Friday morning and I’m sitting here watching the silly squirrel continue to stretch out to the feeder it can barely reach, grab a sunflower seed or two an sit back on the tree branch and eat them, and repeat the process, over and over for maybe 15 minutes or so. Then it will run off and be back again in no time at all. In the meantime, the birds are also busy this morning at the feeders. There is nothing too interesting at the moment but I did have the Pileated Wood pecker in here earlier. It has been raining some off and on and will continues to do that throughout the day. 

My friend and parishioner, Bob, had his surgery this morning to remove his eye. The surgery went textbook and his daughter has now taken him home. Maybe they both can get some rest. The surgery was early and she said that she was barely able to stay awake. I doubt either of them got any sleep last night. I just pray that this surgery will accomplish what it was supposed to do, ie get rid of all of the infection and maybe even stop the problem he has had with shingles in that eye for the past eight years. But, it will be quite an adjustment for him, not physically having that eye even though he hasn’t been able to see out of it for some time. 

I had a busy day yesterday. I got all of my years mowed and went over and mowed Dan’s front yard. Then Ms. Kate and I went out and “dead-headed” a bunch of the iris and the peonies. Blooming season is about over. The azealias are about done as are the iris and the peonies. The lilies are kind of in between the early ones and the late ones. I really need to get in there and try to get rid of the danged morning glory vines. That is a never ending process. I don’t know how we ended up with morning glories but they have been a pain in my butt for several years.I think that I picked them up in a load of mulch or horse manure that I got from a local farmer years ago. I just know that you can’t get rid of them. They come up every year and take over a flowerbed like kudzu. I have another “weed “ that has come up called sedge. I’m trying to fight that too. It is more like a grass and I don’t know how that got started either. It is growing up all over my poppy plants and if I don’t get it under control, it will kill out my poppies. It is a never ending battle around here and I’m getting too old to continue to fight them. 

This is Memorial Day weekend. Tomorrow the VFW will be at the cemeteries doing a 21 gun salute and TAPS at each of the churches. It’s an annual thing they have done for years. We don’t have a lot of veterans in our cemetery at either church, but, I appreciate the fact that they come out and honor them. 

That’s it for today. I hope your weekend is safe and blessed. Peace. 

 A Blessed Thursday morning to you. It’s 68 degrees at my house. It has been raining some although my new fangled weather machine that the kids bought me says that we’ve only had .63 inches of rain in the past twenty four hours. That’s all good because as I said yesterday, we were needing rain. The forecast for the next couple of days though predict more rain and possibly some severe storms. We have a “cold front” moving in and that kind of gives me pause about our outdoor worship service on Sunday. If the temperature is only around 60 degrees, people are not going to want to be sitting out there at 0900. The wind always blows up there because the church sits in the middle of open fields. The high for Sunday is supposed to be 77 degrees and the weather call for nothing but sun, so, by the time people are ready to BBQ at home it will be ideal, but at church time, they won’t want to be out. I guess we will have to make some late decisions. There is a lot of work that goes into setting up the tents and hauling out the key board and speakers and all of the other stuff that goes with getting things prepped and ready. 

Yea for me! I finished up my Father’s Day service and sermon last night and got the worship service done for the 27th. Now I have to write the sermon for the 27th of June and I’ll have June all taken care of. Wow, June 27this one month from today! That means we are 33 days from 2021 being half over. It sure seems to be going a lot faster now that the country is “getting back to some sort of normal”. I sure hope the world gets this danged COVID stuff under control soon. I haven’t heard any real news in the past couple of days but the last I heard was the the country India was terribly in trouble because of COVID and that people were dying by the thousands every day. India is a country that doesn’t bury their dead like we do; they do funeral pyres, i.e. they put their dead on big piles of wood and burn the bodies. The last I saw or heard the reports were that there were funeral pyres everywhere. I con’t imagine the smell and the horror of all of that. 

I think I’m going to go out and cut some flowers and take a bouquet up to my buddy Bob’s house. They are supposed to do surgery on him in the morning to remove his infected eye. Or, —- maybe I’ll just call him and talk to him for awhile. I know he is terribly depressed and has good reason to be. Life is not being very good to him at the moment. He’s worn out from all of this and so is the family from taking care of him. I pray the removal of the eye will bring a halt to the infection and pain that he is having to endure. I would ask you to lift him up. While you are praying, I have four more of my parishioners that have cancer and can certainly use all the prayers we can lift up. You don’t need to know their names, God knows them.  I would just ask for comfort for the members of my parish. 

Well, the sun is out and I think I will go check to see how wet the grass is and whether or not I can maybe mow. More rain and storms are coming later today so as they say, “gotta’ make hay while the sun shines”. Have yourself a blessed day. Peace. 

 A rainy morning has relieved me of the duty to go water the garden again. That’s great because God does a so much better job, God gets it all even and just the right amount and at just the right speed. We’re having a nice light and gentle rain. That means the flowers and the veggies don’t get all beat down. Thank you very much Lord.

My friend and parishioner, Bob is at the eye doctor this morning.  He has had so much trouble with his one eye. He first got shingles in eight years ago and has spent the last eight years putting drop in it. A couple of months ago it developed an infection and causing him pain. The doctors have had him on new antibiotics and that didn’t help. For the past two weeks his daughter Brenda has had to put drops every hour in his eye. He had to have a drop every five minutes through four different medications. So that meant he spent twenty minutes of every hour during walking hours getting drops in his eyes. It continued to get worse and they decided yesterday to do a cornea transplant this morning. Last night it started weeping and bleeding and this morning the doctor said no to the transplant, and now they are waiting at another doctor’s office and he will have the eye removed. I feel so very bad for him. He’s 88 and doesn’t need to be going through this. So, I’m asking for prayers for him. By the time you read this, it will probably be done, but —- pray he can adjust to this new reality. God’s will be done. 

Ms. Kate fixed one of my favorite things for my breakfast this morning; — sugar & cinnamon biscuits. That’s a pan of biscuits, dipped in melted butter and then dipped in a sugar and cinnamon mix. Simple but so very good. I had started getting stuff out to make them but Ms. Kate came in and took over, no, it didn’t hurt my feelings at all. 

Today I have to get my tail end down stairs to my office and do some serious writing. I had my June twentieth sermon half written but last night I decided to go a different way that I had started. So, I’m kind of back to the drawing board.Then I need to do the June 27th service and message. The I can relax. It’s a great thing to do on a rainy couple of days. 

On that, I will stop, take my shower, and get busy for the day.  Have a wonderful day. Peace. 

 It’s 73 degrees on this bright Tuesday morning. The air is still with only a slight breeze. Moving the tree leaves a bit. It’s gonna be a hot one today again. I think though that we have some rain in our forecast for tonight and off an on for the next couple of days. . We could really use some again. 

I really need to fill all of the bird feeders today. I have been letting them all get emptied. I told you a few days ago I was going to not fill them so quickly so that maybe the starlings and blackbirds would find an alternative feeding spot. I have not seen any of them this morning. Yesterday they came around a few times but when they found their favorite food not there, they left. What is silly is that I have two feeders that are full with the same product, but in a different form, and they don’t touch it. Birds are weird. The Pileated Woodpecker is back today and brought a friend. That always thrills me. Ms. Kate said that she saw two of them here yesterday too out there on the feeders. That is a thrilling thought that they might nest here somewhere. ——- Okay, I had to stop and go fill my feeders. They were too empty and too many guests were in line at the Buffet. 

I’m going to stay inside today as the mercury makes it’s way on up to 90 or there about. I’m trying to get all of my June services done before I head out on vacation. I’m currently writing June 20th and have a title  and outline for June 27th. I don’t want to have to rush back and scramble in to something right away so that it feels like I haven’t been on vacation at all. 

Had another sad thing yesterday afternoon. (I don’t think I told you this) One of my parishioners called me and told me that his two and a half year old granddaughter has passed away. She was born with so very many physical things wrong with her that the doctors didn’t actually expect her to live more than a month. Well, doctors are great but God has a plan. He allowed that child to bring love and joy and hope into that family for two and a half years. The parents certainly learned that they are capable of doing a lot more and had a lot more strength than they thought possible. God is so good and young Maria served His purpose and now she has gotten to go back home and her soul is at rest. God be praised. We just never know the plan, do we. 

That’s it for today/ Have a blessed one and then give thanks for the blessings. Peace. 

 Good morning! Happy new week and the last week of May; can ya’ believe it? It is a hot one already this morning. It is now 81 degrees at 1100 and is going up to 90 today. The humidity is still not as bad as it can get but it is bad enough. 

I started my new week off with some sad news. My cousin Debbie texted me that she lost her mom last night. My Aunt Louise was 88 years old and was a joy to be around. She was always my favorite. She was genuine, she was fun and her laughter was infectious. She was someone I could talk to and grouse to when  things were not going well between me and my mother. Aunt Louise was the last member of that generation of the family. That makes me the eldest family member now. We are going to miss her. 

Services went well yesterday at both churches. I thought there might be more people there since it was Pentecost Sunday, perhaps they stayed home and watched it on the television. This coming Sunday is Memorial Day weekend and I suspect that will also diminish the crowd. We start our All-Parish worship service this Sunday and they will run through August. So far the weather forecast for Sunday is fantastic and that is perfect because we are doing an outdoor worship service. One of the parishioners has a couple of large tents and will set those up. I am really looking forward to that\.

I’m writing a little later this morning because I went out first thing this morning to beat the heat and hoed the garden and watered all of the plants with a Miracle Gro solution. I pulled up a bunch of my radishes Saturday because they had gone to seed. I need to pull the rest up too. My squash look great and has blossoms on it, he tomatoes are getting bigger\ but the cucumber plant just sits there as does the Swiss-chard and Basil. The peas are looking good and the potatoes look great. My okra isn’t doing much either so far. I hope by watering with the Miracle -Gro things will now start to take off. And, now that we are hopefully past all of the crazy changes in temperature, stuff will settle down and grow. 

That’s about it for today. I hope you have a very happy week. Walk with God. Peace.

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 I wrote this morning on Facebook that I have determined that Starlings and Blackbirds are the Hyenas of the aviary world. They are opportunistic, nasty, come in gangs, bully the other birds and each other, and won't leave a feeder until they have stripped it to empty. I have filled the two feeders that they love three times this week and they are empty again. As I have said before, all of the birds absolutely love the "Bark Butter Bit" that I put in those two feeders but the starlings and black birds absolute treat it like crack. I decided that I am going to let them set empty for a bit or maybe put sunflower seed in them. The problem with sunflower seed is that the squirrels will get on them and tear them up. Sigh!! But, if I leave them empty for a few days, maybe the blackbirds will move on. There is a gaggle of at least a dozen that are out there all the time.  Grrrr.

That's my rant for this morning. Now, I'm going to drop off and enjoy my weekend. Hope you have a good one too. 

 

 Happy Friday my friends. It is another beautiful morning, sunny, 66 degrees, which in my opinion makes it a perfect start to the day. 

I began my morning seeing that the internet was still out so I sat down with my IPhone and my IPad and called Spectrum once again. I think this was the 4th or 5th call to them. But, today I got a fellow that actually helped me. I know nothing about all of this stuff but he said it was very possible that due to the power outage my router had reset itself to factory setting which is why none of my devices would recognize me. So, we went through “a process” and viola’ I have internet again. True —- I could use the internet if I turned on my hotspot on my IPhone but that is not what I’m paying for. And, —- I don’t know if that costs me more or what. I’m just thankful to have it back. 

I had a productive and tiring day yesterday. I got the yard all mowed, got my tomatoes tied up and pulled out a bunch of my radishes that had gone to seed. I also cleaned off the back patio and then moved the “indoor plants” outside for the summer. Those pots are heavy. I’m only having to moves five these days. But two of them contain trees. I also have two huge pots of geraniums and a shamrock plant. But it is nice to be able to look out the sun porch without peering through those two trees. Come late October I’ll reverse the process and bring them back in. Having finished all of that, I put some pork chops on the grill while Ms. Kate fixed some potatoes and zucchini squash to go with them. Yummy food. I think today we’ll maybe throw some chicken thighs on the BBQ. 

I filled up the bird feeders again yesterday. This morning my guests are hard at them. The Pileated Woodpecker is back\. He has been around here for the past couple of days. It is an awesome bird. Ms. kate mentioned yesterday though that we had not seen any Goldfinches the last couple of days. I had not noticed that so I’ll have to watch for them today. I’m sure they are around. Yesterday I sat there and listened to all of the birds singing and it was like a choir. Very peaceful to sit in a recliner with a breeze blowing through and the sound of the Corinthian Chimes and bird song filling the air. It’s a blessing. 

I think that’s it. It is the weekend. I hope you have a safe one and a pleasant one. Sunday is Pentecost Sunday and I pray you will invite and allow the Holy Spirit to fill  your heart and mind. Have a blessed weekend.