It's been real nice lately being around a kid, not just any ordinary kid, but an onry 15 year old active boy. One night at supper, he was quite critical and animate about the table venue. Myself, being perhaps just as onry at times, decided that he could cook his own supper from now on. I, being a little more accustomed to palatable table fare, allowed only one evening of chef boy-ar- Hunter with plenty of ketchup. That isn't working very well either. Perhaps it was a guilt complex that maybe I wasn't giving my best, or that maybe a thought came I should get out of the box of hillbilly cooking methods and try make something more delictable to the customs of a hungry growing teen. Nevertheless, I found myself looking for a cookbook. I thought maybe one night tater tot-hot dish would suffice.
I went through a change of life recently, and for the love of all good things i will not expound on the details of searching high and low in my kitchen, through boxes in the house, through crevasses of the mind and soul, but I could not find a cookbook on my property to say politely as trying not to offend light eared readers, and not to revert to character defects of an untamed tongue and the mind of a uncouth hillbilly; but, I could not locate a cookbook to save my part of the body that cushions a seated pose. I was explaining this to a friend of mine in frustration and laughter of the details of missing cookbooks from my home. We decided that cookbooks do not belong to hillbillies. And either a hillbilly can get by without one, or if he can not then he must lose a degree of status among the uncultured and unkempt life of fellow hillbillies. After all, it would be poor to admit that we might actually use a written recipe or need one sometimes.
I must share with the reader our next conversation of oral proportions. I must also confess that men, especially hillbilly men actually share recipes. Yes, ladies do not monopolize the recipe sharing world. Single guys need to eat something different every so often and we do enjoy eating and eating well and we must share something with our fellow hillbilly buddies so that they should not suffer of get bored with with singleness of purpose food. So my friend shared with me his recipe in hillbilly dialect his version of potato soup:
"You take a kettle like this one (grabbing a 4 quart sacepan). You fill it about up to here( pointing about 2/3 toward the top) with potatoes and onions. You can add some gralic if you have some around. Cover with water and boil a long time. After you boil it a long time, you can add some meat: bacon, ham or sausage. Summer sasusage even works. Turn the heat way down(simmer). Then you add a good goober(1/3 to a1/2) of sour cream or chip dip if you got it. Add a smaller goober(1/4 to 1/3 cup) of ranch dressing. Add cream to thicken it up, and milk to get it to the consistency that you want. Do not boil! jus let it simmer. When the meat and everything is good and hot, add a good handful of grated cheese(any kind) on top. Do not stir. As soon as that is melted, dish it up."
Be it male understanding, or hillbilly bonding, this recipe made very good sense to me. I take no offense to one who whose noggin is baffled or perplexed. Perhaps the reader is not hillbilly enough to comprehend simple explanations and may require a more scientific standard written down recipe. And that is ok. I personally extend my condolences.
As for supper tonight I can cook using wither the hillbilly method, or a traditional recipe card method. Either one will get my tater-tot hotdish in the oven. As long as I mix in a dash of understanding, and a few shakes of respect, a goober and a half of compassion and a few sprigs of tolerance, a bunch of love and a teaspoon of patience, dinner will go just fine as it normally does. I have to admit that it would be nice if having a kid in the house came with a recipe that turned out every time. Bless my table Lord and we thank Thee for Thy gifts.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Rainbow Connection
Been a little disconnected lately from my friend Jose out on the line. Not much going on... just waiting for the weather and a call to head back to the Tioga Lateral Project in North Dakota. In the meantime, the my union is sending me to a training school to train me how to dig safely and effeiciently around hot (flowing) lines. I can't help but remember m last conversation with my friend Jose. I distinctly remember him talking about his family. We pipeliners often spend a good deal away from our loved ones, and latley I am sure as I have been doing, connecting again with friends and family we love the most.
I find it amazing how people even connect at all. Think about it. Take two individual human beings. They contain different likes and tastes, unique qualities and preferences, different experiences and quirks...egos! It seizes me to with astonishing wonder, how the human race could even repopulate itself, much less form civilizations, or societies. I ask what is that bond that makes two people get along, or even give someone a first smile, not just in a male/female relationship but more so, just two people; say, for instance, a kid and an adult. Something more, something unseen, a force, a power of connectivity must be hard wired, or either is moving around us that must be in and among people. I call this the rainbow connection. This weekend I can say I truly experienced that connection.
My friend Brenda came to visit this weekend. Crazy! She drove all the way from Williston to see Middle River, a drinking community, with a farming- hunting- fishing problem Of course I was excited and nervous. What would I show her? Who would I want her to meet? She arrived safely and we began our little journey. We had plans generally to show her some local flavor, fabric stores, attend church services, see the quilters guild. I wanted her to meet some of the kids that were around, and of course my mom and grandma Our first stop on Saturday morning was Young's General store in Middle River, too much to explain so I ask the reader to just Google it. I wish I could describe the look on her face when she got into the fabric and sewing section. She is a quilter. And she found something she liked and wanted. Things were going good. Next stop, Thief River Falls, we just started driving , and she said, "Where does your Grandma live?"
Oh yes! Karlstad, She has been in the nursing facility for a few months. I can't believe we almost forgot about grandma. So we visited her. I told Brenda stories about grandma on the way down. But here are somethings I didn't tell her. She was just an ordinary home-made grandma. She loved to see us, she loved to send us away with something every time we saw her, whether it be a plate of cookies, or a National Geographic. She knitted and sewed. She warmed up beans on the wood stove while she cooked everything else in her oven. She baked bread and made terrific soup. She had us over often when we were growing up, and loved if we would drop off the little kids for a half hour while I picked up groceries. She once even had a cat that was invisible to the world especially little kids. She would boss us around a little, and we loved her for it, and was animate if our behavior wasn't up to her standards. She was a high class kind of lady who tried to make sure we were doing our best. And around her we always were our best. We talked for awhile on Saturday morning. It was good to visit. Ten minutes down the road I received a text from my cousin Kari. We had just missed her. She was also visiting grandma too. It was truly a great day for Grandma.
The rest of the day we made our destinations, and I truly loved the conversations we had. Supper, Supper mess, clean up. Bed time.
The next morning getting ready for church services we were interrupted. Grandma took a turn for the worse. We traveled to Grand Forks where she was admitted.Not much we could do, but we did all we could to make her comfortable. It was emotional. It was not fun. We all wanted answers and all we could do was wait. Brenda suggested to get away for a bit. And as for me I was in agreement. I didnt like what I saw in the hospital anyway. So we traveled to Buxton, ND to spend an hour with Jeremy and his famnily. (Brenda's son). I was greeted at the door by running toddlers and preschool age kids holding nothing other than wild bunnies. They all hugged their grandma and were so proud to show off their baby rabbits. Baby wild rabbits tamed and used to being held by energetic kids in the taming process of the human spirit. Jeremy's in laws were also there. I would really like to get to know Scott, a bow hunter from Duluth, MN. His wife was interesting too, and I felt really at home around them, I recognized the Finnish-Minnesota accent right away. What is that power that makes people even friendly? What is it that makes a person want to sit down with someone that you have never met and just talk?... about stuff. But we did. And then we went to back to Grand Forks to see Grandma, and my brother Tony. I traveled back to the hospital leaving Jeremy and his family and departed with a picture from Mattea, a wavy crayola rainbow that now hangs on my fridge.
Nothing changed, but we? We traveled home and now our conversations were more melancholy, light, undertones of sadness, and gratitude that we had spent a little time to be with her while we were our best and she could see that. Brenda stopped by the hospital with myself, my brother and mother on her way home to Williston. I walked her out to the car and a few minutes later Grandma Tootie passed over to the other side of the rainbow.
" Why are there so many songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection..."
( Jim Henson)
I imagine Jose is getting connected back at his home now too. Family bonds are more cemented like the glue in life. But its the connection between people, those transparent colorful moments that create memories. Like a rainbow, we can see it, we know its there, but we can't quite apprehend it. We can try to explain it, and more often than not we ask more questions because of it. What is it that connects us, family? I suppose to a degree. That isn't it though, because it goes even deeper than those kind of relationships. I believe it is more temporal like those rainbows, shared dreams, visions, common ideals, a shared smile about something or someone that both can agree are just commonly good, in that shared moment, that Presence. There is no denial that rainbows come and are that power from God. Like grandmas or the ideas of grandma, a kid giving a crayon picture to an adult, a friend waiting in a hospital room. Fortunately my grandma was an ideal one, a connection we feel with others that brings out our best. The connection that makes us hope that the people we meet, we will know for a lifetime. Today I am fortunate enough to experience the connection: "...The lovers, the dreamers and me."
I find it amazing how people even connect at all. Think about it. Take two individual human beings. They contain different likes and tastes, unique qualities and preferences, different experiences and quirks...egos! It seizes me to with astonishing wonder, how the human race could even repopulate itself, much less form civilizations, or societies. I ask what is that bond that makes two people get along, or even give someone a first smile, not just in a male/female relationship but more so, just two people; say, for instance, a kid and an adult. Something more, something unseen, a force, a power of connectivity must be hard wired, or either is moving around us that must be in and among people. I call this the rainbow connection. This weekend I can say I truly experienced that connection.
My friend Brenda came to visit this weekend. Crazy! She drove all the way from Williston to see Middle River, a drinking community, with a farming- hunting- fishing problem Of course I was excited and nervous. What would I show her? Who would I want her to meet? She arrived safely and we began our little journey. We had plans generally to show her some local flavor, fabric stores, attend church services, see the quilters guild. I wanted her to meet some of the kids that were around, and of course my mom and grandma Our first stop on Saturday morning was Young's General store in Middle River, too much to explain so I ask the reader to just Google it. I wish I could describe the look on her face when she got into the fabric and sewing section. She is a quilter. And she found something she liked and wanted. Things were going good. Next stop, Thief River Falls, we just started driving , and she said, "Where does your Grandma live?"
Oh yes! Karlstad, She has been in the nursing facility for a few months. I can't believe we almost forgot about grandma. So we visited her. I told Brenda stories about grandma on the way down. But here are somethings I didn't tell her. She was just an ordinary home-made grandma. She loved to see us, she loved to send us away with something every time we saw her, whether it be a plate of cookies, or a National Geographic. She knitted and sewed. She warmed up beans on the wood stove while she cooked everything else in her oven. She baked bread and made terrific soup. She had us over often when we were growing up, and loved if we would drop off the little kids for a half hour while I picked up groceries. She once even had a cat that was invisible to the world especially little kids. She would boss us around a little, and we loved her for it, and was animate if our behavior wasn't up to her standards. She was a high class kind of lady who tried to make sure we were doing our best. And around her we always were our best. We talked for awhile on Saturday morning. It was good to visit. Ten minutes down the road I received a text from my cousin Kari. We had just missed her. She was also visiting grandma too. It was truly a great day for Grandma.
The rest of the day we made our destinations, and I truly loved the conversations we had. Supper, Supper mess, clean up. Bed time.
The next morning getting ready for church services we were interrupted. Grandma took a turn for the worse. We traveled to Grand Forks where she was admitted.Not much we could do, but we did all we could to make her comfortable. It was emotional. It was not fun. We all wanted answers and all we could do was wait. Brenda suggested to get away for a bit. And as for me I was in agreement. I didnt like what I saw in the hospital anyway. So we traveled to Buxton, ND to spend an hour with Jeremy and his famnily. (Brenda's son). I was greeted at the door by running toddlers and preschool age kids holding nothing other than wild bunnies. They all hugged their grandma and were so proud to show off their baby rabbits. Baby wild rabbits tamed and used to being held by energetic kids in the taming process of the human spirit. Jeremy's in laws were also there. I would really like to get to know Scott, a bow hunter from Duluth, MN. His wife was interesting too, and I felt really at home around them, I recognized the Finnish-Minnesota accent right away. What is that power that makes people even friendly? What is it that makes a person want to sit down with someone that you have never met and just talk?... about stuff. But we did. And then we went to back to Grand Forks to see Grandma, and my brother Tony. I traveled back to the hospital leaving Jeremy and his family and departed with a picture from Mattea, a wavy crayola rainbow that now hangs on my fridge.
Nothing changed, but we? We traveled home and now our conversations were more melancholy, light, undertones of sadness, and gratitude that we had spent a little time to be with her while we were our best and she could see that. Brenda stopped by the hospital with myself, my brother and mother on her way home to Williston. I walked her out to the car and a few minutes later Grandma Tootie passed over to the other side of the rainbow.
" Why are there so many songs about rainbows
and what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
and rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it.
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection..."
( Jim Henson)
I imagine Jose is getting connected back at his home now too. Family bonds are more cemented like the glue in life. But its the connection between people, those transparent colorful moments that create memories. Like a rainbow, we can see it, we know its there, but we can't quite apprehend it. We can try to explain it, and more often than not we ask more questions because of it. What is it that connects us, family? I suppose to a degree. That isn't it though, because it goes even deeper than those kind of relationships. I believe it is more temporal like those rainbows, shared dreams, visions, common ideals, a shared smile about something or someone that both can agree are just commonly good, in that shared moment, that Presence. There is no denial that rainbows come and are that power from God. Like grandmas or the ideas of grandma, a kid giving a crayon picture to an adult, a friend waiting in a hospital room. Fortunately my grandma was an ideal one, a connection we feel with others that brings out our best. The connection that makes us hope that the people we meet, we will know for a lifetime. Today I am fortunate enough to experience the connection: "...The lovers, the dreamers and me."
Monday, April 8, 2013
Laid Off
Being laid off stinks, plain and simple, especially for me. It isn't the lack of income. I got a couple dollars saved for a little bit. It's the ," what should i do now" thoughts that come to my head. Believe me when I tell the reader that my mind is sometimes not a good place to go exploring. Here are the top 5 genius ideas I have generated since I have been home.
5. Kick a 21 year old kid out of my house because he wants to drink beer and won't come with me to church. No discussion just put on the old size 13. Boot! Bam! Come back when you want to get it right. 1 John 4: 7 Beloved let us love one another.
4. Invite some old buddies over for coffee. Are you kidding me... coffee, they don't drink coffee, and neither do I. Better yet invite them all over for some male bonding and see if anything is different this time. Or how about better yet: Go down to the local watering hole and see what they are still up to!
3. Take a road trip. Oh yeah, that might require some planning and a destination. The last time I took a road trip I didn't come home for a few weeks, not that it was all bad, but I just don't remember it. The movies The Hangover, Road Trip, and Animal House about sum up that experience.Galatians 5:21 Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
2. Tear apart the house. That's right. I already did that and put it back together. I have already completely rid my home of the essence of unclassy femininity with extreme prejudice. My best friend says I have to say it this way. Like I am better? Rom 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.
1. Overhaul my home with new appliances and gadgets. The kitchen could use a few things. New microwave, fridge, stove. Oh and I wouldn't be in vogue unless i had a toilet bowl fish tank. Why not a new t.v. computers. While I am at it, a brand new truck. Might as well then build a garage. Since I am at it, I should add on a 3 season porch right now....Romans 12: 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Differentiating between genius and insanity is hard. Genius getting the ideas, and insanity would be acting on them and expecting a positive result. ( Acts 26:24-25And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.” But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words.) Obviously even great people had problems with thinking too.
In lieu of the grandiosity, those thoughts come to pass quickly now days. Thank God! Coming home has actually been serene. Card game in the evening with Hunter... Playing catch with Gracei...Talking of the future season with Skylar... Visiting with friends... Visiting mom and grandma... going through pictures... making plans to visit my lady Brenda... paying the bills... hauling kids around... Attend church...Swamp time with Ryan and Dakota... Spending time in prayer and meditation feeling God's presence. Talking things out with like minded people. Blog.
Fortunately, I can recognize my own strange thoughts now, have peace with my life and have something called Faith that just lets me know things are o.k. and as exactly as they should be even when I get toxic thoughts. (Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.)
Guess being laid off isn't so bad. I think a coat of paint in the kitchen will be just fine. After all in the big picture, I am just living right now in an overgrown hunting shack, on a piece of overgrown hunting land, during another hunting adventure called life.
5. Kick a 21 year old kid out of my house because he wants to drink beer and won't come with me to church. No discussion just put on the old size 13. Boot! Bam! Come back when you want to get it right. 1 John 4: 7 Beloved let us love one another.
4. Invite some old buddies over for coffee. Are you kidding me... coffee, they don't drink coffee, and neither do I. Better yet invite them all over for some male bonding and see if anything is different this time. Or how about better yet: Go down to the local watering hole and see what they are still up to!
3. Take a road trip. Oh yeah, that might require some planning and a destination. The last time I took a road trip I didn't come home for a few weeks, not that it was all bad, but I just don't remember it. The movies The Hangover, Road Trip, and Animal House about sum up that experience.Galatians 5:21 Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
2. Tear apart the house. That's right. I already did that and put it back together. I have already completely rid my home of the essence of unclassy femininity with extreme prejudice. My best friend says I have to say it this way. Like I am better? Rom 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.
1. Overhaul my home with new appliances and gadgets. The kitchen could use a few things. New microwave, fridge, stove. Oh and I wouldn't be in vogue unless i had a toilet bowl fish tank. Why not a new t.v. computers. While I am at it, a brand new truck. Might as well then build a garage. Since I am at it, I should add on a 3 season porch right now....Romans 12: 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Differentiating between genius and insanity is hard. Genius getting the ideas, and insanity would be acting on them and expecting a positive result. ( Acts 26:24-25And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.” But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words.) Obviously even great people had problems with thinking too.
In lieu of the grandiosity, those thoughts come to pass quickly now days. Thank God! Coming home has actually been serene. Card game in the evening with Hunter... Playing catch with Gracei...Talking of the future season with Skylar... Visiting with friends... Visiting mom and grandma... going through pictures... making plans to visit my lady Brenda... paying the bills... hauling kids around... Attend church...Swamp time with Ryan and Dakota... Spending time in prayer and meditation feeling God's presence. Talking things out with like minded people. Blog.
Fortunately, I can recognize my own strange thoughts now, have peace with my life and have something called Faith that just lets me know things are o.k. and as exactly as they should be even when I get toxic thoughts. (Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.)
Guess being laid off isn't so bad. I think a coat of paint in the kitchen will be just fine. After all in the big picture, I am just living right now in an overgrown hunting shack, on a piece of overgrown hunting land, during another hunting adventure called life.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
The Big Picture Painted in a Little Swamp
Today I travelled out to the swamp. It's not a swamp like Hollywood would portray; rather, a junk of overgrown prairie mixed with oak savanna on glacial till ridges, mixed with boreal deciduous and conifer. In between these ridges lies small tracts of peat bog, willows, slough grass, and cattails. For those who know me that is where my family hunts whitetail deer. What we were doing out there was scouting for next season. The details are secret. These secrets are a common courtesy that all avid deer hunters would not dare ask for they know what we were doing and would be impolite to ask any more details of where and exactly what, and how.
We travelled on snowmobiles down abandoned roads and logging trails. Funny thing is that this area northwest of Middle River has never been logged. Since the arrival of the white man it probably has never been burned off enough. Every time i go back to the swamp, I travel back in time. I travel to a time when life was maybe simpler. A time when immigrants took a few deer and grouse for a staple. A harsher time than now when people cut a few cords of wood to burn in pot belly stoves to keep a small house comfortable if someone would tend the fire a couple times in the middle of the nights. This time also included no electricity and people actually took the time to write a letter back to Norway by light of a kerosene lamp instead of shooting off an e-mail. It is hard for me to imagine such a time in history, but I like to, and some parts of my life i have even tried living out a fantasy of trying to live in old ways, actually earning a good portion of my income in the winter months by trapping fur.
But what enthuses me most are the kids. I find myself telling stories to these kids of places in the swamp where we got a big buck or saw a bear or wolf one time. Today one of my sons was telling me stories of his hunt while I was out on the pipeline this year. We had scouted all summer and decided to place an observation post near one of our sacred hunting spots, "The Tamarack Strip." Last November he called me with great enthusiasm to tell me how his planning had paid off. my heart soared knowing he loved to tell the story and today he retold it to his fellow hunters young an old out in the middle of the swamp.
We ended the day with a comradely run race of snowmobiles all the way from the corral to the cabin. Yes the swamp atmosphere can get competitive.
Today was a little different for me. Nothing has changed really out in the swamp. Yet, I never get tired of it or bored. I was feel like I belong there, but the trees didn't seem to be dancing as lively. I never grow tired of this swamp and I have not learned all its secrets, yet although the swamp was welcoming me home so to speak, it was almost as if the willows were mourning knowing I would be departing again.
When I go out to the swamp I often pray, " Heavenly Creator, whose voice I hear in the wind...." Today the wind was more of a gentle breeze and the voice more of a whisper, "Peace I give you until I see you again. We missed you, will miss you and we will welcome you again."
Times change, but the core of the soul doesn't. In the big picture, my adventures, my scouting may not always be a swamp. It could be the gorges of White Earth Valley, Mouse River, or possibly the bluffs of the upper Missouri and Yellowstone River in Western north Dakota. The adventurer in me takes mental notes of how I would hunt the open plains versus the confined forests. It pulls on me the thought of hunting different deer, possibly antelope. My soul seems to be shifting. I owe it to those like me that have come before and similar hearts that are coming and have yet to come, to take on this new adventure with enthusiasm and the spirit of the hunter and explorer.
The big picture seems to be opening up many new doors and at the same time not slamming old ones shut. Closing windows that lead in and down and leaving windows open that lead out and up. It almost that time to to explore the big picture of my life as it is with its serious endeavors also, and welcome any changes that may come. I can not ignore the voice I hear when out on the Great Plains, during this time in America's history during this time of great change, "Come!"
We travelled on snowmobiles down abandoned roads and logging trails. Funny thing is that this area northwest of Middle River has never been logged. Since the arrival of the white man it probably has never been burned off enough. Every time i go back to the swamp, I travel back in time. I travel to a time when life was maybe simpler. A time when immigrants took a few deer and grouse for a staple. A harsher time than now when people cut a few cords of wood to burn in pot belly stoves to keep a small house comfortable if someone would tend the fire a couple times in the middle of the nights. This time also included no electricity and people actually took the time to write a letter back to Norway by light of a kerosene lamp instead of shooting off an e-mail. It is hard for me to imagine such a time in history, but I like to, and some parts of my life i have even tried living out a fantasy of trying to live in old ways, actually earning a good portion of my income in the winter months by trapping fur.
But what enthuses me most are the kids. I find myself telling stories to these kids of places in the swamp where we got a big buck or saw a bear or wolf one time. Today one of my sons was telling me stories of his hunt while I was out on the pipeline this year. We had scouted all summer and decided to place an observation post near one of our sacred hunting spots, "The Tamarack Strip." Last November he called me with great enthusiasm to tell me how his planning had paid off. my heart soared knowing he loved to tell the story and today he retold it to his fellow hunters young an old out in the middle of the swamp.
We ended the day with a comradely run race of snowmobiles all the way from the corral to the cabin. Yes the swamp atmosphere can get competitive.
Today was a little different for me. Nothing has changed really out in the swamp. Yet, I never get tired of it or bored. I was feel like I belong there, but the trees didn't seem to be dancing as lively. I never grow tired of this swamp and I have not learned all its secrets, yet although the swamp was welcoming me home so to speak, it was almost as if the willows were mourning knowing I would be departing again.
When I go out to the swamp I often pray, " Heavenly Creator, whose voice I hear in the wind...." Today the wind was more of a gentle breeze and the voice more of a whisper, "Peace I give you until I see you again. We missed you, will miss you and we will welcome you again."
Times change, but the core of the soul doesn't. In the big picture, my adventures, my scouting may not always be a swamp. It could be the gorges of White Earth Valley, Mouse River, or possibly the bluffs of the upper Missouri and Yellowstone River in Western north Dakota. The adventurer in me takes mental notes of how I would hunt the open plains versus the confined forests. It pulls on me the thought of hunting different deer, possibly antelope. My soul seems to be shifting. I owe it to those like me that have come before and similar hearts that are coming and have yet to come, to take on this new adventure with enthusiasm and the spirit of the hunter and explorer.
The big picture seems to be opening up many new doors and at the same time not slamming old ones shut. Closing windows that lead in and down and leaving windows open that lead out and up. It almost that time to to explore the big picture of my life as it is with its serious endeavors also, and welcome any changes that may come. I can not ignore the voice I hear when out on the Great Plains, during this time in America's history during this time of great change, "Come!"
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Got an email from my friend Jose Jimenez today.
April 1, 2013
Hola Tomas,
I made it back to mi casa ok. Uff Da! What a drive man. Still no green grass here and Peace Willow and Rainbow Joy are really itching to play some softball. So gringo, green we will go. ha ha ! Heading to Albuquerque to see my dad and shag a few balls for the girls.
Dad will be leaving soon for Antarctica to catch the end of summer there. Sounds like the hatch has been good with the penguins , but there seems to be a shortage of fish. So he is a little concerned.
Him and mom fight all the time about about this climate change thing. Penguins more promiscuous, and prosperous, but the food supply seems to be running low for the little birds. To me I cant figure out if penguins are a bird or a fish. They both swim. They eat other fish, but a penguin has a beak, no?
Anyway Muchas gracias for the burrito the other day it was good, but i like more chicken and less beans. We should still try to get our girls together for them to play some ball. should be about another week here, but we are going to fly down to New Mexico anyway this weekend.
Hasta la vista....
Jose
April 4, 2013
Buenos dias my friend. No grass here either, just snow. Gracei was just expressing to me her frustrations also about the conditions of the field where she plays. and by the way many thousand thanks for the sandwich. I don't particularly care for white bread, but the extra corned beef and cheese still made it delightful for the palate.
It's funny you mention penguins. My dad once built a fence for penguins. He even talked about raising them. Some people tell me that he actually did have some at one time. So i really like hearing about penguins and would so one day like to meet your father.
I made it home too, and it is nice to have a little time off to be with the kids. Been cleaning house in more ways than one you know. So amigo, stay in touch! Good to hear from you. I truly believe that God puts people together for a reason, and it is usually for a season or a lifetime. Truly my brother, I hope our reason is for the latter.
truly
Tom
April 1, 2013
Hola Tomas,
I made it back to mi casa ok. Uff Da! What a drive man. Still no green grass here and Peace Willow and Rainbow Joy are really itching to play some softball. So gringo, green we will go. ha ha ! Heading to Albuquerque to see my dad and shag a few balls for the girls.
Dad will be leaving soon for Antarctica to catch the end of summer there. Sounds like the hatch has been good with the penguins , but there seems to be a shortage of fish. So he is a little concerned.
Him and mom fight all the time about about this climate change thing. Penguins more promiscuous, and prosperous, but the food supply seems to be running low for the little birds. To me I cant figure out if penguins are a bird or a fish. They both swim. They eat other fish, but a penguin has a beak, no?
Anyway Muchas gracias for the burrito the other day it was good, but i like more chicken and less beans. We should still try to get our girls together for them to play some ball. should be about another week here, but we are going to fly down to New Mexico anyway this weekend.
Hasta la vista....
Jose
April 4, 2013
Buenos dias my friend. No grass here either, just snow. Gracei was just expressing to me her frustrations also about the conditions of the field where she plays. and by the way many thousand thanks for the sandwich. I don't particularly care for white bread, but the extra corned beef and cheese still made it delightful for the palate.
It's funny you mention penguins. My dad once built a fence for penguins. He even talked about raising them. Some people tell me that he actually did have some at one time. So i really like hearing about penguins and would so one day like to meet your father.
I made it home too, and it is nice to have a little time off to be with the kids. Been cleaning house in more ways than one you know. So amigo, stay in touch! Good to hear from you. I truly believe that God puts people together for a reason, and it is usually for a season or a lifetime. Truly my brother, I hope our reason is for the latter.
truly
Tom
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