Thankful

We always have so many reasons to be thankful that we shouldn't need a special day to be reminded of them.  But it is still good to stop and think about our blessings.  Our hardships and needs do not compare to what so many people throughout the world face as well as have faced throughout history.  It is almost overwhelming to try to comprehend what we have been blessed with physically and spiritually.  I am thankful, and yet I feel that I fall short of truly showing my appreciation to God for all that he has done for me.  I am thankful for his understanding and mercy.

Here are some classic paintings for Thanksgiving.  The first one is "The First Thanksgiving" (1914) by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe.

This second painting is "The First Thanksgiving" (1915) by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris.

And this one is "Freedom From Want" (1943) by Norman Rockwell.

Trivia:  There is no evidence that turkey was eaten at the first Thanksgiving, a three-day meal shared between the pilgrims and the Wamponoag tribe in 1621.  It is more likely that they ate venison and a lot of seafood.

And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
Colossians 3:15

500

Monday, Art and Kris delivered the Elder Conference supplies to church just before lunch.  I helped them unload the trailer, then met them for lunch in Eureka along with the folks, Andy, and Pearl.  We had a nice visit and it was good to catch up with the news from Lester, the relatives, and their family.

Yesterday we had snow flurries, but today it snowed on and off most of the day.  There is very little accumulation, but we were clearly informed that winter is indeed here.

So, Blogger tells me that this is my 500th post.
How did I get here and why?

Several things happened back in 2005 that pushed me into social media.  It probably started with a letter to all parents from our High School Principal.  He told us about a website called Myspace that students were using and he recommended that parents monitor what was being posted and discussed by our children.  We had two children in High School at the time and two in college.  I was also a Bible Class teacher at the time.
So I created a Myspace account (as well as accounts on less popular sites) and searched  for my children, their cousins, their friends and all of my Bible Class students.  Then I did a Sunday School lesson on the dangers of social media.  My opening statement was "If you have a Myspace account or any other similar, I have seen your page and profile!"  I'll never forget the raised eyebrows, wide eyes, and dropped jaws of the students who had accounts!

About that time we started hearing about blogs.  This was a trendy place for college age kids and twenty-somethings to share and discuss.  So we started monitoring the blogs of anyone we knew or our children knew.  We wanted to know what was happening in our children's world and who and what was influencing them.  And we discovered that our daughter had a blog.

Not much later, our son informed us that there was a new social media site just for college students called Facebook.  You had to have an official college email address to join and participate.  Since I am a U of I alumni, I was able to get an official email address and join Facebook.  I was "friended" by my children and their college friends and so was able to monitor and participate on Facebook.

In the fall of 2005, our daughter had moved down to the U of I.  Since I am not a chatty telephone person, and neither is she, I decided to try this blog thing to keep in touch with her and  keep her informed with what was happening at home.
I also just wanted to experiment to see if I could post regularly and if I would actually have anything to say.  In May of 2006, I gave it a try.

So 500 posts later, I am still here.  Not a great accomplishment in the blog world, but not bad for a shy, quiet, old farmer.

 As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.
Proverbs 25:25

And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it;
Mark 7:36

Changing Seasons

With harvest over and good progress on tillage and manure hauling, the weather reports don't surprise me.  It appears that our fall weather is going to shortly change to winter weather.
One season closing and another beginning.

I didn't pay much attention to the Baseball World Series this year (or most years), but the day after the last game I was listening to the radio while harvesting and the DJ read an essay that intrigued me.  It was titled "The Green Fields of the Mind" and was written back in the '70's by Bart Giamotti, a former commissioner of baseball.  After I got home, I looked it up online and reread it (read it here).  It was an interesting take on the game of baseball, but I noticed many spiritual connotations and parallels with the seasons of life and life in general.  I think it reveals to us the difference between the physical life and the spiritual life.  Most importantly, it reveals that everything in this life changes, and nothing lasts forever. But as a Christian, I know we can have everlasting life.  We can have peace of heart and mind, and inner joy that transcends the changes and seasons of life.
 
And I think of all the people that have yet to come to the realization that it is not in the things of this life that this eternal life is found.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16

Squirrels

We have squirrels in the yard again.
It might have something to do with the fact that we have numerous walnut trees, two oak trees that drop acorns, two English walnut trees, two pecan trees, and an almond tree.
We are far from any timber, but they seem to find us anyway.  Gus likes to chase squirrels.  He likes to own the squirrels.  He will tree a squirrel and then bark for me to come with my gun and will stand guard as long as he can.  Sometimes, by the time he gets our attention the elusive rodent will have found a hole to hide out in, or will use the interlocking tree highway to disappear.  A couple of weeks ago he treed one and I got there in time with gun in hand.  One clean shot took care of it, but unfortunately for Gus it didn't fall to the ground.  It died high up in the crotch of the tree.  Gus was disappointed and kept vigilance for hours waiting for something to happen.  It is still in the tree and it's tail waves in the breeze like a flag on a flagpole.

This week he again treed one and sounded the alarm.  I saw which tree it was in and retrieved my gun.  When I returned it was nowhere to be seen, but Gus was sure that it was still in the leafless tree.  I spotted a hole in the tree where a large branch had broken off and the wood had rotted and I assumed he was hiding in it.  I set up a ladder and got a garden hose and stuck the end in the hole.  When my wife turned on the hydrant, that squirrel popped right up out of the hole too quick for me to do anything.  It moved from tree to tree and disappeared at the top of an evergreen tree either in a nest or in a cluster of tight boughs.
We couldn't scare him out our get him to move, so once again Gus was disappointed.
He must think that I am an incompetent provider.

And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.
I Samuel 18:11

Complete

The second week of October was the rainy week this year, and we only were in the field for one half day all week,  The third week we moved to Panola to try to harvest our last field of soybeans.  We got moved up there around noon on Monday and discovered that the beans were still too tough and wet to combine,  So we decided to start the corn there.  We got the field opened up, but proceeded to get the tractor and auger wagon stuck twice.  Neighbor Ken came over with his tractor the first time and pulled us out.  The second time we borrowed his chain and were able to pull the tractor out with the combine.  We finally decided to quit for the day and went back home.
It took us most of the week to get that farm harvested, and we kept from getting stuck again.  We did get moved back home late Friday afternoon and started filling our bins.  Because of the setbacks, we were unable to make it to Windsor for Brad's wedding that weekend.  We filled bins this past week and finished harvest on Halloween.

This past weekend, with harvest over, we went with the Choir on the bus to Garden Grove.  I enjoyed watching the harvest progress out the bus windows as we traveled across Western Illinois and Southern Iowa.  There was a lot of crop in the field the farther west we went.
We enjoyed traveling through the old, small, very rural towns along the way.  All unique and yet many similarities.  Each having a mostly shuttered downtown, a couple large old houses that were elegant mansions in the day, a town square/park, a couple unique shops, and a declining feel in general but many reminders of better times.

We enjoyed the fellowship with the Garden Grove church family, and they were very hospitable.  I had driven through the town before, but this was my first time to worship with the church.  I met and visited with some people that I hadn't seen in 30 or 40 years, but we were able to share together as if it were just a few years.  Lots of friends and relatives from Bloomfield drove over Saturday evening for the program and again on Sunday, so that made the weekend extra special.  With the time change, much of the ride home was in the dark, but it was a good trip.

The slower pace of life, the more rural, western feel, and the mixed cropland/timber terrain still calls me to Southern Iowa, but at this stage in my life it is less likely to happen than it ever was.

Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them.
Psalm 126:2

Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
Genesis 12:1