Fluttering Wings

In a morning hour on the deck before the muggy day gets too hot, wings are dominant in my surroundings. Flies dive in to crawl on my chair or lap, a cloud of miniscule bugs dances like a tornado in the sun over a nearby rosebush, busy parents dart past to feed voracious nestlings, and in a puddle on the driveway a family of robins takes a splashing bath.

But just inches from my knees is a wondrous fluttering, or rather, a buzzing hum of wings. The tall spikes of the salvia in our planter (inspired by a design of Jason's) is a favorite with hummingbirds. I have just been too slow, and apparently too threatening with the camera to catch those airy visits for you.

But a couple yards off the flitting butterflies are less shy... or more persistent. 

Forty-Two Years

This is anniversary month... 

42 years for Dad and Mom!

"[Jesus] said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."
Matthew 19:5-6

What You Ask

"Jesus answered, 'You do not know what you are asking. 

Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?'" 

- Matthew 20:22 -

"We ask that our souls may be saved and go to heaven, when we die. It is a good request indeed. But are we prepared to take up the cross, and follow Christ? Are we willing to give up the world for His sake? Are we ready to put off the old man, and put on the new - to fight, to labor, and to run so as to obtain? Are we ready to withstand a taunting world, and endure hardships for Christ's sake? What shall we say? If we are not so ready, our Lord might say to us also, 'Ye know not what ye ask.'

"We ask that God would make us holy. It is a good request indeed. But are we prepared to be sanctified by any process that God in His wisdom may call on us to pass through? Are we ready to be purified by affliction, weaned from the world be bereavements, drawn nearer to God by losses, sicknesses, and sorrow? Alas! these are hard questions. But if we are not, our Lord might well say to us, 'Ye know not what ye ask.'

- J. C. Ryle
from Matthew - Thy Kingdom Come, edited by Kevin Swanson

Summer Storms

Thunderstorms are a regular occurrence in our prairie summers. Sometimes they are mostly noise and wind that cleans dead limbs out of trees or topples the most vulnerable. Other storms, like one last week, sent us to the basement with tornado warnings while it dumped another inch of rain to total more than two inches that day.

"The heavens declare the glory of God..."

Forecasts cause frequent hauling of our deck planters to protect them from the next storm.

With flowers safely tucked in porch and garage, the preying mantis out front was our only "casualty" this time. It is a sweet gift from a friend to remind us of her praying (rather than "preying"!) for us.

July Harvest Begins, 2019

 Maren (with her growing and kicking "little" on board!) visited Elsa and me last week. Special day!

While Elsa made our version of Zuppa Toscana for supper, Maren and I did some harvesting.

Our first big picking of tart bush-cherries made a yummy dessert topped with coconut crumble topping we already had in the freezer as well as coconut ice cream. And all the cherries in the photo above were left over for Maren to take home and freeze!

The raspberries are also beginning with huge, sweet berries (unlike last year's unusually tart crop.)

Every meal now contains plenty of fresh greens: kale, spinach, and lettuces. Zucchini is just beginning, and we are past the first flush of strawberries.

Fresh, crispy cucumbers are such a treat again... especially with fresh dill weed which transports us back to the Russian countryside in one whiff!

O LORD, how manifold are Your works!
In wisdom have You made them all;

the earth is full of Your creatures....

These all look to You,

to give them their food in due season.

When You give it to them, they gather it up;

when You open your hand, they are filled with good things.

Psalm 104:24, 27-28

Young Americans!

Independence Day was so full of good visits with some of the 125 relatives who gathered at the lake that I didn't take a single picture. But the following will be more meaningful for those of you who don't know my family anyway!

"Young Americans! as you grow up to manhood, and enjoy the great blessing of freedom from all unjust and oppressive laws of man, beware of wishing to be free from the just and righteous laws of your Creator, lest you bring upon yourselves as a nation, the displeasure of him whose 'kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,' and whose 'dominion endureth throughout all generations.' To those who will not obey him, he has said, 'I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my word, nor to my law, but have rejected it.'

While you are exercising what you call liberty of conscience, remember the assurance of him who 'taught as one having authority:' 'If ye continue in my word ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free; verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.' If Christ 'shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.'"

Life of Washington by Anna C. Reed