Chris Loehmer Kincaid's Blog, page 53

The Old Man and the Lake

            You probably already know that on Sundays, I try to write something inspirational here, a meaningful Bible verse, a prayer, a spiritual message of how God shows us His love. Or something similar.

           Today’s quote, however, comes from the book “The Incredible Journey” by Sheila Burnford. You know the story – the three pets travel cross-country to get back to their family, and the cat and the young dog make it home and go running to their people, but the old dog, Bodger? Well, the family didn’t see how the old man could make the 250-mile trip.

           “He broke into a run, faster and faster, until the years fell away, and he hurled himself towards Peter. And as he had never run before, as though he would outdistance time, Peter was running towards his dog.” 

I’ve often referred to my dog as Dino the Wonder Dog. (In fact, this blog is named after him, and by the way, it’s pronounced Dean-O.) Lately, however, at fourteen and a half, he’s been more the D.A.S.S Dog – deaf, arthritic, and somewhat senile dog.

He spends his days lying in the shade in our yard, staring off into the woods. Then sometimes, he slowly, painfully gets up on his wobbly legs and wanders off into those woods, where he won’t come when called because he can’t hear us. When inside the house, he follows me from room to room. But sometimes he loses me, and I feel bad when I walk up behind him, touching him, which scares him as he never heard me coming.        

Yesterday we returned home from our annual camping trip in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Each day, after the process of waking up and adjusting to the camper and the campsite, he’d have an hour or so of energy and clarity. But he’d tucker out pretty quickly. Daddy would have to take him some where shady to rest when Mommy was off exploring and hiking to waterfalls. He also needed to be lifted into the truck, and sometimes into the camper. 

Then on Thursday, when we finally got to the beach at Lake Superior, his puppy spirit soared. His eyes were clear and his head high as he waded into the cool water. He was so happy, so full of joy, even though he didn’t jump in swimming as he had years ago, and I only threw the stick for him once.    

I’m not sure how many trips he has left in him, but he’ll be with us for as long as he can.

God is Good

    O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever. (Psalm 136:1, Revised Standard Version)

As you may recall, I’ve made the two-hour drive to Oshkosh many times over the years to attend the Christian music festival, Lifest. For obvious reasons we weren’t able to go last year, and the year before I can’t remember why, but we didn’t make it either. We talked about going this year but had decided that we just had too much on the calendar. Next year, we vowed.

Then, a few weeks ago, someone from our church messaged me that she had won two single-day tickets to Lifest and asked if I wanted them. She wasn’t going to be able to go herself. (Last week, a friend from church told me that she’s the one who mentioned me to this other woman. How blessed I am to know so many loving people!)

It took no effort to convince Hubby that this was a message from God that we needed to go.

Yesterday morning, we pulled out of the driveway at 7:10. The weather all day was absolutely perfect, mostly sunny, low humidity and temps in the mid-seventies.

I can’t say that we had an over-the-top ridiculously awesome time, but it was so good – so very good – to be surrounded by thousands of fellow believers, praising God and hearing His word. Reminding me that I am a child of God and that He holds me in His hands no matter what challenges I face. And that I need to show that on the outside and not just carry it with me on the inside.   

And as the picture here clearly shows, it was good to get away and experience God’s peace even in the midst of all the crowds and noise.

Lord, God, heavenly Father, thank You for Your goodness, Your kindness, Your strength and Your wisdom. Amen.

     Find out more about Lifest at their website:

https://lifest.com/oshkosh/

     Blog post from my last Lifest:

https://chrisloehmer.blogspot.com/2017/07/do-not-worry.html

The City Which Says Beer to Me - Blog Post #6

I’m still not sure if this will be my last post about my weekend away in Chippewa Falls. I feel there is still so much to share. 

One thing I do know for sure is that this particular city has always been synonymous with Leinenkugel beer. At least for me anyway. 

In 1845, Jacob Leinenkugel immigrated with his family to Wisconsin from Germany, where his father had brewed beer. Armed with that knowledge and settling in a part of the country with plenty of pure, clear water and good earth for growing the appropriate grains and hops, Jacob founded his brewery 1867. 

Many of the original buildings are still in use.

Because my friend and I aren’t much for drinking beer, we hadn’t planned on taking a tour. Studying these buildings though and reading about the company’s history, I have changed my mind and will definitely need to take a tour one day. 

In the meantime, there were plenty of photo opportunities along the banks of the Duncan Creek.   

For more information about Leinenkugel’s history and brewery –

https://www.leinie.com/our-story

 

More of the Outdoors in Chippewa Falls - Blog Post #5

It’s been over six weeks since I spent the weekend with my friend in Chippewa Falls. Weeding through the over four hundred pictures I took means I am still dragging out the blog posts from those three days. 

On Saturday, May 21, after we had seen everything we could at Irvine Park and after a relaxing lunch of I don’t even remember what, we drove over to nearby Lake Wissota State Park.

Where does the name Wissota come from? I always thought it was taken from one of the Native American languages. Nope – well – maybe you could say it sort of was.   

Fun Fact: The lake was created in 1918 when the Wisconsin-Minnesota Light and Power Company constructed the hydroelectric dam on the Chippewa and Yellow Rivers. One of the engineers on the project, L.G. Arnold, shortened the two states’ names into Wissota. (The name Minnesota comes from the Dakota (Sioux) words meaning "sky-blue waters." The origin of the name Wisconsin was a bit more obscure, but I’m going to save you the long version and say it meant "red stone river" in Ojibwe and Sauk. Which must mean that Wissota would translate to "purple water". No?)

Must always get a picture of a feathered friend in the water. 
As well as a human friend in the water. 
And a bunch of strangers too. 
Luckily the pollen was alongside the road instead of this thick in the lake.  

Not only did we walk miles of trails at the state park, we also took a stroll one evening along the Old Abe Trail. (The story of Old Abe is another long one you can read about on your own.)

Beautiful wild flowers. 
And fascinating pine cones which reminded me of old-fashioned Christmas tree lights. 
God's art work. 
But no matter where I travel and what I take pictures of, my favorite scenes are still the ones that remind me of where I came from and where my very soul belongs. 

For more information:

            History of Lake Wissota and the dam which created it –

https://volumeone.org/sites/chippewafalls/articles/2017/05/17/206839-a-dam-fine-history

            More about Lake Wissota State Park –

https://stateparks.com/lake_wissota_state_park_in_wisconsin.html

            The Old Abe Trail –

https://www.traillink.com/trail/old-abe-state-trail/

            But who was this Old Abe? –

https://www.army.mil/article/91178/the_story_of_old_abe_famous_wisconsin_war_eagle_on_101st_airborne_division_patch

What Makes a Nation Great

  Godliness makes a nation great, but sin is a disgrace to any people. (Proverbs 14:34, New Living Translation)

 

Friday, Hubby and I put up a new flag on our garage. It took me ten snaps of the camera before I caught the flag billowing.  

Anyway, the Bible verse above is the one which came up last night on BibleGateway and that’s about all I got today.

Have a safe Independence Day and take at least a few minutes to remember what we are celebrating.

The Final Side of Irvine Park

            I’m not going to torture you with yet another tarnished map of Irvine Park in Chippewa Falls. I just need to tell you that this will be final post about our day at Irvine Park and need to share with you the wild, west side.

Our first stop along Ermatinger Drive in the woods of Irvine Park was the Pioneer Norwegian Log Home and Historical Marker.
No matter what its history, every log cabin is fascinating to me.

Just as fascinating as every one-room school house.

I had been writing my latest novel about a one-room school house. I had hoped studying this building would have jolted me back to working on it, but not yet.

                                  

It just doesn’t take much to grab my interest. I thought this bridge was as charming as those two buildings. 

Later that night, I fell into the rabbit hole of the significance of putting locks on bridges. You’ll have to click on the link below if you want to read about that.

But when instead of the locks, I started researching this particular bridge, I really got excited.

                                 

But then again, it takes so very little to make me happy, such as taking selfies with my friend. 

For more information:

            About the log cabin –

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=43658

            About the school house –

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=43255

            About the bridge –

https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.wi0202.photos?st=gallery

            And another one about the bridge –

 https://bridgehunter.com/wi/chippewa/rumbly/

            One of the many articles on locks on bridges that can be found on the internet –

https://matadornetwork.com/read/every-bridge-world-got-covered-love-locks-stop/

Irvine Park - the other side

     Last Friday, I shared a few pictures from the Irvine Park Zoo in Chippewa Falls. Today, I’m going on the other side. I apologize for once again resorting to my Paint app, but there you have it. The main zoo area on the left and the other side on – well – the other side.

The other side of Duncan Creek, that is.

The claim to fame of this side of the park is this small cave.

In the late 1800s, it was enlarged and used by the brewery in town to store kegs of beer. As you may know, most caves maintain a constant and comfortably cool temperature, a temperature which beer likes to be kept at.

The other claim to fame of this spot was that it was the original location of the very first residents of the city’s zoo. It’s hard to picture, with the overgrowth of vegetation, but supposedly, many, many years ago, this was the site of a bear cage.

Doesn’t look like they had much room.

And this little shelter – not sure if anything bigger than a pair of cubs could fit in there.

Can’t knock the location though.

For more information:

            Someone else must think this is worth blogging about. A blog post about this cave and the bear enclosure –

https://detritusofempire.blogspot.com/2012/08/forgotten-brewery-caves-chippewa-falls.html

            Another short article about the cave and its origins –

http://chippewacounty.com/business/eat/irvine-park-cave

Alas for you

   “How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look fine on the outside but are full of bones and decaying corpses on the inside. In the same way, on the outside you appear good to everybody, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and sins.” Matthew 23:27-28, Good News Translation)

Shortly after Easter, I started writing about various songs from the musical “Godspell.” I promise there are only two left which I want to tell you about.

The words to the song “Alas for You” are taken from Matthew 23:13-37, which was too much for me to copy and paste here. Or too much for you to actually read. I chose the two verses above because they are probably the easiest to understand.

Have you ever been driving around and saw a beautiful house, with manicured lawn, pristine landscaping, and fresh paint on the siding? What if the inside was full of trash and looked like an episode of “Hoarders”? Would you wonder what was wrong with the people who lived there, that they cared only about the outside, what total strangers might see as they passed by? While the inside, the place where they actually live, is in complete disarray.

Or what if the man of the house beats his wife and children? Or what if the wife is an alcoholic and can’t keep up the inside of the house, while her husband slaves away to keep the outside presentable so the neighbors don’t suspect there's a problem? 

Putting it that way, I hope you follow what I’m saying, what Jesus said. It’s not outward appearances that matter; it’s what’s inside – inside your heart, soul, and mind – that is essential. Take care of what is inside first and the outside will follow. 

Lord, I pray that You give me a pure heart and that the light You’ve given me on the inside can shine to the outside for others to see. Amen

Links to find out more about these Bible verses and the song from the musical:

            The entire section of Matthew 23:13-37 from BibleGateway’s website –

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23%3A13-37+&version=NIV

            Lyrics from the song in Godspell –

https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/123560/

            The video of the song from the movie –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXA18tDrUUE

            A rather lengthy explanation of these verses –

http://johnmckinnon.org/index.php/matthew23v13-39

            An article on six times in the bible when Jesus was angry –

https://www.rethinknow.org/what-made-jesus-mad/

(I have been easily angered and when I blow up over something, I tell myself that at least it wasn’t a sin, as Jesus got mad too.)

 

Just a Little Zoo

    Chippewa Falls is home to Irvine Park, a 318-acre park which includes walking trails, woodlands, historic features, and plenty of grassy places to picnic, host a wedding, or just run around. It is also features a small, family-friendly, and free zoo. Not a lot of animals, but it takes very little to entertain me. In fact, less is more for me, especially when I take like six or twelve pictures of everything I see, which meant I took 112 pictures just of the animals there.   The capuchin monkey A pile of Cavies, South American rodents of significant size.  The Black Bear, who seems a bit ashamed of having put on so much weight during the pandemic. 
Of course, the crowd favorite was the newborn American Bison.  She just wasn't willing to move any more than this, but even through the grass, she looks like a cutey. 
This guy, however, was my favorite. The Hyena.  I was fascinated watching him eat that deer leg, crunching on those bones with no effort at all. 

                                                     Glad he didn't find me as fascinating. 

 For more information click on this:

http://www.irvineparkzoo.org/about_us.php

Weekend Getaway #2

             My second weekend getaway of the spring was the weekend of May 21. I met a friend of mine at the Lazy K Getaway in Chippewa Falls, which was close to half-way between where each of us lives. 

It was hot and humid that weekend, but our Airbnb had air conditioning and was just the right size for the two of us.

I loved the yard. It inspires me to put more yard art around my house. (Please, Hubby!)

      

             On Saturday, we went to the zoo, but those pictures will be for another time. These are the birds I saw on the grounds of our host as well as on walks on the nearby trails. 

The listing for the Airbnb where we stayed: 

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/23837530?federated_search_id=aad030a5-c63f-48e5-a755-54825b892156&source_impression_id=p3_1624411091_5b66UI5%2F8jPV4Qci&guests=1&adults=1