I am so sorry to be late posting Janet’s blog today. This is a wonderful testimony.
You Are the Answer to Someone’s Prayer
15 AugFrom My Heart
Louise Gibson
Someone prayed for a miracle-
Maybe that miracle is YOU.
A task, difficult for one-
Is so much easier with two!
Open the door of your heart-
Don’t you hear the cry?
“Will someone please help me?
I have no other measure to try.”
Reach out with compassion-
One day that plea may be yours.
God has created us in His own image.
We are the blessed who endures.
Some people can be difficult to love,
and so we don’t even try to care.
But God says, “Love them as I have loved you.
You’ll bring me glory as My love you share.”
“For we are His workmanship. created in
Christ Jesus for good works,
which God has prepared beforehand
that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:10
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A Bean Canning Fiasco
14 AugOn the Porch
Onisha Ellis
This week started well. I was busy with #MondayBlogs (if you are on Twitter check this out on Monday) and Mike went out to pick the green beans on our extremely tall green bean bushes, more like trees. As an aside, we learned from this and will NOT use ten foot poles again. Monday Blogs tend to make me anxious, so many blogs and tweets, so little time, so I took a break and helped Mike string and snap our unexpectedly large picking. We had a grand time sitting on the back porch, rocking, snapping and talking. By the time we finished I decided it was too late to can them and popped them into the refrigerator to work on the next morning.
Tuesday morning, I cleaned my kitchen making sure I had plenty of room to wash the beans and then began the canning process. I was expecting around eight pints but by the end of nine pints I had a lot of beans left. No worries. I decided to start the others in the pressure canner then jar up the rest in quarts. I had five quarts!
I can outside using a Coleman stove and my husband set it all up for me. In my haste, I neglected to look at the pressure gauge. It was new last year so I assumed it was fine. We waited for the canner to vent, put the jiggler on and sat down to wait for it to work it’s magic. I was dreaming of bragging about my beautiful green beans. All was good until my husband said, why is the pressure gauge on fifteen? I, of course, suggested he had the flame turned up too high. After much “fiddling” we decided the pressure gauge was bad.
I was distraught? No, frustrated is a better word. I called the Macon County Agricultural Extension Office for advice. ( Surely there is an acronym for that?) and was told that Debbie the canning girl was not in, call tomorrow. Tomorrow? I had two canners of beans NOW. In the end, I cooled the pints(and myself) and put them in the refrigerator. I froze the quarts. (That is a long tale too traumatic to speak of at this time)
I am happy to say, that Wednesday, my husband was able to tinker with the gauge and zero it out and the MCAEC ^^^^ confirmed it was now accurate. I didn’t trust it though, so I pulled out one of my mother’s old canners with a weighted jiggler and finally canned the beans. The next time we pick, I think we may just eat them all week and share with whomever will take them!
I totally forgot to tell you about Gus. We call him the best porch dog ever. He belongs to the neighbors but comes to visit while they work. He was with us the whole time, faithfully offering his head for a pat and ears to scratch.
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My Western Trip Part~15
13 AugA Slice of Life
Bill Lites
Heading back west from Meteor Crater, I passed signs for roads leading to some of the most unique sounding towns, such as Two Guns and Twin Arrows. Then a little ways farther down the road, I passed a man carrying a cross with wheels on the long end. What a sight that was. It reminded me of Arthur Blessitt, who carried a cross from the west coast to the east coast of the U.S. back in the late 1960s. When I got to Williams, AZ I took another little side trip, north on S.R. 64 to Valle, AZ to visit the Planes of Fame Air Museum. This museum has a couple of the planes that are special to me, one being General Douglas MacArthur’s Lockheed C-121A Constellation (N422NA) that he named “Bataan.” The other is a Pacific Air Lines Martin 4-0-4 (N636X) that I worked on at the Los Angeles International Airport in 1958-1960s while I was attending Northrop University.
Next door to the POF Air Museum is the Grand Canyon Valle Airport, which has a very nice collection of vintage aircraft and vehicles. Their movie and airline famous1929 5-AT-C Ford Tri-motor (N414H) is painted in the colors of Scenic Airways (predecessor to Grand Canyon Airlines), and among its many other awards, won the National Aviation Heritage Invitational (NAHI) Howard Hughes Trophy at the 2012 Reno Air Races.
Then I headed west on I-40 again, this time toward Las Vegas, my beginning and ending destination for this trip. I passed thru Ash Fork and Seligman before stopping at the Airport in Kingman, AZ to visit the Kingman Army Airfield Museum. But again, they were closed that day, so I continued on into Kingman to visit the Powerhouse Route 66 Museum and the Kingman Railroad Museum.
Since time was beginning to get a little tight, I didn’t spend a lot of time in those two museums, but got back on the road for Las Vegas. I made it into town in time to visit the National Atomic Testing Museum, which documents the history of U.S. nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), which was originally called The Nevada Proving Grounds. The NTS is located in the desert only 65 miles north of Las Vegas, and has been the location for 928 nuclear tests of all types and sizes, since the first detonation on January 27, 1951. This includes above-ground, underground and atmospheric tests.
I began the next morning by turning in the rental car (3356 miles), and then it was stand in line for baggage check-in, Security checks, and wait for my Southwest flight back to the “Green” of Orlando, FL and home. We had made arrangements for my sister Judy and her husband Fred to meet DiVoran and me at Sonny’s BBQ for dinner upon my arrival, so we had a great dinner of Baby Back Ribs, with all the trimmings. Then it was onto S.R. 528 and east to Titusville for a good night’s sleep in my own bed. Boy did that feel good! I really enjoyed this trip, and am looking forward to the next one, but DiVoran says I will need to cut back a little on that one. I hope you have enjoyed reading about “My Western Trip” as much as I have enjoyed writing about it.
—–The End—–
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The Book Barn of Beulah Colorado
12 AugSometimes a letter or email turns into a great blog. Today’s post is one of those.-Onisha
Loved this letter from my friend, Patricia Franklin, who lives in Colorado. I thought you’d like it too, so we got permission to share. It’s a book lover’s joy-DiVoran
Hi DiVoran,Just had to tell you about our Sunday afternoon drive today. We drove up to the little mountain town of Beulah in the foothills of the Wet Mountains. It has one main street that is about two blocks long with a coffee shop and a general store. We went into the general store and went to the lower level which is a little antique store. We wanderedthrough there looking at all the things I remember as a child, and also hoping to find a couple of items to replace some that we broke, but still were using up until that time. Ha! Not finding anything, we had a nice conversation with the owner.
We were also looking for an old book for a friend of ours. She did not have it, but told us to go to the Book Barn, which was just this side of the Coffee Shop. She said “People leave their used books there and the proceeds go to the school… hard backs 50 cents and paperbacks are 25 cents. You just put the money in the knothole.” I was intrigued by that comment and we drove on up the street to the Coffee Shop .There were a couple old gents sitting out front of the Coffee Shop. We stopped and asked them where the Book Barn was. One of them said, “It is right behind you.” I looked at a little old shed behind me by the side of the road and said “Is that it?” He said, “That’s it.” … and something to the effect of “You might not both fit in there at the same time.” We backed our car up and parked right beside the colorful little shed that had the door wide open. We both got out of the car and walked into the 6′ x 8′ shed. No one was in attendance. All sides were lined with bookshelves to the ceiling, which were filled with books of all kinds… not in any particular order, with boxes of books on the floor. Being the book lover that I am, we both looked through the books, having to squeeze past each other in the aisle. We did not find the book we were looking for. I saw some great books, but I have so many right now, that I did not get any, although I wanted to just to put the money in the old knothole by the side of the door. I immediately thought of you and said to myself “DiVoran would love this little Book Barn.” So I had to tell you about it as soon as I got home.Need to get dinner on!Love, P
The book they were looking for was Colorado Wildflowers, Volumn 2, The Mountain flowers by Guennel. It is on the Internet, but it’s beyond the price the friend can pay. If you have a copy you don’t want or need let us know and we’ll see that they get it.
DiVoran
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One Person Poetry Fair
11 AugMy Take
DiVoran Lites
I have been enjoying my IPod for a lot of different things. I especially like to listen to poetry and I’ve bought some from Audible. I am, however, greedy for more so I kept searching in my bumbling way for more poems to listen to. I especially wanted the more up-to-date poets, but not what they call the modern ones because as you know, the modern ones, such as T. S. Eliot, even though I like him too, are really not very up-to-date.
I’ve known about the Poetry Foundation, and when I entered audible poetry in the Google search bar they came up. I looked the website over, but still didn’t see how to get spoken poems onto my IPod, so I contacted them by email. A nice man wrote back and suggested I get their podcasts on ITunes. I finally managed to figure out how to do that and now I’ve got a bunch! I subscribed to all the Poetry Foundation podcasts free and downloaded the archives of those podcasts as well. I put them on playlists, and today I started listening to poetry to my heart’s desire. I have seven plus hours worth, many in the poet’s own voices, and more to come. I’ve struck gold!
Listening to a wonderful poem gives you a similar feeling similar to listening to a transcendent piece of music. Poems give insights and epiphanies, two of my favorite brain candies. Even though it was a hot day and I had a mile to go, I listened on my walk and was exhilarated with what I heard. The one that sticks with me most from today is: “Monet Refuses the Operation,” by Lisel Mueller. I may have liked that one best because I like to paint too.
Anyhow, now I’ve got poems, and I’ll be receiving more as the podcasts come out. I’ve got discussions of poems, I’m sure to learn something from them. What else can I say, I’m rejoicing, thanking God and all those who make it possible and in general just very happy and satisfied with the first day of my one person poetry fair.
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I Say Tomahto…You Say
10 Aug
SUNDAY MEMORIES
Judy Wills
I’ve done a number of things in my lifetime, some enjoyable, some not so much. But God has been good to me, and I have had more of the enjoyable ones.One of the fun things is to be able to travel the world. Well, I’ve not been to Asia, but going to Europe was wonderful. I’ve been as a “tourist,” and I also have lived there. I certainly never dreamed that I would live in another country – and I’m sure my mother never thought I would, either. She commented once that I had really “adjusted” well to military life – all that moving around, especially since I grew up in one town and house.
And so it is that I enjoy hearing European accents in those around me. Fred and I enjoy hearing all the different languages and accents of those we pass while we are doing our thing at Disney. We can tell what season it is by what languages we are hearing.
We’ve known several military couples where the husband was American, and the wife was British, or German, or….. One especially comes to mind. We were living in Panama City, Florida, on Tyndall AFB.
As a member of the Officers Wives Club, I had chosen to work in the Thrift Shop on Base. It was a fun thing to do and I was able to meet lots of people. The customers were not limited to officers – it was open to everyone. The proceeds went toward scholarships for the high schoolers. So it was a bit of a win-win situation.
One of the wives who worked along side with me was British. She was a quirky, fun person to be around. One thing she told us once has stuck with me all these years. Her children were rather young (elementary school age, I believe) at the time. In her son’s class was a young girl named Kirsten. Linda had a hard time remembering how to pronounce her name, and her son fussed at her. He kept saying, “Mom, it’s KIRsten…KIRsten….not KRIsten!” Her response was, “Well, you know I grew up in another country, and I sometimes have a hard time pronouncing your American names. For instance, I say tomahto and you say (she pointed to him)…. (and he said) tomato. I say bahth and you say (she again pointed to him)….(and with a cheeky grin he said) (wait for it…………) shower!”
We’ve had a good laugh over that one through the years.
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How to Become Rich
9 AugJanet shares a precious story from her mission trip to Bolivia then asks us some probing questions.
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What Good Would I Be?
8 AugFrom My Heart
Louise Gibson
I am not like you, nor are you like me.
But God created both of us
to serve in our own capacity.
I can’t wish for your talents,
for they were given to you.
When God created the universe,
He knew exactly what we should do.
“But as God has distributed to each one,
so let him walk.” 1 Corinthians 7:17
For example: In Argentina, everyone is required
by law to spend two years in military service.
One fellow showed up at the induction center
objecting, “What good would I be? I have
no arms!”
They put him in the army anyway. At basic
training camp the commanding officer said,
“See that fellow up there on the hill pumping water?
Go tell him when the pail is full. He’s blind!”
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Busy,Fun and Throw Back Thursday
7 AugOn the Porch
Onisha Ellis
Onisha Ellis
This past week was fun and busy. My aunt and cousin came to visit. We ate a lot of food and especially dessert! My aunt is a great cook and I try to learn something from her whenever we are together. My cousin is a talented crafter. I shamelessly took advantage of her to get some bows made for Christmas. In addition, she learned how to make those ruffled scarves that are so popular and she made two of them for me. Don’t tell Rebekah, but they are for her.
The last Sunday they were with us, I suggested a Sunday afternoon drive. Does anyone remember doing that back in the 1950’s? We had a delicious buffet lunch in Franklin at The Boiler Room, then loaded up in Mike’s truck and headed for the hills.
We decided to take one of our favorite quiet drives, Balsam Mountain road off the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is a one-way drive through natural forest. It does not have spectacular vistas but it is perfect if you want the whole woods experience without snakes and bugs. Just before the entrance to the drive is a fantastic picnic area. Fantastic if you like a quiet picnic in what looks like an enchanted forest. The tables are big stones set on stones with logs for benches. We loved it. Next we left the picnic area and began the drive.
Time to wrap up this post. We are going to a picnic tonight by the creek of someone at church. Since today is Throw Back Thursday I will add that thirty or so years ago, I was busy with another creek bank. My friend Sharon and i worked with the children in our church on a musical, “Down by the Creek Bank” My favorite line from the play is “aren’t the stars pretty?”. I’m not sure I can stay awake long enough to view the stars tonight!
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Old Things R New 