Stories and other stuff

I learned quite a bit throughout my military career.  You, the taxpayers, provided me with a lot of good training and tonight, I put that practical knowledge to some very good use. I have a room humidifier.  I have a box fan.  I have air conditioners that don't work. But... The humidifier puts water into the air by means of a fan, much like a swamp cooler.  It comes out cool, but doesn't move fast.  When you move air fast, it cools it.  When you put water into the mix it cools it more, that's how your swamp cooler moves air. Anyway, I put the box fan on a stand just above the height the air from the humidifier comes out, and viola' a ghetto fabulous/shabby chic home-made air conditioner. I can cook, too.

Well, you know where I was going with this.  It's hot and dry and the wind today beat the dog snot out of our little garden.  It's being hydrated as we speak, and we're gonna go through some water this year to keep alive.  Keeping it moist isn't gonna happen.  It's dried out today and I watered it yesterday. We had company last night in the back 40 and I'm surprised I even have a garden left.  There are spots of the garden, that because of the grade and the way I planted it, that stay moist.  Moist enough that a deer print or two was found in the soil today.  I didn't see anything munched on though. My roomie is feeling ill today.  I had to take her to the doctor.  She doesn't have strep, but has the worst sore throat and laryngitis.  She shared the sore throat with me.  And others.  I'm told everyone has it.  Me, I have weapons to fight back.  No church for me tomorrow, though.  I don't need to share this wi...

I'd hoped today would be a smooth day.  Not so much, but hey, I'm making the best of it. I ordered two small birthday cakes for June and I for our birthday.  Yup, hers and mine are the same day.  I'm off to pick up a card and small gift for her.  She's not feeling too well, sadly.  It's no fun to be ill on yer birthday.  I haven't seen her for about a day and a half now.  I get notes though, and unexplained mystery food. Seriously:  Last night I came home and found a hot bowl of soup in the microwave with a ham hoagie sandwich.  No Miss June to be seen, but the soup was still hot!  It was good, too. Anyway, I ordered said cakes from a bakery I like in Salt Lake.  Well, I had my mom do it for me.  The cakes were ordered for Dale Hooper, but apparently the order never made its way to where it should have because when I went to retrieve the cakes, they were not there.  They had a chocolate one like I wanted in the back,...

For weeks you've endured me talking about fixing this or that.  Fixing stuff has been a large part of the blog lately.  From my Facebook page tonight. Some things are just worth fixing and God can fix anything!

Every now and again, I'll fix a post so it reads better.  I posted this while bleeding and in great pain, and laughing at myself at the same time this afternoon.  It was a good start to a story.  I fixed it so it reads better.   My neighbors gave me permission to harvest some cherries out of their tree. That was very nice of them.  However, picking these cherries is much harder than it sounds.   The tree itself is located in a bit of a precarious position.  It's level with the end of my garden but on their side about a foot from the fence, there's about an eight foot drop into their backyard.  This part of the lot is fenced with a little four foot chain link fence with the barb twists at the top. The cherry tree is in, what I can best describe as the corner of the back 40, but about in the middle of my neighbor's backyard  The fence is on two sides of where I was picking the cherries. It's important to know that for in a minute. I have tw...

What a week last week was.  This week seems to be headed in a similar direction and I'm finding the most unusual projects that need to be done. I got a lot of yard cleanup and weeding done in the garden.  I've found a hoe really makes quick work of the weeds so it's not going to be as bad as I thought.  I still need to mulch, but it seems that every time I get ready to do it, something comes up. The garden is watered for today.  At 97 degrees, that thing dries out quick.  Watering is a sometimes, twice a day chore, depending on the plants.  I don't know if our peas are going to make it.  The high temperatures really did a number on them this afternoon.  We should have planted them about three weeks earlier than we did.  Watering the thing is no easy chore, either. I cleaned up quite a bit of the yard this weekend, too.  Flowers grow, weeds grow quicker, grass grows where you don't want it to but won't stay green where you do w...

I have an awesome story to tell.  I just can't tell it now.  I promise, it's going to get told, and sooner rather than later.  Just not now. Today is a day for praising God for everything, good and bad.  Difficult and easy, because it all works together for our good and His glory!  I had the opportunity to share a Bible verse with someone today and opened my Bible to the very page!  It's so awe-inspiring to watch God at work and to be called to join Him in that work is, well, for lack of a better word, WOW!  That's how my day is going! I really was going to share that story with y'all today.  Had it typed and everything, but it's just not the right time.   It will be soon!

I'm going to share a link with you to a radio program called Guidelines .  It's a little five minute commentary on this or that.  More often than not, I don't hear this program but I heard this particular one twice.  Once in the wee hours of the morning while most of y'all were dreaming, once again at six-thirty when most all y'all were up but I should have been dreaming. I thought it was a pretty good explanation of how I got to where I am in my life.  As the man explains, I'm in that restful place where God is taking the things that have been trials and is turning them into blessings, in ways I never thought possible.  I'm literally in awe of God's majesty this morning and even something as simple as going outside and enjoying the beauty of green grass and blooming flowers was just kind of a special thing. Oh, one more thing, from now on, I'll make sure to change the color of the hyperlinks in the posts so they stand out.  I hope you'll...

Good morning gang!  I want to share a photo from BBN Radio's Facebook page this morning: As I get older and I see the things happening in the world around me, I'm finding that my vocabulary to explain them is shrinking.  I'm not talking about the words I seldom use that will every once in a while slip out; a guy showed me the absolute coolest thing last night on how to fix an airplane.  It involved a pair of vise grip pliers and if I'd known this little trick years ago, chances are I would have used a lot less of those bad words.  I did, though, in my exuberance, say,"I've been doing this s$%t for 25 years and..."  Hey, it slipped out.  I apologized for it. The guys I work with look at me funny if I apologize for swearing.  When I use language like that, it doesn't set a good example of me being the Christian man I want to be.  By saying I'm a Christian, I invite scrutiny from other people, which is why I always apologize if I slip.  ...

We had a pretty good respite from weeding the garden.  There were a few here and there but a quick stroll up through the back 40 today revealed that the honeymoon is over.  There are some serious sprouts coming up. I decided when we planted it that it was going to take some dedication to making things happen this year. That's OK.  I like being out there; was out there for about 45 minutes this morning weeding the raspberry patch.  It's about halfway there.  The rest needs to be done by hand because there are several new plants coming up.  I murdered two by accident and maimed one slightly.  The wonderful thing about raspberries is that you really can't kill 'em by hand.  They'll grow back as long as the roots are intact.  What amazes me is how well they're growing back when they have a little room to do so.  Once they finally take hold and establish themselves, nothing will overtake them, and they'll actually start overtaking things on...

One of the guys I work with asked me last night if I still smoked.  I told him it'd been almost seven weeks without a cigarette and I took the opportunity to tell him that God helped me quit by taking the desire away from me. That's really a true account; one I've shared before  And if I got through yesterday without having a cigarette, then I don't need to smoke no matter what comes my way.  And I made it; with God's help, I made it! I paid someone $350 yesterday to be brutally honest with me.  When I talked to the man on the phone, I told him I needed a fair and honest appraisal of what my house is worth, given the market conditions, the listing history, the offer for $125,000 I turned down, etc... And I got every penny's worth.  After he'd toured the house, he sat down and began to explain to me why I couldn't sell my house.  He started with words like dated.  Then we got to the crux of the matter: In today's real estate market, my house i...

The plan was to move all of the stuff that I don't use out of the garage and downstairs to the part of the house that fits into that same category, then to move the boat into the garage.  That was the plan. The boat is still in the driveway. The stuff is still in the garage. But, the garage is pretty much cleaned out and organized, and surprisingly, when I did this, I found room for a lot of my stuff. Miss June gets part of the credit here.  She made a suggestion about where to put the table saw so it stayed in the garage and not in the basement.  It was a really good solution so it got me to thinking about what else would fit in the garage if I just moved this or threw that away.  She even gave me a new cardboard box for my collection of screws, nails, and what have you.  My old one broke and I had to clean up that mess, too.  In the process, I vacuumed out the garage and I'm fairly happy with the results so far.  There's some more to do, but ...

Six days ago, there were at least a dozen cucumber plants in the garden.  Today, there are none.  A couple of them died from transplant shock, but where the others went is anyone's guess.  It's possible some kind of a bird had a cucumber 'jones', but it's more likely that it's the result of the weather.  It went from cool to instant hot today. It was a good day for the garden.  There are new onions sprouting up.  There are green beans sprouting up.  Corn is pushing its way through the soil as well.  Warming up the ground seemed to be just the ticket for getting things moving along.  The peas grew about six inches today and they're blossoming. Weeds are making their way back after a few weeks of being under control.  The hot weather caused lots of weed seeds to germinate.  The next few days will be spent mulching around plants with last fall's leaves.  They were headed for the compost pile but to keep down on weeds, the rows...

This isn't going to be very deep.  It's late and I'm not an authority on the matter.  But I can tell you God answers prayers.  The story for today is gonna be short, sweet, and to the point. Ladybugs are voracious creatures and they're quite beneficial to have in the garden.  Some companies actually sell ladybugs because they eat the other bugs that aren't friends to the gardener.  Don't let them spots fool ya', ladybugs are mean! I asked God to bless our garden.  I'm serious about sharing the harvest this year. Earlier yesterday when I was out in the garden, I noticed that there must have been at least two dozen ladybugs in our garden in one certain spot.  That spot is going to be weeded tomorrow, but most carefully because I don't want to disturb the ladybugs. I asked God to bless the garden.  He sent ladybugs. Pretty cool. God works in my life in so many ways.  To him be the glory and honor and praise on this beautiful, and som...

I'm sure going to be happy when the garden is planted, but I think, not as much as Miss June is.  We're just never going to see eye to eye about it and I think she's getting a little sick of me talking about planting the thing.   We have differing thoughts about how it should be done.  She plants a little here, a little there, a little bit someplace else.  I asked her today why that was, and she said it's in case the bugs eat this one, or this gets some sort of disease, etc.   OK, Ok.  It's not the way I'd do it, but that's all right.  I gave in to doing that her way. She was out planting this morning.  I want to get it in the ground because I know how long the growing season is.  She just wants to take her time.  I'm eager to get it planted because I want to mulch the thing so I don't have to pull weeds.  Her thinking is that if you spread it out, you get this thing then that thing, etc... and I understand that too.  Bu...