Hosanna

Usually our bundle of energy charms everyone with her smile. She was pensive, though, the other day.

Project

I began a project this week. The paint in one of the upstairs bedrooms has been bothering me. So, I embarked on a project that might be bigger than my ability (the ceilings are really high). But, I decided to try. Slowly, the walls are and ceilings are changing from peachy-orange to white and mint green.

Berries

For free

I got a table and chair for free last week. It cost me half my cookie jar of sugar cookies.

We have two types of people in our family--those who discover treasures in other people's trash and those who duck low in their car seats lest someone glances out a neighborhood window and associates them with their recently disowned relatives who are scouring through someone else's rejected junk. 

I identify with the former group. So  on our drive home on Sunday when I sighted a chair sandwiched between trashbags at the end of the road, I wanted to stop to check it out. Dad graciously turned the van around. I discovered a sturdy, drop-leaf table with an extra leaf in the reject pile, and immediately claimed it along with the chair. Some of my siblings didn't not support my decision. But we managed to cram it into the van and then dropped it off at the Cookie house on our way to Sunday dinner at the homestead. 

Our brief stop at the Cookie house cost me a batch of sugar cookies. Even so, the cookies weren't big enough to keep my siblings from making jokes and remarks at the expense of my freebees. 

Bouquet

Shop

While it still has a few unfinished parts, the guy's shop is functional.  

Promised

I promised you to one husband,

to Christ,

so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.

2 Corinthians 11.2 NIV

Wild flower

Green

Long night

It has been hot in Michigan. Like, buy-a-one-way-ticket-to-Alaska hot.

Often on warm nights I drag my pillow outside to try to find a cool breeze. After tossing in my bed for a couple of hours Tuesday night I headed for the porch. There wasn't much breeze there, so I decided to try the hammock. 

Me and my sheet were nicely settled into the hammock and I was listening to the frog croaking nearby, when I heard a snorting, shuffling sound. The grass rustled. I held my breath as a skunk ambled within a foot or two of where I lay suspended between two trees. Then it passed me and I unclenched my muscles and closed my eyes. 

I still couldn't sleep, so after awhile I decided to go back to the porch. I was just starting to sit up in the hammock when I heard frantic clawing and snorting from the tree behind my head. I froze while the skunk had a panic attack. Seconds passed. Adrenaline tingled in my fingernails. The frantic sounds subsided to snorting and shuffling as the skunk moved back in the direction from which it had come. I waited a few minutes and then, keeping to parts of the lawn illuminated by the yard light, I returned to the porch. 

I rested my head on my pillow on the porch and was just drifting to sleep, when a howl behind me jerked me awake. Awooo. Awhooo. Augh-augh-augh-woooo. A coyote. I had heard a pack of them howling in the distance earlier in the night, but this one seemed to be practicing his solo from my back yard. 

After a few more tosses and turns on the porch (and willing myself not to think about rabid bats), I crept back into the house. Needless to say, it wasn't a restful night.

Biking

For sale

Crossroad Village

On Friday, a group of SVSU teachers, students and family members, traveled forty miles and a hundred years to the Crossroads Village, north of Flint. Our students walked down the dirt roads and boardwalks in the turn-of-the-century town. They sipped apple cider in the cider mill, teetered on stilts outside the toy shop and stood in the mist from the paddles of the Genesse Belle as it circled Mott Lake. They took pictures, laughed at the attempted jokes of the local tradespeople, all the while experiencing American culture--both the historical culture of Michigan as well as the culture of American tourism. 

Prayer

you kingdom come,

your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6.10 NIV

Olden days

Alfalfa

Much of the alfalfa in our fields was killed this spring, as a result of the warm weather in March followed by cold temperatures. First-cutting yields are light.

Planting the garden

Pink

roses in front of the Cookie house

Plan C

I wanted to go to one of the big lakes last Friday. That didn't work. My second plan was to float down a river in a tube. That got nixed as well. We ended up loading the tandem bike and two single bikes in the back of the Beachy Buggy for a trip to the Bay City state park. The water there stinks. Literally. But, the bike paths were fun and we found an ice cream shop on the way home.

Security

Kaelyn and her Grandpa Byler

One God

The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deuteronomy 6:4

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord ofheaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. Acts 17:24 NIV

"How many gods are there in the world?" one of my students asked this week.

"One," I replied.

"Which one?" he asked.

"The One True God," I said. "Jehovah."

He just looked at me.

"The God of the Bible," I said.

"Oh."

Pink shades

Hot dog roast

We roasted hot dogs in honor of Libby's birthday. We were going to burn the brush pile, but there was a burning ban due to forest fires in the northern part of Michigan. So, we resorted to our camp fire pit.  

Sunday glasses

Visitors

Joel, Judith and the girls visited last week during graduation time (Judith's brother Caleb and Joel's sister Libby both graduated, along with Judith's cousin John Mark). As always, we basked in their company.  

Business

Lupine

Normally it's a flower's buds and blossoms that attract my attention, but I've found that Lupine leaves are as fascinating as their blooms. 

Desires

Delight yourself in the LORD 

and he will give you the desires of your heart.     Psalm 37.4 NIV

Garden

Julie and I planted our garden Monday evening. Earlier Logan had plowed the spot and Libby had given us plants from her greenhouse. We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and melons. 

White