As I walked outside this morning, the sky was blue and clear, the weather cool and comfortable, the grass a clean shiny green, the birds chirping and singing.
We are so blessed.
Just before midnight, after the main storm system passed us by, I walked out with an umbrella to check everyone. (Before leaving the house, I double-checked that this umbrella did, indeed have plastic stays instead of metal as there were still rumblings and flashes of lightening.) I’d taken Vanilla Marshmallow bunny into the house in a cage, but it was good to see his hutch was still upright, although a branch had fallen into the bunny area.
Ezekiel and Jasper (the boy goats) poked their heads out and baaed at me when my flashlight beamed across their pen. Three chickens were in the doghouse, a fourth sat outside the entrance, apparently not too worried by the torrents of rain. I walked on to the side of the barn, where all four horses stood under the roof of the run-in shelter added to the back of the barn Good, that close crack of lightening during the height of the storm hadn’t gotten any of them. I didn’t try to go through the barn to stir up the goats, but listening, didn’t hear any complaining so assumed they were okay. I peeked in the hold of the bluebird house. The mama’s eyes reflected back the light, so I quickly stood back.
Now, walking in the morning-after sunshine, I let out Ezekiel and Jasper. Free-range hens are poking around. Last night I had disconnected the electric fence near the horses (if lightening strikes the fence out in the field, it could zing around and take out the charger.) Now I reconnect it, then check the bluebird babies before plugging the fence back in. The babies are already looking bigger, and I see no sign of the two little blue eggs that never hatched.
Last night, our son-in-law and daughter agreed to hang out in our spare room rather than risk the trailer with severe weather warnings and tornado watches until midnight. After they had gone to bed, I checked the radar on our desktop computer and saw we were in the midst of a skinny but long redline that looked like it would probably be here for hours. Everyone else had gone to bed, with our clock radio known for blaring out weather alerts plugged in.
However, I remembered a year or more ago when we’d had a tornado skip over our property, the sirens and alarms didn’t go off until after it had passed. Later, one of the youth who has hung out some at the farm from time to time told me he had been a few miles away and watched the tornado heading for our place, and prayed specifically for us and our animals. Wow. Thank You, Lord, for the prayers of children.
It used to be that my home state of Iowa was known as one of the top three tornado states. However, it seems that anymore the South has caught up and more so. Since we moved to Alabama ten years ago, severe storm after severe storm has raged through, although not always hitting our local area. A few years ago with storms brewing, I felt an urge to prayer-walk the border of our property, praying God’s shield and protection over our neighborhood.
Now, I opened the door to the front porch. With the rain sheeting down and wind whipping past, once again I prayed for our farm, our people and animals and our neighborhood, for God’s shield and protection. When I stepped back and shut the door, I had to go get a towel to sop up the rain that had blown in.
Then I returned to the kitchen to finish cleaning up after our Easter dinner. The lights flickered out, then back on. By the time I finished, it was nearly midnight; the worst of the storm system had passed. I set the dishwasher going, did my walk-round the farm, and came back to go to bed.
TUESDAY, April 14
Small blessings:
Although dryers can definitely come in handy, if the Lord tarries and I am eventually no longer able to, I will miss hanging clothes outside. Especially on a day like today, with blue skies, comfortable in-between temperatures, birdsong, and a brisk but not overwhelming breeze. (REAL febreze—no better freshening scent for clean laundry!)
The other day I was lamenting my dwindling supply of clothespins. Even though they are cheaply made, I was wishing that while they had been available for $1/pack some time back, I had bought extras. Today as I was sorting and straightening in the laundry room, I found that, apparently, I had! I found TWO more packs of new clothespins slid behind some other supplies on the shelf over the wash machine. Yay!
I had just enough room this afternoon to hang out two loads of clothes on my pulley clothesline system without running clothes into the new tractor shed roof at the other end. I am thankful for the tractor that necessitated an extension to the woodshed, even if it juts into the clothesline area a bit. I am also thankful for a husband who likes to make things and has learned how to build throughout the years.
I’m still smiling over an incident a few days ago—if only we had caught it on video.
Some of you visitors know our son’s dog, Jewels. As a puppy some years ago, she picked him during a visit to the animal shelter. A border collie+ something-huskier mix, she assumes the lead dog position and takes her role seriously. The other dogs are required to obey her or a fight ensues. Numerous times a day we find her “mind controlling” one of the other dogs, requiring it to freeze in submission until she gets bored with bossing it or we notice and scold her. Many of our visiting families DON’T know Jewels, as we usually shut her away before company arrives, even though she loves children and craves their attention. The trouble is, if someone makes over and pets one of the other animals, she is apt to become jealous and attack it.
The other day, our son-in-law’s dog, Opie, a Rhodesian Lab, got tired of Jewel’s bossiness. He and Jewels were tussling, both reared up on their hind legs. I was starting toward them, ready to intervene. Suddenly, hissing, our small but wiry barn cat darted from behind and clawed Jewels’ back leg. The big black and white dog lept away, retreating behind the chicken coop. The almost-fight had effectively been broken up. When Opie advanced toward Angel –GreyFluff-- SpareCat, she hissed and swiped at him, too. Nonplussed, he backed away. Angel retired with dignity, for all the world like a school playground monitor who has done her duty.
Yesterday, I suddenly began to struggle with discouragement. Some of you are familiar with similar thoughts that attack—What is the use of even trying? You try and try and it never works out right. . . etc. etc. as a sense of futility sweeps over me.
All the more in such times must we focus on the praises and thanksgivings and blessings. Yes, we are flawed and our efforts often doomed to failure. That doesn’t mean that all is lost and nothing of value. Choose this day whom you will serve—doubt and darkness, or He who renews and restores, strengthens and empowers, and most of all, loves and cherishes us?