Corona Negative(s)

A while back I saw a lot of positives to this situation, considering the economic, personal and health negatives. Now 3 months after the start locally, a few negatives have appeared.

One of the good things is that distance is not the obstacle it once was. Now, there is NO substitute for being with some one physically, much can be done. I suspect much of the way we will do business in the future will be impacted by teleconferencing. A lot of travel time and expense will be replaced by the virtual meeting. Now, as my friends are quick to point out, it isn't quite the same--and I totally agree. But we have experienced something that won't go away after the corona virus does.

But let's talk about a bit negative. Teleconferencing has removed the time and trouble of traveling somewhere for prayer or Bible study. At first people attended in part because of the new convenience. That time appears past. Our own congregation, which is a solid, mature, Christian congregation has a pre-worship-service prayer time, which 3.5 months back met from 0830-0915. With virtual worship, we moved the time back to 0945 and at first our numbers more than doubled. After 2.5 months our attendance had returned to the "regulars" plus one couple. Our Wed. Am prayer time has never grown despite the great convenience. Our Friday 0600-0700 prayer time is about the same, with one new guy.

So folks, we don't miss prayer because of inconvenience, because of schedules or bad parking. We miss prayer because we do NOT wish to pray. My hope was in the former, and the latter is a sad revelation of the pandemic.

And, as I have mentioned, I have the gift/curse of Prophecy--calling the Followers of Christ into obedience. No one liked, or likes, to see a prophet coming. Sorry folks.

"L^rd teach us to pray!" asked the disciples. Lk 11:1

Indeed.

Snakes Alive! Again

Today, we were in the backyard. We were showing two of our grandkids the hummingbird nest we found on Saturday. Andrew and the two kids were out on the dock when he beckoned to me to come quickly. I looked about 15 yards to my left, and there was a very large snake on a branch out over the water. The lighting was such that we couldn't identify it from the dock.

When Drew got close, he could see it was a gray rat snake (also called a chicken snake). This is at least the 4th snake we have seen in our yard, including the one on Christmas day. Andrew successfully grabbed it, to everyone's delight.


I had a tape measure out already, so we measured it at about 5 feet.  Not guesswork here, which typically are a bit exaggerated. As you might not can tell, this is a very handsome snake. In moving the snake form one container to another, Andrew got bit on the thumb which drew a little blood.

It is such a great joy to find all these neat critters on our little plot of land on the lake. G^d has created a beautiful world and stocked it with some neat creatures.

Thanks be to G^d!

Life Review: An old red canoe

My first BIG purchase of my youth was a 15-foot aluminum canoe, which I bought along with paddles, lifejackets, and a car-top carrier from K-Mart in Marietta for somewhere around $100.

We floated the mighty Etowah River that formed the west margin of the old family farm which my dad and uncle bought from their dad. It also flowed through our hometown of Canton before dumping into the flood-control Altoona Lake.

We shot carp at night with bows and fishing arrows. We hunted squirrels and ducks. We camped from it, and on one camping trip Danny L and I turned it over--and we only lost a little bit of stuff.

We hauled it hither and yon, and when we moved to Maryland, we took it with us. We also took it to VA, when we moved there to work at VMI. When we were away one summer, some of my military buddies borrowed it to run through the spillway on the Maury River just on the NE side of town. It was destroyed beyond use.

Brenda's dad then gave me a fiberglass canoe that he had salvaged by repairing a big hole. It was a great canoe, until some boy scouts borrowed it and put it half-way into the back of a pickup truck. That was ok until a huge rainstorm filled it with water, to the point of breaking it.

One of my canoes was stolen from the big lake at Camp Tuscoba, where I was using it to tend beaver traps for the owner. He replaced it with my current red plastic canoe. We were storing it at my friend Daniel's place at Lake Tuscaloosa, when a tree blew over in a storm and smashed my canoe and his.

Fortunately the plastic is extremely tough and the canoe survived. We use it very often to fish in the lake behind our house. It is IDEAL for that application.

I guess I had never thought about what a perilous position it is to be my canoe--but it has been.

I loved as a youth, and still love canoeing.

Give it a try sometime. It takes a little effort to learn to paddle in a straight line, but it's worth it.

And, now is the time of year to enjoy it.

Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

It is 25 May as I write this. I can look to my left and with a bit of squirming I can see 3 flower beds in the front yard. I have written some about them before. But Brenda and I have remarked over and over about how much, to our own surprise, we have enjoyed the flowers during this season of COVID sequestration.

Rather than talk so much, let's just take a look.

See, I am not exaggerating. 

G^d made a beautiful world. His creation testifies to his eternal power and divine nature (Rom 1:20).

Life Review: Another shoe story--or two!

Back in Jan of 2019 I blogged about a pair of loafers I wear still, despite the fact that I won them in a contest in the fall of 1984. Yesterday (late May) I realized the boots I was taking off pre-dated even those shoes.

Yes, these boots were a set of US Army experimental boots that my good friend, and career Army Officer, Charles R, gave me when I visited with him for turkey hunting in the spring of 1984. 

I have used these boots for all sorts of tasks, and most lately for running my chainsaw. Obviously, they have served me well, and not quite done yet.

That brings me to the cheap shoes below. When I realized the age of the boots, I then thought of these slide-on shoes. I am not sure of the exact date, but it was likely the middle 1990's. We were working for 10 weeks in Houston at Johnson Space center and staying with the Scholcoffs in Clear Lake. We had taken the kids on a boat trek into the Houston Ship channel. By chance, we discovered a huge long rope, likely used for hauling barges. This thing was huge and would have cost some towing company a lot of money. 

Daniel, probably David, who were youngsters at the time, and I were dragging the long rope through the water (it was way too big to coil and carry), when a boat and barge came down the ship channel. The wave resulting from the boat and tow was impressive. The wave energy grabbed the long, long rope and pulled it so strongly we could not hang on. I got a terrific rope burn on my lower legs, but the key loss was the old conventional flip-flops I was wearing in the water.

Well, water-proof slide-on shoes are essential around teh beach and pool, so I needed a replacement. These are the replacements from the mid-1990's which i still wear.

As you can tell, the "liner" sole is gone on the left shoe. It became useless just last summer. Both of them have been glued and re-glued. But I still wear them.  Not bad for maybe $3.

In these shoe stories I think of the children of Israel wandering in the desert for 40 years. Deut 29:5 tells us that their sandals didn't wear out, and neither have mine.

Thank you L^rd for things that last...not to be compared with LIFE THAT LASTS through Jesus the Christ.

On yeah, we hauled the rope back, and gave it to Mr. Scholcoff, who seemed to really appreciate it and used it as a decorative safety barrier on his seawall.

Yes, I am Corona Positive!

That is to say, I am LOOKING for positives in this crazy, COVID time. As most know I am a big extrovert, but I have adapted pretty well. I have to say, driving much, much less has been my favorite aspect of sequestration. I hate to drive, and now I drive only on occasion. That is one thing I will hate to see go.

These short commutes, from the bedroom to the computer in the office, are my style. The parking here at the house is GREAT! The views are terrific.

Did I tell you that last week we looked out the front window and saw 4 whitetail deer grazing in the neighbor's yard across our dead-end street. I love watching deer.

I caught a large coon in the live trap I salvaged from the trash pile. I took him a couple miles from home and let him go in a nice new woodsy home.  Ahhhhh.

As I have mentioned, it has been beautiful this spring to look out and see the gladiolas, the day lilies, and now vincas and zinias, impatients, and lantana. The hostas I transplanted to a much better location are thriving. The crepe myrtles that we had to cut WAY back are leafing out nicely.  Ahhhhh.

Having more time to savor the beauty has been a gift from G^d. Enjoy!

A bit of COVID beauty

We send out a monthly newsletter to those we hope will support our ministry in prayer. It is common for us to include photos to illustrate our ministry in various locales. Since COVID forced us to stay home and miss 4 international trips (so far) and one major US trip, we decided the best illustration of our ministry would be to show some photos from our home.

Here are some of those.

Here are some more recent ones (I write this on 10 May).

Quarantined Fishing

Brenda and I looked and looked for a place on some water. Last October a year ago we found one, and after some remodeling, we moved in about 12 March 2019. I fished with my friend Craig one time, and made few casts another day, but this spring has been different.

Our son Andrew is staying with us, and our grands, Jem and Hazel have visited 2 afternoons. Fishing is a great quarantine activity (due to COVID-19) since you don't need to touch another person. Plus the weather has been very nice for being outside especially on the water.

I have a canoe, and it is IDEAL for our small lake. In the 13 months we have been here, I have only seen one other boat on the lake, besides our canoe. There has been little wind, so fishing is easy too.

Right now, in the freezer, despite already cleaning maybe 10-12 fish, I probably have about 20 fish waiting for fileting. Today we probably added 8-10 more.

I have written before about enjoying watching the birds on the lake. Now I can write about the supreme pleasure not just of fishing, but of watching my son, daughter, and grands enjoy fishing too. Jem seems especially serious at age 7. I am not sure when I got serious about it, but it may have been a few years after 7.

Brenda has fed us the backyard lake fish on 3 suppers, so far. They were delicious.

Just another gift from our G^d who is so very generous. And it makes quarantine much more tolerable.

Blessings,

COVID Perspectives

Well, if you aren't tired of corona this and corona that, you have a lot more patience than I do.

"Phil, everyone has more patience than you!"

True dat, but it is May 8th, and at this point there is no end in sight. Hopefully, by the time this posts, things will be headed back to normalcy.

At this point, restrictions have been lifted a bit in most states in the US. There is little information on the impact of lifting restrictions on the infection rate. The death rate has risen a bit, but these are not the data we need, since they were likely infected before the ease in restrictions. And, the OVERALL death rate is the most informative. People are always dying of something--and one of our friend's neighbors just committed suicide. Whether it was indirectly tied to COVID-induced isolation is unknown. So self-quarantine has its own death-toll, and though it is impossible to fully know, the economic and other pressures take their own toll.

One of the "good" things of this crazy situation may be that people realize that science is NOT this cool detached quest for "truth". Medical researchers are finding, and publicizing, differing responses and different recommendations, based on differing data. And, I want to point out as a career scientist this is ALWAYS the way science is. The truth may or may NOT be related to the latest scientific pronouncement. The recommendation to "...just follow the science" means that I am sure we will go the WRONG direction for a while. The good thing is that eventually science works it out, but don't forget that word, "eventually".  We are not at that point yet, but maybe science will get there soon.

So, we plod along in uncertainty. The suspicion that the media have led us astray--intentionally or accidentally--is mounting, and that is probably good too. Like science, the news media often get it wrong for a while, but unlike science, they don't always ever get some things right.

So have a safe day, and remain skeptical my firends, of science and the media. May COVID be
headed for "over" as you read this.