Good morning indeed! It is a beautiful Saturday morning. The sun is shining, it is 73 degrees, the wind is calm, Julie is here with Auggie, my coffee is hot and life is good. The best news of all is that Stephanie made it through surgery just fine and the doctors do not think the tumor was cancerous. She even texted us this morning and said she is doing well. I give all praise and glory to God as His hands guided the hands of the surgeons and we pray for a speedy and full recovery.

We have lots of visitors this morning at the backyard buffet. I filled all of the feeders yesterday afternoon so we have had a great variety of birds today. At least I don't have the problem that Ms. Kate's cousin has; he has wild turkeys eating out of his bird feeders. He posted a picture of them. It might be fun to see once or twice, but I suspect that might get old after a bit. I would think they would go through a lot of food.

I'm going to quit now. I may or may not get back to you today. I need to get to the local butcher shop and pick up some fresh chicken to fix on the grill today. It is a perfect day for it. Have a great weekend. Stop long enough to give praise to God and be grateful for God's blessings. Peace

My heart weeps for our nation once again as societal madness has once again run rampant. Within the last 36 hours two seemingly innocents black males were shot and killed by police and eleven policemen were ambushed and gunned down as they stood and monitored a peaceful demonstration that was being held because of the first two shootings. Four of those officers have died so far.

What has happened to our national thought process of living as a peaceful nation where we take care of one another, where we look out for one another, where we don't profile people because they are a different skin color? When did we throw away 50 years of social progress and jump back to the 1950s and 60s? I went through those years and I remember well the race riots and the hatred, but I somehow convinced myself that maybe we had advanced in our civilization rather than regressed. I know I sound like an old white guy conservative but I think the answer is that when we threw God out of our lives, out of our schools and daily thought and language for "something less offensive"  --- God took the best of our humanity along with Him and left us to try to regain our purpose as a people. We have become like the Hebrews following Moses around in the desert, and once again we are looking for the promised land.

Our family is a all standing by in prayer today across the country as "4th daughter"
 Stephanie goes into surgery this afternoon. I think she is scheduled for a 1230 surgery and it is supposed to take a few hours. Her husband Chris will let us know as soon as he knows anything about results. We would appreciate you joining us in prayer for a successful surgery and a complete recovery.

In the short amount of time that I have been sitting here writing this blog we had a storm come and go complete with thunder, lightening, and heavy rain. It is now over for the time being and my Weather Channel app shows the radar to be clear for the next while. I can see that my feeders are all empty for the most part but the back yard is too sloppy right now to deal with it. I guess all my feathered and hairy friends will just have to wait a while longer. There is still some food out there; they just need to be less "picky" if they want to eat from my buffet this morning. I just had a squirrel actually get up on a feeder, check it out and find that it was empty, and then come bounding over to my sunporch door and look in at me. Yeh, they know I work for them!!!

Between storms, Stephanie's surgery and national societal madness, I've had enough bad for today. I need to regroup my thoughts, put my full trust in the Lord and turn my frown upside down. My wrens are hopping around on the porch being cute as a button and just maybe that I'd a sign from God that things are going to be better. I pray for peace in this nation and in my life and in yours. God bless you today.

It is 1400 in the afternoon and Ms. Kate and I are sitting in the sunroom in the middle of a severe storm watching it pour and blow and thunder like crazy. Should we be maybe in the basement ---- perhaps. But here we are, --- trusting God will take care of us and looking at the radar that says the severe portion of this storm will be short lived. There isn't a lot of lightening with this storm and that is a good thing. We have really had enough rain to last us for awhile but we are also fortunate that it hasn't been worse. Sixty five miles south of us in Madisonville, KY had major flooding last night from this same storm series. So, I give God my gratitude for our blessings and protection.

Ms. Kate and I had a busy morning. She had a beauty appointment this morning at 0900 to get her hair trimmed so I went along and went across the street to my barbershop and got my hair cut. Then we went and did some banking, then we had pedicures done. After that it was time for brunch so we went to Denny's for our meal. By then it was time to come on home.

For my personal news --- last evening I met with the combined councils of my two churches and I tendered my resignation as their pastor. It is a very bittersweet moment for us. I have been there for twelve years. But, I decided about six months ago that it was time for me to quit working. In two weeks I will be 72 years old. After thirty two years in the Air Force, two years of training to be a licensed minister, twelve years in the pulpit, --- I'm tired. I love the people of the parish and they have accepted us as family since the day I started there, But even the best things must come to an end at some point. So, my last service and sermon will be November the 28th, 2016. After that I will no longer be a mnister at all. Certainly --- I could maintain my standing as a licensed minister and do occasional "supply or fill-in" work, but that would totally defeat the purpose. So, --- I will just simply be retired and on a permanent vacation. The hardest part is that by rule, we must "divorce" ourselves from the members of the parish and we are going to miss them terribly. I reckon we are going to have to find ourselves a church to attend come December.

What am I / we going to do with ourselves? Well, we're going to get back into geocaching, we're planning some "day-trips", I'm currently four Stephen King books behind, and I may try my hand at writing. Many years ago I wrote several short stories that aren't too bad but could use a lot of work. I'm thinking I need to get those back out and re-write them. They were written on a Brother Word processor to begin with so I will be starting all over again. I think it will be fun.

I said the storm would be short lived and it was. There is still some light rain happening but the thunder and wind stuff has passed. My best clues are that the birds are back out and singing. The squirrels have come back out of hiding and peace reigns in the back yard. Thank you Lord for good things.

Have a blessed day my friends and keep us in your prayers as we plan for our next adventures. Peace.

July 6th has begun with a bright and sunny morning and it is 82 degrees, neither of which is a particular good thing. There are terrible storm brewing up north and they are working their way here rapidly I'm afraid. We are planning on having lunch with our good friends, Bob and Georgia Ann today and I really would hate to see them get out in the weather if it is pouring rain. My weather radar app shows a lot of rain headed this way but hopefully there won't be any severe storms attached to it. Bob called me a little earlier and told me he was going to bring us a dozen ears of corn because his patch of corn got flattened the other day with the storm that came through.  What a shame. We've seen a lot of field corn knocked down by that storm. Once it is down, it doesn't stand back up. I think it was about five years ago that our farmers had so much trouble getting their corn harvested because it had been flattened by the wind..

Ms. Kate had her root canal procedure yesterday. She seems to be doing fine this morning. She will need to be on antibiotics for a week and then has to see her general dentist in four to six weeks, most likely for a crown on that tooth.

We have lots on the adgenda today of course since it is Wednesday. After we have lunch with Bob and Georgia Ann, we'll need to go to the churches and I need to run the bulletins and I need to run off my annual report for the congregational meetings that are coming up this month. Our first one is this Sunday. Then we have another one on the 24th for the second church. Then is evening I have called for a combined council meeting to discuss things that will be talked about with the congregation at the meetings.

I'm still lifting up prayers for Stephanie and her surgery this Friday. I know she is scared; I certainly would be. But, bless her heart, her attitude is; "let's get that sucker out of there." In the realm of possibilities of things that could go wrong --- I'm glad she has that attitude and I'm so praying that everything will be fine when it is over.

I guess I should finish up my morning "play time" here on the porch and start getting ready for my day. I've had very few birds here this morning for what ever reason and have had no squirrels. I've had a couple of doves, a sparrow or two and my wrens. That is about all. Maybe they all feel something in the air that I don't know.

I pray your day will go well and you will be surrounded by people you love. Take an opportunity to meet a new friend today if you can. It will expand your world. Peace.

Tuesday, the 5th of July! The Independence Day celebrations are all done, with the exception of people still shooting off their now bargain priced fireworks, and the communities having late fireworks because the performance had to be cancelled because of the rain. We have had a good four plus inches here and some areas have had as much as double that. Winds and storms have flattened a lot of corn that I doubt will stand back up. That isn't a good thing. We are under the threat of more rain and storms all this week. I conducted the funeral I had to do yesterday but we couldn't have a graveside commital because the cemetery was flooded.

Today is Julie's 49th birthday. That just doesn't seem possible. But, our girls are all hitting middle age. Julie is 49, Stephanie just turned 46 and became a grandmother, Heather will turn 46 and Lisa will be 45. Jon is our only grandchild left in highschool and if Josh would hurry up and marry that lovely Christina, we'd have two great grandchildren. It is a good thing Ms. Kate and I are making the most of our lives because they sure are passing by quickly.

I went outside for a few minutes last evening to see some of the neighborhood fireworks. Because of the dense air from the clouds and rain, the air was full of the smell of sulfur. The area sounded like a war zone with all of the fireworks cannons and firecrackers going off. I could hear people laughing and shouting when an especially loud one went off or a particularly pretty one went up in to the air. People were indeed having fun. But --- I couldn't help but think that probably not but one in maybe a hundred of those people had even a thought of how frightening all of the sound and smell is to a large part of the world, where that same sound would have been the sound of death and destruction and IEDs and mortars going off and bombs dropping from the sky and bullets whizzing through houses. We are so very blessed to live in a country where those things are not an everyday occurrence; where we don't have to worry where our children walk or play because of IEDs and land mines planted everywhere. I pray we will never ever again have that kind of thing happening in this country. I love living in this country. I love being an Ameerican citizen. Having been in war torn areas, I just can't fathom that kind of destruction in this beautiful country. But --- I also know it can happen or could happen if the people of this nation don't quit rattling their sabers at one another and back down from their stupid pride and feelings of entitlement. I just read last night that one political party in congress is calling for their party members to be "disruptive as possible" when the other party begins to speak. I suspect our founding fathers of this nation would look at our national leadership of today and would think they totally failed in their mission. I pray daily for this country and I hope youo do too.

Enough politics. I need to sit and watch my birds and enjoy this morning of beautiful sunshine. Go has provided yet another beautiful morning for us to enjoy. I hope you have a very blessed day. I need to take Ms. Kate for a root canal today so keep good thoughts for her. Also pray foro Ms. Stephanie who is having a serious operation on Friday. And never forget --- God is good. Peace.

Happy beautiful Saturday morning! It is a sunny 70 degree morning and I have lots of guests at the backyard buffet this morning. I've had several cardinals and downy woodpeckers in and out of here this morning. I also have a lot of the small birds like finches, sparrows, and wrens. I put out a larger seedcake and the ladderback woodpeckers are having a fuss with the starlings over that one. I haven't seen any hummingbirds around to try out my new hummerbar, but they will show up; --- eventually.

I mowed the years's again yesterday. I just love riding that new John Deere. It is so comfortable to drive and I just tool along enjoying life. The yards were not really in need of a haircut but they do look better not that I've done it.

The wedding rehearsal went very well yesterday afternoon. Generally people are late getting there or they are rowdy when they get there and don't want to settle down. But my group yesterday was on time and prepared to listen and get it done. The wedding is at 1600 hours today and thankfully, it looks like it is going to be a perfect wedding weather day too. The high today will be 79 degrees and low humidity. A couple of years ago I did the ceremony for the groom's sister and it was a hot muggy day and for some reason --- the area around the church lost power about 30 minutes before the wedding. There was a lot of scrambling going on to get a generator to the church and hook up the organ to it at least. But --- about three minutes before the wedding was to start -- the power came back on. We can do without that kind of drama today.

Around midnight last night I finished writing the funeral I have to do on Monday morning. We are predicted to have storms on Monday and I really hope they hold off until after the funeral. Funerals are a sad enough occasion; a bad weather funeral just makes people even more miserable. But, I think I have put together a good one considering I have never met the fellow. Thankfully I got some good input from his daughter-in-law.

Tomorrow after church, Ms. Kate and I plan to drive over to Louisville KY and have lunch with Julie and Jim at Joe's Crab Shack. She had planned to come here for the weekend but with my schedule of events for this weekend there wouldn't be much visiting time. Even tomorrow, we'll have to basically eat and run. I'll need to be back home in time to go to the funeral home for the visitation, and Louisville is going to get packed in the evening because they will be having the fireworks display tomorrow evening right there on the river front where we'll be, and I don't want to get into that traffic mess.

That's about it for my first cup of coffee. Time to do a refill and enjoy my morning. I hope you have a great weekend. Peace.

Happy 1st of July!!! It is a bright 72 degree morning now although it was cloudy when I first came out and looked like maybe it had rained a little. 2016 is now officially one half gone into the history books and I wonder what the second half of the year will bring. As a minimum, in the next six months this country will elect a new president which should end one of the worst presidential campaigns between two candidate front runners that absolutely represent the bottom of the barrel in morality and honesty. One candidate is an overbearing bully who acts like a rich spoiled kid standing in the middle of the classroom calling people names; and the other is only concerned with being the first woman president of this country regardless of who has to die in the process, and has been under FBI investigation for three years. I weep for the future of this country and pray God will get us through. ---- But enough of my grumps this morning.

Ms. Kate and I went to the various bird feed stores yesterday and stocked up again. I received my "Hummer Bar" feeder yesterday in the mail. It is a two foot long, 21 port, horizontal hummingbird feeder that I saw on Facebook. Of course that meant I had to buy a couple more shepherd's hooks to hang it from. I got it assembled and hung up. Ms.  Kate is going to mix up some sweet water and we'll put some in and see if it in fact attracts any hummingbirds. This backyard birdwatching gets to be expensive. I didn't take long to drop $150.00 yesterday on all of the different bird foods and paraphanellia. But --- sitting here, watching these cardinals, and wrens, and woodpeckers and yes, even those stinking starlings and blackbirds, brings me peace and joy so hang the cost, and just enjoy what God provides.

My chores for today are to mow my back yard, work on a funeral for Monday, and then do a wedding rehearsal this evening. I had a call from a friend yesterday wanting me to do the funeral for her father-in-law on Monday. I guess the man has no church and so she and her husband were hoping I would do the service. It is a little different doing a funeral for someone that (a) I don't know; and (b) doesn't attend a church. But --- I believe that everybody deserves a decent rememberance and funeral when they pass. It helps to bring closure for the family, and Ms. Kate and I really like this family.

July brings birthdays for the family. Stephanie's birthday is today, Tuesday will be Julie's birthday, and on the twentieth I'll turn 72. Lots of good life to celebrate. It is hard to believe that I'll be 72. I remember when 72 was "old". But one never knows about life. Heck, the man I'm doing the funeral for was only 61 when he passed. So, I just give God thanks for each and every day God allows me to continue to enjoy this life and all of the people that I'm blessed to have around me and love me. I'm certainly surrounded by undeserved blessing.

Have a great weekend. Take time to praise God for the blessing of living in a free country as we celebrate our Independence Day on Monday.  Shalomn.