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Pallet House

12 Jul

On The Porch

Onisha Ellis

My son, Matt enjoys raising chickens. I don’t know why, but he just can’t seem to have enough chickens or chicken houses. Recently he decided to raise bantam chickens. He got eight of the Cochin type and four others of a breed I can’t remember. I’m not up on my chicken knowledge. This caused a problem since these chickens are smaller than his other ones. He decided to build another chicken house but like with many of us money is tight so he had to be creative.

Matt worked in a factory, which had a surplus of wooden pallets, and they were glad to get rid of them. He took seven home and started building. He framed it with five wooden pallets, put two pallets down to make a floor and used two by fours to create a roof. He picked up some Masonite siding from a surplus supply store to finish the outer walls and put two four by eight corrugated fiberglass panels to make a nice roof. He finished it off with two by twos and chicken wire for a door. This chicken house is so deluxe it even has an automatic water dispenser made using a five-gallon bucket. All total, he built a fine chicken house for sixty dollars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m so proud of him. He has the ability to look at a problem and find creative, practical solutions. In these hard times, we all need to look into ourselves to rediscover that mindset. I fear that in our busy lives we have found it easier to throw money at a situation rather than using our minds to solve problems.

Matt’s chickens even get water front living.

 

Luke 12:42

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Take Time to Read the Label

11 Jul

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Reading is not my favorite thing to do.  I have been told that my word dyslexia is what causes words to get jumbled up as I read and sometimes words even drop out or are added to what I see.  This makes for some interesting if not frustrating situations.

Take for instance the last time I went to the store to pick up a few things for my wife.  She had given me a list of things she needed which included four cans of four different soups.  Years ago, this would not have been much of a problem for me as each soup had only one label.  All I had to do was read the label correctly.

Today it’s a little more complicated than that.  When I looked on the soup shelf for a can of Cream of Celery soup, there was green label “Low Sodium”, green label “Heart Healthy” plain label “98% Fat Free”, plain label “Reduced Fat” and blue label “great for Cooking” – I think that was all.  Anyway, you get the picture.  Now, we were raised on the real thing, when it comes to soup, and my wife still wants the real thing for all her cooking.  Well, as you might imagine, I spent some time looking through all those different labels to find the real thing for each of the four types of soup she wanted.  I even had to take some items out of my basket and put them back on the shelf after I discovered I had picked up another wrong-labeled item.

When I got home, I was pleased to see that I had managed to get all the right kinds of soup on the list.  But then, my wife asked me, “Is this stick the only type of Benadryl they had?” I had spent a lot of time looking over the different types of Anti-Itch products, reading and comparing the ingredients and thought I had the right thing.  But, right there, in big black letters was the word “Stick” not “Cream “on the front of the box.  I guess I had been so involved in checking the ingredients that my brain looked right over the obvious.  Fortunately I had also bought another brand of anti-itch product that just happened to be “cream” for my medicine cabinet, so I just traded with her.

Romans 8:28

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Thyme On My Hands

9 Jul

My Take

DiVoran Lites

My mother, grandmother and even Dad were all good cooks, but they didn’t use herbs. When I became a full-time homemaker, I decided to experiment and my family liked them. Now, I’m learning to grow my own.

Recently I harvested basil, rosemary, oregano, cilantro, chives and of course thyme. Thyme is a small miracle. It adds great flavor to food, it’s a survivor, an antioxidant, and an antiseptic. I love the aroma that lets me know it’s around. The other herbs fit all together in small packets for the freezer, but the thyme filled a colander all by itself.             

Hey, there’s an idea, maybe I have plenty of clock time too. What would happen if, instead of indiscriminately giving it away or throwing it away I ask God to guide me in its use? I’m sure if I put him in charge, the housework will get done, I’ll have minutes and hours to listen and I can develop healthier habits. Hobbies, weeding and mending can still happen. Maybe if I do what I feel is intuitively right for me, I will discover the things God created me to do. Maybe I’ll be more at peace with myself, and more effective in every way.

I spread handfuls of thyme over a cookie sheet and froze it, and then I made packages of  it  to throw into stews and vegetables. When I prayed about individual choices in clock time, I began to feel more settled, more satisfied, and eventually more peaceful. I believe I’ve become more effective in every way.

Check out this snippet from The Message Bible: …”if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.” (Matthew 23:12)

Herbs: Thyme, oregano and rosemary

Herbs: Thyme, oregano and rosemary (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Note from Onisha: I think thyme is one of my favorite herbs too but I have a question, what constitutes a sprig of thyme?

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Does the Earth Still Call?

8 Jul

I missed my Thursday post due to a problem with my hands. This will be short but I wanted to talk about family. Last week my daughter, Rebekah Lyn took on her first solo-canning project. She had an abundance of Roma tomatoes and decided to make homemade salsa and can it. It came out beautiful and I am re-blogging her post so you can read about her experience. In the same week my son, Matt, canned eight quarts of green beans from his garden. He is an excellent gardener and has begun raising chickens too. It delights my soul to see my city-raised children taking up the skills they saw their grandparents practice. When you have a farming heritage, does the connection with the earth still call to the soul?

Rebekah Lyn's Kitchen

Happy 4th of July!  I hope you all take some time today to reflect on what makes this day so very important in the history of the United States, especially as times are so rapidly changing for us.  There is another reason this day is so important to me though.  Today would have been my grandmother’s 90th birthday.  I have been thinking about Grandma Pearl all week and wish she could have been here over the weekend to help me with my first endeavor at canning on my own.

I have many memories of helping her can preserves, green beans, and tomatoes.  I remember setting up the Coleman stove on the back porch, watching the giant pot boil, peeling the skin off the tomatoes and skimming the froth off the strawberries. Those are memories that I will always treasure.

Since I had so many tomatoes of my own…

View original post 110 more words

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From Pollywog to Shellback

4 Jul

I wanted our offering today to have a patriotic theme but not necessarily flag waving. We know how hard our military trains and sacrifices for our freedom but we don’t always know about their “fun” traditions. Bill kindly agreed to share his experience of progressing from Pollywog to Shellback. I enjoy this kind of story; if you have one I would love for you to share it- Onisha

  Go Navy

      By Bill Lites

I went into the U.S. Navy when I was eighteen years old. No war raged at the time, but I had plenty of adventures.  The one thing I remember most clearly wasn’t boot camp with its marching, fire fighting, and KP duty, nor was it swabbing decks, painting everything that didn’t move, or midnight watches out in the freezing weather, once I was aboard ship. The thing I remember most is crossing the equator.

My first ship assignment out of boot camp was the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea. After a 6-month cruise to the Mediterranean, the ship was scheduled for a complete two-year overhaul in the New York shipyards.  However, the NY yards were full, so the ship was reassigned to the Bremerton shipyards in Washington State.  The ship was too big to go through the Panama Canal, so we had to sail all the way around South America to get to Bremerton.  That’s how I ended up changing my status from “Pollywog” to “Shellback” in U.S. Navy terms.

Before Modification

After Modification

 

The restrictions on initiations for Navy traditions in the late 1950’s were far less than they are today.  The “Pollywogs” were lined up, in our dungarees on the flight deck, where the ship’s “Shellbacks” had setup the festivities.

 

 

 

 

We were brought before “King Neptunus Rex” and his “Royal Court” for trial and sentencing.  First, we had to run the “gauntlet”- wet canvas clubs filled with rags.  Then on to the “tunnel of fear”- a tube,  barely large enough to crawl through on our elbows, filled with garbage. Unfortunately, this had made some of the guys going through before me sick, and that only added to the stench.   As we exited the tube, we were hit with a fire hose to clean us up so we could pay homage to the “Royal Family”. The “Royal Baby” was one of the fattest guys I’d ever seen.  “Davy Jones” would smear his huge belly with mustard as we were forced to our knees to kiss his “Royal Belly Button.”  As we did, “Baby” pulled our head into his stomach so our entire face was covered with mustard.  Then it was on to the dunking pool where we had to “Walk The Plank” as we were pelted with rotten garbage and dumped into the pool.  There were other equally gross things we had to do but I’ve managed in erasing most of them from my memory.

As you can see, it was an experience I remember well.  When you couple that with the “Crossing the International Dateline” which I did the next year on a different ship on the way to Japan you can see how these were the memorable experiences in my otherwise mundane U.S. Navy career.

I’ve heard the saying, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” I looked it up. It was the last line of John Milton’s poem, “On His Blindness,” written after he went blind. It comforts me to know that although I didn’t serve in a war, still I did my best to serve my country.

What I’ve come to understand is that no matter how talented and skillful we are, or what disabilities we may have, everyone was created by God for a purpose and has a place in this world.

Psalm 139

Order of the Rock – Transitioning the Rock of Gibraltar

Order of the Deep – Crossing the Equator

Order of the Golden Dragon – International Date Line

Typical Order of the Deep Certificate

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Alley Cat

2 Jul

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Bill and I joined a square-dance club some time ago. It was great fun! We also took round-dance classes. I designed and sewed my own dresses and they were beautiful. One was Cotton Voile that just floated over the three to five net petticoats I wore under it to make the tiered skirt stand out.

Round dancing is a cross between square dancing and ballroom dancing. You have a caller, but you have to know the steps and you usually dance in the arms of someone you love, or at least like a lot.

Our teachers were K. O. and Phyllis Williams. Sometimes K. O. would ask me to dance. I was honored, but the minute K. O. put his hand on my waist I’d suddenly develop a shortness of breath and two left feet. K. O. was the best. He did every step perfectly. He was tall and slim and held himself like a Spanish Grande. He could dance! It made me nervous.

But my Bill, well, he was tall and straight too. He was just my Bill. We were both learning. Oh, Id’ get in Bill’s arms and suddenly my feet were clouds. Dancing shoes and boots barely touched the polished wooden floor and when they did, we glided. The skirt of my dress flew out in a wreath of lightness. I leaned into Bill for support on the turns and he was there, strong, reliable, and sweet.

One of our favorite songs was, “Alley Cat,” they play it on Pandora now and even though we have forgotten the precise steps, we still put our arms around each other and dance in the kitchen, or at least sway.

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The Robin Diaries- Part 3

30 Jun
Bird Nest

Bird Nest (Photo credit: Sikachu!)

Speak Up Saturday

Patricia Franklin

Well, it has been 8 days since I first saw the nest. At night, the robins are active and singing until after dark. The female will go sit on the nest and the male will be on a branch somewhere nearby. He will let her know if there is anyone or anything lurking around. Then they will call to each other – and a few neighboring robins (it seems) to say goodnight. It reminds me of the Waltons… Goodnight John Boy, Goodnight Elizabeth, Goodnight Grandpa!

We had quite a rain last night and there was little activity early today, but by noon both male and female were busily flying in and out of the nest. They do not leave it unattended. I have not been able to determine if they are just freshening it from the effects of wind and rain, or if the eggs have hatched (a little early I would think for that).

If they are like humans, the little ones come at the worst time (during a big storm). Our daughter was born around 8:00 pm on a night when there were so many babies that they put me in a linen closet, and no one found me until the shift change at 11:00. The startled nurse asked me if I was going to have a baby and I said I already did! Luckily I observed them putting bracelets on both of us, and I knew what she looked like, so we finally got together. Our son, was born on the night of a snowstorm and I just barely made it to the hospital.

Will keep an eye on the birds and let you know what comes next.

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Dirt

28 Jun

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

 

In mid May we planted our second garden here is the hills. Last year we grew tomatoes, green peppers, cucumber and herbs. We missed out on most of the harvest due to an unexpected extended vacation. This year we ventured out to add string beans, garlic, squash, red and yellow peppers and added more herbs.

They are all looking great. The string beans are loaded with blooms and have tiny beans. The cucumbers and squash are loaded with bright yellow flowers and the herbs scent the garden. I picked my first tomato this week. It is named Early Girl and she lived up to her name. To me there is nothing any tastier than a fresh sliced tomato, mayo and a dash of salt all on  freshly toasted bread.

Today, as I wielded my hoe, pulling dirt to the green beans, a pleasant hum ran through my heart. I come from farmer stock and it was almost like I could see my ancestors smiles, heads nodding in approval. Do gardeners still pull dirt to the roots of their plants these days? I have no idea but that is what my parents and now that I am gardening, I’m doing it too. 

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Hang In There Baby

27 Jun

  A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

We have two cats at our house, one Calico, named Lily, and a grey and white striped, Jasmine. It’s funny how different two cats can be.  Lily is the princess.  She is beautiful and she knows it.

Her fur is soft and silky, she purrs easily, and she loves to be picked up by my wife and carried around the house while my wife lets her look at the various things on the bookshelves and counters.  When her humans are not entertaining her, she bakes herself in a sunbeam coming through the window or on the screened porch.  But, she is very demanding and skittish and does a lot of meowing to tell us it’s time for her food, time for her brushing or that things are too loud and scary.  But, we really do love her and all her princess ways.

Now Jasmine is another story.  She is the feisty one.  She is always trying to get Lily to play with her, but to no avail.  So, she plays by herself most of the time.  We have discovered, after buying all kinds of cat toys, that what she likes to play with most is one of those little round plastic pull-top seals from a milk carton.  She will bat and chase one of those things around the house like a one cat soccer player, and when she does, we say she’s playing “Kitty Soccer.”  She also has one tiny toy mouse that she likes, we guess, because it has something loose inside it and rattles when she bats it around.

Jasmine likes to be with my wife all the time, and follows her around the house wherever she goes. If my wife is in one room, with the door closed, Jasmine wants the door opened so she can be in that room.  If Jasmine is in the house and my wife is on our screened porch, with the door closed, Jasmine wants the door opened so she can be on the porch too.  Now if Jasmine happens to be on the porch and wants in, and nobody opens the door in a timely manner, she has this habit of jumping up on the French door and clinging onto one of the wooden glass pane supports to get our attention.  It is quiet a sight, and a real attraction when we have guests.

So, we have gone to calling Jasmine our “In-And-Out-Cat.”  When the weather is nice and we have left the door open, Jasmine will sit in the opening, guarding the opening, and won’t let Lily in or out until she is ready to move.  We are not sure what that is all about, but it makes for some interesting cat stand-offs.  All her pranks and insistence just make us love Jasmine more.

Variety is the spice of life, they say. When it comes to cats it’s the truth, make no mistake about it.

Romans 5:5

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Lessons From a Tufted Titmouse

25 Jun

My Take

DiVoran Lites

 

This morning I heard a bird call that has become familiar over the past few days. It was a Tufted Titmouse alarm call. It sounds like a scrub jay call with a tweet on the end.

Our son, W. D.,  was here the other day and explained all this to us. He says it’s an alarm call that all the birds understand, and when they hear it, they gather around to see what kind of threat is imminent. In jungle movies, the air falls silent when danger lurks. In Florida when the Tufted Titmouse gets anxious, everybody gets anxious.

Going into the house, W. D. practiced the Tufted Titmouse call. Sheees, tweet, shees tweet. The cat heard him and, hunkered down to slink away fast. She ran into the dining room and peeked around the corner trying to figure out what was going on. W. D. and I decided it wasn’t just a bird alarm, but a universal animal alarm as well.

This morning I watched the tufted titmice through my binoculars. I didn’t really need binoculars but they bring the birds up close. I watched the two small birds doing touch and goes for a while; then the noisy one attached its feet to a branch and started shimmying his wings. He sheesh-tweeted frantically. The other flew down and put something in his beak and the light went on in my brain.

In this case, the alarm was coming from a baby Tufted Titmouse that thought he was going to starve to death between one seed and the next.

It reminds me of the world we live in where you can’t get away from the fear.

It also reminds me of a person I worked with once who had a talent for getting everyone all worked up over nothing.

But I don’t like being tense and upset, so I’ve decided that I’d seek the peace of God which passes understanding. Philippians 4:7

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