Is This Wonderland?

Shopping with the Girls

2011-11-27T12:50:00.011-06:00

Last year, for the first time ever, Erica talked us into Black Friday shopping.

You can tell that this year's shopping was not on Black Friday, because we look pleasant.

Sharing the Prairie

2011-11-26T05:19:00.001-06:00

Six Thousand Layers

2011-11-25T06:41:00.000-06:00

I was recently asked to bring dessert to a gourmet dinner party. I paged through a few cookbooks before deciding that Puff Pastry Apple Tarts would be perfect. After all, crisp apples with a blush of red are the very essence of autumn's glory, and puff pastry is delicate enough to balance a hearty meal of several courses.

One of my dearest friends, upon seeing my handiwork, declared that the only reason I had made the pastry from scratch was that I am "an overachiever." But the real reason is that the local grocer doesn't carry frozen puff pastry, and I had neither time nor inclination to drive the thirty miles to one who did. However, I just smiled and nodded when she tossed out her allegation. This particular friend doesn't lack for confidence in her own reasoning, and is not easily distracted from it.

Homemade puff pastry is no harder than making a loaf of bread. You use your rolling pin and the power of exponents to create thousands of layers of butter and dough. Then you pop them into a hot oven where melting butter and rising steam lock in a delicate crispiness.

So if you are also "an overachiever," I highly recommend this little endeavor the next time you need puff pastry dough. I have posted the full recipe here. Or, if you are still holding the line against holiday weight, just scroll down and enjoy vicariously.

There are basically three parts to making these tarts:

1. Whip up a dough that's a lot like a pie crust. Wrap it around a pound of butter, sort of like gift wrapping a birthday present. Don't think about the pound of butter, just do it! This recipe makes enough dough for lots of tarts, and you're going to eat just one.

2. Roll it out. Fold it in thirds. Chill. Roll it out. Fold it in thirds. Chill. Roll it out. Fold it in thirds. Chill.

Once you have repeated this process six times, you've made 2187 layers of dough and butter. One more roll and you have 6561 layers. If you are a math head or a homeschooling mom, figure out an algebraic equation to express the relationship between number of layers and how many times you repeat the folding/rolling process. Mental exercise keeps your brain in shape, and you have to chill the dough between rolls anyway, so you've got time.

3. Cut your dough into squares, put some crispy thin apple slices on top, dot with (a little more!) butter, bake and eat!

Now, if you're really an overachiever (and if you made this, you definitely are :) , go run a few miles to work off that butter. You will feel great the whole way, smiling and rejoicing at how good life is.

Equine Sunshine

2011-11-24T06:49:00.000-06:00

2011-11-22T06:11:00.002-06:00

Erica's Michigan house, dressed in autumn.

It will be great to see Erica today in her Nebraska house, also dressed in autumn.

Canning Colors

2011-11-11T05:56:00.003-06:00

Does this look promising?

I don't think so. It looks like kind of a mess to me: a strainer full of mushy apples and seeds and tough cores. But the book said---the book said---to boil the apples without peeling or cutting out their middles, because most of the pectin is in the skin and core. Pectin is what makes fruit juice set up into jelly, and jelly was the best end I could devise for these apples. So I boiled them all into an ugly muck.

I didn't have much to lose. Someone gifted me the soft, mealy fruits. It was an act of kindness, I'm sure, but my first bite vehemently declared that these apples were chicken food, not people food.

John remembers his grandmother making apple jelly---lining up her jars on the counter, filling them with the hot syrup and then floating a clear stream of melted paraffin on top for a seal. I like to think that when the babies weren't crying and the hogs weren't out, his grandmother paused for a moment before she whisked the jars down to her closet under the basement stairs.

I like to think she took time to notice the sunlight flaming through the colors she had just sealed in glass.

I hope she smiled at the contrast when she set her autumn hues alongside chunks of summer green that she had canned with the pickles a few weeks earlier. Colors tucked away for future reference, holed up in the closet beneath the steps, waiting for release into January's shroud of grey and tan and white.

When I tossed the pale mash to the chickens, they pounced, fighting and flapping and clucking loudly over the tastiest bits. They didn't even miss the autumn brilliance that is sleeping in my basement.

Winter Garden

2011-11-09T15:41:00.001-06:00

I weeded my garden today, plucking out all the lettuce and cilantro that had seeded itself in amongst my intentionally planted spinach.

Fresh baby greens for the salads tonight!

There are two key elements for weeding fresh baby greens out of your garden in the middle of Nebraska in the middle of November:

1. A hoop house. I've had mine up for several years. You can read about it here and here.

2. A bit of laziness. That means you don't harvest all of your lettuce in the spring, because you just didn't get around to it. So some of it heads out, dropping the seeds of fresh November baby greens in the bed next door.

It also helps if you plant non-hybrid lettuce in the first place, so your fall seedlings grow up to be just like their mama and daddy.

Setting up a hoop house, weeding in November, and eating fresh spinach in March are good ways for a Texas girl to fight back against the rage that Nebraska calls winter.

HeArtwork

2011-11-06T09:51:00.005-06:00

You didn't forget my creative friend Derri, did you?

I think Derri is creative in part because she surrounds herself with other imaginative folk. They spontaneously see joy, invention, and newness in places where my eyes are bouncing along half asleep in the same-mobile.

Like Derri's friend Ellen, who has embarked on a project to create one heart every day, for a year. Turns out Ellen's world is full of funky, colorful, wispy, bold and crazy hearts, lurking everywhere and just waiting to be born. Like this one:

and this one:

and this, made from a rubber band and two staples:

Ellen posts photos of her hearts here (ellensdailyheart.blogspot.com) - a new one every day. Be sure and visit often for a fun journey through Ellen's heARTsy world.

I've never met Ellen, but I credit her for turning my flour-laced counter into a blank canvas the other day when I was baking. I wasn't really planning to copy Ellen, but before I knew it I had reached up and swiped my index finger through, creating a little heArtwork of my own.

A whiff of creativity can put sparkle into the most tedious tasks. And it's delightfully infectious.

How can we catch a bit today?

(Thank you, Ellen. I hope you have a happy Sunday!)

Harvest Progress

2011-11-02T20:09:00.140-06:00

We had a little rain. That's good.

We really needed a little rain a couple of weeks ago, when soybean harvest was in full swing around the county. Soybean harvest is always dusty. These pods reaching skyward are crispy crackling dry.

See the dust kicking up behind the grain cart and combine as they mow through the field?

Soybean harvest was especially dusty this year, because our fall was so dry.

More than once, within a few miles of where I live, something wasn't quite right in somebody's combine. Something like a bearing going out, something that makes a lot of friction and enough heat in the combine to ignite a dry soybean stem or pod.

One day as I was headed home, I saw a plume of smoke billowing skyward from the direction of my house. The fire was a few miles east of us.

The wind came to whip the flames into a fury.

The volunteer firefighters came.

The old farmers came, lining the road with their old pickups, with their old bodies leaning on them, and talking about how dry it was.

The guy who drives the road grader came. The road grader is normally a slow-moving machine, crawling down the gravel with a wide blade sunk into the top bit of road, smoothing out the potholes. I glanced in my rearview and saw the road grader flying toward me, kicking up dust. You know something is wrong when the road grader is going faster than you are. The driver had been called to bring his machine and plow up some of the unharvested soybeans, creating a wide, bare patch of dirt across the middle of the field for a firebreak..

They got the fire out before it spread to neighboring fields and houses. Then it rained, and then all the soybeans were harvested,

and now corn is king.

You Go, Girl!

2011-11-01T03:59:00.001-06:00

End of a Long Day

2011-10-31T06:12:00.002-06:00

Old. Corrugated. Building.

2011-10-30T08:36:00.004-06:00

Baseball

2011-10-29T20:08:00.000-06:00

Tommy Lasorda once said, "The saddest day of the year is the day baseball season ends."

This year, I think he might be right.

Go, Rangers! Get 'em in 2012!

Reverse Shoplifting

2011-10-23T14:01:00.002-06:00

At this point, is the best course of action to try and suspiciously tuck the banana deeper into my purse, as if I were stealing it? Or should I slip the banana out of my bag and drop it into the bin with all of Kroger's other unsold bananas?

I can afford to donate a banana to Kroger's. Reverse shoplifting might be the safest plan. On the other hand, if I'm caught pulling the banana out of my bag, it may cast a time-consuming pall of distrust over me, leading to a line of questions and perhaps a search of pockets and purse.

But if I don't lose the banana, and it pops its yellow nose out while I fish for my credit card.......not good either.

What would you do? The lady or the tiger?

If you don't know The Lady or the Tiger, a short story first published in 1882, you can read an updated version of it here or the longer original here.

2011-10-22T20:47:00.000-06:00

Erica in her Hillsdale home.

Colorado Colors (part 4)

2011-10-08T06:29:00.001-06:00

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

- Mark Twain

Persuasion

2011-10-07T09:30:00.024-06:00

A while back, Rachel read me this gem while surfing the net from my living room sofa:

When I teach persuasive writing, I tell students that if they truly want to change someone's mind, they need to
a) establish common ground with him,
b) give him a dignified way out of his position, and
c) be the sort of person whose side he'd like to be on.

It sounds like the author is talking about respect---respect for yourself and respect for those who disagree with you. It is a virtue sadly missing from much of the current political dialog.

Fertilizer Party

2011-10-06T08:15:00.036-06:00

Draft horse guys can make a party out of anything, as long as there are a a few four-legged powerhouses involved. So when John invited a friend to help spread manure, Steve was quick to head our way with his Percherons, Bill and Bob.

Since we only have one manure spreader, the guys took turns. Audrey was home for the weekend. She chatted with Steve while John coached Candy and Jess up and down the field.

Then Steve's team stepped up, and Audrey caught her dad up on the news from school.

A manure spreader uses thick iron chains and bars to move the load toward the back of the wagon box. There the beaters and a metal spiral called "the widespread" spin, flinging clods out into the world, peppering fertilizer out across the field.

Any critter that accidentally wound up in the wagon box would have to thread its way past three sets of metal on the move in order to survive the trip.

The back end of an antique manure
spreader--not family friendly.

So when John saw a garter snake in the manure pile, he tried to nudge it out of harm's way with his boot. After all, while garter snakes are harmless to humans, they are carnivorous, like all snakes. John would much rather have this one hunting slugs and mice around the farmyard than serving as fertilizer itself.

This snake would apparently rather fight than switch; it flashed its tongue, but didn't flee.

"Let's just move it," Audrey said swooping up the snake with bare hands.

Some things never change.

Audrey 2001

Audrey 2011

Silence

2011-10-05T19:25:00.003-06:00

...nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. historian William J. Durant

(Thanks to brother Larry for the quote.)
In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise.

Proverbs 10:19

Lunchtime!

2011-10-03T12:51:00.001-06:00

Start with a few chips and a little cheese, the grilled onions left from Saturday, and one today-or-die avocado.

Add a slice of grape tomato or jalapeno from the garden, along with a fresh cilantro leaf. (I'm so glad that cilantro reseeds itself, because I'm far too lazy to succession plant all summer.)

Nachos for lunch!

Let the Harvest Begin

2011-09-29T11:16:00.000-06:00

Early Morning Kitchen

2011-09-24T10:01:00.018-06:00

Bread in the oven; sunshine, coffee and Colorado peaches for breakfast.

Colorado Colors (part 3)

2011-09-23T04:40:00.000-06:00

creativity

2011-09-22T04:34:00.010-06:00

This is my friend Derri. She's very creative.

Derri maintains that EVERYONE is creative. She says that even people who say they're not creative really are, because we're all made in the image of God. He's the one who thought this whole thing up, the author and originator of creativity.

Derri's theory is that talent with imagination and vision take on many different shapes and forms, occurring in configurations that we don't always recognize as creative.

Creative people aren't just composers and artists and interior designers, Derri says, but maybe also the friend who listens carefully and then is able to encourage by reformatting a bad situation into one that has hope. Or the person who looks at mess and chaos and, in his mind's eye, imagines organization, and begins to restructure the pandemonium. Or the woman who hears at the last minute that there will be company tonight, and manages to build a healthy and attractive meal out of an avocado, six peaches, some leftover pork roast and half a bag of tortilla chips.

This is my friend Tammy. She maintains that artist types like Derri say "everyone is creative" just so that the unimaginative won't feel so badly about our lack. "Uncreative" Tammy, who picked up an antique sideboard at a consignment store and is plumbing it for sinks in her remodeled bathroom.

Plain ol' Tammy, who sewed doves onto grey-green army blankets from Goodwill to make these unique and artsy curtains that cover my French doors.

I think maybe Derri is right. The people I know are all creative -- some with fabric and flowers and paint; others with outlook or gardening or problem solving or letter writing. Creating good and order, peace and beauty, hope and joy where there was none. Like God Himself. And like you.

Colorado Colors (part 2)

2011-09-21T08:01:00.000-06:00

Colorado Colors (part 1)

2011-09-20T15:57:00.001-06:00

Cool Ducks

2011-09-16T05:50:00.006-06:00

Cool ducks at the county fair.

Missing E

2011-09-15T17:43:00.000-06:00

I miss this girl and her crazy Hillsdale friends.

2011-09-14T10:54:00.002-06:00

angles and shadows

2011-09-13T05:36:00.000-06:00

Reflections

2011-09-12T05:56:00.000-06:00

Thinkin' About It

2011-09-11T05:26:00.000-06:00

Day Off

2011-09-10T06:03:00.002-06:00

First Day of School

2011-09-09T05:28:00.020-06:00

Yesterday was Merrill's very first day of preschool.

She has a new job as a preschool aide. She mixed up paint, matched colored circles, pasted, cut shapes and doled out "snack".

She reminded me that most mommies take a picture when the kiddoes head out for their first day of school, so I did.

Merrill loves preschool.

Pigs

2011-09-08T04:53:00.004-06:00

Shorts and Cowboy Boots?

2011-09-07T07:01:00.007-06:00

Merrill has never been one to pay particular attention to convention.

2011-09-06T06:59:00.002-06:00

2011-09-05T07:21:00.005-06:00

Fruit of my Labors

2011-09-04T06:00:00.002-06:00

Happy Hunting

2011-09-03T06:54:00.006-06:00

I almost picked him, in amongst the beans. My outstretched hand froze in the air.....something's not quite right about that color of green......

I'm happy to share my garden. I'll eat the beans, he can have all the insects.

Advice for Single Gentlemen of Seniority

2011-09-02T05:39:00.000-06:00

Plant raspberries.

They are chick magnets.

Marshall and Wusan

2011-09-01T04:54:00.000-06:00

If you want to know where to get a delicious cup of coffee in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex,

or the best chile relleno, or the best barbequed beef brisket, or the best tiramisu,
or, or, or.....

you should ask Marshall and Wusan. They've been sampling the wares in Texas, the whole USA, and around the world together for thirty years, and they remember most of it. That puts them pretty far ahead of me.

They are both actually pretty big Texas Longhorn fans, but Marshall wears the shirt to humor his little sister.

I will have coffee with them any time.

Erica Loves Pickles

2011-08-31T06:42:00.003-06:00

Pickles from Jimmy John's.

Pickles from anywhere.

Sunday Morning, Late Summer

2011-08-30T10:30:00.002-06:00

Coffee and comics,

pancakes by Merrill, bluebonnets by Rachel.

Raspberries

2011-08-29T06:20:00.012-06:00

The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

Robert Louis Stevenson, A Child's Garden of Verse

Don't get me wrong. I don't really believe that all of the world's "things"can make a person happy.

But it's OK to be

simple.

childlike.

thankful.

Fresh raspberries as thick as chicken pox do cut a wide swath in the world of simple pleasures.

Audrey at Orientation

2011-08-28T06:45:00.004-06:00

Talking to her classmates on the big screen.

This might not have been her favorite part of orientation.

2011-08-27T06:49:00.008-06:00

Traveling Girl

2011-08-26T06:35:00.003-06:00

These two studied to buy Rachel's new car in Texas.

These two danced it all the way back to Nebraska,

where this one packed it full of her belongings and zipped it off to Georgia.

Traveling girl.

Merrill

2011-08-25T06:47:00.003-06:00

Celebrating Erica's Birthday

2011-08-24T06:55:00.001-06:00

First we spiked heart rates and adrenaline with Laser Tag.

Then a picnic helped us recover.

Great ideas, E.

IKEA

2011-08-23T12:31:00.000-06:00

IKEA might be overwhelming.

Vet School Student

2011-08-19T05:38:00.000-06:00

Random Dude Evan

2011-08-17T08:08:00.000-06:00

Workin' the Farm, Part 2

2011-08-16T08:11:00.000-06:00

Have I Mentioned.....

2011-08-15T07:44:00.000-06:00

Corn, horses, girls, water, garden......

Have I mentioned that I love summer?

Digging into our First Duathlon

2011-08-14T08:28:00.000-06:00

Texas August

2011-08-13T06:44:00.004-06:00

Down here, they landscape their yards with prickly pear.

Can you blame them?

Active Advisory: Heat Advisory

Here's Looking at You, Kid

2011-08-12T10:01:00.002-06:00

The Smell of Corn Growing

2011-08-11T06:44:00.005-06:00

It’s August. That means that the air outside my back door is just a little heavier than normal, its usual thin, clear quality laced with the subtle smell of corn growing. If you pull the back door shut and jump right into your pickup, you’ll miss it. But if you linger a minute on the wooden steps, breathe deeply, and let your nose sample the wares, you notice.

Corn. Like the smell of ears boiling in the pot on Grandma’s stove, only softer and brighter, a smell the color of late afternoon, late summer’s golden sun.

Smelling corn growing is like remembering a secret that someone told you long ago, a secret that you pull out, think about for a minute, smile and be thankful, and then tuck back away until next year. It’s a secret smell completely missed by city life; nonexistent until you live in the country.

I think it's the pollen.

Every embryonic, greenish-white knob of a kernel in an undeveloped ear of corn has a sticky strand of silk connected to it. The silks grow to the end of the ear and poke out of the husk in an unruly pony tail, waiting to be fertilized with pollen.

At the top of each plant, a tassel pokes the sky, covered with anthers that look like rice. They are filled with tiny pollen grains to drop onto those silks waiting on the ears below. Every silk that catches some will incubate its connected kernel under the husk, until it grows into a milky yellow lump of corn. Silks that miss remain barren, leaving an empty spot in the finished ear.

It’s all silent work, performed by three million corn plants sporting three million tassels in the field just south of our house. When each of those tassels tosses out a few million grains of pollen, it’s no surprise that my nose on the back porch finds a few of them.

Sometimes in August, the smell of corn growing gets washed out of the air by the smell of rain.

And that’s even sweeter.

Counting Bales

2011-08-10T06:14:00.001-06:00

Workin' the Farm

2011-08-09T09:58:00.010-06:00

Garden Melon

2011-08-08T21:58:00.000-06:00

Have I mentioned that I love summer?

Good Times

2011-08-01T14:18:00.001-06:00

We loved skiing, even though there is definitely a learning curve.

There is a learning curve on fishing, too, but Ruth and Vic are good teachers.

We love summer fun. Thank you, friends.

These are the good old days.

Honour

2011-07-20T13:38:00.007-06:00

"Act well your part; there all the honour lies."

— Alexander Pope

A Moment's Peace

2011-07-07T16:25:00.000-06:00

The Living Room Floor.....

2011-06-19T12:44:00.000-06:00

.....after Father's Day Brunch in a nearby small-town cafe, and a seventeen-mile bike ride home.

I love Sunday afternoons.

Bike Ride Across Nebraska

2011-06-17T16:17:00.001-06:00

Last week I rode my bicycle 440 miles across Nebraska alongside four daughters, one daughter's boyfriend, and six hundred other bikers.

Sixty-five miles a day, on average. Sometimes, if it was supposed to get hot or the wind was due to strengthen, we rode out of camp at the first hint of daylight. Which means our cell phones started chirping at about four or four-thirty a.m. That gave us time to pack our stuff, strike the tents and be finished with breakfast before the sun got up.

After you rise early and spend half a day pushing yourself across the plains, through tiny towns, and up and down sandhills, sleep becomes very precious.

The local librarians encouraged us to make ourselves at home.

One of them said, "You look like you need a little nap. I know a quiet place....." She hauled beanbag chairs out to the bookmobile for me.

Maybe she knew that six hundred hungry cyclists give a nice little boost to the town's economy. The locals want us to be happy, and they want us to come back another year.

When we weren't riding or sleeping, we ate a lot

and played games.

We celebrated Merrill's birthday by sleeping until 6 a.m. and eating ice cream cake.

There was lots to smile about

and sometimes we made other faces,

especially after the rain soaked us and hail bounced off of our helmets and bare legs.

But wet cycling shorts, hail and headwinds didn't dampen our spirits for long.

Ride with me next year!

(Thanks to all my favorite photographers who contributed their work to this post,

and to John who held things together at home while we played.)

2011-06-15T20:41:00.000-06:00

In a Paper Cup

2011-06-14T18:58:00.009-06:00

Another day moving cows.

We've done this routine plenty of times across the years. Get up early and make a plan together over a cup of hot black coffee. Who's doing what job. Who's driving which pickup. Who's rolling up the electric fence, and who's bringing the portable corral panels. Then pull on your muck boots and grab your work gloves, drain the last of the coffee into your mug, and head out for a pasture where cattle have eaten all there is to eat. Persuade them to get onto trucks and trailers, haul them to the vet, run them through the chute for flytags and lice drench and vaccinations. Load 'em up again and head for fresh pasture. Unload.

Same-o........same-o.........same-o.

I climb into the pickup in the morning haze, trying not to slosh hot coffee onto my leg. We pass things that farmers see, and John flips on the radio.

Kenny Loggins sings us into the past with a song we used to hear thirty or forty years ago.

And even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with ya honey, everything will bring a chain of love.

We drive on without a word, both of us listening, remembering.

"I love the way that violin plays above and below the melody line," John says. "It's kind of like life...the same repetitive chords pulsing away in the background, like your day-in-day-out routine, but the beauty of the song is this harmony line, sometimes above, sometimes below, weaving something precious around and dependent upon the solid steadiness of the chord progression."

I think about that as our tires crunch the gravel on a road we've traveled hundreds of times.

"Here comes my favorite verse," he says.

Love the girl who holds the world in a paper cup,

drink it up,
Love her and she'll bring you luck.
And if you find she helps your mind, buddy, take her home,
Don't you live alone, try to earn what lovers own.

"When we were dating, did you think I held the world in a paper cup?" I ask.

"Yep. You made that obvious a time or two."

Hmmm.

Fooled him, didn't I? I think I fooled him because I fooled myself. I did think I held the world in a paper cup. I could do, I could be, anything or anyone I wanted to be. I could conquer every foe. I was going somewhere, and going fast and in charge, and don't you dare put a stick in my spokes!

The intervening decades have taught me a few things. I've discovered that I don't hold the world in a paper cup. That there are things I can't change, things that scare me or befuddle me, things that hurt me and things I can't achieve under my own power.

The great thing is that life is no less rich or good or full or exciting than when I thought I held it all in a paper cup. Because I know the God who holds the cup---the same God who fills the cup.

And I can do, I can be, anything or anyone He wants me to be. With Him, I can conquer every foe. I am going somewhere, and going fast, and He’s in charge, and no one can put a stick in His spokes!

All things are still possible, because of the strength of the God who loves me. It's just that now I know: love is realized, kingdoms conquered, and witches held at bay through His strength, not my own.

This is a very good thing to know. It is a better place to put my trust. I am thankful and at peace.

And in the morning when I rise, you bring a tear of joy to my eyes, and tell me everything is gonna be all right.

Amen.

The chords pulsed and the violin sang today. It was a glorious day to move cows.

Strawberries

2011-06-13T13:15:00.001-06:00

These are 746 strawberries out of my garden.

I counted every one of them as I cut the tops off. I'm going to take a nap before I make them into jam.

This is starting to be a daily routine. I did it yesterday, and I'm over halfway through another round of picking strawberries, cleaning strawberries, napping, and making strawberries into jam. I may just get used to this--I'm only two-thirds of the way through the strawberry patch!

I'm thankful for the many hands that have helped me.

Lovely Things

2011-04-16T01:01:00.001-06:00

Lovely things are in bloom at my kitchen counter.

Manure

2011-04-15T08:49:00.002-06:00

This is a late-model manure spreader. As you pull it through the field with your John Deere tractor, beaters fling the clods to the wind, dispersing them to where they will finish their breakdown into nutrients for this summer's crops.

This modern machine is a fast and efficient way to return natural fertilizer to our fields. It is five times bigger and fifty years newer than our little horse-drawn spreader. Nonetheless, the new kid sits idle while the old man works. And I'm not talking about John.

We have a lot of natural fertilizer around here, and it's going to take a lot of work to whittle this pile away and spread the organic material where summer's crops can use it.

Fortunately, my farmer knows how to turn work into play.

Rear View

2011-04-14T11:57:00.000-06:00

Sometimes my rear view mirror is a really cool place.

Hello Again

2011-04-13T12:01:00.000-06:00

Part of the reason I haven't posted in a while is that I have been busy.

But part of the reason is that I lost my camera cord. That means I had no convenient way to move photos off of my camera and onto the computer. And photos are a big part of the stories I tell.

This morning, I finally decided to get serious about looking for the cord. I dug through all the chambers of a suitcase I carried on my latest travels. Crawled under the office computer table (YUCK!!!) and sorted through a rat's nest of cords and dust bunnies down there. Plied through mountains of papers on my desk. Sifted several small zipper pockets of a backpack, and combed the junk on two different bookshelves. Et Cet.

To no avail.

I gave up, and started picking up in the living room. While I tidied, I thought, "You haven't even asked God to help you find that camera cord." So I asked Him. Before I could finish the sentence, I heard, in my head, "It's in the drawer in the desk in the kitchen."

He was right. It was in the drawer in the desk in the kitchen.

James wrote that we have not because we ask not. Let's ask! God wants to love us up!

Stay tuned for photos. :)

Friends Don't Let Friends Eat All the Ice Cream

2011-03-15T06:40:00.000-06:00

2011-03-14T08:34:00.000-06:00

It feels like Nebraska has been grey and cloudy for weeks.

But today's early morning spoke with a different tone.

John Deere yellow is a beautiful color, especially when it comes pouring out of the sky.

Welcome, sunshine!

The Tortoise

2011-03-13T12:57:00.000-06:00

I don't run very fast.
I don't run very far.

I'm not any younger,

even though I read the book.

But I did just put the 100th mile on my running shoes, which were a gift from my husband.

My heart is stronger.
I'm happier.
I feel great, a hundred miles down the road that leads to vigorous, thriving, healthy.

Thank you, JohnR, for the gift of running.

Blue Jay

2011-03-10T11:15:00.001-06:00

White on White

2011-03-09T08:26:00.004-06:00

I've just been to Texas, where the green grass makes a bright backdrop for the state's official flowers, bluebonnets, waving their colorful blossoms in my parents' yard.

My dear hubby softened the sting of my return to the white Nebraska outdoors by providing a little fresh and white on the inside.

Thank you, JohnR.

Why I love Texas

2011-03-08T06:45:00.001-06:00

This isn't the whole reason, but it is enough to count for sure. Just look at those flavors. This is the BEST ice cream in the whole world. (web photo)

2011-03-07T07:26:00.000-06:00

‎"The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every human being."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Preaching to myself...

Obama's Bees

2011-02-25T06:49:00.000-06:00

I was surpised to see beehives on the White House lawn last week. Bees are legal inside the Beltway? Who woulda thunk it?

Not only that, but there is a new fruit and vegetable garden on the White House grounds as well. It was created in the spring of 2009, at Michelle Obama's urging. That was well before the recent freeze of up to sixty percent of Mexico's fruit and vegetable crops. The paper says the freeze is likely to send produce prices sky-high. This might be a good summer for a whole lot of us to grow our own. It's time to plant your indoor seed starts!

Merrill's Best Idea

2011-02-24T09:11:00.048-06:00

Merrill's best idea for our visit to Washington, D.C. was to see the city on two wheels.

It's a jolly holiday with Merrill.

Happy Birthday, JR!

2011-02-23T07:29:00.001-06:00

These are the good old days!

Just Askin'

2011-02-22T06:57:00.000-06:00

I saw this car stopped at a security checkpoint outside the U.S. Capitol. A policeman and his explosive-sniffing dog came up to check things out.

I snapped this picture. Another policeman nearby didn't like it. He told me not to take any more, and his telling wasn't in a very friendly voice.

What's up with that?

Is there a federal law or city ordinance against taking photos of policemen doing their jobs on the Capitol grounds?

I wish I had had the nerve to inquire.

2011-02-20T11:05:00.000-06:00

"...if I allow any private deflection from God in my life, everyone about me suffers."

--Oswald Chambers

Ouch.

The Nebraska Breakfast

2011-02-20T08:01:00.002-06:00

I like to visit Washington D.C. because it reminds me over and over that the foundations of this county were an incredible emergence from the status quo. The concept that all men are created equal wasn't standard fare in the 18th century, even on this side of the Atlantic. The idea that government should be a servant to the governed was and still is an amazing departure from precedent and from much of the rest of the world.

The whole reason we were in D.C. was so that John and some of his alfalfa buddies could talk to the congressmen, to the EPA, and to other federal agencies, about issues that are relevant to forage producers.

This is the official shot of the Nebraska Alfalfa delegation and Senator Ben Nelson. (Thanks to the HayQueen, pictured on the right, for sharing.)

Nebraksa's congressional servants make themselves available to their constituents every week at a breakfast on Capitol Hill. Each congressman speaks for a few minutes about what's on his mind or what he's working on that week. Later there is a chance for Nebraskans to chat with their representatives.

Senator Johanns is very concerned about getting the country's financial house in order. Here Merrill and John are listening to him, while other Nebraska congressmen maybe don't listen so closely. They've heard it all before.

Representative Fortenberry homeschooled some of his children. He didn't mention that to the gathered group, but it came out afterward. He and Merrill chatted about the reasons a congressman might vote for a bill that contained something his constituents opposed.

Senator Nelson knows a lot about that. We had a chance to say "how do?" to him at the aiport the day we flew into D.C. "How do?" is one of the nicer things I think of to say to a senator whom I believe caved in to his party last year instead of representing his electorate on an important and expensive piece of legislation.

Because of the wisdom in the Constitution, Senator Nelson has the right to vote for what he thinks is best, or even what he thinks is best for him politically, whether or not that is best for Nebraskans.

Because of the wisdom in the Constitution, I am not left powerless if I disagree with him. See you at the polls!

Lost

2011-02-19T07:51:00.003-06:00

There are a lot of lost soles in Washington, D.C.

Photo Ops

2011-02-18T07:21:00.008-06:00

I love to visit Washington, D.C. The city is full of constant reminders that this republic is built on the best idea for government that man has ever invented. I like to think about what the founders were thinking when they set this thing up, and how that relates to us today. D.C. is a great place to do that.

I also love the abundant photo opportunities found in this city.

These arches are in the Library of Congress,

where even the restroom floors hold photographic potential.

But my favorite is this one:

Peaceful Geese.

Nothing Like a Deere

2011-02-17T20:01:00.000-06:00

Someone parked a couple of John Deere tractors in front of the U.S. Capitol earlier this week.

Made me feel right at home.

Let's Go Fly a Kite

2011-02-15T20:44:00.000-06:00

Debate

2011-02-14T10:12:00.002-06:00

Dylan and Merrill are in homeschool debate class, pondering and preparing to argue that a government's legitimacy is determined more by its respect for popular sovereignty than individual rights. Or not -- maybe government legitimacy is based more on individual rights. They talk about slavery, Stalin, China, the health care bill, consent of the governed, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Jefferson, and much more. They read and write and speak, read some more, rewrite, say it over.

They practice at meetings of the local speech and debate club and then, every few weeks, gather with homeschoolers from five states to argue their ideas at tournaments. Each competitor must first defend one viewpoint, trying to convince a judge that popular sovereignty determines legitimacy. The next round, they face a new opponent and this time must convince the judge that legitimacy is based on individual rights. Then there's another round, another opponent, and they flip sides again. Six or eight or nine times, back and forth, back and forth, over three days of speaking and debating.

I am their coach. I never took a debate class, and never even thought much about debate until last year when Merrill joined this league. Last year's coach moved on at the end of the year, and the job fell to me. This is one of the best things about being a homeschool teacher - you learn so much, right alongside some of your favorite people. We're having a lot of fun.

Turkey In The Snow

2011-02-13T22:12:00.000-06:00

One Star Left

2011-02-08T07:34:00.002-06:00

Morning comes in all colors.

2011-02-06T13:56:00.005-06:00

Polka Dot Feathers!

2011-02-05T05:17:00.003-06:00

I laughed when I picked them up in my yard, where they had been left by the cat.

I liked them so much that I hung them in my house. Now I smile every time I look at them and think of God's finger dipped in white paint. His little, teen tiniest finger.

I wonder if the cat was laughing when she saw them up close. I'm pretty sure the bird wasn't.

2011-02-04T01:40:00.000-06:00

Tippy's Breakfast

2011-02-03T06:13:00.000-06:00

This is our friendly old milk cow, Tippy, captured on film last summer by Erica's creative eye. It is also the First Place prize-winning photo in the Nebraska Alfalfa Marketing Association's 2011 photo contest. Way to go, Erica!

Golden Moment

2011-02-02T07:20:00.000-06:00

2011-02-01T11:46:00.000-06:00