Endings and Beginnings

There are some events in life that are bittersweet. Farm sales are one of those events. There is the excitement of attending a good sale, but there is also the fact that farm sales can be intensely personal for those doing the selling.

What might look like a jumble of tools and machinery to a bystander can really be pieces of equipment that contain an amazing amount of memories for the family selling those items.

Last weekend my husband and I attended the farm sale of his cousin.  Some of the reason we went, was so my husband could take a trip down memory lane..and some of the reason was we felt it was important to be there for family.

My husband did enjoy wandering through the barn and the grove. He also did a lot of reminiscing when he was looking over the older tractors. He recalled helping his uncle when it was baling time and the old H was the tractor pressed into service for that task.

 

It was fun to visit with the family and catch up on where the kids were at and which grandkids belonged to who.

It truly was a bittersweet day, as this farm place had been in the family for a very long time. Seeing the equipment sold and knowing that soon this family would not have any relatives living on this farm spoke of endings.

The day of the sale also spoke of beginnings. Beginnings for the new couple that will be moving there and starting traditions of their own. Beginnings of new dreams with new people and new events.

In thinking about it…..it really isn’t an ending at all….it is just turning the page to a new chapter.  The land will still be farmed. A family will live in the big old farm house. Eventually children will run across the yard and search for kittens in the barn in the spring. It will not be an ending at all….it will just be a different kind of same.

There is nothing permanent except change.
–  Heraclitus

 

 

 

Early Mornings and Quiet Time

It seems like most of our mornings lately are foggy, damp, and turning into that quiet season where the summer birds have decided it is time to head for winter homes.

It always amazes me how this time of year just seems to sneak up on me. I am not sure if it sneaks up because life is too busy or if things just change so slowly that you really don’t realize they have changed till you actually stand quietly and allow yourself to feel the change.

The other morning, was such a morning. I headed out, geared up in my yellow chicken galoshes (due to heavy dew on the grass), and went to let the girls out for the day. They had been patiently waiting (okay…maybe not so patiently waiting) for me to come open the door of their chicken run.

As I stepped out of our garage, the quiet took hold and seemed like a physical presence. It demanded that time be taken to just be still, take a breath and turn in all directions to take it in.

The shadows were long from the old boxelder that refuses to die. The early morning sun seemed to light the side of the barn and cast a glow into those dark shadows of the tree. Fog hung thick over the river and the only thing breaking that quiet morning was the steady drip of dew from rooflines and trees.

It was a hushed holy moment…..that space between the earth sleeping and waking for the busyness of the day. It is an amazing experience to be able to stand in that space and just be. There is something healing and comforting about that beautiful space.  It is a space that is full of promise and hope.

It is a peace that soothes the soul, quiets the mind and reminds us that life is to be lived and experienced. It reminds us that life cannot always be lived on our own terms or in our own time, but must be enjoyed when God presents it to us.

Such mornings are a gift and I treasure them. I often wonder if there were mornings like this when I was younger. I suspect there were….I also suspect that I never took the time back then to just stand in awe outside of my home and inhale the morning.

There is much to be said for getting older. Age does not always equal wisdom but it does slow us down, so that we may appreciate what is put before us. It makes us realizes what a gift it is, to just stand in the cool of the morning, see the treasure and wait with confident expectation of a wonderful day.

You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one.
Each day is a different one,
each day brings a miracle of its own.
It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.
–Paolo Coehlo

 

Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord.
Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly
(Psalm 5:3).

 

Building Relationships

Last week was a busy week but such a good week. I love days that include time spent building relationships with those around me.

We attended an ice cream social with my in-laws and then we had the honor of attending their birthday party that was held, at the assisted living facility where they live, for those with August birthdays.

Friday saw us having supper with friends. It was wonderful grilling burgers, making s’mores and just relaxing around the fire pit. You can discuss a lot of topics while gazing into those dancing flames.

We spent time solving the world’s problems….not that the world will take our advice..but I thought we had some pretty good solutions. We caught up on the lives of our families, laughed about crazy things we had done in our youth and compared notes on a variety of things.

We capped our week off with a day at Lake Okoboji. Our oldest son and his family spent the weekend there. For some reason their entire summer had gone by without having a family time away. It was a blessing to share a day with them and I am so grateful they let us crash their vacation.

My sister and her husband graciously took us for a long boat ride around the lake and we had fun watching our grandchildren swimming around the boat to cool off.  It still makes me smile thinking about asking my granddaughter if she was a guppy.  She replied quite firmly that she was NOT a guppy but that she was, indeed, a mermaid!

The week was very busy but, oh so rewarding.  I hope that the memories made will last long into my children and grandchildren’s lifetimes. I hope they remember their grandpa and grandma as people who showed up.

I hope that the thought of us brings smiles to the faces of those who know us. I also hope that the thought of these times together makes them long for more of those times.

It reminds me that God longs for relationship with us. He longs to spend time with us. He wants to know our hopes, our dreams and to celebrate special events with us. Relationships with people and with God take time and effort.  It is not easy but is so very worth it.

May this week find you building relationships with those around you. Whether it be in your prayer time, building s’mores, or swimming with a mermaid…take the time for it…you will not be disappointed.

 

 

Our relationships are precious,
valuable treasures from heaven,
and we should handle them carefully,
always looking for ways to build bridges to each other’s hearts.
Victoria Osteen
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/victoria_osteen_708325?src=t_relationships

Canning time

Once again we are in the middle of the wonderful season known as canning season. My yellow and green beans seem to be quite prolific this year.

I tried planting them a bit differently this year. I usually do the square foot method – a 4×4 foot square with each  1×1 foot square having 9 plants. I love this method as once the beans are big they tend to squeeze out the weeds….and I really do not like weeding in the humid summer weather.

This year I did a 2 foot wide row. I have found it is so much easier to reach all the way to the middle..much easier than a 4 foot wide row.  (This width still gives me that canopy that squeezes out the weeds.) I am wondering if that is also why I have a lot more beans on those plants this year?

This past week I did not pay quite enough attention to my produce picking and discovered that some of those beans had gotten quite large. Years ago my Grandma taught us to not let those large beans go to waste. She had a wonderful gizmo which she called a snijboontje cutter. Basically, it turned the large beans into french cut beans and made them useful again.

Grandma’s bean cutter was the only one in the family and so it dutifully made the rounds during bean canning season. I remember the aunts asking to use it and once the grandkids grew up and gardened it was passed around to that generation.

When Grandma sold her house, years ago and moved to a nursing home no one could remember who had her bean cutter. I am still not sure where it ended up. As her cutter was no longer an option, I found one of my own while on a vacation to the Black Hills several years ago.

For some reason, every time I use my bean cutter it brings Grandma to mind. Her lessons of thrift and using everything have been ingrained into my gardening and canning. I find it hard to toss food if it can be used in another way or another recipe. Fortunately for me…my chickens never let anything go to waste!!

I also had the thought that our lives are a lot like a garden and canning. Sometimes the produce isn’t exactly what we had hoped for. Those beans have rust spots, bug holes or just plain get too large to use in the way you want.

It is a consolation to me that even when our lives have problems, there is always something God can do with us. Like my over large beans getting run through a bean cutter…God can take our lives and circumstances and make them useful in another way. It is not always comfortable getting run through that “bean cutter” but it sure does turn  something less than perfect into something He can use.

I wonder if I love gardening and canning so much because it brings back so many memories…those lessons of thrift from Grandma and the way she taught them? I also wonder if I love it because it reminds me that God can use anything in my life for His purposes…..either way…..it is a wonderful time of year.

 

Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go;
they merely determine where you start.
Nido Qubein
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/nido_qubein_178331?src=t_circumstances

 

Day At A Time

The other morning my husband and I were discussing the summer and wondering what had happened to it. It is so hard to believe that we are already in August and the stores are having “Back To School” sales.

Somewhere in the middle of wedding plans…..moving elderly parents….floods and day to day summer things the time just blew right by us. We have now moved to the phase of harvesting the stuff in the garden, trying to keep weeds under control in the fields and the garden and keeping the lawn mowed.

When we get to wondering how time seems to move so fast; my husband’s favorite line is, “One day at a time…one day at a time”. He is right, of course. Each day starts full of promise and before you know it….the day is done and it is time to call it a day.

It is good on these seeming fast days to stand and watch the sun come up. It is good to take that minute to marvel at the beauty that is around us….the blue of the sky, the lush green of a lawn, the fawns that wander onto that green lawn,  and the vibrant colors of the flowers that are in bloom.

Those moments are a gift. They are a wonderful free gift to us to stop and take a breath….to stop and really enjoy that moment of the day we are given. They are an invitation to forget the busyness for a very brief time and just enjoy the moment that is.

In all the busyness that is our lives, may we enjoy the gift we are given. May we remember to take that small moment and watch the sun rise and the sun set. And may we enjoy all those moments between the rise and set. May we remember to take a day at a time and maybe even a moment at a time……

 

 “He has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity in the human heart;
yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11