working on transforming into winter warmth. Today Dad was cutting with the chainsaw, and the boys and I were loading the wood into the utility trailer.

There is something very satisfying about loading your arms with wood. I realized today that I'm a tree hugger. I just love hugging arm loads of wood and thinking about toasting my toes in front of the wood stove.

Growing up, there was a saying I heard so many times from a friend of my dad's that it has permanently etched itself into my mind. It goes like this:
"Do you know how many times wood warms you?" (pause...) "Three times! Once when you cut it, once when you split it, and once more when it burns!"

When the utility trailer got full, which it did twice, we'd drive the suburban up the hill and unload the trailer by the wood pile. Then we stacked it. The first time, dad stayed down to split some of the larger logs, so I drove the suburban up. When it was parked, I began to toss the wood from the trailer out into a pile.

The boys stacked it, with teasing yells of "You're trying to kill me!" Then I checked the stack before we went back down the hill. I still have to look at their stacking job, but they're getting the hang of it pretty quickly and doing much better at creating a neat stack that won't fall over or roll down the hill.

After we unloaded the trailer, I took the Suburban back down and parked it so that we could load the trailer again. When it was almost full, we went up for lunch. After lunch mom and I and the boys needed to run some errands, including going to play music and sing with another family from our church in preparation to go sing and play for a local assisted living home.

First on our town list was taking the recycle in. Unfortunately they were already closed. Next we went to the Post Office. I shipped my camera off to the Canon Factory Repair to have them fix the lens cover since it wasn't opening all the way. Fortunately it is still covered under warranty, and they think it will be back in two weeks. So then we visited the tiny music store just off the town square. Mom bought two guitar strings while a brother and I explored the dented can type grocery store next door. It looked interesting, and was. I found a box of chai tea powder packs. Yum. Also a good deal on tall white candles. Those will be nice for the Christmas season. Next we went to the grocery store, then we went to the family's house. They had been in town at the same time, and we saw them and exchanged greetings as they left the grocery. We got there and unloaded the guitar, cello, violin, and kids. After we had visited a bit, and practiced, it was time to go. This was about 5:45 pm, I think. I drove home.

As we pulled up the hill and into the drive, I noticed an unfamiliar light over by the tree by the white barn. Mom said, "What's happening with the lawn tractor?" As we got closer we saw what was happening. Dad was hauling ropes attached to a deer so that the deer would hang properly in the tree. Instant hubbub and excitement!

"Dad shot a deer!" exclaimed seven excited voices. So he had! He told us that he had been sitting quietly and the deer began to cross our land in front of him. She was a big doe, and we are all looking forward to some good meat! It has been a while since we had venison in the freezer. The heart is already in the fridge... I believe it is destined to be ground up, fried and put in chili.

So that was our day. A busy day, a great day, and full day.

This morning...

...my third little brother knocked on my door and brought me a cup of coffee. What a wonderful way to wake up! Especially since he enlisted the aid of Mom, who told him how to make it just right, sweet and with plenty of milk.
I was sitting there, enjoying my coffee, and looking out onto a blustery fall day, wet and windy, when another knock comes. It is little brother number two. He has a fork and a plate with an egg on it. Wow.

The rest of the day so far has been an inside kind of day. The weather doesn't encourage you to go out. It encourages you to brew a cup of tea, find a cozy corner, a good book, perhaps fuzzy socks, a sweater, and some crocheting, and curl up by a window to enjoy watching the fall weather.
Which, if you'll excuse me, is exactly what I'm going to do!

Psalm 130
A Song of degrees.

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.
Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning:
I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Fall

Hank

Hank being good.

(Warning! The bottom picture of this post contains dead chickens.) (There. Now I'm not responsible for anybody's nightmares.;-)

Here is the production line. The chickens start out on the upper left, then wind through each 'station' to the table in foreground. That was where I was working.

And here are chickens floating in ice water:

Yesterday I was blessed with the opportunity to learn about chicken butchering. It was a bit of a surprise-- one friend from our church called to see if they could get a ride with us, because otherwise someone else was going to drive out and get them. Well, we weren't going, but if someone was driving out our way it would work for me to go. After securing parental approval and Mom making sure there was room in the car, I ran around like a chicken without a head, got ready, and headed out into a beautiful fall morning.

So I went to help a family who were butchering 300 of their own chickens, 16 of their turkeys, and 75 of a friend's. They had already started when we got there, but we were quickly given jobs. The process was set up as an assembly line. I was put at the end, with about five other people. We were checking for feathers, guts, etc, that had been missed earlier in the process. It was a clean and pretty easy job, and the only problem was trying to go quickly while still making sure nothing was getting past you.

Throughout the morning and afternoon, we sang at intervals while working. We sang from memory, so I couldn't sing each one, but the ones I knew I enjoyed singing and the ones I didn't I enjoyed hearing.

It was too busy to take pictures for most of the time, but after we took a lunch break at around two in the afternoon I took a few.

Then after lunch it was time to bag, weigh, label, and sort the birds. They were pulled out of the ice water we'd tossed them in after final inspection, bagged, and sent to the scale, where I wrote their weights on plastic bag tags, and then either someone else put the tags on, or, if the chickens were coming slowly, I did it myself. Finally, we were finished bagging! People started tossing water at each other, resting, and talking. A few people kept working, finishing off the gizzard cleaning.

It was a really good day. I wasn't squeamish, as I worried I might be, the work wasn't really complicated (at least what I was doing), and it was great to work alongside others in the church family!

Update:
You can read three other accounts of the day's activities from my dad, JFC, and Micah David.

Psalm 8

from the Book of Psalms for Singing

LORD, our Lord in all the earth

How excellent Your name!

You above the heav'ns have set

The splendor of Your fame.

From the mouths of infants young

You the power of praise compose

In the face of enemies

To stop avenging foes.

When I view the skies above

Which Your own fingers made,

When I see the moon and stars

Which You in order laid,

What is man so frail and weak

That You should remember him?

What can be the son of man

That You should care for him?

Next to God You have made man,

With light and honor crowned.

You placed him abover Your works;

Beneath him all is found:

Oxen, sheep and all wild beasts,

Birds and fish the oceans claim.

LORD, our Lord in all the earth

How excellent Your name!

AMEN!

Bug's Eye View

Warning!

For about the next week or so, due, happily, to visiting relatives. :-)

See y'all later.

Tim Gallant posted on the Shunammimite woman and parallels in this to other Biblical events. Interesting.

While walking in our upper pasture last week,

in the morning, I saw this leaf.

Psalm 47

"Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples!

Shout to God with the voice of triumph!

For the LORD Most High is awesome;

He is a great King over all the earth.

He will subdue the peoples under us,

And the nations under our feet.

He will choose our inheritance for us,

The excellence of Jacob whom He loves. Selah

God has gone up with a shout,

The LORD with the sound of a trumpet.

Sing praises to God, sing praises!

Sing praises to our King, sing praises!

For God is the King of all the earth;

Sing praises with understanding.

God reigns over the nations;

God sits on His holy throne.

The princes of the people have gathered together,

The people of the God of Abraham.

For the shields of the earth belong to God;

He is greatly exalted."

Amen!

I decided to make a scarf about a month and a half ago, and finished about two weeks ago.
I really like the cheerful red color of this yarn.
This was the first scarf I'd made, so there was quite a bit of trial and error. I looked at some patterns online to see how wide they recommended, but I have lots of trouble reading crochet patterns, so I just improvised. :-) I did rows of triple crochets and rows of single crochets in a pattern. When I had finished length wise, I edged the whole thing with single crochet twice, to help smooth out the imperfections where I'd lost or gained stitches in a row, then edged it with a shell stitch.
It's warm, but the one I'm making right now I think I'll make longer...especially since I'm having so much fun using two yarns on the triple crochets!

Dutch Babies

A very big thank you to Mr. Luker for the Cinnamon Apple Dutch Babies recipe!
My mother made them last Sunday morning, and they were delicious.


I wasn't able to get a picture of the pan before plates were served, but this is my own slice, which was very good, especially with honey (from the honey pot, center top) drizzled over the top. Mmmm...

(For those who missed it, the recipe is in the comments on this post.)

We will definitely be making this again!

Psalm 138
from The Book of Psalms for Singing

With all my heart my thanks I'll bring,

Before the gods Thy praises sing;
I'll worship in Thy holy place

And praise Thy name for truth and grace;
For Thou above Thy name adored

Hast magnified Thy faithful word.
The day I called Thy help appeared;

With inward strength my soul was cheered.
All kings of earth shall thanks accord

When they have heard Thy words, O LORD;
Jehovah's ways they'll celebrate;

The glory of the LORD is great.
Through trouble though my pathway be,

Thou wilt revive and comfort me.
Thine outstretched hand Thou wilt oppose

Against the wrath of all my foes.
Thy hand, O LORD, shall set me free

And perfect what concerneth me;
Thy mercy, LORD, forever stands;

Leave not the work of Thine own hands.

Psalm 138
A Psalm of David.
I will praise thee with my whole heart:
before the gods will I sing praise unto thee.
I will worship toward thy holy temple,
and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth:
for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.
In the day when I cried thou answeredst me,
and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.
All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O LORD,
when they hear the words of thy mouth.
Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the LORD:
for great is the glory of the LORD.
Though the LORD be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly:
but the proud he knoweth afar off.
Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me:
thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies,
and thy right hand shall save me.
The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me:
thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.

Fall is a glorious season.

Mary and Martha

Luke10:38-42
Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me." And Jesus answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her."

The issues here are attitude and priorities. Martha’s self pitying complaint ("Lord, do you not care...?") points out that her sister has left her alone to work. Martha was worried, troubled, and probably resentful. She allowed herself to get into a tizzy ("you are worried and troubled about many things") and then blamed her frazzled state on Mary’s lack of help. She could have meditated on the privilege she had, since the Savior had accepted her invitation, to serve Him in her home, but instead thought on the wrongs she thought she’d been done by Mary. She isn’t criticized for her work in the kitchen, or for wanting everything to be "just so"– I don’t think that was directed at Martha, but at the reader. She isn’t criticized for not sitting at Jesus’ feet, since someone did have to make dinner, after all! Perhaps Martha wanted to be sitting there instead–but someone does have to work in the kitchen, and her attitude about that was wrong. The problems here are her personal attitude and priorities–not that she was wielding the pots and pans.

The other issue is priorities. It was a once in history chance, to hear the incarnate Son of God teach during His time on earth prior to His death, burial, resurrection and ascension into Heaven. Mary knew that hearing Jesus teach was more important than keeping Martha company in the kitchen or helping serve dinner. To put the quote in the previous post into a fuller context, before quoting Luke 10:38-42 Pastor Wilson wrote ‘We are familiar with the story of Mary and Martha and how Martha lost her sense of priorities because she was "cumbered about much serving." ’
The main point of this section (titled "Priorities") isn’t the flaw of Martha but how to avoid misapplying this passage in daily life. Later in that section Pastor Wilson writes, "So if a mother is harried in the kitchen because a number of her children are out in the living room being selfish, this is not a Mary and Martha situation at all. It’s one where she will have to guard her attitude closely, but the children should not assume (when they are required to pitch in) that this is a case of misplaced priorities. Well actually, it is a case of misplaced priorities– theirs."

Although comments I have read elsewhere indicate that others have trouble understanding this passage, I will say that Jesus’ word on what happened here is the final one, since God is the only one who can see the heart and know everything about that or any situation. Mary chose the good part, and I believe that Martha’s attitude was wrong and that it was that which drew the gentle rebuke from the Savior.

(after quoting Luke 10:38-42)

'There are two applications here, and one of them very familiar. Unbroken fellowship with Christ is more important than having the meal turn out "just so."... But the other application is perhaps less familiar, and so it should perhaps receive more of our attention. Mary was listening to the Messiah teach; she was not off in the family room watching television or thumbing through her favorite magazines on the couch. She obviously knew some things were more important than serving in the kitchen. We may also be confident that she knew what Martha knew-- that many other things are far less important than serving in the kitchen...'

- My Life For Yours, by Douglas Wilson, Chapter 5: The Kitchen

Cookbooks!

I own two main cookbooks, a 1963 edition of Joy of Cooking, and Better Homes and Gardens' Complete Step-by-Step Cook Book. (I also like my Better Homes and Gardens Cooking for Today Pasta cook book. It has some good recipes for interesting sauces.)

My mother also owns a Joy of Cooking and Complete Step-by-Step Cook Book. Her Joy of Cooking is from 1975, and is white. Mine is a minty green color. She was delighted when she found me my own Complete Step-by-Step Cook Book, since she had told me that if she didn't find one she felt that she should give me her copy someday when I got married. I was touched that she would consider parting with her treasured cook book for my sake.

Joy of Cooking has just about everything. I made Shepherd's Pie the other day, and it was in there. (Mind you, it told me to make and use 'hash' for the filling, but the leftover soup turned into a very nice filling with some thickening and the addition of some veggies.)
Last week I had a rash notion that I should try to make a souffle. As I look through it tonight, titles sound so good-- Pineapple Souffle, Chocolate, Lemon, Fresh Fruit, and Hazelnut Souffle's all seem to beckon my imagination. Of course, my imagination is hampered slightly by the fact that I can't remember what a souffle is supposed to look like, but my imagination has never been one to give up at small obstacles. On page 203, the authors begin the section labeled "About Souffles and Timbales".
Some excerpts:

'The souffle is considered the prima donna of the culinary world...usually based on a Bechamel or cream sauce...must always be kept away from drafts and be served at once in the ovenproof straight sided dish in which it was cooked...If your guests are assembled, prepare the souffle. If not it may be like the beauty Horace Walpole commented on: "She is pretty with the bloom of youth but has no features and her beauty cannot last." '

I quickly realized that I am nowhere near the level of cookery I'd need to be at to even think about trying a souffle. ;-)
But that is the good thing about the Joy of Cooking-- due warning. The authors go through step by step (occasionally telling you, just in case, not to do something), and explain what you need to do. In this case, I realized that what they wanted from me was not realistic because of my cooking skill and the fact that assembling boys and making sure hands are clean, etc, might take more than the ten minutes that it said was the maximum time before serving that a souffle could possibly sit in a warming oven! Still, it was fun to read about.

The Complete Step-by-Step Cook Book has it's own good things, too, though, most notably step by step photographs of each step on recipes they think are hard, or that if you master, you can make the others using those same skills. I had it out last week reading up about how much yeast they used in their bread recipes. My two loaf batches take 1 T, 1 tsp, and 1/2 tsp, and I think it may be too much.

Family recipes, and recipes I have from other books and friends, are being written one by one into a spiral hard cover notebook that a friend gave me, which isn't very methodical, or alphabetized, but which is I think a useful place to write down recipes as I make them-- usually honey instead of sugar, and half whole wheat flour, and sometimes different baking times.

So... what are your favorite cookbooks? :-)

With a recent addition, I now have 17 cousins. :-)
My brothers and I were talking the other day, and we realized that if we each had six kids, our children would have 30 cousins. And we talked about how fun it would be for our kids if we lived close to each other, so our kids could play with their cousins. :-)

Yesterday morning I made Dutch Babies for the first time, and they were a big hit. Thank you so much for the recipe, Gracie! :-)
Several people said that it reminded them of French toast, and everyone liked it, including me. We put honey on it, but some of the family ate it plain, as I ate my first piece, and liked it fine that way.
I did wonder, Gracie-- what size pan do you use? I used our 9" x 13" x 2" glass baking dish, and it worked, but the edges came up a lot so I wondered if you used a larger pan.

Cantus Christi, pg. 426
Nunc dimittis
Luke 2:29-32
Thomas Tallis, The Dorian Service, c. 1550

Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,

according to Thy word.

For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation,

Which Thou has prepared before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles,

and to be the glory of Thy people Israel.

Glory be to the Father,

and to the Son,

and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning,

is now and ever shall be,

world with-out end.

Amen.

Cyberhymnal didn't have this one, but it did have a short biography of the composer, Thomas Tallis, which is where I got the picture. You may recognize the name Tallis, since on the soundtrack for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, track 6 is Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. That theme is Third Mode Melody, I believe, which has Psalm 63 set to it in the Cantus Christi, number 92:

O Lord, My God, Most Earnestly

O Lord, my God, most earnestly

I seek your holy face

Within Your house again to see

the glories of Your grace.

Apart from You I long and thirst

and naught can satisfy;

I wander in a desert land

where all the streams are dry.

You can listen to Third Mode Melody here on the Cyberhymnal (although they have it with other words.)

Finally, the blustery day turned into a blustery night...

... and the blustery night blew the tarp off the chicken tractor three times. We have just come back in, and are hoping that this time the tarp will hold, especially since a gentle rain has begun! :-)
It actually wasn't a blustery day today, though. But my next brother has been reading the Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day book to the younger four boys, so that line popped into mind.



Tonight I have also been working on a dress that I am making. I haven't ever made a dress before, so Mom is helping me along quite a bit.
Right now we are working on the sleeves and the skirt- we were working on the bodice but realized we needed to get fusible interfacing before continuing.
The pattern is Simplicity, pattern 5041, view C (upper left), but I decided to use the sleeves from view D (lower left). The fabric I'm using is a darkish red, similar to the fabric on the dress to the lower right, and with lighter, almost lavender, grapes and leaves sprinkled across it.
I do not plan on making or wearing the hat, but I do want to make the apron. The bonnet looks interesting as well. :-)
Has anyone else made this pattern? A friend told me that she made it and that she had to make the inset smaller to make the shoulders fit.

Mrs. Friedrich posted the lyrics to "O Let My Name Engraven Stand", following Gracie's post on hymns.
We sing "O Let My Name Engraven Stand" from the Cantus Christi, which only has three verses, which are three, four, and seven in the version posted by Mrs. Friedrich.
The Cantus Christi has a different tune than the one mentioned as well, "Invitation", written by Jacob Kimball in 1784.
It is a beautiful tune. In the second half, the parts come in one by one, Bass, Tenor, Soprano, Alto, at the rate of one per measure, similar to "Russia", written by Daniel Read in 1786, which is the tune to 119x in The Book of Psalms for singing, and Psalm 119 (number 158) in the Cantus Christi. Thus the music, which pauses and rests for a moment before the second half, goes from silence to increasing volume as each part comes in, which is very beautiful and vigorous!

I tried to find the tune online, and found The Joe Beasley Memorial Sacred Harp Album, which has mp3s of each track, including Invitation. The recording, which says that it is a recording of the Old Flatwoods Church, Nauvoo, Alabama's night singing in 1954, is quite a bit faster that what we sing and sounds like it has been "embroidered" some, especially at the end. (We also couldn't figure out what verse they were singing.)

I had better success at Amazon, finding this Amazon sample of the last verse. :-) Enjoy.

Airliner fakes emergency so passengers can watch soccer game

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- A chartered jet carrying 289 Gambian soccer fans pretended it needed to make an emergency landing so they could watch their team compete in the FIFA Under 17 World Championships, officials said Wednesday.
The plane, claiming to be low on fuel, landed Tuesday near the stadium in Peru's northern coast city of Piura.

'BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Four army commandos on skis dropped by helicopter Tuesday onto an Antarctic glacier to search for two Argentine men who plunged into a deep ice crevasse in a weekend snowmobiling accident.
Lt. Col. Carlos Flesia said the helicopters also airlifted in ropes, ice anchors and other gear the rescuers from an elite Antarctic Commando unit planned to use in the difficult descent into the 180-foot-deep crack.
"The rescue units were dropped off in an area of solid rocks," said Flesia at Argentina's Antarctica command center in Buenos Aires. He said the four-man team would spend the few remaining hours of sunlight Tuesday trying to ski the 1,500 yards to the crevasse and rappel into the depths.
More than 70 hours had elapsed since the accident, and the unit was working in blustery subzero conditions on the last day of the southern hemisphere winter.
Authorities said the missing men were wearing extreme weather gear and were equipped with radios, but had not been heard from since the accident, and hopes were fading of pulling them out alive.'

The Creek

Sadly, it has gotten dryer since I took this photo, but the creek is still a very peaceful spot, and at least once a week I walk down and enjoy it.
The boys go down more often, and enjoy it more actively... as in wet halfway to their knees and ankle deep in mud. ;-)

A room without books is like a body without a soul. ~ G. K. Chesterton
(here via A Cognizant Discourse)
What a wonderful quote! :-) Kitchens need cook books, and living rooms need lots of books, and bedside tables should be laden with books!

I am thankful for...
...for dial-up internet at our house. No more need for wi-fi coffee shops, although I have enjoyed them (most of them, anyway.)
...my cat, even though she is dashing madly through the kitchen behind me, causing me fear for my feet. She likes to attack feet.
...And the lone firefly (the last one of summer?) that I saw as I was finishing a walk before dinner tonight.

Snaykes and Miscellaneous

Snaykes first...

I found one in my bookshelf (ok, actually, the credit for that find goes to my cat, Oreo), mom found one in her room, and one in the laundry room.
The harmless ring-neck in my bookshelf met an untimely death since we couldn't identify it safely, but the other two, which were also little ring-necks, about four inches long, we released in the upper pasture. There haven't been any more for a while, so perhaps that is all of them.

Miscellaneous

Since we've moved in, I painted the wood paneling (very 70's) in my room white, pulled up the astounding orange and yellow shag carpet, painted the cement, unpacked, created a temporary bookshelf out of four berry boxes (the first snake was wriggling under the duck tape of the bookshelf, trying to escape the cat), and I have almost finished recovering an old comforter.
I'm very happy to have all of my books, furniture, etc, back, and now, if I could only get them arranged just right...

Warning

Lack of internet access will render posting rare for the next unspecified time period.

Moving Day!

Hip hip hooray! It's moving day! :0)

A Mosquito...

...is trying to pierce my laptop. Ok, so it is a warm mass, but I still think someone was sleeping through "Victim ID 101."

Yum

We went to a farmer's market today, after running a few errands, like having the power for the house changed to our name, and bought beautiful tomatoes and fresh yellow squash!

Since my haloscan comments have gone AWOL again, I took the opportunity to switch on blogger comments.
I'm sorry about the lost comments, hopefully blogger comments will be stable and I won't have to change systems again!

Update: Sadly, it wasn't as easy as I thought. Automatic turn on of blogger comments didn't work due to some html issue. I tried to manually fix it but couldn't, so I changed templates!

It feels like it might rain.

Update: But it didn't. ;-)

Notes from the

Nefarious Goggled Creature

which comes out of the

Depths of the Pool

(sounds like a book, doesn't it?)

My goggles are good. They keep water out of my nose and eyes and keep my eyes from being irritated by the chlorine in the pool water.

However, they do have one problem. Since they’re a mask type goggle, when you move your lower face you lose the seal and water goes up the mask and up your nose and into your eyes. Not good.

Why would that be a problem, you ask? Why would I need to move my face while under water?

Well, you see, I’m not so good at keeping a straight face. When I tickle someone, for example, I have to smile. So when I zoom from the depths, or at least the deep end, to come up and tickle some small persons toes, dangling temptingly in the water as they lazily float in the tubes, I can’t help smiling. And then I get water up my nose. I’ve had several aborted attempts to tickle feet because of that. *sigh*

And they floated along, oblivious to the danger they had escaped!

Beauty

I stumbled across a beautiful post over at The Deliberate Agrarian today.

Here is a taste:

"Of course, it is normal for people to lie on a beach, but I am in my garden. Men do not recline on the earth like this unless they are physically sick, or, perhaps, mentally ill. An ambulance or police car might arrive on the scene. I might be taken away for closer examination.

It is a bright, but overcast, morning. The clouds are fluffy and dense. I open my eyes and gaze straight up, through my sunglasses. But I do not see any clouds. I see continents. I am looking down from the heavens. These foreign lands are milkwhite and dapple-gray against the bright blue oceans."

Older news. But it's still funny.

Star Wars Fans Injured with home made light sabers.

They both survived. In our family we often ask small ones "Did you learn anything?" Let us hope they did.

In other news...

I got glasses yesterday. Last Thursday I had my eyes checked.

Eye doctor: "So, cover your left eye, and tell me what the lowest row of letters that you can read is."
Me: "Um... I can't see any letters. Only a gray blur."
Eye doctor: "Oh..."

So now I have glasses. They're a little odd still, as the doctor warned they might be. But overall it is good. :-) And I haven't scratched them yet.

Summer

Summer is here, officially here.

Fireflies, fireworks, and fires for marshmallows. Rain storms bringing a blessed breath of cool air.

Warm muggy days filled with slow trains going by, and we run to watch them, standing, sticky but happy, by the tracks, waving at the engineer. They almost always wave back, smiling. When the cars (Sante Fe, Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific), have all passed by us, the ding ding ding has stopped, the waiting cars, if there are any, have gone, we walk slowly back over the grass and clover of the field and find our water glasses.

Some days, like today, we go to the playground, and sit on the swings. It is really too hot to swing, though, so we halfheartedly kick our feet and stay hanging over the same patch of white hot gravel. The pool beckons from the other side of the fence, calling to us. “Come, swim! Be cooled off!”

The pool is treacherous, we know by now. Entire days spent in it give sunburn, headaches, ears full of water, red eyes, and wrinkled toes. It is best to save the pool for the sweltering heat of the afternoon, and it is still morning now. We wait, and sit in the shade, and drink ice water.

The mother cardinal has been sitting on a nest. The eggs hatched out a few days ago. Quiet peeks have so far not resulted in being dive bombed by angry birdie parents.

Yesterday we caught two turtles. Their stubby back legs reminded me of pictures of dinosaurs. The turtle we caught first escaped while we were swimming, and the search for it found the second turtle, smaller, but still interesting and still able to bite my brother, which it did.

Summer is here, definitely here.

"Eighty-eight cubic metres of card-index," said Mr. Foster with relish, as they entered. "Containing all the relevant information," added the director. "Brought up to date every morning." "And co-ordinated every afternoon." "On the basis of which they make their calculations."

~ Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

I was flipping through the copy of Brave New World that I got at the local Goodwill (5 books for 95 cents!), when I saw this. 'Card index?' I thought. Took me a minute to figure out what they meant. ;-)

Toad's list has blown away...

...and Frog sensibly suggests that they chase after it.

"No!" shouted Toad. "I cannot do that."

"Why not?" asked Frog.

"Because," wailed Toad, "running after my list is not one of the things that I wrote on my list of things to do!"

My seven year old brother was reading this to me this morning.
I smiled sheepishly when he read this part, because sometimes I, like Toad, write a list and try to hold to it despite changing circumstances when I ought to be more flexible! ;-)

The Son of God Goes Forth to War

The Son of God goes forth to war,
A kingly crown to gain;
His blood red banner streams afar:
Who follows in His train?
Who best can drink his cup of woe,
Triumphant over pain,
Who patient bears his cross below,
He follows in His train.

That martyr first, whose eagle eye
Could pierce beyond the grave;
Who saw his Master in the sky,
And called on Him to save.
Like Him, with pardon on His tongue,
In midst of mortal pain,
He prayed for them that did the wrong:
Who follows in His train?

A glorious band, the chosen few
On whom the Spirit came;
Twelve valiant saints, their hope they knew,
And mocked the cross and flame.
They met the tyrant’s brandished steel,
The lion’s gory mane;
They bowed their heads the death to feel:
Who follows in their train?

A noble army, men and boys,
The matron and the maid,
Around the Savior’s throne rejoice,
In robes of light arrayed.
They climbed the steep ascent of Heav’n,
Through peril, toil and pain;
O God, to us may grace be given,
To follow in their train.

This is one of my mother's very favorite hymns, and one of mine as well. We sang it this morning in church, and one of the little boys requested it during the practice time after church, so we were able to sing it twice! :-)
The tune at Cyberhymnal isn't the one it is set to in the Cantus Christi, but I recognized it from a different Psalm. ;-)

You know you're in trouble...

When you try to mapquest an address and it pulls up directions, at the bottom of which it reads:

"There are .50 miles between your ending location and the end of your driving directions. Use maps to get from your ending location to the end of your route. "

Blueberry Pancakes...

...are really, really good. :-) Especially when you picked the blueberries.

"Soul, Adorn Thyself with Gladness"

Soul, adorn thyself with gladness,
Leave behind all gloom and sadness;
Come into the daylight's splendor,
There with joy thy praises render
Unto Him whose grace unbounded
Hath this woundrous supper founded.
High o'er all the heavens He reigneth,
Yet to dwell with thee He deigneth.

Hasten as a bride to meet Him
And with loving reverence greet Him;
For with words of life immortal
Now He knocketh at thy portal.
Haste to ope the gates before Him,
Saying, while thou dost adore Him,
Suffer, Lord, that I receive Thee,
And I nevermore will leave Thee.

He who craves a precious treasure
Neither cost nor pain will measure;
But the priceless gifts of heaven
God to us hath freely given.
Though the wealth of earth were proffered,
Naught would buy the fits here offered:
Christ's true body, for thee riven,
And His blood, for thee once given.

Ah, how hungers all my spirit
For the love I do not merit!
Oft have I, with sighs fast thronging,
Thought upon this food with longing,
In the battle well-nigh worsted,
For this cup of life have thirsted,
For the Friend who here invites us
And to God Himself unites us.

In my heart I find ascending
Holy awe, with rapture blending,
As this mystery I ponder,
Filling all my soul with wonder,
Bearing witness at this hour
Of the greatness of God’s power;
Far beyond all human telling
Is the power within Him dwelling.

Jesus, Sun of Life, my Splendor,
Jesus, Thou my Friend most tender,
Jesus, Joy of my desiring,
Fount of life, my soul inspiring, --
At Thy feet I cry, my Maker,
Let me be a fit partaker
Of this blessed food from heaven,
For our good, Thy glory, given.

Lord, by love and mercy driven
Thou hast left Thy throne in heaven
On the cross for me to languish
And to die in bitter anguish,
To forego all joy and gladness
And to shed Thy blood in sadness.
By this blood, redeemed and living,
Lord, I praise Thee with thanksgiving.

Jesus, Bread of Life, I pray Thee,
Let me gladly here obey Thee.
By Thy love I am invited,
Be Thy love with love requited;
From this Supper let me measure,
Lord, how vast and deep love's treasure.
Though the gifts Thou here dost give me
As Thy guest in heaven receive me.

Author: Johann Franck, 1649
Composer: Johann Crueger, 1649
Tune: "Schmucke Dich"Number 214 in the Cantus Christi.

This is another one that has been ‘haunting’ me since we sang it Sunday.
It has a very beautiful tune, one that stays with you.
Both my mom and I have found ourselves humming it during the day.

Unfortunately it wasn’t available at CyberHymnal, although I did find similar words (and an extra verse) from a Lutheran Hymnal site.

I warned each of my brothers that I was not in any mood to be flipped as I cautiously dipped my toes in the water while holding the floating ring in the water to keep it from floating away.
I put on my red straw hat, lowered myself into the ring, and began to adjust myself in it.
I began to lose my balance, and lean backwards.
With a stifled screech...
I flipped over backwards, losing my hat, completely submerging myself, and entertaining all of my brothers, who had kindly refrained from tipping me over -- not, mind you, that they had much opportunity, since I couldn't have been on there for a whole minute.

Later, my next brother, who is eleven, decided that I and my floatie were a merchant ship from England with a cargo of hair clips, and that he and our youngest brother, who is six, were my defenders, on the other floatie.
They, noble warriors on a black round battleship, did their best to protect me against the other two boys (for those keeping count, four boys were playing, and one was 'lizarding' in the sun on a chair).
The other two were pirates, doing their level best to flip me over and out of my ship, or, if that were not possible, to bombard me with cannonball-caused splashes. Our battleship was armed with a noodle, however, and they were blowing into one end and shooting water out the other. Not that it really was a match for the other two, with their cannonballs, splashing, and trying to upset both ships.
I think we would have eventually fought them off, but Mom called a truce, and we resumed our more peaceful pooltime activities, such as converting both floaties from ships into train cars, and then seeing how fast we could go.
Pools are so much more fun when you have lots of siblings to play with... even if you do get splashed more.

What Wondrous Love is This?

I was singing this earlier today from the Cantus Christi, along with some others. It is so beautiful and keeps coming back to mind.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,To bear the dreadful curse for my soul.

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing;
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb Who is the great “I Am”;
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing;
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on.

Words from the CyberHymnal, so I didn't have to type it all in, but it's also in the Cantus Christi.

Blogging in the News

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Web logs, or blogs, may be a powerful new force in U.S. politics but they have not displaced traditional media in terms of information and influence, a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project revealed on Monday.

...

Read the rest here.

Chai tea. Journal. Pen. Sunset. = Perfect. 

This has been one of my more interesting weeks, technologically speaking.
So far, my wi-fi card died (well, either it died, or the port died) and so I now have a spiffy USB wi-fi...thingee, thanks to my dad. Then, I've been getting this blue screen that pops up when I'm online, but when you randomly push a key, it goes away.

Odd. But today's event really was the scariest. I think my laptop is enjoying this way too much. Somehow, my hard drive wiggled loose a bit, and so my computer gave me all these messages about not having a boot disk, and Drive C having disappeared.

I was on the verge of believing my computer had died and lost all my writing (this would only be the third time or so that it's tried to play around with me and make me think that!) when I noticed that there was an odd projection on the left side of the laptop. Voila!

Problems solved... for now.

My favorite Van Gogh, I think. :-) 

"...food is not medicine. Yes, someone might answer, but the food is being administered to her. She cannot feed herself. Exactly, and note where this logic takes you. Babies cannot feed themselves either. There is nothing here that cannot serve equally well as an argument for starving an unacceptable infant. And if what constitutes "acceptable" or "unacceptable" is to be waved off as an "intensely private issue," just know that you have opened the door to starving people because they have Downs, a club foot, or simply because she is a daughter and not a son."
~ Douglas Wilson, here

Wind blows my hair into my eyes. A canyon swerves and slithers below me, and I hold tightly to my seven year old brother’s hand. For once he doesn’t mind, looking down from the rocky, craggy overlook down, down, down at the river far below.
A bumpy dirt road makes our Suburban tilt and jolt and jiggle us, to the pure delight of all five brothers. One gives me an ecstatic thumbs up as we jounce over a particularly large rock. Then we give the rest of the road a miss, and turn around and go back, this time climbing up the hill.
We laugh on the way back as we remember what we read on the funny sign, the one that we rolled by on the way in. The boys disbelieved the picture, they didn’t think it was possible for a road to be open and still have the warnings it did. I hoped all the pilots were still lingering over their Sunday dinners, not testing equipment.
The road back winds through cattle country, through hilly land that is dotted with irrigation equipment in the valleys and cattle on the hills. Barbed wire borders the road, and a house stands in the middle of three fields and a narrow, sloping hill, black cattle feeding spread out over it. The house is two story, painted white, surrounded by trees, protecting from the playful wind, which wants to loosen shingles and slip dust through cracks when you aren’t looking. We are well past the house by the time I finish telling about it.
Now the lands are gently, gently rolling. We pass twenty ravens, cooly stalking through the grass, socializing on a sunny afternoon. Stacks of hay bales stand near another house. Far away mountains look purple blue in the distance, like huge piles of blueberries, the snow being a liberal amount of whipped cream. Farm equipment I can’t identify draws my attention closer. Tall trees that I likewise am puzzled to name reach for the sky, each branch reaching up, instead of branching out as I expect trees to. A field that was hay, and has already been harvested, gleams in the sun like gold confetti. A red barn is seen and then just as suddenly disappears around the bend.
Now there are mountains ahead of us as well as on the side, and we can see a lake, as blue as the mountains in the distance, but bordered by tan and green fields. The essence of cow assaults my nose, reminding me of laundry, the wet rags sharing and compounding
their odor with everything else.
But, as I write this, at any rate, it is almost time for lunch, so I’ll give up odorous comparisons and contemplate such joys as sandwiches and spinach dip, of which the green hills, the color light and creamy, remind me.
I try to think of some way to compare trees with sandwiches, but it eludes them. Although they do remind me of salads I’ve had, swirling vegetables that I classify as "greens". Although sometimes they’re purple-ish red. But never taller than I am, although I am on the short side! ;-)

My laptop power cord has died... so my infrequent posts are about to become much less frequent for the next two weeks or so!

My dentist's office has wi-fi... wow.

Right now I'm toying with the idea of trying to be published, or to sell my work.

If anyone knows of a writer's magazine, either an e-zine or other, that takes contributions, whether it pays or not, I'd be interested. I'm writing short stories, poems, and some short nonfiction.

I love photo editing... :-) 

R.C. Sproul's recent post reminded me of how surprised I was myself when I found that in Germany, the unemployed on benefits are required to take whatever employment is available.

A second cousin of mine, a woman, middle aged, was unemployed when I was over there this past summer, and talking to her it emerged that she was told she had to work at an esc0rt service, since it was what was available.
Whatever is available, she has to do— whether backbreaking labor, ill suited to her age, or humiliating work, such as esc0rt services or worse. She was obviously unhappy with the situation, the product of a socialist government.
(I'm not in direct contact with my German relatives, so I don't know whether she found another position. I would imagine so, since I think my Oma would have mentioned it otherwise.)

I wonder now... will our own government take the example given by Germany? If you're paying unemployed people, it seems only fair that they be required to actually work, not just make a token “effort” to find work.

I think the root problem is not only that the government pays you to be unemployed, but that you took the money. He who pays the piper picks the tune, right? Government money comes with strings attached.

R.C. points out that the "real problem isn’t legalized prostitution, the selling of bodies, but the welfare state, and the selling of souls."

Hmm.

Jambalaya
Ingredients:
5 cups long grained white rice
10 ½ cups water
1 stick butter
¼ teaspoon pepper
3 shakes cayenne pepper
½-1 tsp salt
Onions (chopped & dried)
Green onions
about 1 tsp. parsley (chopped & dried)
Meat – precooked chicken, sausage, hot dogs, etc.
Optional – 1-2 tomatoes, or 1 cup spaghetti/tomato sauce. I don't like tomato sauce, so I put less in.

When I made this tonight, I put in three round sausage patties, cut up, and two and a half sliced Polish sausages. Precooked teriyaki chicken would work; hot dogs do too in a pinch, but they lack the flavoring, which goes into the rice while cooking.

1. Water in pan on high.
2. As it comes to a boil, add everything but rice.
3. When it boils, add rice, turn to low, and cook for 18-20 minutes without taking off the lid.

Serves 8, three adults and five hungry boys.

All nature, all creation is covenantal. This table is at the center of that covenant reality,
but it is not a different kind of thing. It is not that mystical spiritual things happen here that do not happen elsewhere. Everywhere we go, all day long, in everything we do, we are partaking covenantally. When we come to this table, this does not change.
This is simply another way of saying that there is nothing magical about this Table. But do not draw the wrong conclusions from this. The whole world is magical, the whole world is suffused with the glory of God, the whole creation invites us to fellowship with Him.

~ Pastor Wilson,