At Last!

It’s our first snow of the season. It’s late by several weeks, but it’s a good one. It snowed all afternoon yesterday, melting into the ground for several hours. Such a blessing for the thirsty, powder-dry ground! As I write this, we have five or six inches of the white stuff, and it’s still coming down. The temperature is supposed to dip to 5° tonight, so it looks like the conditions might be ripe for an early morning cross-country ski tomorrow.

Up until now, we’ve had very little fall moisture—less than half-an-inch—so I’ve still been irrigating all of this year’s tree transplants. After the water was let out of the canal a month ago, I’ve had to use hoses, buckets, and a 150-gallon water tank in the pickup. Earlier this week, I watered them again and mulched them too. This heaven-sent moisture has a better pH than our well water, and the layer of snow on the mulch will help protect the trees from the bitter cold on the way.

 

 

The animals don’t seem to mind the snow, maybe because they’re so plump and well-insulated! The calves and heifers are playing instead of lounging around all day. Sugar, something of an equine Jillian, keeps galloping laps around the pasture, leading a less-than enthusiastic and somewhat overweight Solly. The goaties stayed indoors until this morning, when they finally got bored enough to brave the snow, even though a dozen sparrows had kept them company in the barn.

The only one that isn’t happy with the snow is the cat, who fancies himself a Terrible Tiger who roams an imaginary jungle, not a snow leopard who ranges in the Himalayas!



“Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don't go back until they've watered the earth, doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, so will the words that come out of My mouth...do the work that I sent them to do...." ISAIAH 55:1--11

The Fencing Crew

Ranch and farm work isn’t for people-people. In other words, if you’re happiest when you’re around others, better keep your day job. Don’t get me wrong—we’re not lonely. We have plenty of folks to talk to and visit with. It’s just that, for the most part, our colleagues aren’t human.

Just this afternoon, I had a very minor fencing repair to do, and I not only had an audience, I got at least half a dozen offers of assistance.  I happened to have my camera with me and caught a few shots of my fencing crew.

 Sundae

 

 Sparkle, Cupcake, Annabelle

 

 Dottie

 

Clarabelle

“Is anyone crying for help? God is listening, ready to rescue you.” –PSALM 34:17

 

Integration

Molecular biologists and many Christians (to a much lesser extent) know about laminin, the protein that holds the cells in our bodies together, much like rebar imbedded in a concrete foundation. Scientific diagrams and electronic-microscopes reveal that laminin is shaped like a cross, a sort of molecular illustration of Colossians 1: 16-18:

Christ is the one through whom God created everything in heaven and earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see.... Everything has been created through him and for him. He existed before everything else began, and he holds all creation together.

 If you know Christ, then you know from first-hand experience what the Cross represents—grace, compassion, love, healing, peace, light, power, joy, forgiveness, and redemption—all that Jesus is and all that He does in us. Interestingly enough, the very next sentence in Colossians reads:

Christ is the head of the church, which is his body.

A relationship with Jesus binds all believers together, regardless of age, social status, citizenship, race, gender, or denomination.

Whether we’re sprinkled, dunked, or splashed

Whether we drive a Mercedes, Jeep, Harley, or John Deere

Whether we pray in liturgies, tongues, or whispers

Whether we wear heels or boots, ties or chains, cashmere or denim

Whether we worship with a hymn, a rap, or a tear

 Whether we study from the King James, the Message, or a Kindle

Whether we’re pre-trib, post-trib, or who-the-heck-is-Trib

Whether we praise God in English, Mandarin, or Arapaho

The Cross makes us one.

 

 

Better Late than Never

I’ve passed this scraggly little rubber rabbitbrush nearly every day on my morning walks or irrigation rounds. I’ve never given it a second look until a few days ago when I saw that it was blooming! All of its other rabbitbrush friends and relatives started blooming in August and have long since gone to seed. I don’t know what this little shrub had to overcome that the others didn’t. Maybe its roots were assaulted by a bug, maybe someone ran over it, or maybe the dog peed on it one too many times—I don’t know. But it persisted and overcame, and even though the mercury plunges below freezing every night, it’s blooming bravely!

“Do not let yourself be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”         ROMANS 12:21

Free At Last

Today was Liberation Day.

We brought the heifers in from pasture a month ago because the lack of rain was beginning to take its toll on the grass. The heffies hung out in the corrals and stuffed themselves with hay all day because there was nothing else to do. Hubby regularly chided them for eating so much and putting on so much weight, but I reminded him that they were, after all, eating for two.

After a great deal of labor on the part of the humans on this outfit (I could write many a paragraph describing just how hard we worked and just how much my back still hurts, but it would sound like whining), the hayfields, stacks of irrigation pipe, windbreaks, and fences are finally cow-ready. But it’s all worth it, just to see our pudgy darlings running and playing to their hearts’ content—and to not have to feed them for a while!

 

“All of you set free by God, tell the world! Tell how He freed you from oppression.” –PSALM 107:2

 

Glamor Girls

Around here, “dressing up” usually means putting on one’s best jeans, vest, and boots. Our area isn’t exactly a center for style and fashion. We have no designers, studios, or agencies to which aspiring models flock to seek fame and fortune. So imagine my surprise when I looked out my son’s window yesterday and saw this flock of leggy beauties gracefully striding, pivoting, and posing like so many fashion models on a runway!

All dozen-and-a-half of these Rio Grande wild turkey hens have been walking since hatched, keeping pace with their mamas by the time they were a few hours old. Other than regular exercise, however, their beauty is completely natural and fuss-free. They need no scissors or gel to get the sleek, full-bodied, layered-in-back look. No salon or dye gave them their low- and highlights. Apparently their diet of insects, seeds, and grains is good for the complexion because their faces are striking without bottles, wands, or brushes. Even so, I won’t be sprinkling grasshopper crumbles over my granola anytime soon.



“For the Lord takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the humble with salvation and adorn the wretched with victory.” –PSALM 149:4

 

The Early Show

We’re morning people. Correction: we’re before-the-crack-of-dawn people. We’re in rarified company with shift-workers and donut-bakers, partly because of necessity (work and early-rising pets) but mostly out of habit. The benefits of rising before the roosters are few but oh, so worthwhile: coffee always tastes better before dawn, and sometimes we get to witness a dazzling show in the eastern sky, as we did this morning. Sure beats anything that would be playing on the back of our eyelids!

If the telephone rings before daybreak on Saturday, we know who it is. Hubby's nephew, Rob, who's also a pre-dawn person, calls from Montana to discuss the latest family event or an upcoming football game. He's already back from his weekly grocery shopping at Walmart, where he beat the usual weekend crowd—by several hours!
 

“Through the heartfelt mercies of our God, God's Sunrise will break in upon us.”

                                 -LUKE 1:78