The LORD is a mighty tower
where his people can run for safety.
Proverbs 18:10 (Contemporary English Version)
The LORD is a mighty tower
where his people can run for safety.
Proverbs 18:10 (Contemporary English Version)
Sighting-in a New Gun
Our son Jere took the first shot with the 30-06 rifle he purchased for Josh on Saturday.
Jared watched and held his ears.
Our grandson Josh did the fine-tuning of sighting-in his new Savage rifle.
His brother Jared.
He had a good pattern with the exception of the bottom one.
Sunday Sunset
I kept an eye on the sunset, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything special, until, all of a sudden the sun came out from behind clouds and made interesting light and shadows across the area in front of us.
It was truly beautiful.
As quickly as it lit up the earth and sky, it went dark.
Lawn Sweeper
After coming home from TFC’s International Office today, Cerwin took our brother-in-law Marlin up on his offer of borrowing his lawn vacuum.
Sprained Wrist
Yesterday our granddaughter Abigail hurt her wrist while playing a game with the youth group. It hurt even more today, so our daughter-in-law Kristen took her to the ER to have it xrayed. (While I kept the three little boys.) It was only sprained – for which she was thankful. She wanted her family in Maine to see her ER name tag and splint. ![]()
She keeps telling me that I need to update her photo on our refrigerator – so I thought this was a good time for a new “mug shot.”
Your word is a lamp
that gives light wherever I walk.
Psalm 119:105 (Contemporary English Version)
Belted Galloway & Whitetail
Yesterday, as we approached the retirement community to pick up Cerwin’s mother and take her along to the banquet, we noticed a new herd of Belties.
I think they are the neatest cattle.
The little ones are particularly cute.
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This morning we had an animal-sighting from our house – a buck and a doe. We do have whitetail deer in the area, but rarely see them near our house. I think this is the third or fourth time since we live here – and we’ve been here for forty-one years.
~~~
Shortly before church, my brother Clair called to say there was a buck and doe in the field in front of their house – also within sight of our house. Notice them in the center.
He also called our brother-in-law Marlin, who could see them even better from their house. Marlin said the buck was an eight-point.
I hope we see them again – and even closer.
I’m single-minded in pursuit of you;
don’t let me miss the road signs you’ve posted.
Psalm 119:10 (The Message)
A Saturday Evening Banquet
Can you believe it? We went out for another meal this week.
I will soon be as broad as tall – and I’m 5′ 7-1/2″ tall. Do people get that broad?
The people who attend TFC’s York Chapter Banquet always encourage us with their kind words.
The Chapelmen contributed to the evening with beautiful music.
A highlight of the evening was a testimony of God’s protection by the driver who survived this accident. You can see him just above firefighter #47. They spent about two hours freeing him from the wreckage that had his legs pinned.
The fact that Mark Heisey spent only a short time in the hospital – mostly for observation – following this accident is truly amazing. He had some bruises and a fractured toe!
Following Mark’s testimony, his son Ray (left) added his gratefulness for God’s protecting grace – and gave his dad a bouquet of roses.
After the firemen cut away the door, the first thing to fall out of the cab was Mark’s Bible – the one he is holding.
You can read more about the accident at his daugther’s site. You can see several recent photos of him here.
The evening closed by giving one person at every table a bouquet of flowers. If you had a magnet under the seat of your chair – the flowers were yours.
Don’t be misled:
No one makes a fool of God.
What a person plants, he will harvest.
The person who plants selfishness,
ignoring the needs of others
—ignoring God!—
harvests a crop of weeds.
All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds!
But the one who plants in response to God,
letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him,
harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.
Galatians 6:7-8 (The Message)
Eating Out
Because of being out of the house – for meals – the last two nights, I’m having to catch up.
Isn’t that a tough situation?
This was the table setting at my sister’s house on Thursday evening.
She always makes meal settings that delight our eyes.
Coffee waiting to be served
My niece Chelsey
This was “Sibling’s Night” for my family. I have only one photo that included my sister, Nancy, who is standing. Her husband, Marlin, is to her left.
My youngest brother, Steve, (red shirt) and his wife, Brenda. Cerwin is at the right end of the table. Next to him is my middle brother, Clair, and his wife, Anne. Clair will be spending most of 2009 in Rome – the reason we decided it was time for an evening with siblings.
Prior to joining my other two brothers on the family dairy farm in the early ’90s, he and Anne lived in Cali, Colombia, where he worked with CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture). Since joining the farm, he continued as a consultant for CIAT – the reason he will be working in Rome next year.
When working on the farm, he oversaw the crops, and because of his desire to retire from doing that fulltime, the job of planting and harvesting crops has been outsourced.
Left to right: our brother-in-law Marlin, our sister-in-law, Dot, my oldest brother Dale, and our stepmother, Velma. After our mother died from cancer in 1974, Velma became a great addition to our family circle when Daddy married her in 1975. She continues to be an important part of our lives, even though Daddy died in 1997. (I introduced the others in prior photos.)
Nancy is known for her fabulous pies, and though the soup (wild rice or beef noodle) and sandwiches (barbecued pork) was delicious, we knew to save room for dessert. This pie is lemon sponge – my favorite.
Bumbleberry – a mixture of berries
Peanut Butter – Cerwin’s favorite
Though Cerwin has a favorite – he tried a small slice of each!
~~~
Friday night we went to Yoder’s for a dinner concert featuring the Chuck Wagon Gang.
~~~
Waiting for the meal to begin.
Spending an evening listening to the Chuck Wagon Gang is relaxing, refreshing, and inspiring.
They are the third generation Chuck Wagon Gang, but still sound like the original group.
After intermission they told some stories about the group’s beginnings in 1936 – even using “cat glasses” – which one of the original ladies liked. I forget if it was Anna or Rose.
Most of the younger generation is not familiar with this group, so we knew the audience would be older than fifty – and most were.
~~~
The evening took me back to my parent’s kitchen where I first heard the Chuck Wagon Gang.
Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk.
Be gentle with one another, sensitive.
Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 4:31-32 (The Message)
Retreat Meeting & Rain
Left to right: Bunny & Peg O’Hare, Howard & Angie Moses, Alice & Sam Rittenhouse, and Cerwin.
Yoder’s Restaurant was a good place for us to meet for lunch and make preliminary plans for TFC’s Winter Retreat in February, since Sam and Alice have to travel from Lansdale.
I was okay not being on a photo, but the others thought I should be on one. We had a great waitress who was willing to take a picture.
Two hours later, our car was covered with leaves that had dropped because of the rain.
They made a pretty design on our windshield.
It was a dreary day, but the cattle didn’t mind. They enjoyed looking for grass and left over corn in the recently harvested field.