Tuesday morning and it is going to be another scorcher today with a feels like of 105. It was that way yesterday and I worked out in my flowers and mowed my yard. Not going to work out there today though. We have stuff to do today because we are leaving on vacation tomorrow morning. We are heading to the Upper peninsula of Michigan through the weekend, and then heading over to Ohio Amish country for three days before returning home. 

That brings me to my next item, I don’t know how much blogging I will be doing  for the next week. It’s not a big deal I reckon. There are only a couple of people that actually read this stuff and then only sporadically. So, I reckon not much is lost, if anything at all. Anyway, if you do follow my blogs, thank you, and don’t give up, I just don’t know what my schedule will be. 

I spent a good deal of time out in in my flower bed yesterday. It is the one next to my raised garden beds. We’ve been saying for weeks that we really need to get out there  but haven’t done it. Consequently, it got terribly overgrown with weeds. But I took care of part of it yesterday. I thought I had some Preen to put down on the freshly turned soil to help prevent more weeds but I couldn’t find any. I did manage to get a blister on the webbing between my thumb and index finger. I haven’t done that in many a year. \I should have worn my gloves up didn’t. 

So today, we need to collect our stuff and pack our suitcases for the trip. We also need to go by the bank and take out some money and then I need to run up to the church and pick up some communion supplies. I always do a short worship service with Holy Communion included for our reunions. The group we are going to meet is a bunch of the guys and wives that I was stationed with back in the late 1960’s. There are lot less of us these days and COVID hasn’t helped at all. But, we are all in our 70’s now and I suspect the days of travel and reunions are coming to a close. We have lost several of the guys and several of the wives too. Several have cancer and or other life ending things going on in their lives. But, I’m grateful that we have been able to maintain contact with one another over the years. Small, close military units create a special bond that no-one can explain. But it exists. Salute. 

I’ve filled the bird feeders and they are busy today. They will be empty by the time we get home again and they guests will be waiting for me to fill them up again. It’s a vicious cycle I tell ya’. LOL

Time to get the cloths out of the dryer and pull out the suitcase. Until next time, have a blessed week. I pray for peace in the world and I pray for peace in your soul. 

 

 Good morning, what a beautiful morning it is. It is sunny and currently 77 degrees and the breeze keeps the Corinthian Chimes playing and the garden Whirly-gig turning. All of that will change before the day is over if the predictions are right and we’ll have rain yet today. I don’t really care one way or the other. 

Yesterday Ms. Kate and I had ours selves a “day-date”. She has been wanting to go tp PF Chang’s restaurant for a meal. Our closest one is over on the east side of Louisville, KY, maybe two and a half hours away. It was a beautiful day so why not have a go at it. Since we would be passing very close to where Julie works, I called her and asked if we could pick her and Jm up something  from the restaurant and of course she said yes. It’s a favorite of theirs too. Since we were going to see her, I boxed up a bunch of our tomatoes to take along and Kate had bought something for Julie that she knew she would like and we took that along too. All-in-all it was a really great trip and we were back here by 1500 hours, just in time for nap time. We feel so very blessed that Julie and Jim live this close to us that we can be there in a couple of hours to see them. The only problem is that they are always working. He’s a day-time factory worker but has a lot of overtime, and she is the bookstore manager for a college and has not near enough help which means she puts in way too many hours, plus is in her senior year of college herself, hoping to graduate next June. So those two hardly see each other, let alone us. 

I really need to fill bird feeders today. The feeders are down to empty or bare minimum and I have a lot of frustrated birds and squirrels out there this morning. The good thing is that the starling gang is finding empty feeders so maybe they will go away. Although I think they post a sentry somewhere as a lookout for when I do fill them. We need to mix up some fresh hummingbird food and refresh those feeders. We have not had hummingbirds for most of the summer but suddenly the are around. We have three that are frequently buzzing around here and I don’t want give them a chance to go elsewhere. 

We are four weeks away from the 100th year anniversary on one of my churches. We have a committee that has worked diligently putting together a celebration. Yesterday she texted me and told me that she had come down with COVID despite having been vaccinated. Bless her heart. I really hope that it will be a mild case for her and she can get over it quickly. She’s probably in panic mode because she knows how much she has to do. She is a workaholic like so many people. She follows the example I have always used; —- if you want something done — ask a busy person. Prayers for her!!!

I need to check out the two containers that I planted potatoes in and see if they are good or if I waited too long and let them rot in the ground. I also have a bunch of other outside work to do so I need to get off my duff and get on it. I hope you have a blessed day and I pray you will take time to go to your house of worship and enjoy the comfort of sitting in God’s house with like believers for awhile.

Until next time. Peace. 

 Good morning. I hope your Wednesday is starting off well. I know I haven’t written in a few days; I’ve been busy watching the world fall apart and just have not been in the mood to write. 

It’s no news to you that the country of Afghanistan has once again fallen under the full control of the Taliban. If you don’t know really who they are, they are the Islamic Religious extremist tribal lords. This is the same terrorist  faction that attacked the United States 20 years ago next month on 9/11. Our country has been over there for the past 20 years trying to help the legitimate country defeat the Taliban and help them build their nation. Countless numbers of our military men and women have been killed or have literally left parts of themselves over there when their legs and arms were blown off by IEDs etc. Our president announced that we were pulling out of the county and it literally took ten weeks for the Taliban to overrun the country because the Afghan political leadership fled the country and the army threw down their weapons. The Taliban hates Christians with a passion and a killing spree will begin. The women will once again lose all rights that they have gained in the past twenty years. All of the millions of dollars worth of sophisticated  weaponry that our gov’t has given the Afghan military in the past twenty years is now in the hands of the Taliban which make them a formidable force in the region. My heart hurts for the people of that country. They are headed back into the dark ages where it is “bow down or die”. 

Elsewhere, The country of Haiti got hit with another 7.4 earthquake and there are currently 2000 known dead with thousands still injured, still buried in the rubble and or unaccounted for. The earthquake was followed up immediately by a hurricane. 

In this country, the Delta variant of the Coronavirus is sweeping the country at an alarming rate. It is attacking people that have not been vaccinated and mostly children. False information, a lack of trust, and constantly confusing guidance is keeping far too many adults from getting the vaccine. Ms. Kate and I got our shots as soon as we were eligible. Now the government/big pharmaceutical is saying that maybe we need a third shot to fully protect ourselves. No wonder people are pissed off. 

So, as I said, I’ve spent the past few days watching the world fall apart. On the other side,  I had my blood work done for my physical that I’m having this afternoon and all of my results came back good, with of course anything that had to do with sugar. It’s not “terrible” but it’s obvious I eat too many carbs and sugars. Three or four DQ Blizzards a week, and cookies and corn on the cob etc will raise the levels. We’ll see what the doctor says this afternoon. 

The Backyard Buffet is is alive and well and lots of visitors come by constantly. Our hummingbirds are back and they fuss and fight and provide good entertainment. 

So that’s it for today. I hope you have a wonderful week. Don’t let the horrible things going on ion this world get you down. Instead continually pray for God’s calming hand to wave across the planet and straighten things out. 

Sending you prayers and blessings. Peace. 

 Good morning, it is Friday the 13th. Does that make you nervous? Are you superstitious?? I always just figured it was the day before Saturday the 14th. It looks like it might come a rain and the radar shows a bit of “green and yellow heading out way. It won’t amount to much I’m sure. 

Yesterday was a sad day. I did the funeral for Karen, our St. Paul’s church organist. It was very well attended, as one would expect. That’s two funerals in less than ten days. I can be done with that part of the job for awhile, thank you. There are much more pleasant parts of my job that I like to do. One of those was last night. We had a “New Members” meeting last night for the parish last night. I had four new members for one church and one new member for the other. That’s very exciting. We’re going to wait until the churches go back to worshipping separately to induct them into their respective churches. That will be October 10th. 

I’m taking today off! — Well at least I’m not in my office doing any church stuff. I have “home work” to do like mow the yard, do some weed eating, take Ms. Kate and go appliance hunting for a new dishwasher, and maybe even go buy her a new computer. Our dishwasher is ten years old and it has basically given up the ghost. We are doing dishes by hand. I understand that people still do that. LOL But, no more dishes than we have a day, it is no big deal. So maybe we’ll not rush into it. 

He computer, on the other hand, has become aggravating. It just shuts down while she is doing something or it turns itself off without notice. Thank goodness we aren’t still in the day when you had tp save and “ship” your computer when you leave it or risk losing everything. Granted, 95% of what she uses a computer for is plying Klondike and Bingo. The other part is Facebook and shopping. But she has more bad luck with computers and technology than anyone I know. I’m constantly having to go make it work for her again. Before her stroke several years ago, she was my “go to” for anything computer related. No it is totally reversed. The problem with that is that I’m only really guessing as to what may or may not be wrong with them. Thank goodness Julie comes over once in awhile. We rely her to be our techie. 

Ms. Kate taped the season end of Mountain men last night so we could watch it together, and she is ready to do that. So, I’m out of here. Have a blessed day. Peace. 

Re doing dishes by hand

 Ugh! It’s hot and muggy already and the day has barely gotten started. Well, actually it’s one third over because it is 0830. But the feels like temp is already up to 86 degrees. I’ve been sitting out in the sunporch  of course, watching all of the birds at the Backyard Buffett. I have a lot of finches, cardinals, sparrows\, woodpeckers, and a blue jay. I had a squirrel here for a bit but he has moved on for awhile I guess. Maybe a neighbor has a better selection, although I would find that hard to believe. They get the best of the best here at the Buffet. 

As planned yesterday, Ms. kate and I did go out and pick the garden yesterday. We got a bunch of okra but she says it is too big. I don’t know why that is bad but I guess there is a size limit before it gets tough or something. Hey, I just plant and harvest; I don’t cook. 

I’m sitting here eating Honey Oat Granola pieces like i like it or something. I’m not much for granola but this stuff is pretty tasty. She bought it at Fresh Market and it’s called Granola Breakup and it is in chunks, sort of like little cookies, and I never say “no” to cookies, unless of course they are soft cookies. Then you can have them. But, I may just have to get myself a bowl of yogurt and put some of this in it for my breakfast. I have a cantaloupe that we need to prep today too. All this healthy food might just do me in. LOL

This evening we have funeral visitation to do fro the Paul family and Ms. Karen. The visitation goes from 4-8 today and then again from 1-2 tomorrow until the funeral starts. I think it will be a packed house even though it is a mid-day event. She was dearly loved. 

I got a good start on my sermon for the 22nd yesterday but I need to finish that today. Time is closing in on me with lots of appointments and stuff before our vacation at the end of the month. We have dental, we have optometry, I have a physical, all next week. So, I need to get my writing done and my sermon prep. I actually have to finish this one, and then one for Sept 5th, which is Labor Day weekend and the Sunday after we get back. Time does just keep rolling along. 

So, before it rolls too much further, I guess I’ll drop off and head downstairs to my office. I hope you have a pleasant day full of God’s grace and glory. Peace. 

 Good morning on this quasi-cloudy but hot already day. Today and the next couple of days are supposed to be miserable weather days. Although we had some really beneficial rain Sunday night into Monday, it’s going to dry out rather quickly with the heat. We are going under a heat advisory starting at 11:00 am and going until 8:00 pm tonight. Then we do it all over again on Wednesday and Thursday. I need to get my gathering basket and go cut okra, cucumbers, and tomatoes this morning before that heat sets in then I can stay in and not worry about it. 

The Backyard Buffet has ben really busy this morning. Mainly it has ben the finches and other of the smaller birds that have been here but they have been here a lot. There is a lot of chirping and cheeping going on out there. It is cute to watch, especially my wrens. They are such quick and animated little fellows. They hop here and there. They get down in the flower pots and dig for something, but I don’t have any idea what they are looking for. Then they will set up on the edge of the flower pot and just sing their little hearts out. They are so cute. I also have maybe a half dozen cardinals and then also several varieties of woodpeckers\. It is seldom dull sitting out there in the sunporch. I always think of my mother-in-law when I am out there. She was an avid bird enthusiast and would have loved sitting out there with me watching the birds. Actually, we have her to thank for our sunporch. She left us money to have it built when she passed. So, I should call that the Adelia Parton Room I guess. 

Well, Ms. Karen’s funeral is written and planned. The organist haas the program and has already practiced the music. I’ve gotten so many calls from folks wanting to know if we should do this or do that. The strange thing is that as i said yesterday, these are all “Karen questions”. Karen would have answered all of these questions and handled most of it herself. She is certainly going to be missed in so very many ways. Other folks are going to have to “step up” as they say, but I can see that happening already. 

Ms. Kate and I went to the movies last night. We went to see the new Disney movie, “Jungle Cruise”  with Dwayne Johnson. It was a typical Dwayne Johnson action comedy. The theater was empty. There was one other couple in there besides us. Needless to say, social distancing was not a problem. 

That’s it for today/. Try to stay cool. Peace. 

 Monday, August 9th; one full week of August down the chute. It has been a rainy morning. We have gotten 2 inches of rain since midnight and we really needed it. This will help perk things up again; flowers, garden, yard, weeds!!!!! The bad thing is that once the rain stops, we can expect the “Muggies” to set in as the humidity rises. 

I was sad to wake up to the news this morning that Karen my church organist passed away this morning at 0600. I say I’m sad, but actually I’m thankful that the family doesn’t have to to continue to sit there waiting for her to draw her last breath. Kaaren was well ready to pass and she did so out of pain. The hospice facility she was in is a fantastic place. But, I’m going to miss her as are we all. I anticipated her passing today or tomorrow at the latest so I wrote her funeral service last night. The kids will be making arrangements today, but I expect there will be a funeral on Thursday at the latest. Rest In Peace Ms. Karen. You have certainly earned it. 

I’m going to leave you here and get busy doing some other things. I hope you have a blessed day. Peace. 

 Good morning, it’s hard to believe that it is Saturday morning already. This has been a busy week for all of us. I think I told you that we were planning an overnight trip up to Nashville, Indiana. We did that, we took Karen, my sister-in-law law with us. We stayed at the Brown County Inn there in Nashville. It was an okay place. I guess our only complaint was that the staff was a bit noisy first thin in the morning as they got ready to do their stuff. But other than that it was fine. We went to the place that Ms. Kate was looking for and and bought a new piece of yard art for the flowerbed. It looks nice out there. Thursday morning we got ready. And headed back home with mission accomplished. On the way we took a side trip out to Johnson, IN for Creeks farm so we could pick up a couple of cantaloupes and a watermelon. Then we came on home and I did some writing. 

Friday, I had a funeral to do mid-day so that takes up about three and a half hours. Then, I had gotten a call that my organist, Karen, had taken areal turn for the worse. The doctors had called the family in for her. I went to the hospital and spent three hours with them. She didn’t pass yesterday or last night, but it could be any minute. So, their family is all doing death watch. My heart breaks for them. Karen has been the anchor of their lives, and frankly, an anchor for that church. She lost her husband 14 years ago and has raised her kids into young adults that are great kids too. \

So today, I need to put my work jeans on and go out and mow the lawn, do some seed eating, fill the feeders for the birds, maybe dig my potatoes and I don’t know what else. There isi always something to do around here. 

Did I tell you that the house behind us sold? There was a lady that lived there for years by herself. Her name is or was Margret. I don’t know if she is alive or not. She was never a friendly neighbor particularly. I know she went into a nursing home some months ago. Hr son took over the estate and sold the house. It sold last week or maybe earlier this week, I don’t know. But the new owners had a six foot privacy fence put up immediately around the place. I guess they don’t want any neighbors looking at them. They should have bought out in the country instead of a subdivision,  Oh well, not my problem. My only hope is that they will take down that cypress tree that dumps crap over in my yard all the time. 

Time to quit for today. Have a great weekend. Peace. 

 Good morning on this warm Tuesday morning. I think it is going to be a good day, not too hot and the humidity is still tolerable. 

Well, yesterday was an eclectic day. I started out by going to the hospital to sit with Pastor Art’s wife while he was having hip replacement surgery. If you don’t know, Art is my pastor, and he and I were co-pastors for a couple of years. The surgery was late but eventually happened. He’s still there though because he developed a fever so they ran everybody out and did a COVID test on him and put him in isolation. The test came back negative of course. 

Any way, while I was gone, Ms. Kate did on-line shopping for our groceries at Sam’s and at Walmart. The Sam’s order went perfect but the Walmart order was all screwed up. First of all the store she ordered from was way on the other side of town and not in the best neighborhood. But, we were okay. When they started putting the order in the trunk for us, they kept putting in more and more bags. As it turned out, her order had gotten doubled  some how and instead of the 39 items she had ordered, we had 78. Needless to say, we have plenty of bread and bagels, and eggs and four coconut cakes, etc. What a mess. But, it’s all good. 

Then, I had the funeral issues to deal with for a funeral on Friday. I’m still waiting of the wife of the deceased to finish up with their part so I-can get an obituary. I wrote the majority of the service last night. Hopefully that will come shortly. I’m gone the next two days so I don’t have time to do much with it and I hate last minute stuff. 

Last minute stuff is though whT I think my day will be full of today. So, I better quit and get started on it. Blogging will be sporadic the rest of the week so I pray your week will be fully blessed. Peace.