As I recall, the weather prediction for today was for more clouds than sun and so far it has been true. I saw the sun pop out for a few seconds a bit ago but it quickly was shrouded once again. 

How was your Labor Day? Did you take time to enjoy it or did you just spend a day catching up on things you needed to get done. We had a relaxing day around here. I did water the garden, pick the tomatoes, clean the bird baths. I also threw some hotdogs on the grill, but that was about it. I was going to do some writing but decided against it. Instead I watched a wonderful historical documentary series on the History Channel last night. I think it is called Empires. Last night was the first one and it was on Alexander the Great. Alexander is arguably the greatest warrior leader in history. His tactics were new to the battle field of the day and he expanded a small kingdom to an empire larger than the Roman Empire ever achieved. And he did it in fourteen years. Unfortunately he lost sight of himself and who he was and his goal. He died at age 32 without naming a successor and the result was that everything he had established at the cost of a great many lives came apart. Tonight I think we are watching Cleopatra and the empire she established. I do lead an exciting life, don’t I? 

I need to get out my weed eater today and do some trimming  around the flowerbeds and then maybe mow my yard. I have been waiting on the delivery of a new “head” to go on my Worx weed eater. It will be a much more heavy duty thing and will cut through heavier stuff including all of the darn saplings that constantly grow in my flowerbeds. It is supposed to be delivered any day now. I just hope it works. 

So, that’s my only news for today. I hope you have a great first full week of September. Peace. 

 Labor Day 2023. It is starting off quite well with a nice mild temperature and just a hint of a breeze. I haven’t been out much this morning yet but I did go out and pick some tomatoes and water the garden and potted plants. Also filled the hummingbird feeder because I think they will be around for a couple of more weeks at least. Now it’s back to the sun porch and watch my guests at the Buffet. I haven’t had a lot of guests yet but they will be here shortly. It is about time for the Cardinal gang to show up. So far it has mostly been the finches. I noticed this morning that the Goldfinches are starting to lose their bright yellow color. I wonder. Why they happens. But it is a sure sign of fall and then a sure sign of spring when they revert again. 

Son-in-law Jim came over yesterday and installed the “fix” I had manufactured for my kitchen drawer —- and it works!!! I’m impressed with myself even if no one else is. Let’s just hope it holds up. Of course the way to help it is to not cram the drawer full of heavy stuff. Every household has a junk drawer, —— we have four just of kitchen stuff. Kate took at least half of the stuff out of that drawer and put it in a box. Of course the question now is —- what are we going to do with it because there is no way in the world she will get rid of any of it whether we ever use it or not. When we are both dead the kids will throw in in an auction bundle and maybe it will fetch a dollar if the bundle is big enough. 

We have been invited over to Jim and Julies for dinner this evening. He has already put the brisket on and will have it smoking all morning. Unfortunately, I think we will pass. Traffic is going to be fierce for the holiday travel and I don’t need to add to it. 

As predicted —- here come the buffet guests.So I’m going to put my recliner in a better position and sit and enjoy my guests. You hav yourself a wonderful day. Peace. 

 Hello September! We have a beautiful morning opening up this brand new month. I give praise to the Creator for that. I’m sitting here at the kitchen table enjoying another one of God’s blessings; — the last three of the peaches we were given. I’m sharing them with Ms. Kate. She has dared to eat a half of one of them. I say dared because she’s not sure that it won’t bother her stomach. Hopefully it will be fine. 

Do you have any September plans? Ms. Kate and I certainly do. We are heading out to Texas hill-country for a week.. It is a beautiful area of the country that we have visited before. Heather and John are joining us and Steph and Chris and Caden might come down for a couple of night. Heather has signed her and me up for a cute venture. There is a winery there that has tours and they also have “pet rhinos”. They offer people to a chance to actually go in the rhino area and pet and scratch the rhino. They say the rhinos love being ribbed and scratched. So — that will be a new adventure. I have been to a place here in southern Indiana where we could help bathe elephants and loved doing that. I have also ridden camels while I was in Turkey. Now I can add rhino petting to my weird list of fun things I have done. My girls are all adventurous. Back in 1996 Heather and I climbed Mt. Vesuvius the volcano in Italy. That was a long and tiring adventure. What was funny was that before you started the long walk up, there was a man renting “walking sticks” for people to use. You can bet we each got one. But there is nothing like standing on the edge of an active volcano and looking over the edge, especially knowing that this is the same volcano that buried the city of Pompeii  so very many centuries ago, and knowing that it is still active. We could see and small the sulfur smoke rising up out of the bottom. But —— on the other hand, millions of people go to Yellowstone National park every year and that whole area is actually one huge volcano that could erupt at any time. Scientists say that if it does, it will wipe out a major portion of North America between the eruption, the lava, and the ash that will fall across the nation. 

So, we had a problem come up yesterday. Kate was working at the kitchen counter and she tells me that she can’t get the bottom kitchen drawer to open nor can she get the one above it to close. I figured it was a matter of having too much “un-needed” stuff in it. I managed to get the bottom drawer out but I could not get the next drawer to close. It seemed to be going off track at the rear. I pulled it out and found that there was a broken piece at the end of the drawer track. While the track is made of medal, there is a plastic piece that slides into it that attaches it to the wall. That’s the piece that was broken. So, I started researching it on Google, found nothing, then I call a local kitchen cabinet store and asked if they had parts. Well — not only do they not carry parts, the part I need hasn’t been made for years, nor has that style of drawer track been used for decades. But —- I may have a solution; I manufactured a piece that will fit out of wood. Now, I have to wait for Jim to come and see if he can reach back in there and install it. If he can, and if it works, that’s a really great thing. If it doesn’t work, then I may have to have some major cabinet work done. I do not want to do that. 

That’s it for this first day of September. This afternoon I have to take my car in for its 55000 mile servicing. You have a great Friday and a great Labor Day weekend. Peace. 

 The last day of August 2023. Eight months gone to the wind or wherever time goes. Actually, I wonder where time does go? 

Did you see that super blue moon last night with the planet Saturn off to its right? I love to watch the heavenly occurrences such as that. I love to watch meteor showers. The vastness of the universe simply fascinates me. There is so much beauty out there beyond our little planet here in the middle of the Milky Way galaxy.  I love to watch programs that show the pictures of space taken from the Hubble or the new Webb Space Telescope. They are so fantastic. I look at those images and my only thought is “God made that; the same God that watches over me.” How fantastic is that to realize. It’s hard to wrap ones mind around the concept. 

I know my mind goes off on tangents sometimes but I sometimes think about what we will be doing in our eternal existence. Every person who has any concept of life after the discontinuation of physical life on this planet has some idea of what they think it will be like. As a Christian, I firmly believe in life after death. However, I don’t think it will be a just sitting around in the “Glorious Cafe” having an endless cup of coffee chatting with the loved ones. I think perhaps God will have an eternal task for us; a task so profound that it will take us an eternity to begin to accomplish it. I hope my spirit will be assigned to supervise or help in the development of life on one of those billions of planets that are just hanging out there in the realms of the heavens. My concept of heaven is that our spirits will be united with our full potential and we shall join our minds together and we shall know one another by our spirits of love. Our scripture says that God created mankind in His own image; if God is spirit and love; —- then so shall we be.  Scripture says that on the seventh day, God rested. I take that to mean that on the eighth day; God went back to work. Okay —- enough of my mental rabbit trail for today.   

The “ding-alarm” on my smart watch has been going off all morning like crazy. It is the activation of the motion sensor on my bird feeder. It has been a busy place all morning. Mostly it is the cardinals and finches. Once in a while a goldfinch stops by or a bluebird. 

I have convinced Ms. Kate that we need to go out for breakfast, so it is time to head out. Have a most blessed day. Peace. 

 What another beautiful day we have today. It was 66 degrees with a stiff breeze when I came out to turn on the coffee pot this morning. The sun is shiny brightly and there is very little humidity this week. This is a far cry from what is gong on in north Florida with the hurricane. We’re saying many prayers for all of them, and for people in the outlying bands of this thing and are still in the path as it rapidly moves north and east. My granddaughter  and family are in Wilmington North Carolina and this thing will brush by them, probably at tropical storm strength by then. We had wonderful news from them this weekend as our darling Amanda announced that she is pregnant. We get to be great grandparents again. I just married those two last March. The family is all thrilled on both sides of the aisle. 

Ms. Kari is where the morning to clean so I need to stay out of her way. Kate has gone to the sunporch until Kari get there. By then I will be in the basement busy writing I think. I didn’t get too far last night. I had a hard time pulling the right thoughts together for this sermon. It is from Matthew 21, the parable of the tenants. Sometimes the lessons from the parables are obvious and sometime I need to write, throw away, and rewrite. But —- you know, even the disciples had to sometimes ask Jesus what he was taking about; so I’m in good company. 

I’m having fresh peaches for my breakfast. A friend gave me a couple of bags of them and they have just not hit perfect ripeness, and they are so very good. But, Ms. kate can’t eat them and I have too many so I just offered a bag of them to Kari and she is a happy lady. 

That’s it for today. I’m going to the churches later and run some bulletins. It’s a good day to be out and about. I may have to go by the Ritter’s farm stand and pick up some corn on the cob. Season will be over shortly and I’ll ick up a cantelope and watermelon too. 

Have a blessed day. Peace. 

 I haven’t talked much about my Backyard Buffet in quite awhile. But rest assured I am still enjoying it. The problem is that I have been negligent about keeping it filled. It was either to wet to be out there walking around in the backyard, or we were under an air zone alert, or it was to hot. One can come up with all kinds of excuses if we want to  when the bottom line more often than not is I was being lazy. And I was doing my morning computer / IPad stuff at the kitchen table instead of from the sunporch. 

But I filled all of the feeders again yesterday and the weather is so pleasant that I am out in the sunporch this morning enjoying my kingdom. Besides, —- there is something special about the day when the first thing I see is a pair of Bluebirds having breakfast at the Buffet. This morning’s guests include my regular half dozen or so Cardinals, a couple of hummingbirds, titmouse, sparrows, goldfinches, downy woodpeckers, and of course a couple of squirrels. The squirrels are still unhappy with me because I cut their favorite perching limb off that was next to their favorite feeder. They are going to be even more upset because I have two more limbs that have to be cut out of that Pussy willow tree because they are pressing into my gutter. 

I mowed my front yard yesterday and of course since the JD was running, I went over an mowed Dan’s yard too. They have been on vacation and just got home late Sunday night. But today I have to head to my downstairs office and get my fingers going on the computer keyboard. Tomorrow I’ll be going to the church to run bulletins and also up to a couple of nursing homes for visitation. I will miss that when I retire. 

Okay, the Cardinal gang is back so I’m going to finish my coffee and enjoy watching them. You have yourself a blessed day. Peace.  

 It is morning like this that hint that autumn is on the way. What a beautiful morning. I’ve only been out long enough to put some stuff in my composted but it was so pleasant. So, I must begin my week with giving thanks to the Creator for this day and the projected weather for the week. 

How was your weekend? We had a pretty good weekend. Ms. Kate is improving everyday. She has finished all of her antibiotics and is eating Faith well — small portions but is having something most every meal. That is a huge improvement. This morning I fixed scrambled eggs with ham and mushrooms in them and a pan of biscuits. She ate a heathy portion of the eggs and a couple of biscuits with a little home made strawberry jam on them. I proud of her. 

We had a great service at church yesterday. My friend Ron Henze was in town and sang a couple of songs for us. He did a solo and then a duet with one of our soprano singers for church. He did a really god job, especially considering he’s 80 years old. My voice went to trash several years ago although I still try. But we had a fairly full church yesterday and Ron and Samantha’s music was a blessing and was well received. I was very happy to see that because Samantha is timid about singing, and she did such a good job. 

I have writing to do and I have ideas in my brain to put down on paper but —- I’m going to enjoy riding my John Deere today and mow my yard and probably Dan’s. I need to get my yard mowed and being out there will be relaxing and enjoyable. 

That’s about it for this last Monday in September. Have a blessed week. Peace.