In Memory of My Dad #25

Being a teacher myself, I found great joy in reading this story written by my dad on July 8, 1995.  How many of you have similar tales?

Why our little community was named “Briggs” by early settlers has been lost in the annals of time, but I was always ready and able to come up with a story as to why in my imaginative mind.

Briggs sits about three miles west of Eldon and about six miles east of Tahlequah on Highway 62.  Briggs lies on a relatively flat piece of ground not far from the Illinois River.  The pride and crowning glory of the community was Briggs School.

The school was a three-room affair, very small by today’s standards.  The first room took care of the first and second grades, and I’m happy to report my first grade teacher was a lovely young thing called Miss Jewell.  She was wonderful—pretty, young, and she smelled good.  What more could you ask for in a teacher?

I loved her so much that I had a hard time lining up with the others on my graduation from the second grade for a good-bye hug.  I remember running home and grabbing a huge piece of chocolate cake and going to bed to console myself with food.  (Having followed this practice religiously throughout my life, I can tell you that it’s a lot less expensive and easier on the body than tranquilizers and whiskey.) 

We were graduating on to the next room—a room filled with third, fourth and fifth graders, grizzled veterans of the school of higher learning.  Some said we were to find out what schooling was all about.  I had some trepidation about leaving the confines of Miss Jewell’s room because the third, fourth and fifth was taught by the toughest, meanest human being ever to embrace professional education.  It was gut check time.

We loved to hate this loathsome creature to whom the best-read of us referred to as “Miss Lizzie” (of Lizzie Borden fame) because it was rumored that she had hacked a couple of her charges to death.  In those days teachers chastised their students any way they saw fit, short of capital punishment and we weren’t sure that Miss Lizzie didn’t have special dispensation from the pope to invoke the death penalty.

Her favorite way of dispensing torture was to pull your hair.  And believe me it hurt.  Most of the denizens of the third, fourth or fifth grade had their mane rearranged by Miss Lizzie.  I myself had a head full of lovely brunette curls that seemed to daily catch the wrath of Miss Lizzie.

We had a couple of boys in the fifth grade who should have been in the 10th or 11th grade, but they had missed a lot of school time due to such things as hauling hay or driving a tractor.  These were just good old boys, meaner than junkyard dogs, and the rest of Miss Lizzie’s third, fourth, and fifth graders followed them slavishly down the path to wickedness.

Toward the last day of school, one of these guys came up with a foolproof plan which he felt in all probability would kill Miss Lizzie.  If it didn’t kill her, it would undoubtably result in her spending her remaining days in Eastern State Hospital at Vinita.  (He no doubt spent many hours praying about it, and received an answer from above.)  In those days breakdowns were not all that uncommon in the field of education.  As a matter of fact, they are not all that uncommon today.

Now the success of this plan hinged greatly on the fact that Miss Lizzie had made a deal with one of the few traitors in school to bring her a pint of raw milk each day to augment her sack lunch.  This was in the days before the school lunch program reared its ugly head.  Most of the kids had milk cows at home, but I would have rotted in Hades before I would have brought this teacher any kind of sustenance.

One day at recess the leader of this foul gang of reprobates filled us in on the plan.  It was beautiful—simplicity in motion, and in our own little black hearts we knew it could not fail.

The entire three grades were sworn to secrecy and the TREATMENT as we liked to call our project was to go into effect on April first.

On day one of the TREATMENT one of the older boys who thought of the scheme, surreptitiously dropped a small pebble into the milk.  Miss Lizzie choked and sputtered a bit, but she got the milk down and couldn’t proved a thing.

The traitor that delivered the milk was told to report the incident to her parents, who assured Miss Lizzie that they would be more careful in the future. 

Day two was a little worse, two roly-poly bugs were put into her milk, and while she was attacking our hair, one of the perpetrators removed the bugs, so she had no further proof.

Day three saw the end of the TREATMENT, and God help me, it was beautiful.  When Miss Lizzie opened the lid to the mason jar, she spied a small mouse frantically doing the breast stroke, trying to escape.

As we say in the hills, she cut and ran, straight to the principal’s office and fell into his arms babbling incoherently.

We liked the new teacher well enough, except for the part of writing Miss Lizzie get well notes up to Eastern State.  Finally we had to stop that because she kept screaming something about rodents in her milk and making a complete mess of the room by tearing the notes into a million pieces.

Our hearts soared at that bit of news.

Bob Briggs
January 16, 1943-February 26, 2011

The Whisperings of God

Each morning I take a 30 minute walk.  Except when it’s raining; which is never.  During that time of awakening my bones and joints, I lift my eyes up and talk to God and He oftentimes awakens my spirit.  Some mornings, it’s just me talking to the wind and the sky, but once in a blue moon, I hear him whisper back to me.  It might  just be in the sunrise or the birds singing, but I hear it just the same and a deep calm covers me.  It’s the only way I make it through this world somedays.

On Tuesday during our visit, I was a bit whiney.  I was focused on the dry conditions and asking for rain.  And in my desperate spirit I told him I felt like he’d forgotten about us.  Was he listening?  Did he care? 

He didn’t respond.

Yet.

But afterwards during my morning facebook ritual, I read a post by my friend Chantelle.  And although it was her typing the words, and although the words came from Restoration Place Ministries Word, it was HIM speaking to me.  And this is what he said.

I Am restoring the things that were assigned to your hands by Me. I call forth destiny over you. The things that seemed to be delayed are now ready to be released. There have been moments when you felt downcast, you thought that I had passed you by. Look up into My eyes today & be refreshed. Look & see the provisions. Look & see the outcome; I will triumph in you. You will see great victory for this battle belongs to Me. I own it; it is Mine.

Reading that, it could apply to a million different scenarios that you might be facing.  But to me, it spoke RAIN.  It spoke showers of blessings.  I said “Thank You Lord.  You haven’t forgotten about us.” 

That evening, JDub and I drove over to a neighboring town for some business and supper.  During supper, my mom called to tell me that it was pouring rain.  The power was out.  The rain was coming down in sheets.  The wind was howling.  Sure enough, facebook was exploding with pictures from the townfolk of the rain, the winds, rushing water down the streets, and children playing in the gutters afterwards.  It was awesome. 

Although we missed the storm, we certainly saw its aftermath.  It was a storm, I tell you.  Out here at our place, a tree had fallen over into the barbed wire fence, my lawn furniture was a tangled mess blown across the yard, and  my niece’s little playhouse was in about 20 pieces strewn across the pasture.  When we moved here, there was a little structure left that appeared to be built for a child’s fort.  My nieces took to it, hammering it, painting, it, decorating it.  But it is no longer.  Ash doesn’t seem to be too upset about it, which is good.  She is the optimistic one who says maybe we can build a new one.

We received 8 tenths of an inch according to our raingauge, but other places reported an inch to an inch and a half.  And now this morning, as I sit in my dark living room typing, I hear the thunder rolling, I see lightening flashing, and raindrops are hitting the rooftops and windows.  The things that seemed to be delayed are now ready to be released.  Praise be to the Restorer!  God’s promises remain.  And I’m standing on them.

Have a beautiful day wherever you are.  Look for your blessings and you’ll find them.

Love,

Angel

Update on life

I know. I know. I know.  I’ve been bad about blogging.  It’s just that I’ve felt quiet lately.  I wonder if you can relate.  Sometimes you just don’t have much to say, until you don’t say much for too long, then you have way too much to say.  This originally short post  turned into a novel.  Sorry and thanks for bearing through. 

I dearly appreciate all of you who click over here to see what is going on in my boring little world and tell me what is going on in yours.  And the truth is I miss you. 

Here’s a recap of my life:

VACATION!!
J-Dub and I just returned from a relaxing few days in the Rocky Mountains.  The Texas Panhandle Drought of 2011 had just about beaten both of us down to a nub and we desperately needed a break. 

When we got married, we agreed that each summer we would take a vacation to a new place.  Because of money issues, we’ve tried to take a more expensive vacation every other year, and take a quick, less expensive vacation on the opposite years.  Recently, our summers have just been quick, less expensive get-aways and we almost let this summer slip past us altogether.  But we scrimped and searched, and dug under couch cushions for a few nickels and dimes and were able to have one of the most enjoyable vacations yet. 

We drove up to a place called Winter Park, Colorado.  It’s a big ski resort town in the winter, but we were looking for a cool (weather-wise) hide out and it delivered.  The drive was beautiful.  We avoided the Interstate and took the back roads.  If you’re not in a hurry, it makes the drive so much more pleasant.  We stopped for lunch and homemade pie up around Castle Rock, and I got goose bumps in the restaurant, the first of several during the weekend.  The higher we ascended in altitude, the higher our spirits seemed to lift.  The mountains were majestic, the air was fresh, the temps were comfortable, the views were breathtaking, the flowers and the colors were astonishing, the rushing streams and rivers were exhilarating.  

We ate delicious food, we hiked mountain trails, we dipped our hands in ice-cold streams, we communed with nature, and we even caught a free rock concert with Warrant and Skid Row, which  left me convinced that I don’t wish to watch another rock concert as long as I live.  J-Dub and I got more entertainment from the aged crowds reveling in their youth than we did the aged band members.  Some hoisted their small children on their shoulders and taught them how to fist pump to the beat.  But hey, to each his own.  Although it was a free concert, J-Dub and I scored V.I.P. tickets, which basically gave us two free drinks and special seating.  I owe it all to the Bob Ross  t-shirt I was wearing.  While everyone else was sporting leather and black, and skimpy t-shirts tied under their bosoms, I accidentally threw on my happy accidents that my buddy Erin gave me. 

 

When people see Bob, they know we come in peace, which in turn opens doors and happy things occur, like V.I.P. tickets at an already free concert 🙂

Our time away was much too short, but I am feeling so re-energized now.  I even turned on the water sprinkler this morning in a feeble attempt to add some color to my world here on this dry, dusty pasture.  Although J-Dub and I originally wanted to visit a new place each summer, we may just make Colorado an annual event.  What a beautiful place God spoke into existence. 

EGGS!!
While we were away on vacation, I left the chickens in charge.  They managed everything quite nicely.  I did receive a phone call from my sweet niece Ash, informing me that they were passing through so they decided to stop and check on things.  They also found three eggs. For awhile, the dear chick that had first laid her eggs, took a little hiatus after I covered up the feeder and she couldn’t nest in there any more to lay her eggs.  But then, some little niece got a bright idea to put a different bucket of feed in the henhouse, and so she began to lay again in the new bucket of feed.  This morning when I checked there were two more eggs, one in the feeder, and one in a nesting box.  Imagine my surprise to find an egg actually in a nesting box.  Then as I was moving my water sprinkler, I found 2 more eggs in a flower-pot outside!  Soon I hope to have eggs running out of my ears.  Well, not literally, but you understand I hope.  There’s no telling where I might stumble upon eggs.  It’s a good thing I learned to walk gingerly back when the snakes were causing me to pee down both legs.

PREGNANCY!!
For those who may have missed my previous post, I am really and truly, positively, absolutely, undeniably pregnant.  And doing just fine considering.  Each morning, I thank God for my health and ask Him for a healthy baby.  My biggest complaint would be exhaustion, but that is subsiding some and I may even be confusing a little bit of it for just sheer laziness.  Thank you all for the well wishes, the prayers, and the congratulations.   My sister has already bought me a package of newborn diapers.  I turned the package over and over, wondering if I should open them.  Because, as much as I know that everything is going to be just fine, there is still a deep seeded fear of the “what if’s”.  But I succumbed and I tore open the dashed perforation, and I pulled out a little diaper.  I sat amazed at the tiny size of it, and I imagined a itty bitty little baby butt fitting inside.  Whether it has boy parts or girl parts is yet to be determined.  And then I did what most moms would do.  I put that diaper to my nose, shut my eyes, and breathed in the sweet smell of a baby.  It was a sweet moment.  And a rare one I’m sure.  Soon enough, the smell of diapers will permeate this home in a most unpleasant way.  The diaper is on my bedside table still, but the powdery fresh baby smell has all but disappeared.  I know because I checked this morning.  

I’ve decided it’s all going to be okay.  I’m slowly growing into this whole motherhood thing.  In more ways than one.

I hope life is treating you kind.  Leave me a comment and tell me about it.  I’ve missed you!

In Memory of My Dad #24

I’m away on vacation.  I know my blog has been dead this week, more dead than usual.  I hope to pick up the pace soon.  I’m afraid I’ve let the lazy, hazy, dog days of summer have the best of me.  But in the meantime, enjoy a story written by my late dad, Bob Briggs, that he wrote as a commentary way back in the 1990’s.

Roaring Springs is east of Lubbock.  I went there with Donnie Duree to pick up a fiddle player that he knew when he played in a country band. 

As it turned out, the fiddle player had already caught a ride for parts unknown, but Donnie grew up around there when his daddy was the chuckwagon cook for the Matador Cattle Company, so Donnie could talk the language and he knew a lot of the people.

We traveled down I-27 to Plainview, and if there’s one thing I have learned, it’s life doesn’t happen on the interstate.  It’s against the law.  We made a left off I-27 and took one of the blue highways over to Floydada.  Highway 62 is left to farm pickups and kids on  horses.  It is a road for the dawdling traveler with a lot of open space.  The billboards have followed the traffic.

It was early afternoon when we came on the two men drinking from a quart of whiskey and eating cheese crackers. 

“They get mad if you don’t drink with them,”  Donnie said bringing the pickup to a halt beside the two men.

Donnie took the proffered jug and drank mightily.  He tried to cough and couldn’t.  He gasped and wiped the tears from his eyes, closed them, shook his head and gasped, “Damnation, what is that stuff?”

“Kentucky Gentleman,” said the man taking the jug and offering it to me.  “Five bucks a bottle.  Short’s closing out his liquor store over in Lockney, and all of his whiskey is on sale.”

It didn’t taste as bad as it smelled, but I could feel the headaches starting at the base of the brain and slowly working their way around to the frontal lobe.

“Five bucks,” mused Donnie.  “Perhaps I’ve been too hasty.  Maybe I’d better have another slash.”

So there we sat, four men eating cheese crackers, spitting, telling lies and drinking 100-proof whiskey until a bloodshot moon came up as only it can in West Texas.  A slight breeze came up with the moon and someone said, “Al’s Place.”

Al’s Place was a huge clapboard building with a Lone Star beer sign that kept blinking off and on.  The band had three guitarists, a fiddle player, a tall rangy woman playing the standup bass and they had a five-string banjo player.

There were men in straw cowboy hats, their shirts and Levis freshly laundered and starched, their boots stitched and scrolled with fancy designs.  The women wore tight Levis and fancy shirts or plain print dresses.  But one thing in common in the room was the huge trophy buckles, real or imagined, that adorned almost everyone.

The ladies all had the faint sheen of sweat on their upper lip that I find so attractive in situations like this.  (It’s a wonder that I don’t wind up engaged or married at every country dance that I ever attended.)  Yee-Haw!  A Saturday night dance in a country saloon just outside Roaring Springs, Texas.

Room vibrations keep the foam jiggling on the beer glasses.   The tall woman playing the bass fiddle pulls off of a Mason jar.  She has to hold the jug with two hands to keep the jug steady.  She uses the back of her hand for a chaser.

We began to dance.  Donnie is doing a song called “Rambo, Where Were You in 1969?”  I must remember to get the words to the song for my brother.  All join hands, follow the leader, heel to toe, change partners, intermission.

Catfish stew served on metal pie plates. 
Chase stew with cold beer. 
Chase beer with 100-proof. 
Then back to stew.

Donnie says stew is as hot as a weasel’s backside in a pepper patch. 
Sounds of a fight outside. 
Owner locks the door so no one can get out. 
No windows. 
Can’t see, don’t care.

Music starts up again. 
Return to dancing. 
New singer, a tall ugly man sings of unrequited love. 
Can’t sing. 
No one cares. 
Everyone claps and calls for more. 
Reminds me of Kane’s place on the Illinois River. 
Banjo solo. 
Same chords only louder, flatter, madder, worse. 
More stew, more 100-proof, more dancing. 
Hot, cold flashes. 
Donnie comes over and slaps me on the back.  “Tell me the truth, have you ever had so much fun in your life?”

I can’t answer.  It wouldn’t have mattered because I can’t speak, either.  Dragged  back out on dance floor where the room takes on a  spinning glow.

Sneak out back door, past table where catfish were cleaned, held on to tree, on to head, on to stomach, stared at that old bloodshot moon through a tangle of mesquite branches. 

Swear I’ll leave for Tahlequah in the morning.

 

In Memory of My Dad #23

You might think that with a family the size of the one I grew up in, we would eat anything that was put in front of us.  Not so.  Although we were avid partakers of our own favorite dishes, we had several idiosyncrasies that were unique to us alone. 

Steak was expensive, and I don’t remember eating much of it growing up.  But if we were lucky enough to have pork chops or something like that, you could bet that the fat was trimmed from the meat and it was cooked well done. 

Eggs were another thing that were fried well done.  It was difficult to fix eggs for us kids, because we wanted them fried really hard.

Mama used a heavy iron spatula and a cast iron skillet to fix breakfast in, and she cooked the eggs to the point that any nutritional value at all was cooked out.  They were black, tough, lacy edged, rubber-looking eggs, but man they were tasty.  You had to have a sharp knife to eat them and I had the debatable honor of being the only person at Briggs School to have broken a tooth on a fried egg.  I still like to eat eggs that way occasionally.

Once I went hunting with a favorite uncle of mine that had no children of his own, so I really took up with him because he talked to me like I was an adult instead of being only seven years old.  I think Ol’ Skeet was the favorite uncle of most of my siblings.  At times, my brother Leon will start a story with, “You remember when Skeet and Dude…..?” and then he’ll launch into an escapade from some long forgotten past.  Dude was another of my favorites, but that’s another story.

Anyway, we hunted all that day up on Badger Flats, I don’t remember what we were hunting.  I guess anything that stuck its head out of that shinnery brush.   When it came time to leave, Skeet blew long and hard on his horn to call in his dogs.  The horn was made from the horn of a cow or a bull that no longer had any use for the horns. 

The dogs all came to the sound of the horn except one of Skeet’s favorite hounds, Rock or Drum or something like that.  He allowed as how that was all right because we would come back the next day and pick the dog up.

Early the next morning Uncle Skeet, my dad, and I embarked on a quest for the wayward hound.  After looking unsuccessfully for the dog all morning, we arrived at a friend’s house, a long way back in the hills.  These hospitable folks invited us to dinner, which was what they used to call the noon meal.

Guess what was on the menu?  A huge platter of wide-eyed greasy, soft cooked eggs nestled on a platter of thick pink slabs of ham.  Great gobs of fat hung obscenely to the corners of the ham.  The crowning insult was a huge bowl of cream gravy that resembled wall paper paste.  I felt my stomach do a little turn at that point, not unlike the butterflies that you get when the teacher calls you to the blackboard and you haven’t been paying attention in math class.  Sort of a churning sensation that scares a seven-year old mind.

As the diners started passing the food around, a fat hen walked in the kitchen door.  There was no screen door and the chicken flew up onto the table and started pecking at the biscuits that were sitting by my elbow. 

I was unaccustomed to chickens walking about on the table, and it shocked me somewhat to see this happen.  The diners thought nothing of this and continued to eat.  Both Skeet and Daddy, living by the code of the hills, bravely placed food upon their plates and began to partake of the vittles.

I, being a weak-stomached child, did the only thing I could under the circumstances.  My breakfast came up the same way that it went down, in the most unpleasant way imaginable.

Daddy immediately grabbed me up, and Uncle Skeet started to castigate him for bringing a child out so soon after having the chicken pox.  (Daddy and Skeet could think fast on their feet when they had to, especially when faced with eating almost raw eggs and fatty undercooked meat.)  He told his friends he was sorry that his son caused so much trouble, and for them to stop in the next time they were down our way.

The search for the lost hound was over for the day.  Skeet congratulated me on the way home for my performance, and Daddy bought me an Eskimo pie for my trouble.

We got the old ’40 Ford pickup to about 35 miles per hour on our way home—-after all, we didn’t want to be late for supper.

story written by Bob Briggs

 

Eggs!!

I peeked into the chicken feeder to see how low the chickens were getting on feed, and just take a looky-look at what I discovered.

 

Yup, eggs.  In the feeder.  Our very first crop, if that’s what you call it.  I had been checking for eggs daily, but foolish me, was looking in the nesting boxes, not in the chicken feeder.

It’s a good thing I have this handy little egg basket. 

Since there were four eggs, I assumed they might be from one hen, and have possibly been sitting in a the summer heat for a few days, so my niece and I did the egg freshness test.

When you put the egg in a bowl of water, if it sinks quickly and lies on its side, it is good to eat.  If it ever floats, it needs to be discarded.  If it sits on the bottom of the bowl, but stands up on one end, it is not as fresh, but is still safe to eat. 

All our eggs aced the test.

 

They are quite tiny.  But the chickens are only 4 months old, and I’m hoping as they mature a little more, the eggs will increase in size. 

Despite their size, they made a good breakfast. 

With a taste nothing like store-bought eggs.  Much richer.  I was a bit leery at first, wondering if it’s safe to eat the first eggs, but we did anyway, and we didn’t even get salmonella or botulism or anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Memory of my Dad #22

Momma’s older brother had a lot of cowboy in him.

He worked for a large rancher east of Tahlequah, and I can still remember him riding up to the house at Briggs.  I remember the stories that he  used to tell us kids also, especially when he got in his cups.  That seemed pretty often in those days.

He also owned the only .10 gauge double-barreled shotgun I ever saw.  The .10 gauge is a very serious weapon indeed.

Speaking of serious weapons, I received an invitation to the Illinois River Militia and Garden Club meeting later this month at the club’s heavy weapons and bomb range on a deserted gravel road on the upper Illinois river.

Membership in the club is so secretive that no list of members is believed to exist, and the club’s president is not known.  Members communicate with each other by using code names, like Mr. Green, Mr. Black, Mr. White, just like in the movie “Reservoir Dogs.”  Meetings are shrouded in secrecy and conducted in total darkness.  Many of the members are prominent women around town that are known for their beauty.  “Loose lips will be dealt with accordingly,” says a club member.  “Privacy is our dominant domain.  That is all you need to know and all you will ever need to know….”

But I digress.

As a boy I heard many stories designed to scare the bejesus out of a young boy.  None scared me the way that the panther’s scream did.  The panther, or “paint her”  always stood ready to leap upon the back of a man carrying meat, or upon a woman entering a shed or just a kid out late in the evening.  I know now that the panther was just a plain cougar or mountain lion.  There probably weren’t even any left in this country during the early ’50s.  Anyway this story has no date—just a long time ago.

My uncle located a turkey roost one day while riding fence in the Copeland bottoms.  Knowing that his family needed meat, he decided to injun up on the roost about sundown.

He rode up to the fence and tied his horse about a half mile away so that the horse would not frighten the birds, and went on foot the rest of the way.  About dark, he heard the turkeys coming in to their sleeping place.  He waited for the moon to rise so that he could skylight the birds against the moon.  The birds took a long time getting settled and they were blending into the foliage when my uncle got the birds lined up and emptied both barrels.  Six turkeys fell groundward.

The turkeys probably weighed 12 to 15 pounds each, and the gun was big and cumbersome, so it took him a while to make it back to his horse.  That’s when he heard the panther scream.  It sounded as if it were coming from the brush right behind him.  The scream has been described as a woman in fright or pain and to say that it curdled the blood of my uncle would be an understatement.  Right away he knew what the panther was after so he dropped one of the turkeys.

He had gone but a short distance when he heard the panther scream once again.  Another turkey was dropped and my uncle was able to pick up a little speed because of his lightened load.  The next time the panther squalled it was off to one side of him and so another turkey was dropped.

The man had no more shells for the gun, and the gun’s weight would make it a poor choice of a weapon, even as a club and the panther’s screams were getting closer all the time.

And now the screams became louder, more pronounced, nearer as he dropped the last turkey just a few feet from where his horse was tied.  The horse was plunging and rearing against the reins, but thank goodness by now he was mounted and the horse was tearing a hole in the wind as my uncle whipped him into a flat-out run getting home.

After hearing this story—and it always seemed to be told after dark—-I lay in bed and wondered what would have happened if the man had a mile to walk instead of a half mile, or what would have happened if he had shot four or five turkeys instead of six.

I can never look at a mounted cougar in a museum without thinking of this story.  It’s too bad the taxidermist couldn’t have captured the scream also.  The mere thought of it lent wings to my feet many times on some of my late night forays.

story by R.L. Briggs  1943-2011

Dem Dry Lands

My vegetable patch is green, luscious, fruitful, and multiplying.

I mean, the garden in my dreams.  Of course.

It’s difficult at best to grow a garden, or anything green, in a drought.

We’ve morphed into a barren desert land.

The horses search for anything green and tender, including the bottommost leaves of the trees, leaving all our trees looking a little bit top-heavy. 

We’re having a hot, dry summer in my area.

Our average rainfall is about 19 inches and as of June 6, we had received 0.68 inches of rain this year, making it the driest start to a  year on record since 1892.  1892!!  That’s a long time ago.  We’ve had the most days over 100 degrees since 1953.  We are shattering records in this unpleasant summer season.

But one thing I know, this too shall pass.  Soon enough we will be cursing the biting winds of old man winter.

Two positives to this negative weather pattern:  1)  nary a mosquito have I seen this summer and 2) I have not had to mow the grass yet.  I have a few horses and chickens to thank for that as well.

We’ve been getting some intermittent showers the last few weeks, and it has been refreshing.  And irony of all ironies, before the evidence of drought, my husband and a friend began a part-time business hanging rain gutter and have had a great start.  People are buying rain gutter in a drought!  So our next stop is Alaska to sell ice to the Eskimos.  I shall insert a small advertisement here:  Let me know if you’re in the market for gutter.  I can hook you up.

But seriously, mankind has great faith.  We, as humankind, are a resilient people.  A people who have seen trials and blessings, who have spent time on both the mountaintop and in the valley, who have experienced the harvests and the famines of life.  Throughout it all, we hang tough.  

And look for the life among all the dying.

Robert Frost said it best,

In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. 
It goes on.

I pray life is treating you good and you’re able to see the positive in your negative situation today.

God Bless.

 

 

 

 

Newness

See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  Isaiah 43:19

I awoke before my  husband.  Unusual?  More unusual than a flying armadillo.   Rather than rolling over and falling back to sleep, I groaned out of bed and crept through the dark house.  I laced up my tennis shoes and decided to greet the day with a walk. 

I was more than a little astonished to discover the sun does not rise before 5:45.  In fact, everything was still slumbering.  The horses, the birds, the sun, even the chickens.  But I do know  One who never sleeps or slumbers, no matter the time of day or night, this one is vigilant and waiting to hear from me, so He and I spent some time together.  And he put on quite a show. 

The morning was dark, but the moon was full, round and bright.  The eastern sky slowly began to lighten to a light blue.  I walked my driveway path that runs in front of my house from one gate to the next and then I turned around, back and forth, back and forth.  The sticks that lay before me on the dark path frightened me at first, until I realized they were just sticks laying in the dark and not the creepy snakes of which I first imagined. 

The chickens still slept in their coop, the horses stood as dark statues out in the pasture.  The whole world was quiet.  And dark. 

There is a sense of peace to arise before everyone else, to observe the whole day awaken, to experience the firsts. 

As the sun inched its  light upward, the world began to stir, slowly but then more increasingly.

Two birds sat on barbed wire; silhouetted against the early dark sky that began as deep blue, then transformed to light blue, pink, orange, red and then back to light blue as the sun found its place.

The birds in the trees began their morning songs, a few peaceful tweets soon turned into a cacophony of chatter and cheeps.

The chickens finally decided to make their morning debut with clucks of Good Mornings escaping into the air.

I walked my driveway observing the new day, thanking God for all things new.  Thanking Him for the opportunity to witness Him in action, as He brings forth each new day, each new breath, each new life.

He makes all things new.

The most miraculous of all perhaps being new life.  The little fingers.  The little toes.  The sweet pink lips.

Jason and I are on a new journey.  A journey of new life.  Of little fingers, little toes, and sweet pink lips.  We are bringing a new life into this world.

Partnering with God in the creation and witness of a miracle.

By His grace and mercy, we will hold this new baby in our arms come January. 

Jason is thrilled.  I for one, have been wrought with an array of emotions, predominately disbelief, shock and fear.   But I know whom I have believed, and I trust in the One who makes all things new.  It is in his working.  It is his timing and his plan.  I also understand the love and the blessing that this new creation is going to rock my world with is unfathomable.

If I may, I ask one thing of you.  When and if you think of us, would you speak a prayer on our behalf.   It would mean the world to us and our new blessing.

Blessings to you,

Angel

In Memory of my Dad #21

Written by Bob Briggs on July 29, 1995 before computers had really taken over the world and everyone carried one in their hip pocket.

Computers will lie to you.  Computers never apologize for their mistakes either.  Believe me they make plenty of them.

I just recently got my finances straightened out with Sports Illustrated.  I did it by cancelling my subscription.  I still get letters all the time offering me a free video or a free sweatshirt with the name of my favorite NFL team emblazoned across the front.  I can even take the E-Z payments plan, $4.49 for four months.

Farmers and ranchers today would be lost without their Apples or their Macintoshs, or is that the same company?  Anyway they would be lost without their computers. 

Long ago city dwellers sought out the quiet peaceful life that was offered here in Cherokee county.  Soon the city streets were clogged with people driving to where?  At any time of the day you can sit at any red light in town, and you never have the road all to yourself. 

A photographer recently told me that the population of Tahlequah was 10,000 people.  Hell, there’s that may cars parked at Wal-mart on any given day.

But to get back to computers, I never thought that a computer would replace the hired man.  I’m sure my dad felt the same way about the jet age overtaking the automobile.  He figured that the horseless carriage was merely an invention to take an afternoon drive in at the then unheard of speed of 40 MPH.

How does this new contraption work?  It’s a mystery to me.

You can’t keep a computer in the barn because the chicken would roost on it, and you know what happens when chickens roost.  So it will have to sit in your living room right next to your VCR and CD player.

I know nothing of computers except that you shovel in a lot of info, press a button and out comes your answer in a  few seconds.  The computer has put more people out of work than the welfare program.

My main connection here in Hulbert with a computer is that it calls me a liar saying that I didn’t pay for my subscription.  After sending in copies of my cancelled check, I did get a manager to say he was sorry for the inconvenience but nary a word from the computer.

Say the gentleman farmer wants to go to the coast for some deep-sea fishing, so he starts feeding the computer.  The calf that he has been fattening up must have cow-cake kicked out to it morning and night.  The birds must be fed along with the chickens.  Milk must be left out for the barn cats.  The horses must be curried and combed.  The cow must be fed.  The electricity must be turned off except to the deep freeze.

And so he takes off for the coast where the waves are whitecapping and the big marlin are jumping and the flounder are fighting to get hold of his line and are begging to be broiled according to his guide.  Just a couple of days for doing nothing except lying back and watching his troubles roll past like floaters on the Illinois. 

But what happens when he returns Monday morning?

Something has gone wrong.

He notices a smell like rotting meat when he goes to put his founder in the deep freeze.  The machine is silent, no reassuring hum.  Melted ice cream sloshes around the quail that he was saving for Sunday cooking.  The horse is staring at a can of Puss ‘n Boots atop a 50 pound block of salt.  The calf is trying to decided what to do with the small bit of birdseed.  At least the barn cats have a curry comb to play with.

It must have been the laundry list that was entered into the computer, how else do you explain the cat moving into the master bedroom and delivering a litter of kittens?  How else do you explain the laundry ending up in the tool shed?

Further investigation reveals the birds screaming at a bale of hay while the tomcat tries to chew some cottonseed cake.

The gentleman farmer mourns for the good old days before computers when Charlie or Ted worked the farm from first light until dusk taking care of the animals.

But that was before they were retired to the nursing homes and Social Security.  He can imagine what kind of homecoming he would have had if he’d have left Charlie in charge.  The cow would have been milked and the eggs gathered.  The parakeet would probably have escaped into the woods, but Charlie would have been anticipating an owl/parakeet mixture or at least a crow/parakeet dabbling.

The cats would have been chasing mice out in the barn as all cats should and the horses would have been muzzling hay in the confines of the barn.  The calf might have been overfed—but just by a little.  Besides the vet only charges $25 as a special favor to his cousin Charlie.

Maybe we should all become a little more computer friendly. 

Or at least buy flounder at the grocery store.