April, May, June, July...

Where has the time gone since my last post?
Foreseen and unforeseeable events, complications, many, many new friends, new skills, old-friends getting in touch again, actions on some old commitments -- weeks of living (and twice as long to tell the tales). I have filled two paper notebooks, then lost the second one, alas, with not much hope of ever finding it.

Lord, I would like to think that I have been about Your business, as well as my own.

Of failure and obsolescence...

If there had been bail-outs down through the years, might we still see on many corners a blacksmith ? A livery? A phone booth? Typewriters are curiosities, and the popular Polaroid camera a thing of the past. Teletype and line-o-type machines are noisy memories from my days working for a newspaper. Will newspapers themselves survive? Just wondering....

Who would have thought?

I did not expect to wake up one day last week and find myself on Secretary Janet Napolitano's potential terrorist watch list....Because I am

* pro-life
* right-of-center conservative...generally
* Christian
* a friend of many military veterans of the recent wars

Surely, she does not know any of my patriotic friends...or me, for that matter.
She might not know a domestic terrorist right under her nose. Probably she should flag the Hollywood writers and producers who have been graphically inciting violence for years. No, wait. Senator McCarthy tried that. Nevermind.

Sunday morning back talk ...

The Pastor's main text this morning was Acts 1:1-25. I respond to the Lord,

It is not for me to know times and epochs which You, Father God, have fixed by Your own authority. But, I am empowered by Your Spirit living in me -- a believer in Jesus -- to witness of my Savior wherever I am.

Right now, I'm on this blog.

Close encounters...

...standing silent in the predawn stillness of the house and yard, we watch a pair of river otters leisurely wait for sunrise. Soon after their ice flow has melted into the lake, perhaps the female will be raising pups in a den just a few feet from our house. I do know where she has lived through the winter.

A pair of Wood Ducks eyeing the trees, and a pair of Mallards looking for their own nesting site under the bank hold promise of fluffy flotillas of ducklings...the next generations.

Hours later and miles away -- up really close -- a herd of horses. Horses and good friends!...Finding a fence down, bringing horses in through a muddy ditch with a noisy food dish, grooming Coy, holding Fanny, staying out of Bud's way -- a wise strategy as he did not like the farrier's shoeing him -- learning he can jump, waiting while the cowboys outlasted Bud, lamenting the cowboys' little cuts and bruises. Knowing we'll go back...

Phenology report...

Today the lake ice is white and shifting shades of gray and blue. Water fowl are congregating in an open area over the river current. In warmth and stillness the ice melts. It remains to be seen if an east wind will come up in time to pile the floes on shore.

Rediscovering radio...

The back story: Out here in the rural landscape, two tv stations' signals usually came in. They and we were prepared for the switch to digital on February 17. One made the switch, and reception was great for a very few days, then the signal vanished! Problem? The station did not wait for the June postponement, so was forced to reduce the strength of its transmission...only until June, I hope. Not that I watched it very much....

In meantime, I have greatly enjoyed my radio listening, tuning in at various times to five dependable broadcast channels for news, talk, music, entertaining features, thought-provoking commentary, and -- of great importance -- weather forecasts. This takes me back to an earlier time when there was no tv and no internet. I like this.