View from the Igloo

Winter Driving Conditions

This girl needed to get to work. 

She works at a nursing home.  Even if it's Christmas, and even if there's a blizzard raging, some folks still can't hold their own forks, or pull themselves out of their wheelchairs and into bed, or cope with other necessary daily matters that you and I don't think twice about.

The blizzard meant that lots of other employees-----people who don't own tractors and four-wheel drive trucks----couldn't get to work without spending time in a ditch first.  That made Erica's presence and skill set even more valuable.

We wouldn't have made it without John blading a path in front of us.  Sometimes it's really nice to be married to a farmer.

Old Time Farming

What else would we do when we're snowed in and it's 10 degrees out, but go for a little horsey ride?  After all, the cows needed hay.  John could have used a tractor to deliver it, but this was more fun.

The cows were hungry. 

Cows and calves are thrifty.  They wander through our cornfields all winter after we have removed the grain.  They forage, thriving on spilled corn and ears that the combine missed, along with the husks and leaves that we leave in the field.

But when everything's covered with snow, they appreciate a little supplemental feed.  So we haul hay.

Kandy, on John's right, is starting to tire of posing for the photographer.   She starts doing a little chicken dance to say it's time to go home.  Jess is telling her to just settle down.

Eskimo Joe might be ready to go home, too.

We decided to pull into the shed for unharnessing.  Outside, you could hardly see for the blowing snow.

Inside, you could hardly see for the rising steam.

Kind of puts the romance back into old time farming, wouldn't you say?

Winter Colors

Winter finally showed up in Nebraska, and the landscape is predictably bleak.  Even so, if you look, you can still find color.

Color outside.

Color inside.

Thanks to God for sunsets.  Thanks to girls for color in my living room.

Tourist Attractions

Sometimes I like driving by myself. It's a chance to be thoughtful and quiet, a chance for my mind to shake off the dust of everyday affairs and feed on higher things.

That's where I was yesterday when I passed this sign.

Kinda sad, isn't it? But what did you expect? I mean, after all, this is Nebraska.

It's not that we don't have any tourist attractions. There's Chimney Rock--home of the state's earliest graffiti--where Oregon Trail travelers carved messages for those yet to come into its soft clay and sandstone. Many weary travelers plodding across half a continent rejoiced when they spied Chimney Rock; travelers hungry for a sign of progress or a message from those who had gone before.

And, speaking of the Oregon Trail, there's a rest stop on I-80 where you can go and see some of the ruts--actual ruts--left by wagon wheels of those early sojourners. Men and women and children who left homes and loved ones and familiarity to walk seventeen miles a day for six months into the unknown. They gave birth and buried children in lonely places, sustained through hardship by hope, prayer, and grit.

Some tourist attractions are more powerful the more you think about them.

Not only that, but we also have Carhenge.

Some tourist attractions are not more powerful the more you think about them.

Maybe the state Tourism Board felt kinda funny putting a rock, ruts, and junk cars up on the sign, but they shouldn't have. Nebraska is an understated kind of place, and most of the Nebraskans I know are comfortable with that.

Except when the Huskers play.

web photoweb photo

Today's Fourteen

A while back, Rachel started posting lists of fourteen things she was thankful for at that particular moment. I want to make my own list of fourteen, so it's handy that I had fourteen young ladies staying in my home over the weekend. Fourteen beautiful souls who came to a church conference seeking the Lord, and left determined to overcome every enemy, determined to know God as richly as they can and to follow Him closely.

Soo......my fourteen for today?

1. Jubilee

2. Katie

3. Merrill 4. Lydia 5. Tabea

6. Rachel

7. Erica

8. Susie

9. Sarah 10. Hannah 11. Sarah Beth

12. Elizabeth

13. Debi 14. Audrey

I'm also thankful for two great boys who stayed at my house. Two great boys surrounded by fourteen girls; two great boys wanting to press forward in the Kingdom of God.

15. Caleb 16. Joshua