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Speak Up Saturday- The Robin Diaries Part 1

9 Jun

Patricia Franklin has written a lovely series following a Robin family. We are happy to share the series  with you on Speak Up Saturday.

The Robin Diaries Part 1

Patricia Franklin

I had to let you know about the incident with the robins today. I was sitting on the patio and the male and female were both out in the grass. She collected a mouthful of dry grass and flew up to the fence in front of me. She looked at me, but I think she is not afraid… maybe there is some female chemistry between the two of us. She saw me before and continued working without any fear. But the male who was getting a little anxious, flew down and was gently pecking her on the back to get her to move along. (I have never seen this happen before). She flew over towards the lilac bush but passed it by. She was not yet ready to fix up the nest. He pecked at her again and she flew down into the garden, gathered some more grass, then flew into the nest from the back side. I thought it was cute the way he was concerned about her and was trying to persuade her to get out of my way and get her job done. And she was letting him know she had things under control. I never thought the male would be as concerned about the little flock as the female… especially before it is a flock.

Matthew 6:26

 

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The Room

7 Jun

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

“Have you ever just wanted to scream “LEAVE ME ALONE!!!” to your children and hide in your bedroom for the rest of the day?”

This was part of a young mother’s vent on Facebook today. Oh the memories it brought to mind of days being so tired and out of patience I just wanted to scream, then hide. To find my happy place I would pretend. In my mind there was a lovely home nearby where a very kind and sweet woman lived. Young mothers knew they could knock on her door anytime and she would greet them with an understanding smile, give them a big hug and escort them to “the room”. The room was more like a small suite with a gorgeous bathroom complete with a huge tub. The tub edge was lined with an assortment of scented bath crystals or bubble bath. Fresh towels lay on the vanity. The bedroom was totally feminine in white or other restful colors, a fluffy comforter invited me to snuggle down and on the bedside table was an array of books. It was a pleasant dream and helped me through some frustrating days.

Now I am no longer a young mother. I have learned the identity of the sweet and kind woman. She was the spirit of my heavenly Father. As I grew in my spiritual maturity I realized there is always a happy place. It is when I allow myself to rest in my Father’s arms.

Matthew 11:28

My little frustration all grown up.

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How to Feed a Squirrel

6 Jun

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

 

After moving to Florida, one of our favorite family pastimes was camping.  We started with a small four-person tent and over the years upgraded several times ending up with a very nice pop-up tent camper.  We especially enjoyed the many Florida natural spring camping areas.  The flora, fauna and wildlife was truly a wonderful learning experience for our whole family.

 

On one occasion, after a morning of swimming and playing, my wife headed off to the bathhouse for a shower.  On the way back to the camper, she noticed that a squirrel was following her.  She thought that was so cute and kept encouraging it to follow her.  Well, it didn’t need much encouraging, and followed her all the way back to our camper where I was shelling and eating some salted peanuts.  As you might know, my activity immediately got the squirrel’s attention and I was instantly it’s friend.  I threw a peanut on the ground out in front of me to see what it would do.  It snapped up the peanut and had it shelled and eaten in no time.  I held another peanut to see how close it would come and then dropped it close to my feet.  It didn’t take it long to come right up to me for the next treat.  So, I decided to see if it would take a peanut from my hand.  I held one between my fingers and held it out.  the squirrel came right up to me, stood up on it’s back legs, put one front paw on each of my fingers, I thought to steady the procedure, and calmly bit one of my fingers.  I couldn’t believe it!  Here that squirrel was biting the hand that was feeding it.  What kind of gratitude was that?  You can be sure that squirrel didn’t get any more of my salted peanuts.

I’ve recently learned that scrub jays like to take peanuts out of your hand. Maybe I’ll try that next time and see what happens.

 

 

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Hair Observations

4 Jun

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Do you ever look at anyone’s hair except your own in the mirror? Maybe more women than men do. I imagine most trained hair dressers do. I was one of those once, a long time ago. I’ve seen a lot of hair since then. A sign on a hole-in-the-wall family beauty shop said, “Old-Fashioned Barbering and New Age Hair-Cuts. Being sort of critical I thought design would go better, but maybe this family shop is not quite there, yet. Because I’m a woman of a certain age, I think that’s fine.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fascinated with the new styles, fascinated and sometimes repelled, but who cares what I think?

People wear hair a certain way for one of three reasons,

1. They want to be in style,

2. They want to make an identity statement, or

3.They found a classic look that suits them and they stick with it.

An example of the first is the aging rider who roars by on his motorcycle with a skinny braid hanging down from under his helmet. Although I’m sure I’d like him as a person I always have an itch to snip the braid off at the roots. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have a gray braid like that down my back, I just don’t have the patience to let my hair grow long enough for a braid.

One example of a classic style that lasts forever is the page-boy, which has been around at least since the crusades when it was a boy style.

I’m glad finger waves, sausage curls, and blue hair are gone. Would you believe I actually learned how to do all that? Believe me a good finger wave is hard to do. What if hairdressers to the movie stars decide to bring those configurations back again?

I wonder what our hair will look like in Heaven. Maybe we won’t even have hair. Will hair matter? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see. I know one thing, God knows exactly how many hairs are on my head right now, and on yours too.(Luke 12:7)

English: Porcupine photographed by Mary Harrsch.

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Fire in the Hole

30 May

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

I’ve always had a hard time keeping the grass trimmed along our backyard chain-link fence line.  Nothing seemed to work.  Over the years I tried hand clippers, weed wackers, motor oil and just about everything else.

Well, one day I decided to burn a nice wide clear line along that fence.  My wife was standing by with the garden hose ready to make sure the fire didn’t get out of control.  I poured gasoline from a metal bowl along the fence line, let it soak in for a couple of minutes, stepped back and dropped a match onto it.  The grass was green, so after the initial “Whoof”, the fire burned slowly, just as I had expected and the results were pretty much what I wanted.  Except for small patches here and there where the grass was extra thick, my fence clearing job looked like it had gone quick and easy.

I waited for the fire to burn itself out.   Then as I walked the fence line, checking for any of the thick unburned tufts of grass, I’d pour a little more gas on them in preparation for re-burning.  I guess one of those tufts still had a glowing ember in it that I couldn’t see and as soon as the gas hit that ember, it flashed right up the stream of gas into the bowl I was holding.  I jerked back in surprise and splashed gas on the front of my shirt before I could let go of the bowl.  Now my shirt was on fire, and my wife yelled, “Get on the ground and roll.”  I kicked my legs out behind me to do a belly flop on the ground, and that’s when everything went into slow motion.  There I was suspended in mid-air with the front of my shirt on fire.  I couldn’t believe how long it took for me to get to the ground.  When I finally did hit the ground, my body smothered the fire fairly fast and with the help of my wife spraying me with the hose, it was over.

I jumped up, and ripped off my shirt, pulled up my undershirt and checked myself for burns.  The shirt was one of those 1960s polyester things and it had melted, sticking to my undershirt.  If it hadn’t been for the undershirt, I would have been burned pretty badly.  As it was the undershirt protected me from the melting shirt and I only had a couple reddish spots on my stomach.  Boy, was I lucky.  Or was Someone watching over this dummy?

As you might expect, I never used gasoline again to clear my backyard fence line. My Dad always told me that if I played with fire, I was bound to get burned. Dad was right.

Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. James 3.5 NIV

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The Home of Heroes

28 May

We are celebrating Memorial Day with our guest  Patricia Franklin. I love home town  stories, hope you do too.

Our town, Pueblo, Colorado, has a designation as “The Home of Heroes.” Our river walk has a section called the “Walk of Valor.” We have four Medal of Honor winners from Pueblo, the most from any place in the U.S. Their statues are at one end of the river walk. On the trail, there is a pedestrian bridge called “Veteran’s Bridge.” It is the only monument in the U.S. to honor veterans from every branch of the service. Originally, you could place the name of a veteran on a plaque for $75 to help build the bridge, so we did that for my husband who was in the service. There is still room for more names, but the cost is a little more now.

Further along at the end of the “Walk of Valor” is a building called the Center for American Values. One of our local photographers took pictures of all the living veterans who were Medal of Honor winners and they are displayed in this building, which is laid out like a classroom. It is free and open to the public and they take school kids there and teach them about the constitution, etc. Some local citizens, including one of the Medal of Honor winners who lives in Pueblo put this in place.

Some firefighters from New York visited here last year and were so impressed that they wanted to give something to the city. They sent a steel beam that came from the World Trade Center. The grandkids and I  were here right after it arrived and it was sitting on the floor of the Center at that time. We actually touched it and unsuccessfully tried to lift it, Anyway, the firefighters came back last weekend and our fire departments, police and sheriff departments, veterans, citizens and visitors were all present and we had the dedication of the monument you see here, dedicated to 9-11.

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Speak Up Saturday- Psychological Soup Pot

26 May

The first time I heard about Charlene’s soup pot, I knew I wanted to share her wisdom with my friends. Many of us have been placed in a care-giver position and been overwhelmed with well meaning advice

My Blog Soup

 Charlene Spangler

Writing a blog has been simmering in my psychological soup pot for a few weeks now. My mom asked me to write about my coping soup. I developed this mental strategy when my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. There was so much good advice and so many ideas coming at us with lightening speed, I quickly became overwhelmed.

When I tell people I will put their ideas or advice into my soup, what I mean is, “Thank you for your wonderful idea. I can’t respond right now because I’m on overload, so I will think on it for a while and see how I can incorporate your thoughtful tidbit”.

I have many pots of soup:.my home, family, job, tasks, and future. Each soup has its own base, stock, or broth. Ingredients and seasonings are added as they come along. My current home soup might be that the lawn needs to be replaced. That’s a big pot of soup. The ingredients are cost, time, design choices and such. Some ingredients, like choosing the type of grass, cook quickly like noodles and can come out of the pot in no time…That’s easy. There is only one type  of grass that will work for our yard. Other ingredients are, like carrots, tougher and take longer to cook. Do we save up (takes time) or borrow (costs more), which is best for us?

Just like mom’s chicken noodle soup, giving my coping soups some time and letting the ingredients blend and mature usually makes for a better outcome than trying to please everybody and respond immediately to all. It also makes people feel better for their ideas to be accepted even if they have to wait for results. Now my blog soup is done. I hope it tastes good.

Psalm 19:14

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Sour Cabbage

24 May

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I titled my blog Old Things R New because I want to learn the old ways of growing and preserving foods as well as  growing and using medicinal herbs. Recently I read “A Luminous Future” by Teodor Flonta. The book is set in the late 1940’s through the early 1960’s in Romania. I was fascinated with the foods he ate during that time, in particular, sour cabbage. In “A Luminous Future”, Teodor’s mother would ask him to get a sour cabbage out of the barrel for dinner. I love learning about different methods of food preservation and since Teodor is on twitter I was able to ask questions and he graciously answered.

            “Sour cabbage: take a whole cabbage, cut out the stem, get in the middle of it where the stem was and clean very well the white matter – you obtain a hole like a cone – fill that hole with coarse salt and place the cabbages on the bottom of a barrel next to each other, then you add other layers of cabbages on top until you fill the barrel. Then you add a handful of pepper whole grain, some horseradish, the root, and cover the cabbages with water. Then you place a plank or a lid on top of the barrel and on top of the lid you place a rock or something heavy to keep the cabbages pressed. That’s it. After 2-3 months your sour cabbage is ready. Among the cabbages you can put carrots, green tomatoes, turnips and they’ll be sour too and are quite good in winter. So, the juices the cabbage release and the water, plus the horseradish and pepper do the trick… you don’t need anything else to preserve them in.”

Of course, my next question was how do you eat it? Do you eat it cold or cook it?

“The cabbage can be eaten raw, as it comes from the barrel, like pickles. Or you can add a bit of oil and pepper like you do with salads. Ariella (wife) uses cumin seeds also and no pepper. Then you can fry it with mince meat or ribs or pieces of pork meat… first fry onions until translucent, add the cabbage, 2-3 bay leaves, 10-12 pepper grains, the meat and let it simmer for 40 minutes or so. It is delicious.”

I love the idea of going to a barrel and grabbing out a spicy cabbage so I am looking around for a small barrel. Thank you, Teodor for sharing your knowledge. Teodor and I also discussed preserving meat by larding. I am sure I will be writing about that in the coming weeks. “A Luminous Future” is a wonderful non-fiction novel and I highly recommend it.

If anyone has any tips for preserving or medicinal herbs, I would love to hear from you.

 

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Death Valley Run

23 May

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

The first year we lived in Los Angeles my wife and I were  living on a tight budget and I was riding my 1955 Harley Davidson motorcycle most of the time.  I was going to college full-time and working part-time while my wife was working full-time as a hairstylist at a fancy salon. By the time I graduated, she had earned her PHT (Putting Hubby Thru) degree. I made some friends in the local motorcycle club, and one weekend they invited us to go on the annual Death Valley Run .   It was summer and hot in LA, so we figured it would be super hot on the desert.  Early that Saturday morning after borrowing a buddy seat, we rolled what few things we thought we would need in an old army blanket, and set off to meet our group at the starting place.

It was a spectacular sight. The line of motorcycles went on for miles.  I had never seen so many in my life. Over 1500 motorcycles of every possible description and 2500 people were all going to the same place on the same two-lane road.  We rode in groups stopping only at the checkpoints for lunch or gas.

We arrived at the Furnace Creek Ranch area (elevation 79’ below sea level) to find everything organized for us riders to have a BBQ meal and a night’s entertainment. Unfortunately, we had spent our money on gas and lunch and couldn’t afford the BBQ. Also, we hadn’t known to bring camping gear. We went into the camp store and bought a can of chicken ala king, asked the clerk to open it for us, and went off to eat it with a stick we found lying on the desert.

When we went back to the big campfire, we joined in the entertainment. They had a “Most Beautiful Leg Contest” (for men only), and my wife talked me into entering because she said I had good-looking legs.  Well, guess what?  The object of the contest really was who had the ugliest legs.  I didn’t win.

As the sun went down it started to cool off,  by 10:00 pm it was downright cold.  Most everyone slept in tents or on the ground but we only had  one blanket and no air mattress under us.  That was a rough night.  We tossed and turned trying to stay warm, all the while shifting from one position to another to find some softer rocks to lie on.

The next morning as we headed back toward L.A. the group was much smaller and spread out.  After an hour or so, our buddy seat was really bothering us, so I decided to change positions and let my wife drive for a while.  We were cruising along on this gently curving two-lane road trying to keep up with our small group.  Everything went well for about 20 minutes, until we topped a rise and the road curved sharply off to the left.  As we neared the curve, the motorcycle kept going straight.  The curve was getting closer by the second.  I reached up to take my wife’s hands off the grips, but she was frozen with fear.  I threw all my weight forward and to the left as I tried to twist the throttle closed under her hand.  It was close!  It was very close!  We almost went off the road.   If we had, at that speed, we would have probably flown a hundred feet in the air before hitting the ground.  I don’t want to think about what we would have looked like after such a fall.

After we were stopped and got our breath back, I asked my wife what happened.  She said, “I don’t know.  Every time we came to a curve I just thought to myself, turn, and we turned.”  Then it hit me.  I had been sitting there on the back unconsciously leaning whenever we came to a gentle curve, and my position and extra weight had taken us around the curves.  When we came to that not-so-gentle curve, my position and extra weight weren’t enough to overcome our speed and we were almost toast.  There is no question in my mind that Someone up there was watching over us that day.

Needless to say, I drove the rest of the way home, and my wife decided she didn’t want to drive my motorcycle any more after that.

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Jazz Song

21 May

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Listening to jazz on Pandora I heard, “A good gal (or a good guy) nowadays is hard to find, you always get the other kind.” But did the jazz masters get it right? Well, maybe yes and maybe no.

For a wedding gift my best friend gave us a plaque with two Amish people facing each other with their hands behind their backs kissing chastely. The plaque said, “Kissin’ don’t last, cookin’ do.” I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. Thank heavens we two old codgers are still kissing, but there are some things in our relationship that may last longer and matter more in the end.

First, of course you have to have real, true love or a good potential for it. Then you both have to have a similar sense of humor. One night when Bill and I were two teens out for on date, we got to giggling and couldn’t stop. That was when I began to suspect he was the guy for me.

You need to be able to talk to each other for a long time about more subjects than cars and whether your bathing suit makes you look fat.

You need a common sense of values. The Bible says, “Be not unequally yoked.” What that means is that the more your backgrounds are alike the better chance your marriage will have. If you’re a Christian you’re far wiser to marry a Christian from the start. People don’t change nearly as often as we think they do.

Look for mutual courtesy, plain old please and thank you, with some genuine apologies thrown in when needed. I love you always goes down well, and in some ways is the greatest courtesy of all.

Now a few don’ts: Don’t marry anyone who is full of bitterness or self-pity. Complaining is your first clue. They may wrench your heart and they may have you convinced they can’t live without you. They make you think you’re the only one who can help. Nope, it doesn’t work that well. You’ll discover that if you don’t fall for it they’ll replace you in a trice. Try it if you don’t believe me.

We know to avoid active substance abusers. They might get well someday, but we’re more likely to become enablers than we are to see them heal.

It helps if two people have compatible views on earning, saving, paying, giving. Money is a big marriage buster, but you can get a lot of good out of it if you know how to handle it.

So that’s it. Perhaps a good mate is hard to find, but it’s not true that you  ALWAYS get the other kind.

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