Indiana Bound

Anticipation was high for Thursday afternoon, we went on vacation to visit family to a state we had never been to. It was to be a very long drive but we took it in 2 days going down. We spent the night in Moline, Illinois. It was dark when we got there, so we did not see much of it, but we found a hotel and a Denny's right across the street, which meant walking instead of driving. The next day we drove to Bloomington, Illinois, where my third grandfather lived and was buried. His daughter and her husband lived and are buried there also. I wanted to see my great-grandmother's grave. I do not know much about her except that she gave up my grandfather for adoption and he was raised by his aunt and uncle. We found the cemetery, asked for directions, found 2 of her siblings, but no headstone for Marie. I stood where she was buried and wondered why she had no stone, she died very young at 35. With no answers and expectations a bit dashed, we did go to another cemetery and found my 3rd great grandfather and my 2nd great grandmother and grandfather. I had addresses of where these 2 grandmother's of mine lived, so we drove to those addresses and I was able to get pictures. At least now I have an idea of where they lived, still wondering what brought 2 of these families to Bloomington, Illinois.

The second portion of our journey was to Terre Haute, Indiana. We arrived there shortly after 5:00. Uncle Jim, Ken and Ann were outside on their deck enjoying the sun. It was beautiful out. It was hot for the first time since before October. Ken and Ann have bird feeders up and enjoy the birds as I do. There is such a wide variety (Ken has a book so he can look to see what kinds of birds he sees), I had fun just watching and listening to them. It was a relaxing trip. There were no agendas. (The above picture is what Ann and Ken see out their window.)

Saturday was spent talking, and touring Terre Haute. Ken and Ann took us to a place called "Saint Mary of the Woods." What a beautiful place, quiet,serene, a lot of history. We stopped and looked at a chapel and the whole inside of the wall was made of sea shells. The picture does not do it justice. The grounds are beautiful too. I tried to take pictures insde the chapel, but you cannot capture with a camera what you see. Mother Theodore Geurin founded many schools in the area, this is just one of them. She was canonized not too very long ago.

They took out to lunch, an Irish pub. The food was good, as was the atmosphere and company. It was good to take our time and just talk. After we got back to the house, Ann needed to go to choir practice. She belongs to a community choir through Indiana State University. On Sunday afternoon they were going to sing the Creation by Heyden. Ken took us all out to dinner at the country club where they live and after that we got to see where Uncle Jim. He has got a view and the "Institution" as he calls it is nothing like I have seen before. It is like a small village. It is 7 stories with card/game rooms, they have a small theater, a bank and even a small grocery store. They have an exercise room where Uncle Jim goes everyday and works out. He is looking so good and still sharp as a tack. It was good visiting with him and hearing his humor come out. We had a lot of laughs this weekend, I will treasure it. Sunday we went to church at the Episcopalian Church, what a beautiful church inside. The walls are stone and there was marble. The beams of the church were painted in stripes, the colors of the church season. It looked like a gingerbread house to me. After church we had lunch and then got ready to go to the concert, and it was so good and enjoyable. It was fun seeing Ann up front and singing. We finished the evening watching a movie and more visiting. It was so fun just getting to know cousins even better.
Ann and Ken have a couple of pets, Emma and George. George is actually a girl red cat. Normally red cats are boys but this one is a girl. She is a beautiful cat and looks outside at the birds as the bird feeder is right there. Emma is the funny one. She has high energy and just bounces. She loves to chase the ball and is raring to go all the time. What a friendly dog she is.

Our trip ended all to soon but Monday we had to get up early as we had 13 hours of driving ahead of us. We managed to get home still in the light. It was gorgeous driving the last little bit home. The sun rays were breaking out from all the clouds, I can hardly describe what I saw, it was something out of a picture. It was good to get home and see our own little kitties and see what has changed. It is a little greener, the front trees are budding out more. By next week, everything should be out and alive again.

I know this is a lengthy post but it was a great weekend and we so appreciate the hospitality of Ken and Ann, we so appreciated getting to see Uncle Jim once again.

Life on the farm

We had the opportunity to visit a neighbor's farm and see his baby cattle. They are so cute. The reality is they are beef cattle and will go to slaughter. We learned yesterday all about what it takes to farm a small beef ranch. This farmer has very few beef only because there is no money in it, just as right now the hog farmers are having a hard go of it.

It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, the cows were mooing a lot, especially when they knew it was time to eat. Very demanding they were!! The funny thing is the grownups did not allow the little ones to even get close. Our farmer friend put down barrels of molasses and it was like candy to them, they just licked and licked and licked, but they were also not willing to share with the little ones either. There were some little ones that were only 2 days old, they are still expecting more to be born.

This farm raises organic beef, no hormones or excessive antibiotics are used, everything is natural and from the farm. They feed the cows corn and they grind the kernels, the stalk, the husk and cob, everything and as you can see, the cows just loved it.

All in all it was so very nice of this farmer to show us his equipment, explain some of farming practices, and show off his cows to us. Plus we did buy 25 lbs of beef from him, which is so good. We are ready for summer grilling season, ya! Can't wait til it gets here. Blogged by Anna

Little House on the Prairie

At least that is what it feels like out here in the wide openness. Yesterday we took a 3 mile hike out in the prairie before coming to a pond. It was beautiful being out there. It was so quiet except for the wind and a dog name Odie who joined us. We had fun with him as he rooted out the pheasants, sometimes it was a little unnerving to all of a sudden have a bird come flying out from nowhere. All I could think about were the women who came out to this land in a wagon and what they saw, miles upon miles of tall prairie grass that you could get lost in. We got to the pond and there were ducks and geese. When the weather gets warmer and things start to turn green, I am imaging the birds will really be out. I am looking forward to that walk.

Yesterday was a picture perfect day, darn near 60 degrees. We worked outside cleaning up the yard and pondering what to plan outside. We have started corn and beans and peas along with some beets and broccoli and spinach. I am also planning on planting lots of flowers. I want to leave the place with lots of color for the next intern, and I figure it is our parting gift to the church for their generosity of allowing us to stay in such a neat house. I covet my mornings watching the different birds. Right now we have finches of all kinds, grackles, blue jays, robins, and even a squirrel. As the weather warms, more are yet to come, it is still early in the year. The trees are only now starting to come alive, not all of them, just a few. Sometime in May I expect it to all explode in color. Blogged by Anna

Folk Wisdom

I have not seen a Farmer's Almanac, even though we live in an agricultural dependent community, so I don't know what the Almanac would have to say about our spring weather, or lack thereof. What I HAVE heard is a lot of folk wisdom. People who have lived here a long time (some all their life), have developed sayings that they tell me and pretty much anyone who will listen, that are supposedly sure-fire predictors of the spring weather. The most famous one, and I have heard it over and over from several different old-timers, farmers and non-farmers alike, is that, "The Robin has to walk in snow three times before it warms up." Another one that I only heard once is that, "Whatever kind of weather we get for Easter, that's what we'll get for the next seven Sundays." It remains to be seen whether the latter one is true, but I can tell you that the first one is a bald-face lie! It has snowed FIVE times since I saw my first robin this spring, and it is snowing again today! As a matter of fact, for the next 24 hours we have a BLIZZARD WARNING!! Our poor robins need overcoats and boots around here. So much for having our procession of palms start outside. Luckily, the Easter forecast is for sunny skies with temps in the 50's. I sure hope it stays that way! Blogged by Don

Not a good evangelism tool!

Life in the parish has been very hectic this past month. Ever since Ash Wednesday it seems like I have been on constant go. Part of what has kept me, and the rest of the parish staff, busy, has been funerals! We have had an extraordinary number of people die since the first of the year. It has not always been people we expect, either. One funeral was for a woman who was in worship on Wednesday night and seemed fine, and she was found dead the next day. One woman was only 58 years old. Many of her friends took that funeral very hard. In total we have had eight funerals so far, and another person in our little town of Dundee died yesterday. His funeral will be number 9. One thing that can be said is that we are getting really good at doing funerals! Another thing that can be said is that, despite my title, funerals are a great place to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is through Christ we are saved, and the funeral is the fulfillment of that promise, so we get the opportunity to make that proclamation into the midst of the grieving community. It is a privilege that God has charged us with. Despite losing members to death, we can trust that the Holy Spirit uses our words of assurance to move people's hearts to faith. In that way, a funeral is a great evangelism tool.

As the end of March approaches, people in our little town are looking forward to spring. Our snow is gone, and the birds have returned to the trees. We like to watch the robins troll our back yard for something to eat, and we have put up a couple of bird feeders to encourage them and other feathered critters to enjoy. Jasper likes to watch the birds, and he gets really excited when one lands on the rail of the steps right next to the back door. He chatters excitedly, wishing he could go outside and play with that little bird. We won't let him, though. And just so you will know that life is not all work around here, and once in a while Jasper leaves the new antique rocker (now THERE'S a contradiction in terms!) I will include a rare picture of me relaxing in our new, old rocker. I know it has been a month, but hey, time flies when you're planning funerals! Blogged by Don

It's Full Potential

You may recall that while Anna and I were living in the Twin Cities I got my old radio working again thanks to a sweet saint named Del. It has continued to work well here in Dundee, except it is sometimes hard to get something worth listening to, unless you are keenly interested in the price of corn, hogs, cattle, soybeans and the like. I listen dutifully to at least one farm report during the day so that I can understand the economic plights of my neighbors, but when I have heard the same report once an hour over the past three hours I get a little tired of local radio. Anna and I listen to NPR frequently, but even that gets tiresome during the fund-raising drives they do, like right now. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the members of NPR and Minnesota Public Radio, because without them I wouldn't get to listen to things like Click and Clack, the Tappert brothers on Car-Talk, and I would know nothing of Guy Noir. NPR really has nothing to do with my old radio anyway because they broadcast on FM, and it is an AM radio. Country music comes in great, but a steady diet of country is like having oatmeal for breakfast every day. It isn't bad for you, but after a while you get tired of it. It's nice to have eggs once in a while.

Okay, I'm kind of getting into another long-winded prelude, so I'll cut to the chase. When I got my radio fixed in St. Paul, Del pointed out that there is a place on the back to plug in something else if I want to, such as a record player or an FM receiver. Looking at the jack, I couldn't tell what kind of cord would plug into it, so I basically ignored it. Still, I thought, if I could somehow get this thing to play FM, I could listen to NPR through this radio instead of the other stereo, and it would be fun to increase its versatility by increasing the available bands. I remember asking Del if he knew where I could get an FM receiver for the thing, and he basically threw up his hands and said, "Darned if I know!" so I kind of forgot about it.

This last weekend however, Anna and I were exploring Sioux Falls, South Dakota and just happened to find ourselves at a Toys "R" Us store. We were looking for a chess set, and after we found one we liked we just kind of wandered around the store for a bit. As luck would have it, they happened to have Sony Walkman FM/CD players on sale for an incredible price of $5! It suddenly occured to me that perhaps I could directly wire the headphone jack into the jack on the back of the old radio and I could get the FM to play that way, and even have the ability to play CD's as well. I figured that even if it didn't work I would only be out $5 and my disappointment.

When I got the walkman home and wired the headphone jack in, lo and behold, it didn't work. Dang! I was disappointed. "Ah well," I consoled myself, "It was only $5." That sounds like the end of the story, but since I'm still typing there must be more, and there is! Last Tuesday I was rummaging around the house while Anna was at play practice, looking for an A/C adapter to use on the walkman so that I wouldn't have to use batteries in it all the time. I thought I had one, and for some reason (probably a $5 reason) the thing didn't come with one, but after searching every known box in our house that might hold one, I couldn't find it. What I DID find was a patch cord that had a headphone plug on one end, and two RCA plugs on the other. We had used it to plug the DVD player into the stereo, but since the DVD player broke, and the stereo is in a different room now anyway, the cord ended up in a box in storage. I wondered if the RCA plug would fit into that jack on the back of my old radio. I was a little worried about shorting something out that I couldn't fix, but I figured it was worth a shot. I thought the worst that can happen is I might break a jack I don't use anyway, so what the heck. I plugged the headphone end into the headphone jack, and one of the RCA ends into the old radio, which I knew meant I was only getting one side of the stereo signal, but it is not a stereo radio, so there is no other option. I turned on the radio and pushed the auxilary button on the front, and what do you know! It works! I tried both of the RCA plugs and the sound quality seems about the same, so I just left one of them in. The great thing is that, not only can we now listen to FM (and therefore NPR) through the old radio, but we can also play CD's through it. We can listen to our Glen Miller, Benny Goodman and Andrews Sisters with the speakers they were meant to be heard from. It is very fun, and great for our swing dancing! I still don't have an A/C adapter, so next week I think I'll head for Radio Shack and see if I can find one that is compatible, but in the meantime, it is fun to be able to play what we want through the old radio, even if we still don't own a record player. It's still nice to hear this old radio and use it to its full potential. Blogged by Don.

Antiquing (or Shopping for Antiques)

Anna and I have one strong passion that we share. We both really enjoy shopping for antiques. Some people really have no idea what the attraction is, but in some ways for us, it is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon perusing the things that were useful in yester-years, and in some cases we can add to some of the things we like to collect. Anna likes to collect salt and pepper shakers, and, in a never ending effort to replicate my childhood, I like to collect Anchor Hocking Wexford glassware. We now own much more Anchor Hocking Wexford glassware than our family ever had when I was a child, but that doesn't matter, I like the pattern, Anchor Hocking doesn't make it anymore, so it is therefore collectible, and so I collect it. That is enough justification for me.

We have also managed to collect Royal's Colonial Homestead pattern of dishes, only because Anna's mother gave her Anna's great-grandmother's platter from that collection and one day we found a whole bunch of dishes in that pattern at a thrift store, so since we already had the platter we decided to get that set. It is not the most desirable pattern that Royal ever put out, but we like it, and we have a lot of it, so we keep it around. Every now and then we find a piece we don't have yet, so we add it to our collection.

All of this is prelude to the point of this post. You see, the common denominator in all of our collecting up to this point is that everything we collect is small. Being still in seminary, and knowing that as a seminary student I have to move a lot, we have disciplined ourselves to collect small things that pack easily so that we don't have to concern ourselves with being over-burdened with excess furniture. Not to say that we don't have any antique furniture, we do. We have Anna's grandma's old sewing machine and her rocking chair, Her great-grandfather's trunk and oak sleigh bed with matching dresser and chest of drawers, and of course I have been packing my old radio around with me for years. But up until now, we have not purchased any large antique furniture together. We did purchase a small end-table from a second hand store, and we purchased a platform bed that I turned into a console table, and in Stillwater we found a nice book rack that stores all of Anna's transcription books, but we had not purchased any nice, old every day furniture from an antique store, ever.

That changed today. You see, about a month ago I attended a pastor's conference at a church near Lamberton. After the conference I needed to get to the store so I could purchase some refreshments for my internship committee that was meeting that night. While I was in town I noticed there was an antique store just a block down the street from the grocery store, so I went inside to see if it would be something that Anna and I would enjoy exploring together sometime. When I perused the store initially I noticed there were a significant number of dealers that sold salt and pepper shakers, so I told Anna when I got home that I thought it would be fun to check out that antique store sometime. Anna had an appointment in Slayton today and after that we had lunch at our favorite little cafe there. Over lunch Anna said she wasn't really interested in going home right away, so I suggested that maybe this would be a good day to explore that antique store in Lamberton. Well, she said that sounded good, so off we went.

Sure enough, there were lots of salt and pepper shakers around, just like I had remembered it, but as we wandered around the store, Anna's eyes fell upon this wonderful old mission-style oak rocker. It had a padded seat, but the rest of it was solid oak. Anna sat in it and discovered that the old rocker was extremely comfortable, so she had me sit in it and try it out so she could ask me what I thought. I have to admit, it is a very comfortable rocker, but I reminded Anna that we had driven our Subaru to the town today, and I was doubtful that the rocker would fit into it. We fussed and fumed for the longest time, but finally we gave in and bought it. Sure enough, there was no way it was going home in that Subaru! We asked the store clerk if they could store it for us until we could get back to town again in a couple of weeks, and she readily agreed.

On the way home, the more we thought about it, the more we wanted to get our new toy so we could play with it! We knew it would fit into our station wagon, and we also knew that the store was open until 5, and it was only 3, so if we hustled we could get home, pick up the Ford, gas it up and make it back to Lamberton before the store closed. We decided to go for it! We made the mad dash back to Lamberton and got there by 4:30. Plenty of time to pick up our new treasure and head back home. Now it sits in our sitting room, proud as can be, and we will get to enjoy it someday, if we can get Jasper out of it. Ahh, antique shopping is so much fun! Blogged by Don