Our scout troop nominated the Bankman and myself as Order of the Arrow Candidates. Friday we traveled to Camp Daniel Boone for the ordeal. The ordeal was strenuous but not excessive. The ordeal exists to impart certain specific value lessons by example. It accomplishes that well. Bankie and I returned home late Saturday Night, exhausted, but proud to have completed the ordeal successfully and proud to be new OA members.

I weeded the strawberry beds and Wolfie and I planted 200 new Ozark Beaty strawberry plants.

Not much else going on right now...still have a lot to do in the garden to ready it for planting.

Myth

Well we had an uneventful winter season other than the string of rinoviruses everyone passed around. I went with some good friends to the Christmas Jam. that was fun. Last time I saw Peter Frampton he had long curly hair.

This week we've cast off some of our winter sleepiness and have started preparing the property for spring. Wolfie has one pond cleaned out and pumping, three more to go. We bought another container for the next in the pond series. We have one pond to repair as well.

We've added 2 new equines to our herd of rescue animals. Summer, a 15y old Missouri Walker Quarterhourse and Sofia, a pony-mule have rounded out the equine contingent. Summer has been trained as a trail horse, and Sofia is used to having children ride her, so once we get used to each other we will let the kids ride.

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
-- James Madison

I just talked with a friend I'd lost touch with for nearly 25 years. It was my fault...I got busy. Still, occasionally we should stop our business and think about those who would be our friends. There are so many souls out there that want to befriend us, and so many that would like to be befriended. Somewhere in our busy lives we often forget that we need friends. People to talk with, people to cry with, people to laugh with...just people to be people with. I am happy to have found my friend alive and well and doing things in his life that are fulfilling and that give him joy.

This led me to the realization that too often we forget to rejoice with each other. Rejoicing is indeed a lost art that we all need to rediscover. I rejoice that I have friends to lose and to rediscover. I rejoice and am thankful that I have a home, a loving family, a sweet and caring wife and children that love me (well, most of them, most of the time :) I rejoice in my special olympics folks because they need my assistance and are thankful for my help, because they give my life a purpose that rises above the nine to five world, because they add meaning and joy to my life.

What lends joy to your journey? I think maybe we are here to add meaning to life and to the act of living, as color, texture and technique add to the presentation of a painting. We are living art, our lives are artworks in the making. We are here to blend the colors of our lives and our living with each other. Perhaps, just perhaps each color, each brush stroke, each time God dips his brush to the palatte has meaning and each of us and each act of our lives has meaning as well. Rejoice. Your life is part of a living beathing peice of cosmic artwork and your suffering and joy is neither in vain nor ignored, rather all of our trials and our triumphs create a mosaic that defines the act of living and reveals the very presence of God.

Greetings from the Hills

Just a note on the new website. There are now 2 playlists scattered about on various pages. There are several songs on each one, so skip around using the player controls and listen to something you like. The link is on the right hand column of this blog. I've also consolidated all my web published verse on a blog.

Do any of the rest of you go through the Christmas panic?  Dumb question.  Frankly, I'm kinda sick of the whole commercialism thing.  This year we're making gifts, rather I should say Kim is making gifts and I'm helping.  Still there is little time and a lot of work to do, along with other holiday commitments.  Frank and I will be working at the Festival of Lights again this year.  I'll be impersonating Santa in Marshall and once again for the Festival.  Then there are all those letters to write.  I've been responding to Santa's mail up here for 10 years and every year the mailbag grows.  I expect between 200-300 letters to answer this year. Unfortunately, I only have one week to answer them this time.  Guess I need to devote some time to writing the basic letter.  Shannon will be at Disney World for the holidays, Gilbert will be in Ohio, so it looks like we're off the hook for the big meal for the first time in forever.  I say we should go out for Chinese food this time...like in Christmas Story.:)  I hope they cut the head off the duck before they bring it to the table.

This past weekend I went to my 30th high school reunion.  It was a trip.  I got to see a lot of folk I had not seen in years....many of whom I pretty much thought that I might not have cared to see anyway.  I kinda think that may have been a mistake.  I met some folk that I forgot I knew that had become really fine people.  I saw some good friends and realized that I have had them on a back burner for so long...well, I'm ashamed to say.  It seems I've gotten used to having friends that I rarely talk to, just knowing they will be good friends again when next I see them.  This is probably true, but it is no way to run a friendship.  So I think this is my bad and I will have to remedy this situation.  Maybe we can try to get together somewhere in NC around Christmas....most of us come home then.

It's me with two of my dearest friends. We look really good after all these years. Well, they do, and I'm sure you're not looking at me :)

Today we celebrate the arrival 387 years ago of some brave souls on the rough coastline of Plymouth Mass. Although the continent was most surely visited by Vikings around 1000 years ago and had been seen and perhaps even scouted in the west by Chinese sailors around 1421, formally discovered in 1492 by Christopher Columbus, yet only one settlement, Jamestown had been established only 13 years before the landing at Plymouth.

We should wonder what these folk thought and knew about America. First, they knew that there were inhabitants here. They wore furs and feathers; they moved silently in the wood, they were an unknown quantity. The plundering Vikings of 400 years previous were less mysterious and more civilized. America had to be a savage land to them, untamed and perhaps untamable. No permanent settlements with the exception of Jamestown had been established in this new world to date, although there had been attempts. They most certainly knew that less than 20 years before the Roanoke colony disappeared utterly with only a cryptic message graven upon a scorched tree.

We should remember that there were no settlements, no cities, no towns, no blacksmith shops, no farms, no general stores...there was nothing but undifferentiated wilderness on the continent. A forest of varying species of hardwoods stretched from Florida into Canada and from the seashore to the western banks of the Mississippi. The mountains we live in so comfortably now were clad in dense dark chestnut forests, their passes not yet expanded by industry and machine. It would be 177 years before Asheville became a primitive outpost and nearly another 100 years before the arrival of the railroad made it a real town.

There would be no help from the England they left. There would be nothing here that they did not grow or make themselves. The struggle would be immense, 45 of 104 colonists died the first winter, only 4 of the adult women were alive for the first Thanksgiving in July of 1621, when the supply ship arrived from England. Jamestown had fared no better in their first winter when 80% of the 500 colonists starved to death.

These colonists had to know that their chances were not all that good. They must have feared the natives, the wilderness (these folk were from European cities, not wilderness areas), wild animals, and most of all they had to fear the long winters. They did not begin establishing the settlement until December of 1620. Only 7 residences of 19 planned and 4 common houses were built during the first winter. Due to bad weather the first common house was begun only 2 days before Christmas 1620.

I'm not sure any of us today can fully realize what these brave souls had to endure. Need a new pair of shoes...you’d have to make them? Hungry? Hope your garden was productive or else go shoot something...If you ran out of ammo, you'd have to melt down lead for musket balls. Pioneers do not go on vacation; they had no entertainments that they could not devise for themselves. Even books were rare commodities and limited in scope.

Yet through all these trials the soul of a nation was being forged. It would be a nation that would be based on religious freedom, tolerance and representative government. These are things we should be thankful for and these are things we should defend and cherish.

Today we travel to Special Olympics Fall Games .  I am assistant coach for Golf Skills this time.  That's kinda funny since I don't play golf...the only time I was ever on a course was at night, er, ah well...ya know...we were young once:)  Anyhow a great time for my athletes, all of whom have worked very hard this season to be ready to compete.  I just completed the coursework to be a level 2 coach...a good thing since I was head coach for Basketball last year...once again, those who can't do ...teach.  I'll take the coursework and get the CPR certification for level 3 coach this winter I hope...that will be advanced head coach.

The Halloween Party for our Young Adult Social Club, BSA Troop 85, and Special Olympics Atheletes was a great success.  Wish more could have made it to the party, but it was great nonetheless.  You can see the photos here.  Tonight we participate in a safe Halloween in Marshall. They block downtown and let the kids trick or treat.

Next weekend is the Special Olympic Fall Games in High Point.

We spent a couple of days with our special needs Scout Troop at Camp Daniel Boone. The camp is up near Shining Rock Wilderness. It was quite an adventure. The fellas got to shoot 6 rounds of 5 bullets in the rifle range, went to the archery range twice, did some leatherworking and basket weaving, swimming and canoeing, and visited Boonesboro, a camp within the camp that is a camp from the 17th century Appalachian wilderness where they teach blacksmithing and other forgotten arts.. They were very good and we had a great time. They went to Ghost Town (a local western themed amusement park) on Wednesday. I had to come home to attend to some business, but they had a blast.

Only this to add. Scouters are the greatest. Every scout, every leader, all the staff were incredibly helpful and supportive. They treated my scouts like rare jewels (which they are) and pretty much rolled out the red carpet allowing them extra shots at the shooting range and reduced rates on camp, as well as giving us the best cabins in camp. Scouting doesn't get the credit it deserves...it is the best way to make a self reliant boy that I know.

Since I was off the rest of the week, I took most of Wednesday off just to lay around and recover from camp. Today I cleaned house, fixed a leak in the front tire on my riding mower, bought plumbing parts, mowed the lawns and reseated the back toilet. Tomorrow I’ll fix the leak in the pipe going to the garden faucet, measure the wood I need to replace on the porch...my fascia board rotted out so I need some wood and a new gutter. I may shop for those items tomorrow or steam clean carpets...but I need to get some of this stuff done while I have to time off.

Next up: installing the bluebird trail on the 25th of August at the local high school.

Life gets tedious...but even in the tedium, some work gets done, some laughter shared, and we all muddle through somehow.

We went to Cowee Valley for the 4th. It was a nice drive, although it was hot an yours truly rarely uses the AC 9used to be you never needed it up here except for a week or two), so I never had it charged up for the season. Well, hell you pay for a sauna!! OK only difference is you can't take your clothes off...people passing you get very agitated. So we swealtered and made our way to Perry's Water Gardens. Three years ago we went for their 4th celebration and it was great. There were a hundred thousand lotus blooming...every color you could imagine...waterlillies, lotus, water iris...it was magical.

Well, that was then. This years' drought and the late freeze were devestating for them. Few plants were blooming and the place looked a bit forgotten, some of the ponds were nearly dry. Still we managed to find three new lotus plants (Hindu, The President, Lutea), a water lilly (baby red) and an iris (Ann Chowning)...we found others we liked but we had spent our budget. It IS really nice to have a budget that includes a lotus or two every so often...gotta remember to appreciate it, been broke...not fun...our self imposed limits have their upside anyhow...the property might just be paid off in 8 years. Anyhow we got all that stuff home and found homes in various tubs and ponds for all the new denizens.

The animals got all their vaccinations today...4 dogs a horse and a cat...nearly 500 clams by the time you buy some meds (flea stuff, horse asprin, etc.) Still, they're all set. The horse is doing well, although her teeth are wearing out...she is 30 now, bless her old soul...and she has arthritus in her left rear foot...thus the horsey aspirin. Keeper (our full-blooded border collie) is about 15 now...she is still pretty hale, but you worry when they reach that age...she's been on borrowed time for about 3 years (average age is 12-13).

After the vet left I mowed the yards and the fields, fed the birds, went shopping, did some weed whacking and just about got heat exhaustion...seriously...anyhow a shower, a steak dinner and a fake beer later...all seems well. For tomorrow we go yard sale-ing at 8, Bankman goes bowling at 9, we go to move furniture for an old friend at 11, and have to pick up his med form for Scout Camp at 2. Other than that I ain't doin' jack tomorrow.

Accelerate the motion of life
The banks of the river have fled astern
The wide sea predestined
As flashes in the drowning mind
Those vivid memories
Laughter and love
The injuries received
and bestowed
The blessings discovered
Like crayfish beneath glistening grey rocks
In the bright brook of childhood
Yeilded to the river at last
And on we go for the shore is no more
But the wide ocean sea
Commands our future
Raise the sails and head eastward
Into the heart of the misty sun

My photo finally made it into Bluebird Notes.  The photo is titled " A Blur of blue wings" and appears on page 9.