Vicki Lane's Blog, page 45

A Mixed Bag

Old mule-drawn hay rakes and a mowing machine--out to pasture. Many years ago, John and our mules Pete and Molly actually used these.

Turkey teenagers on the run

                                                Joe Pye Weed


Resting dog

                                               Confused crabapple blooming

 

Forest Bathing

                                                       

After more than a week of temperatures hitting the low nineties and no rain, yesterday's cooler temps and soaking rain washed over us like a blessing as we sat on the porch. The smell of rain on the dry earth, the patter of drops on the metal roof, the damp coolness on our skin, along with the always entrancing view of mist rising amid the wooded hills brings a feeling of deep contentment.

I'd heard about 'forest bathing' as a type of therapy. (Go HERE for a piece from NPR,) and realized that we are fortunate to be able to take advantage of a version of this every day--whether from the porch or among the trees on the mountain behind the house, or just sitting on the bench in our entryway and feeling the embrace of the Kousa dogwood.

Back in the nursing home/rehab center seven years ago, back when an accident broke my ankle and dislocated my shoulder, I was so thankful to be in a bed near a window. Of course, the primary view was brick walls and a concrete floored smoking area but above this, ah! I could see some sky and treetops. I'm pretty sure this sight kept me from biting anyone.
I am so spoiled by where we live--with trees all around and a good long view. 
And now rain! Life is good.

                                                                             

                                                                                  

Rabbit, Rabbit

                                                                             

The Tricksy English Language

As Josie grapples with the English language and its many non-intuitive spellings, I applaud her determination--and tell her that, apart from memorizing everything, a great way to be a good speller is to read a lot so that you will recognize when a word isn't spelled correctly.

I think of this when I see numerous posts on FB about stray dogs described as skiddish. Or when someone is described as giving free reign to something. Or, to take another horsey mistake, using Woah instead of the time-honored Whoa. 

It's hard to get over being an English teacher. I read a novel the other day in which a bird was pruning its feathers. And a wall was described as being made of waddle-and-daub.

Arrgh! I think I need a cup of covefe.

 

Shepherds' Salad

A tasty salad for a hot summer day. Chopped cucumber, green pepper, tomato, and onion--add lemon juice and olive oil, salt to taste, fresh parsley, feta cheese and kalamata olives. Chill well.

It also makes a nice filling for a pita or a crusty sub roll.

                                                                                  

Justice and Righteousness

Let Justice roll down like the waters, and Righteousness like an everflowing stream.  Amos 5:24
Wouldn't it be nice? 
Or, just as a start, what if everyone just told the truth?
What with AI and all the disinformation rolling around, it can be difficult to sort out the truth. 
Difficult, but not impossible.
There are a number of fact checkers out there: Snopes.com.Politifact.com, and FactCheck.org.
I'm trying to resist jumping on memes that agree with my political views--the JD Vance couch thing is funny but completely disproven--so I'm attempting due diligence.
Imagine a world where lying wans physically impossible. Speak a lie (that you know to be a lie) and you turn blue---or your pants catch on fire--or your nose grows to ridiculous lengths.
If only we could put this in place for the upcoming debate.


 

Sunrise for a Hot Day

A little after seven, I sat on the front porch, waiting . . .

Cloudless mornings suggest a hot day ahead.

And here it comes!

Back inside, I was hit with a reflection of the event in a picture frame.



 

Cracked Vessels-- A Miss Birdie Repost

                                                                  

Miss Birdie, Dor'thy , and the Cracked Vessels

 

Why, honey, how good to see you this fine spring morning. Look at that old pear tree, just a-busting with blooms. But this wind’s right chilly—we best go in where it’s warm. Git you a chair and we can have a nice visit.

That sign or whatever it is down at the church? Now what about that! Spray painted right there on the bridge PLEASE GOD FORGIVE. Now there’s a right quare story about that. I first saw it a few days back when Dor’thy was carrying me to the store. I asked her if she knowed how it come to be there and she said, ‘Well, it happened after the revival preaching.’

                             

‘Well,’ says I, ‘you uns have revivals several times a year, don’t you?’ and she said this time there was a new preacher from somewhere in Tennessee and he had brought the Word like one thing. She said that he was a lively somebody and he leaped and jumped about and flung his arms around and cried and sweated and got red-faced till she thought he was like to have a stroke.

‘But what about that sign? I asked her. ‘Did that preacher paint it?’

“Now, Birdie,’ says she, ‘I’m getting to that. The preacher’s text was something about how we are all sinners--cracked vessels, standing in need of redemption, and how our only hope is to ask the Lord’s forgiveness and mercy. And then he went on to tell of the fiery lake and everlasting torment waiting for them as weren’t saved.

‘By the time he was near done, most all of the church was crying and sweating and calling out to the Lord for mercy. And when church was over, we all went home, and I was the last one to leave because it was my month to tidy up and turn off lights and such. They wasn’t a soul left when I come out and I know those words weren’t painted then.’

 ‘But Dor’thy-’

‘Let me tell it, Birdie. I come back to the church early the next morning to sweep and run a mop and there were those words. So someone had come in the night and done them. I did my work, wondering all the time who would have done such. And when I got back home, I got on the phone.’

                                                             

Dor’thy do go on, don’t she? But she was like a dog worrying a bone, trying to figure who it was wrote them words. She said it was because that person likely needed prayers and she would do her best in that line but, betwixt you and me, honey, Dor’thy’s a right quizzy somebody. She should have been one of them detectives on the TV.

Now the first person she called was Rhody Payne who said that she thought Hensley Phillips probably done it for he had looked right sick during the preaching, and everyone knows he’s been carrying on with that Roberts woman and his poor wife pretending ain’t nothing the matter.

But then, later on, Dor’thy got a call from Rhody’s sister who said she reckoned it was one of them Burtons for the spray- painted words was the same color as the spray-painted name on the Burton’s mailbox. And the Lord knows, them Burtons is cracked vessels, ever last one of them—cock-fighting and worse. But ain’t none of them ever set foot in the church, said Dorothy, so how would they have known about the preaching.

Ay, law, honey, folks is bad to gossip, ain’t they. By the time the day was out, most every woman in the church had called Dor’thy to say who it was they thought had painted the words. Everyone of them was sure it was a man, though Dor’thy said when Leota called, Dor’thy could hear Hobart in the background hollering that it was likely Almira for everyone knowed about her. But Leota reminded him that Almira hadn’t been in church that evening and that shut him up right quick.

By the time the week was out, Dor’thy weren’t no nearer to finding out the truth of thing. What she had found out, she told me, was that the church was plumb full of cracked vessels, every one of them standing in the need of prayer.

‘And Birdie, honey,’ she told me, ‘I reckon I’m one too—just a nosy old woman who could have prayed for that sinner ‘thout having to know their name. Now it looks like I got most the whole church to pray for. I'll likely have to give up watching my story, it's gonna take so much time.'

                                                        

Work in Progress

                                                                 

Little Pleasures

A scallop-winged pretty--maybe an Eastern Comma?

An unexpected flower--self-seeded from last year's portulaca.

Beneath the suet feeder--a gift from (probably) a downy woodpecker.