And Wednesday is here already, Wow! And -- it appears to be a good one. We have had our temperature high (84) already for the day and now the temperature is gong to drop back down to a comfortable 75 or so with a slight breeze and a partly cloudy sky.

My chores today are to go to the church and run my bulletins for this coming Sunday, and I need to go by a farm-stand and pick up a couple of tomatoes and maybe some squash and cucumbers for some fresh veggies around the house.  I also have to get serious about the sermon that I am writing. I have the service done so I can print the bulletins but I have only one page of the sermon written. It is another one of those that I have an idea of what I want to say and I kind of have an outline but I'm a long way from a finished product. I know that some preachers will tell you; "I never prepare a sermon, I don't even know what I'm going to say until I get up there and then God tells me what to say." Well, good for them; but I can't do that and that's not my style. I used to watch my former mentor, Rev. Dr. John Trnka get up and give a sermon and he'd have maybe several single sentences on a card to go by and he gave wonderful sermons. I look at my current mentor and fellow-pastor, Rev. Dr. Art Christmas and he is almost the same way. He and I exchange sermons every week and he sends me a couple of short written pages of narrative and turns that into a 15-20 minute sermon. I send him four to five pages to read for my 15-20 minute messages. He gets out from behind the pulpit and can walk around and give his and I cling to the pulpit for support and protection. LOLOL. Ms. Kate will tell you that if I start to get off of the written and go extemporaneous, I'll get to running down rabbit-trails and everybody will be lost. Different strokes for different folks I reckon. But, God hasn't fired me yet and people tell me that they get inspiration from my sermons, so I reckon I'll keep on, keeping on.

When I get finished at the churches today I think maybe it is time that Ms. Kate and I went to Sam's Club and did some looking around. I think we should look for things like paper products, toilet paper, paper plates etc. I don't know if the hoarding of those products has stopped or not because we haven't been to Sam's or Walmart since all of this craziness started and have only been in Target once. Nor have we been in a store of any kind together since February. I have done all of the grocery shopping except for Ms. Kate going into Fresh Market last week. So maybe we'll go to Sam's just for an adventure. (What a sad life.)

Okay, enough for today. I pray your week will finish off with loads of blessings and praise for God. Peace.

Happy New Week! Welcome to Monday and the second week of June. Do you realize that very shortly this year will be half over? It doesn’t seem like we have had a 2020 yet because we have been cooped up in the house for the past eleven weeks. That pretty much shot Spring in the rear end. In two weeks it will be officially summer and it is going to be a different kind of summer because of restrictions due to the stupid COVID-19 thing. None of the swimming pools are going to be open. The local county fairs have been cancelled, the 4th of July fireworks have been cancelled. The state fair has been cancelled. Theaters are only operating at half capacity if they re-open at all. Restaurants are operating at half to a third of capacity if they can re-open at all. People are still being told to stay indoors and cover their faces and don’t touch one another. It appears the only acceptable social activity these days is civil unrest and protest. Then you are encouraged to crowd as many people into the streets as you can. We’re told that we aren’t supposed to sing in church even wearing masks and standing six feet away from each other; —- but it is just fine to stand shoulder to shoulder in the streets and yell at the top of your lungs. The world has gone mad.

We had our outdoor service yesterday and it went well. I guess we had maybe 50 show up. . We also tried to livestream it but for whatever reason, we got the first 13 minutes of it and the IPad quit and and we got nothing more. So, no one sitting at home had to listen to my sermon because that is the point at which it quit. I thought it was a good one too but maybe God thought differently. I considered  taping it here at home and putting it on our Facebook page but decided that would be prideful. As the fells on tv says; “On to the next”. Next week we return to the post COVID schedule and I go back to preaching two services.

We made our vacation plans for fall. I’ve rented a beach house in Emerald Isle on the North Carolina coast for a week in September. Will have a chance to see Lisa and all of her family.

Time to quit and go do some writing. Have a blessed week.

Saturday morning, June 7th. It is currently 86 degrees "out yonder" and is going to 93 before the day is out. That doesn't sound like the worst day ever does it? If I were going to plan a day for an outdoor outing at the beach or picnicking someplace, I'd say it was a perfect day. If fact I am very much anticipating this same kind of day tomorrow for out out door service. The only problem I have is that we were issued an sir quality alert for today which means I should not spend too much time outside. Sigh --- what else is new; if it isn't Corona Virus alerts, it's racial riot alerts and then it's air quality alerts. No wonder people don't want to go anywhere.

We did a little running around yesterday. I went to Lowe's and picked up the new toilet flapper to fix Ms. Kate's toilet.  While I was there, I picked up a new drill. I've been waiting for Father's day to get here so I could get one on sale. And this is the first time I have been in Lowe's since all of this COVID crap started and I found a good deal on one so I whipped out some of my gift cards and bought one. Bless my kids hearts, they have kept me supplied with Lowe's gift cards for years and I love it. Yesterday I took out three, paid and left. I still have another five in my billfold.

Today is a day of tension for many of our Evansville residents. Allegedly sometime this afternoon or evening, there is supposed to be bus loads of rioters and looters coming into the east side of town and they plan to storm the large Target and the Walmart Super-center and steal and destroy. Now, how anybody knows this is anybody's business. Allegedly this is all part of the protests. Frankly, I feel that if the black community wants solidarity and change, they should be out there along side of the police and telling these thugs "No way -- Not Today. What a sad and dangerous world we live in. But, the police force is on full alert so we'll see what happens. Hopefully nothing will happen.

Okay, I gotta stop and do something productive. I also need to go over my sermon for tomorrow. I pray you will have a safe weekend. I also pray for this nation and our community. Let's practice kindness. Let's practice tolerance. Let's stay in touch with God. Peace.

Welcome to Thursday Morning. It is a bit cloudy this morning and 77  degrees. We are told we are going to have a few Thunderstorms roll through at some point today. Before that happens, I need to bring my new Blackstone griddle in so it doesn't get wet or rusty. I've been pretty pleased with it so far.  I need to check the weather report and see when the storms are predicted; maybe I can cook something on my griddle before I have to put it away.

So yesterday and today again I heard this woodpecker doing a rat-a-tat on something in my back yard. I knew it was close because the sound was loud. I checked it out and lo and behold, I had a Pilated Woodpecker doing it's thing on my gazebo bird feeder that I have mounted up on a pole. I bought that bird feeder several years ago over in Ohio and it has been a good one. It has a clear plastic cylinder down through the middle of it and I usually put safflower seed in it and the cardinals are about the only ones that eat from it. I love the fact that I have a Pilated Woodpecker here but I sure don't want him eating my bird feeder. Silly thing can go across the yard and eat on that dead Red Bud tree. Ms. Kate says that it means that the gazebo is starting to rot. I have not noticed that but I need to check it out.

We went to the church yesterday and ran the bulletins. I met Jacob there  and we brainstormed the set up for this coming Sunday's "Tent Meeting". So far the weather prediction for a gorgeous day is holding. I really hope it continues to hold. I think this is going to be so much fun; and it will be wonderful to be back in in-person worship with everybody again. I think most folks will come but there will be those who are still afraid of catching the Corona Virus and they will stay home. That's okay too because we will be live-streaming it on Facebook and they can watch it there.

Did I tell you that I caught another raccoon night before last?  I called animal control to pick it up and they came out rather quickly. I didn't reset the trap last night. I  did get it all cleaned up and ready to use again. I think this guy was a loner so I'll give it a few days to see what happens.

I don't know why but Facebook changed their app again. I play two games on the computer every day; Criminal Case and Bingo Bash. These were always stored under the heading of "Shortcuts". For some reason, they no longer are. Ms. Kate plays a game called Klondike and it was taken off of the shortcuts list too. The games are still there but we have to go through extra steps to get to them. It makes zero sense to me. Why couldn't they have simply left things alone. It's not just us either. Julie said she had to go looking for her stuff today too. Grrrrrr.

Time to toast a bagel and slather some Philly Creme Cheese on it for breakfast., and pour another cup of coffee. I hope you have a wonderful day. Peace.

It’s “hump day”! I’m a little later in the morning writing this morning; it 1045 and already 80 degrees outside. It is however, very comfortable. I as out a bit ago checking on the raccoon that I trapped last night. I heard my trap snap shut at about 0100 and went out there. Sure enough, it had fallen or the old peanut butter trick. And was not one bit happy. I called animal control first thing this morning and they come out fairly quickly and picked him up. I’m glad that it didn’t have to stay in the cage very long. I can’t believe how much of the area around the trap that raccoon tore up. The cage is full of pulled up daffodil stalks and dirt. It tore the container that I had the peanut butter in totally apart. Much of it is gone so I guess unfortunately it ate it. I say unfortunately because it was plastic. If it ate it, it might kill it eventually. I bought a new trap yesterday because the other trap is torn up and I don’t think I can fix it. I watched the way it was working on this new trap and I hope it didn’t tear this one up. I know I have a lot of cleaning up to do on this trap now.

The race riots, looting, burning, and killing of police officers and innocent civilians trying to protect their property continues. It is a night and day issue. During the day, large, mostly peaceful crowds gather and protest which is lawful and fine. At night the young thugs and opportunists come flowing out into the streets for the sole purpose of destruction and mayhem and anarchy. They have no interest in a cause and they are often being bussed in and paid to do it by someone or many someone’s desiring to overthrow the gov’t. I watched a video this morning of looters that had broken into a shoe store and crowds of young people were storming in and grabbing boxes and boxes of shoes. They didn’t care one bit that people were filming them because they know nothing will be done to them. There was a video of a bunch of them that beat an 80 year old woman with fists and boards because she stood in front of her shop trying to deter them. They are the devil’s animals at work.

I better drop off before I get into a rant. I do pray that God will show us how to bring peace back to this nation. We have had protests here. In Evansville and they have been peaceful for the most part, with no arrests or destruction. The protesters stand to one side or march and the police stand off to the other side. Some protesters say that the police shouldn’t be there at all because it is threatening and one lady came on the camera and said the police department should be abolished completely. Everybody has an opinion I reckon.

I need to get ready and I have to clean up an animal trap and then I need to go to the church today and run buletins for Sunday.  Have a great “Hump Day”. Peace.

Good morning on this Tuesday, June 2nd, which just happens to be Indiana primary Election Day. You can bet that Ms. Kate and I will be at the polling center a little later today and cast our ballot. We could have asked for absentee ballots and filled them out and mailed them in. But frankly, I just don’t trust that. Ballots for my party seem to get “lost” somehow which is why the other party seems to be really pushing for mail in ballots. I’m not saying they are crooked, but it is said and has been shown  that a lot of dead people seem to keep voting for that party’s candidates year after year. So, I go vote in person. I don’t have any guarantee that it is any safer, but at least I see when the machine says my vote has been cast.

Well, I have baited my trap the last two night and haven’t caught my raccoon yet. The bait has been gone both mornings. I figured out that the trap trip platform is not releasing the spring. I think the last coon that Art caught with it must have bent the platform trying to escape. I’ll have to work on it and see if I can fix it. If not, —- it only cost $25.00 so I’ll go get a new one.

Today is going to be a hot one; — 90 degrees. I have office work to do today so the basement will be the place to be. I need to make parishioner calls today and I need to do a short video to the church Facebook page about our service this coming weekend. The weather seems to be cooperating so we are going to do an outside service on Sunday. I’m finally getting the “tent meeting” service that I wanted to do a few weeks ago. I hope it turns out as good as I want it to. It will be wonderful to have folks back together even though they will have to be wearing masks and staying six feet apart. The energy of Christian love will fill the gaps between parishioners, of that, I have no doubt.

So, I guess I better get cleaned up and get ready to go vote. I hope people don’t treat this like they do so many primary elections. Turnout is generally light and since people have been making in their ballots already, the lines may be short. We’ll just have to go and see.

Have a blessed day. Do something kind for someone today and give God thanks that you have that opportunity to share His love. Peace.

Welcome to June of 2020. Five months of this year are gone and we’ve spent the last 11 weeks basically holed up in the house. It is very much a repeat of 2019 where I spent from February through April recovering from surgery, and from the end of May through August again in recovery from more surgeries. But look at me now. The tendon has regenerated to some degree and I can do almost anything I need to do. God is great and the miracles God performs are beyond imagination. Who would have thought that an Achilles Heel would regenerate? Certainly not my surgeon who said, I almost hate to call it a tendon , —- but I can feel it.

All of my family should be starting to pack for a vacation in Branson MO by now but sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic has ruined and canceled those plans. At least I got all of my money back that I had paid out for the house. Last year I lost $9,000.00 because I thought I had travel insurance but didn’t and we had to cancel the trip because of my surgeries. That’s a hunk of change. But — it’s water under the bridge and gone. This year I was much more careful about how I made the arrangements.

The weekend has been a terrible one for our nation. Last week the Minneapolis Police arrested a black man for little or no reason and during the takedown the man was killed right there on camera. An officer had his knee on the man’s neck and despite the fact tat the man pleaded that he couldn't breathe, the officer continued to keep him pinned and he died. Race riots and looting has broken out all over the country. There have been some peaceful protests and there should be a lot of peaceful protests over this killing. But the riots and looting and thuggery have used the death of a man for nothing but criminal actions. They have nothing to do with paying honor for the man that was killed. Add to the problem with the criminal activity is the fact that we are still in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. If we don’t see a big spike in the positive cases of the Corona Virus after these riots and demonstrations are over — well, we will have been lied to on that front because there certainly wasn’t any “social distancing” going on and yes, a lot of people had masks on but they always do during a riot because they are thieves. I guess we will know in a week of two about the reality of the spread of the virus. My friends, —- this country is in a mess!! I pray God will intervene.

That’s it for me today. Pray for a calm week and for the nation to come together once again in a peaceful way. May God guide us and bring us peace.