A graceful animal that can be very dangerous. I recently told my husband that the deer ‘high-tailed’ it out of the yard and then said I now know where that saying came from. I have no idea if that is true, since I haven’t researched it. The picture is a nice one for the sense of movement.
I was going to make a quick trip to the store before Ladies’ Bible study and the car would not start. I assume it’s got a dead battery. My brother will help me with that tomorrow.
Chas, whenever you say you do nothing as a caregiver, you are not only being inaccurate, but you are also, unintentionally, implying that stay at home mothers and homemakers do nothing, because they do the same things: housework and supervising those who are unable to take care of themselves. That is what Elvera once did for you and your son. Did she do nothing? Cooking and cleaning and helping someone eat, and wash, and dress is not very exciting work, it doesn’t usually pay anything, and no one else sees you doing it day after day, but it doesn’t mean it is not important, and it certainly isn’t doing nothing.
Our electricity was out again last night, only this time, it was an accident that brought down power lines. The roads have been pretty slick the last couple of days as we had pouring rain that turned to snow, and snow mixed with water becomes ice under pressure. I drove out in the stuff yesterday, and it wasn’t fun.
20 years ago, dear friends who live halfway across the country from us adopted two orphans from Romania. They’d already been raising children for 20 years at that point–six daughters.
This time, they adopted a boy and then threw in a girl at the last minute so he’d have a sibling his age.
Unfortunately, the little boy had been through three caregivers in his 12 months and my friend was desperate to get him while he could still bond. The laws wouldn’t allow it, and by the time she could pick him up at 18 months (in an extraordinary set of circumstances), he was well into attachment disorder.
He tried her so hard, and ripped her heart to pieces. The little girl, who was six months younger, seemed to fit in much easier.
After 3 or so difficult years (and my contribution from afar was to research autism, attachment disorder, and bipolar since she was too overwhelmed to do so), she’d had enough and decided to return him.
The six older daughters, three of whom were still home, were aghast. “But, who will love him if not us?”
I joined the chorus. “You’ve given him a life. Yes, he’s hard, and we know why and I’m so sorry. But, if you hadn’t picked him up, even as late as you did, what would have happened to him? Where would he be? No matter what, he’s been better off living with you than anything that would have happened in Romania.”
The two children graduated from high school two years ago and went to college. I’ll see how things are when I get the Christmas letter, but I stand by my words and those of those six sisters. Nothing they did, everything they did, counts and was done in exasperated love, for the glory of God.
He has a good life. And the entire family–which is huge now–has benefited from that boy.
We have no idea who is looking on. We have no idea what God is really doing. Our job is to love, and put it all in his hands.
If we haven’t told you, Chas, you’re doing a good work, and we appreciate what you share with us about it. We all know Elvera is deeply loved, even though it’s hard. You’re teaching us by your example of the truth and the hard work, the difficult emotional work, of loving well all the way to the end.
Never discount that lesson to us younger ones. We all will face it–if we haven’t already–and when we think of your continuing care, it gives us hope.
Because, frankly, given the way my body is falling apart, I may be Elvera sooner than I like to think.
The house is cold the morning but the heater will warm it up quickly, I trust.
I’m juggling two phone interviews today with changing times — and one of them in eastern time — so it’s been somewhat confusing to get both calls (one changed late last night with a request from the interviewees) rearranged today.
And I got up to find I’d missed a late call at around 11 p.m. from Carol’s facility asking me to call them. I called as soon as I saw the msg this morning but was told to call back as no one was at the nurses’ station to pick up.
I kept thinking yesterday was Monday and today was Tuesday so that’s added to my feeling of being just a step off course this week so far.
Chas, also you are doing for Elvera precisely what you, as her husband, were charged with doing. You are laying down your life for hers, caring for her bodily needs as if they were your bodily needs (Ephesians 5:25-33). You are being obedient to God in what you call “doing nothing”.
I was reading an interesting essay on complimentarity and came across this quote:
“The husband should love his wife as a head loves its body and Christ loves the church: by giving himself up for her, sanctifying her with the water of the word, and presenting her in splendour. (It is significant that Paul pictures the husband as engaged in traditionally feminine tasks like washing, cleaning and ironing here: Paul is knowingly and deliberately subverting the Greco-Roman picture of what male headship looks like.)” – Link: https://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/beautiful_difference_the_complementarity_of_male_and_female
“Douglas Harper’s Etymology Dictionary
high-tail
also hightail “move quickly,” attested by 1890, U.S. slang from cattle ranches (animals fleeing with elevated tails); from high (adj.) + tail (n.). Related: Hightailed; hightailing.”
Thanks for the rebuke and suggestions everyone.
I am not complaining. But how else can you describe sitting there watching FoxNews for hours.
I don’t sit there for hours. Sometimes I get up to check the mail, write to you, fix lunch, etc. Which is what I am about to do now.
Don’t you have any other channels to watch. One with nature shows, or music, or something. Watching news all day would make anyone depressed. I get antsy just seeing the eternal newscasts in waiting rooms.
I was reading that in Ephesians last night as husband and son in law and daughter were talking for several hours and I was praying as were a few others. She is going with divorce and leaving him with all three children. He is loving her and letting her cats stay, at her request though he does not care for cats. He continues to love her, through all of this rage and hatred. Please continue to lift him up and pray for her eyes to be opened. Love is not easy, but it is the command of God. We are to do it. I need to love her despite the pain she is inflicting for her “happy”.
Steel is iron plus fire. Soil is rock, plus heat, or glacier crushing. Linen is flax plus the bath that cleans, the comb that separates, and the flail that pounds, and the shuttle that weaves. Human character must have a plus attached to it. The world does not forget great characters. But great characters are not made of luxuries, they are made by suffering.
I heard of a mother who brought into her home as a companion to her own son, a crippled boy who was also a hunchback. She had warned her boy to be very careful in his relations to him, and not to touch the sensitive part of his life but go right on playing with him as if he were an ordinary boy. She listened to her son as they were playing; and after a few minutes he said to his companion: “Do you know what you have got on your back?” The little hunchback was embarrassed, and he hesitated a moment. The boy said: “It is the box in which your wings are; and some day God is going to cut it open, and then you will fly away and be an angel.”
Morning! It is cold and the snow on the ground has been reconfigured by all the blasted wind last night! We made it to and from town last night but I was unnerved to say the least 😳
Chas it does encourage those of us who love you both and watch from afar the love our Lord has instilled within you towards your bride…sometimes we see you “selling yourself short”. I have witnessed the same with my dear mother in law when she was the caretaker of my precious father in law who had Alzheimer’s. We lift you before our Lord asking Him to give you strength and direction daily and we know full well He is doing just that. Give TSWITW a hug from us this day and tell her it is from many who love and pray for you both ♥️
When neighbor and I are out for our walk and we see a buck like that in the header, we “turn tail and run”…well we don’t run but we do go another way. We had one buck flare his nostrils and scuff his front leg at us as he was guarding the resting doe…yep…we won’t get near that again….
Last Monday was our Thanksgiving day here–the day I cooked the turkey. When I’d already left it out for an hour and was ready to prepare it and put it in the oven, I looked outside and saw fog. Now, I love to photograph in fog, and I knew if I didn’t get out then I might not get outside all day. So I told my husband, “As weird as it might seem when it’s time to cook the turkey, I’m going to go outside for a few minutes and get pictures of the fog.: He was OK with my doing that. (I used wonderful and unusual self-control and was back inside within half an hour. Sometimes I think I’ll only be a few minutes and I’m out for 90 minutes, but this time I knew it had to be brief.)
Just past my little pond is a footbridge over the creek the pond feeds into. And next to that creek was this buck. He came out from behind a tree and then stopped and stood gazing at me, with his foot raised and ready to pound a signal to any other deer if he decided I was dangerous. I was on a bridge above him and he was also on the other side of a fence; he could not get to me, or it would have felt dangerously close. He was just 10 or 15 feet from me. I think he looked at me for at least a full minute before he turned and trotted away, stopping to grab a bite or two to eat as he did–saying he definitely decided I wasn’t a threat. The fog was still present, but he’s close enough he wasn’t obscured by it much.
Since I walk that spot several times a week there is a pretty good chance he has seen me before. I wasn’t very far from the trail either, and deer that hang out near the trail have to be used to seeing people even if they usually stay out of sight and people don’t see them. He isn’t as big a buck as my “Rudolph” buck, but neither is he a yearling. And to make eye contact but know there was no danger involved was thrilling.
It is a wonderful balm to my being to meet with my Bible study ladies on Wed. even though it is by phone right now. I feel blessed peace after our prayer time. We are all going through this Georgia junk right now that anyone who is not here can not fully understand. We are studying in 1 Peter and it’s perfect to be in that book for right now.
Cheryl, I wondered if you were as close as it seemed or if you used a telephoto lens of some sort. That’s close! Do you ever use telephoto lenses?
Janice, I’m glad you have a good Bible study group to help dissipate the heaviness of the political upheaval surrounding you. We are not in your area but occasionally we get some of the commercials on the radio in the car. So I have been limiting myself to the classical music station or silence until things die down. Hang in there. :–)
We have a drive-through Christmas tree lot in LA — with all the retail and ‘crowd’ restrictions now, the tree lots have had to figure out how to comply. Some of the smaller lots aren’t happening this year, the bigger once are implementing things like drive-throughs, lines outside of gates with temperatures taken upon entry (only 20% max occupancy allowed).
I hadn’t even thought of that problem getting a Christmas tree. Sigh. I thought about purchasing a live one, keeping it outside, and then afterward giving it to friends who lost their house in the 2017 fire and are rebuilding.
Debra, I have a pretty good zoom on my camera. It’s a “bridge” camera ( https://digital-photography-school.com/bridge-camera-what-is-it-and-is-it-for-me/ ), a Canon PowerShot SX60 HS. So I can zoom in a decent amount, though nothing like those super-long-lens birding cameras. But for what I do, when in the course of an afternoon I might shoot birds the other side of the pond, a muskrat on my side of the pond, and a tiny flower with a butterfly, it gives a really good level of flexibility at an inexpensive price.
We’ve had spruce, pine, and fir trees, but the best tree we ever had was a sub-alpine fir. Full and lush but very narrow so it didn’t take up half the room. We trekked quite a distance on our snowshoes with little children for that one 🙂 (In the mountains of BC)
We now get mostly spruce as the pine around here grow very gangly.
My almost dead tree is an (I forget the name but it starts with an “a”). It was a live Christmas tree the previous owners planted in the backyard. I have mostly killed it, apparently, with help from a gardener or two who inappropriately trimmed and topped it off. Who knew pine trees should never (ever) be trimmed? Painters also used a ‘pit’ to dump old paint and other toxics only a couple feet away from the tree which may have hurt the roots. Who knew that either?
Subalpine fir would be a beautiful tree. We, growing up, used to get Douglas fir, lots of space between branches for ornaments and lots of big to fill up the room. Most people probably would not care for them, Definitely not tree lot. I always thought of spruce as too pokey. But may have just been my experience.
~ This Mediterranean native is an evergreen conifer that has adapted to growing in warm, dry conditions. It is sometimes grown as a living Christmas tree.
It is related to fir trees, spruce trees, cedars, hemlocks, and the larches, which are deciduous conifers. The tree’s common name, Aleppo pine, comes from the city of the same name in Syria. Another name for this tree is Jerusalem pine. … ~
They are drought-resistant and sound very hard to kill.
Since we have a garden I find deer pests. Not beautiful, just pests. They eat our strawberries, peas and beans.We have four kinds of gopher pests; gopher gophers, raccoon gophers, deer gophers and bear gophers. They are all territorial but aren’t welcome here.
Dj did you ever hear back from the nurses? I have been praying for Carol….
I did away with the fuller Christmas tree and replaced it with two smaller. A pencil tree in the family room and a spindley fir type tree in the living room. Great for hanging icicles, little pearly glass ornaments and grunge white candles. Very very simple and non fussy. It is a switch up year for me and most of my old reliable ornaments will remain in the old trunk in the basement….
Has anyone heard of the new “Sidewalk” feature for Ring cameras and Amazon Alexa speakers? I read an article from Matt Walsh on the “new feature” and we have since unplugged all of our devices…except for the doorbell/camera…we are researching what to replace it with…
Apparently you can “opt out of the feature”…but now we aren’t trusting Amazon with these things at all. It is a “sharing your broadband” with your neighbors even though they do not have your consent… 😳
My brother came by this afternoon. He got the battery out from the car and then we went to Advance Auto to get a DieHard battery. When returned home we discovered that we coul DC no th get into the car. When we got this used car we got key fobs but no real key. Key fobs don’t work with the battery removed from the car. I had to call for our motoring plan to send someone to get us into the car. At least that worked. So finally my brother got the new battery put in. Praise God. I had no idea I was going to be doing this today. I had to go to the store to pay fo tdd the battery. I never go out to stores late in the day as a precaution against Covid germs. Hopefully I did not pick up the illness. At this point it seems likely that my brother is immune to it.
Nancyjill, apparently I’m on their list to call as her responsibly party — so the call at 10:10 p.m. last night was required just to inform me she’d had a bout of diarrhea but had been given medication. When I talked to the nurse this morning she said she was better — and Carol called me about an hour ago on her cell, she still sounds weak and said she was again feeling nauseous (which often is a side effect of the stronger diarrhea medications) but that she’s also been medicated for that and at least there was vomiting.
But she sad she still can’t eat much and she’s sleeping most of the day and night.
At least her brother finally called her today but the conversation apparently was short and rather perfunctory.
I’ve picked up that the family was so troubled with mental illness and the behavior and chaos that bought (both the mom and youngest brother wound up in mental institutions) that he somewhat walked away and just doesn’t want to get “too” entangled.
Understandable concerning brother…we never know what others have faced in life 😞
And it is good to know the staff is being responsible in notifying someone of her current state. Asking the Lord to give her healing and relief from whatever it is that is causing this ailment in her body. You certainly are a good friend to her… ♥️
Janice, that’s crazy about being ‘locked’ out of your car as the battery was disconnected from your entry ‘key,’ but kind of makes sense — who would think of that though?
Glad you brother was along and everything got taken care of.
I just brought an alexa device on sale but haven’t charged it yet; I mainly wanted to use it with the new TV which isn’t set up yet.
Which reminds me to ask, why do I have so many wires? It’s a huge tangle back there near the Tv and I have no idea which ones are really useful or not anymore. Ugh. I know I should be able to do this myself, but I still think maybe it’s just worth it to pay someone to deal with it.
Well, looks like we’ve heard off the record that the gov will be making an address tomorrow; anticipated to be a full lockdown of sorts.
I’ve been working on a Christmas tree lot story and one of the lot operators today told me he’s worried that something like that would shut him down as a “non-essential” business. It also would complicate my story majorly
A blue spruce would be a gorgeous tree, but yes, it would be very pokey. The spruce we use are prickly, but not too bad. I don’t know what kind their are, white spruce?, black spruce?
We used a stiff needled spruce one year to help keep the toddlers from wanting to touch it 🙂
Dj I know what you mean about all those wires! Tv, modem, Alexa echo, DVD player and the usb? Connector to go with it? It’s a mess back there!
Mumsee they say your privacy is secured but some experts are wary. This new feature is sharing your WiFi somehow…here is an excerpt from Business Insider concerning this feature:
Some were still skeptical of whether such a network would keep user data private. Alan Woodward, a professor at the University of Surrey who specializes in cybersecurity, told BBC News that Sidewalk should be an opt-in feature, adding, “It feels wrong not knowing what your device is connected to.”
Ian Thornton-Trump, the chief information security officer at Cyjax, told Forbes the launch was “deeply problematic from a privacy perspective.”
“The ‘on by default’ approach is not consumer-friendly,” Thornton-Trump said. “‘No one rides on my WiFi for free,’ especially a giant corporation with billions of dollars.
Cheryl, are there mule deer down in Indiana or are they only up here in western Canada. We have whitetail deer, but they’re not native to the area (but have been around for many years)
Pine trees are trimmed all the time. I trimmed my Muhgo Pine every spring to keep it compact. It finally died a couple of years ago after living for decades. It was a year that many pines died due to weather variations that caused them to lack water.
We have bough buyers not too far away who advertise for people to cut boughs for them. You can make wreaths and keep the tree to continue growing.
Perhaps it is a special type of pine that cannot be trimmed?
Thanks, AJ, for the lesson. I would have never dreamed cattle and I see them run quite often.
Kare, I don’t think we have mule deer. We had them in Arizona but as far as I know I only ever saw one. We have white-tailed deer here, and their antlers don’t get as impressive (at least not usually). And I understand that Indiana isn’t a place for the really big racks.
Wandering Views 
Good morning all. The header is impressive.
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Good morning, Debra. Good morning, Chas.
Good morning, to all who Wander and Wait!
A lovely header. It’s a treat to see such a graceful animal.
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A graceful animal that can be very dangerous. I recently told my husband that the deer ‘high-tailed’ it out of the yard and then said I now know where that saying came from. I have no idea if that is true, since I haven’t researched it. The picture is a nice one for the sense of movement.
Good morning to all.
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I was going to make a quick trip to the store before Ladies’ Bible study and the car would not start. I assume it’s got a dead battery. My brother will help me with that tomorrow.
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I’m awfully busy for a hermit . . .
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Me too Michelle.
Very busy for someone doing nothing.
You have tobe a caregiver to understand what I just said.
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Chas, whenever you say you do nothing as a caregiver, you are not only being inaccurate, but you are also, unintentionally, implying that stay at home mothers and homemakers do nothing, because they do the same things: housework and supervising those who are unable to take care of themselves. That is what Elvera once did for you and your son. Did she do nothing? Cooking and cleaning and helping someone eat, and wash, and dress is not very exciting work, it doesn’t usually pay anything, and no one else sees you doing it day after day, but it doesn’t mean it is not important, and it certainly isn’t doing nothing.
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Excellent point, Roscuro.
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Our electricity was out again last night, only this time, it was an accident that brought down power lines. The roads have been pretty slick the last couple of days as we had pouring rain that turned to snow, and snow mixed with water becomes ice under pressure. I drove out in the stuff yesterday, and it wasn’t fun.
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20 years ago, dear friends who live halfway across the country from us adopted two orphans from Romania. They’d already been raising children for 20 years at that point–six daughters.
This time, they adopted a boy and then threw in a girl at the last minute so he’d have a sibling his age.
Unfortunately, the little boy had been through three caregivers in his 12 months and my friend was desperate to get him while he could still bond. The laws wouldn’t allow it, and by the time she could pick him up at 18 months (in an extraordinary set of circumstances), he was well into attachment disorder.
He tried her so hard, and ripped her heart to pieces. The little girl, who was six months younger, seemed to fit in much easier.
After 3 or so difficult years (and my contribution from afar was to research autism, attachment disorder, and bipolar since she was too overwhelmed to do so), she’d had enough and decided to return him.
The six older daughters, three of whom were still home, were aghast. “But, who will love him if not us?”
I joined the chorus. “You’ve given him a life. Yes, he’s hard, and we know why and I’m so sorry. But, if you hadn’t picked him up, even as late as you did, what would have happened to him? Where would he be? No matter what, he’s been better off living with you than anything that would have happened in Romania.”
The two children graduated from high school two years ago and went to college. I’ll see how things are when I get the Christmas letter, but I stand by my words and those of those six sisters. Nothing they did, everything they did, counts and was done in exasperated love, for the glory of God.
He has a good life. And the entire family–which is huge now–has benefited from that boy.
We have no idea who is looking on. We have no idea what God is really doing. Our job is to love, and put it all in his hands.
If we haven’t told you, Chas, you’re doing a good work, and we appreciate what you share with us about it. We all know Elvera is deeply loved, even though it’s hard. You’re teaching us by your example of the truth and the hard work, the difficult emotional work, of loving well all the way to the end.
Never discount that lesson to us younger ones. We all will face it–if we haven’t already–and when we think of your continuing care, it gives us hope.
Because, frankly, given the way my body is falling apart, I may be Elvera sooner than I like to think.
xoxox
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The house is cold the morning but the heater will warm it up quickly, I trust.
I’m juggling two phone interviews today with changing times — and one of them in eastern time — so it’s been somewhat confusing to get both calls (one changed late last night with a request from the interviewees) rearranged today.
And I got up to find I’d missed a late call at around 11 p.m. from Carol’s facility asking me to call them. I called as soon as I saw the msg this morning but was told to call back as no one was at the nurses’ station to pick up.
I kept thinking yesterday was Monday and today was Tuesday so that’s added to my feeling of being just a step off course this week so far.
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Chas, also you are doing for Elvera precisely what you, as her husband, were charged with doing. You are laying down your life for hers, caring for her bodily needs as if they were your bodily needs (Ephesians 5:25-33). You are being obedient to God in what you call “doing nothing”.
I was reading an interesting essay on complimentarity and came across this quote:
“The husband should love his wife as a head loves its body and Christ loves the church: by giving himself up for her, sanctifying her with the water of the word, and presenting her in splendour. (It is significant that Paul pictures the husband as engaged in traditionally feminine tasks like washing, cleaning and ironing here: Paul is knowingly and deliberately subverting the Greco-Roman picture of what male headship looks like.)” – Link: https://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/beautiful_difference_the_complementarity_of_male_and_female
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Kathaleena,
You’re close, but cattle not deer. They are both high-tailing it though…. 🙂
https://findwords.info/term/high-tail
“Douglas Harper’s Etymology Dictionary
high-tail
also hightail “move quickly,” attested by 1890, U.S. slang from cattle ranches (animals fleeing with elevated tails); from high (adj.) + tail (n.). Related: Hightailed; hightailing.”
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Thanks for the rebuke and suggestions everyone.
I am not complaining. But how else can you describe sitting there watching FoxNews for hours.
I don’t sit there for hours. Sometimes I get up to check the mail, write to you, fix lunch, etc. Which is what I am about to do now.
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Don’t you have any other channels to watch. One with nature shows, or music, or something. Watching news all day would make anyone depressed. I get antsy just seeing the eternal newscasts in waiting rooms.
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I was reading that in Ephesians last night as husband and son in law and daughter were talking for several hours and I was praying as were a few others. She is going with divorce and leaving him with all three children. He is loving her and letting her cats stay, at her request though he does not care for cats. He continues to love her, through all of this rage and hatred. Please continue to lift him up and pray for her eyes to be opened. Love is not easy, but it is the command of God. We are to do it. I need to love her despite the pain she is inflicting for her “happy”.
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This from today’s Streams in the Desert:
Perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10).
Steel is iron plus fire. Soil is rock, plus heat, or glacier crushing. Linen is flax plus the bath that cleans, the comb that separates, and the flail that pounds, and the shuttle that weaves. Human character must have a plus attached to it. The world does not forget great characters. But great characters are not made of luxuries, they are made by suffering.
I heard of a mother who brought into her home as a companion to her own son, a crippled boy who was also a hunchback. She had warned her boy to be very careful in his relations to him, and not to touch the sensitive part of his life but go right on playing with him as if he were an ordinary boy. She listened to her son as they were playing; and after a few minutes he said to his companion: “Do you know what you have got on your back?” The little hunchback was embarrassed, and he hesitated a moment. The boy said: “It is the box in which your wings are; and some day God is going to cut it open, and then you will fly away and be an angel.”
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Chas, ask Santa for a simple-to-use DVD player (if you don’t already have one) and some good DVDs to watch. 🙂
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Morning! It is cold and the snow on the ground has been reconfigured by all the blasted wind last night! We made it to and from town last night but I was unnerved to say the least 😳
Chas it does encourage those of us who love you both and watch from afar the love our Lord has instilled within you towards your bride…sometimes we see you “selling yourself short”. I have witnessed the same with my dear mother in law when she was the caretaker of my precious father in law who had Alzheimer’s. We lift you before our Lord asking Him to give you strength and direction daily and we know full well He is doing just that. Give TSWITW a hug from us this day and tell her it is from many who love and pray for you both ♥️
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When neighbor and I are out for our walk and we see a buck like that in the header, we “turn tail and run”…well we don’t run but we do go another way. We had one buck flare his nostrils and scuff his front leg at us as he was guarding the resting doe…yep…we won’t get near that again….
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Last Monday was our Thanksgiving day here–the day I cooked the turkey. When I’d already left it out for an hour and was ready to prepare it and put it in the oven, I looked outside and saw fog. Now, I love to photograph in fog, and I knew if I didn’t get out then I might not get outside all day. So I told my husband, “As weird as it might seem when it’s time to cook the turkey, I’m going to go outside for a few minutes and get pictures of the fog.: He was OK with my doing that. (I used wonderful and unusual self-control and was back inside within half an hour. Sometimes I think I’ll only be a few minutes and I’m out for 90 minutes, but this time I knew it had to be brief.)
Just past my little pond is a footbridge over the creek the pond feeds into. And next to that creek was this buck. He came out from behind a tree and then stopped and stood gazing at me, with his foot raised and ready to pound a signal to any other deer if he decided I was dangerous. I was on a bridge above him and he was also on the other side of a fence; he could not get to me, or it would have felt dangerously close. He was just 10 or 15 feet from me. I think he looked at me for at least a full minute before he turned and trotted away, stopping to grab a bite or two to eat as he did–saying he definitely decided I wasn’t a threat. The fog was still present, but he’s close enough he wasn’t obscured by it much.
Since I walk that spot several times a week there is a pretty good chance he has seen me before. I wasn’t very far from the trail either, and deer that hang out near the trail have to be used to seeing people even if they usually stay out of sight and people don’t see them. He isn’t as big a buck as my “Rudolph” buck, but neither is he a yearling. And to make eye contact but know there was no danger involved was thrilling.
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It is a wonderful balm to my being to meet with my Bible study ladies on Wed. even though it is by phone right now. I feel blessed peace after our prayer time. We are all going through this Georgia junk right now that anyone who is not here can not fully understand. We are studying in 1 Peter and it’s perfect to be in that book for right now.
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Cheryl, I wondered if you were as close as it seemed or if you used a telephoto lens of some sort. That’s close! Do you ever use telephoto lenses?
Janice, I’m glad you have a good Bible study group to help dissipate the heaviness of the political upheaval surrounding you. We are not in your area but occasionally we get some of the commercials on the radio in the car. So I have been limiting myself to the classical music station or silence until things die down. Hang in there. :–)
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Thank you, Debra. I was feeling sick to my stomach over it all this morning. But then I got rightly focused on God.
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We have a drive-through Christmas tree lot in LA — with all the retail and ‘crowd’ restrictions now, the tree lots have had to figure out how to comply. Some of the smaller lots aren’t happening this year, the bigger once are implementing things like drive-throughs, lines outside of gates with temperatures taken upon entry (only 20% max occupancy allowed).
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*ones
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I hadn’t even thought of that problem getting a Christmas tree. Sigh. I thought about purchasing a live one, keeping it outside, and then afterward giving it to friends who lost their house in the 2017 fire and are rebuilding.
Mr. Expert: “I wouldn’t give anyone a pine tree.”
Hrumph.
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Aren’t most Christmas trees, if they are not palm trees, fir trees?
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Debra, I have a pretty good zoom on my camera. It’s a “bridge” camera ( https://digital-photography-school.com/bridge-camera-what-is-it-and-is-it-for-me/ ), a Canon PowerShot SX60 HS. So I can zoom in a decent amount, though nothing like those super-long-lens birding cameras. But for what I do, when in the course of an afternoon I might shoot birds the other side of the pond, a muskrat on my side of the pond, and a tiny flower with a butterfly, it gives a really good level of flexibility at an inexpensive price.
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We’ve had spruce, pine, and fir trees, but the best tree we ever had was a sub-alpine fir. Full and lush but very narrow so it didn’t take up half the room. We trekked quite a distance on our snowshoes with little children for that one 🙂 (In the mountains of BC)
We now get mostly spruce as the pine around here grow very gangly.
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My almost dead tree is an (I forget the name but it starts with an “a”). It was a live Christmas tree the previous owners planted in the backyard. I have mostly killed it, apparently, with help from a gardener or two who inappropriately trimmed and topped it off. Who knew pine trees should never (ever) be trimmed? Painters also used a ‘pit’ to dump old paint and other toxics only a couple feet away from the tree which may have hurt the roots. Who knew that either?
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Aleppo Pine
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Subalpine fir would be a beautiful tree. We, growing up, used to get Douglas fir, lots of space between branches for ornaments and lots of big to fill up the room. Most people probably would not care for them, Definitely not tree lot. I always thought of spruce as too pokey. But may have just been my experience.
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~ This Mediterranean native is an evergreen conifer that has adapted to growing in warm, dry conditions. It is sometimes grown as a living Christmas tree.
It is related to fir trees, spruce trees, cedars, hemlocks, and the larches, which are deciduous conifers. The tree’s common name, Aleppo pine, comes from the city of the same name in Syria. Another name for this tree is Jerusalem pine. … ~
They are drought-resistant and sound very hard to kill.
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https://twitter.com/akkitwts/status/1333979699567968258
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Since we have a garden I find deer pests. Not beautiful, just pests. They eat our strawberries, peas and beans.We have four kinds of gopher pests; gopher gophers, raccoon gophers, deer gophers and bear gophers. They are all territorial but aren’t welcome here.
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Mice eat our beans. Turkeys eat our strawberries. Raccoons eat our turkeys and chickens. It never ends….
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Dj did you ever hear back from the nurses? I have been praying for Carol….
I did away with the fuller Christmas tree and replaced it with two smaller. A pencil tree in the family room and a spindley fir type tree in the living room. Great for hanging icicles, little pearly glass ornaments and grunge white candles. Very very simple and non fussy. It is a switch up year for me and most of my old reliable ornaments will remain in the old trunk in the basement….
Has anyone heard of the new “Sidewalk” feature for Ring cameras and Amazon Alexa speakers? I read an article from Matt Walsh on the “new feature” and we have since unplugged all of our devices…except for the doorbell/camera…we are researching what to replace it with…
Apparently you can “opt out of the feature”…but now we aren’t trusting Amazon with these things at all. It is a “sharing your broadband” with your neighbors even though they do not have your consent… 😳
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My brother came by this afternoon. He got the battery out from the car and then we went to Advance Auto to get a DieHard battery. When returned home we discovered that we coul DC no th get into the car. When we got this used car we got key fobs but no real key. Key fobs don’t work with the battery removed from the car. I had to call for our motoring plan to send someone to get us into the car. At least that worked. So finally my brother got the new battery put in. Praise God. I had no idea I was going to be doing this today. I had to go to the store to pay fo tdd the battery. I never go out to stores late in the day as a precaution against Covid germs. Hopefully I did not pick up the illness. At this point it seems likely that my brother is immune to it.
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Nancyjill, apparently I’m on their list to call as her responsibly party — so the call at 10:10 p.m. last night was required just to inform me she’d had a bout of diarrhea but had been given medication. When I talked to the nurse this morning she said she was better — and Carol called me about an hour ago on her cell, she still sounds weak and said she was again feeling nauseous (which often is a side effect of the stronger diarrhea medications) but that she’s also been medicated for that and at least there was vomiting.
But she sad she still can’t eat much and she’s sleeping most of the day and night.
At least her brother finally called her today but the conversation apparently was short and rather perfunctory.
I’ve picked up that the family was so troubled with mental illness and the behavior and chaos that bought (both the mom and youngest brother wound up in mental institutions) that he somewhat walked away and just doesn’t want to get “too” entangled.
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After reading Bob Buckles’ 5:56 and Mumsee’s 6:39, now I have two songs running through my head:
♫ Oats, peas, beans and barley grow… ♫
and this one:
Mares eat oats and
Does eat oats and
Little lambs eat ivy… 🙂
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Understandable concerning brother…we never know what others have faced in life 😞
And it is good to know the staff is being responsible in notifying someone of her current state. Asking the Lord to give her healing and relief from whatever it is that is causing this ailment in her body. You certainly are a good friend to her… ♥️
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Janice, that’s crazy about being ‘locked’ out of your car as the battery was disconnected from your entry ‘key,’ but kind of makes sense — who would think of that though?
Glad you brother was along and everything got taken care of.
I just brought an alexa device on sale but haven’t charged it yet; I mainly wanted to use it with the new TV which isn’t set up yet.
Which reminds me to ask, why do I have so many wires? It’s a huge tangle back there near the Tv and I have no idea which ones are really useful or not anymore. Ugh. I know I should be able to do this myself, but I still think maybe it’s just worth it to pay someone to deal with it.
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NancyJill, What? Are you telling me my daughters can get on our internet without the password now?
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Well, looks like we’ve heard off the record that the gov will be making an address tomorrow; anticipated to be a full lockdown of sorts.
I’ve been working on a Christmas tree lot story and one of the lot operators today told me he’s worried that something like that would shut him down as a “non-essential” business. It also would complicate my story majorly
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A blue spruce would be a gorgeous tree, but yes, it would be very pokey. The spruce we use are prickly, but not too bad. I don’t know what kind their are, white spruce?, black spruce?
We used a stiff needled spruce one year to help keep the toddlers from wanting to touch it 🙂
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Dj I know what you mean about all those wires! Tv, modem, Alexa echo, DVD player and the usb? Connector to go with it? It’s a mess back there!
Mumsee they say your privacy is secured but some experts are wary. This new feature is sharing your WiFi somehow…here is an excerpt from Business Insider concerning this feature:
Some were still skeptical of whether such a network would keep user data private. Alan Woodward, a professor at the University of Surrey who specializes in cybersecurity, told BBC News that Sidewalk should be an opt-in feature, adding, “It feels wrong not knowing what your device is connected to.”
Ian Thornton-Trump, the chief information security officer at Cyjax, told Forbes the launch was “deeply problematic from a privacy perspective.”
“The ‘on by default’ approach is not consumer-friendly,” Thornton-Trump said. “‘No one rides on my WiFi for free,’ especially a giant corporation with billions of dollars.
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Cheryl, are there mule deer down in Indiana or are they only up here in western Canada. We have whitetail deer, but they’re not native to the area (but have been around for many years)
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Pine trees are trimmed all the time. I trimmed my Muhgo Pine every spring to keep it compact. It finally died a couple of years ago after living for decades. It was a year that many pines died due to weather variations that caused them to lack water.
We have bough buyers not too far away who advertise for people to cut boughs for them. You can make wreaths and keep the tree to continue growing.
Perhaps it is a special type of pine that cannot be trimmed?
Thanks, AJ, for the lesson. I would have never dreamed cattle and I see them run quite often.
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Janice, the things that happen to you often boggle my mind!
But, that’s also true of the ridiculous things that happen to me. I can’t imagine I’m an optimist, but maybe I am? 🙂
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Kare, I don’t think we have mule deer. We had them in Arizona but as far as I know I only ever saw one. We have white-tailed deer here, and their antlers don’t get as impressive (at least not usually). And I understand that Indiana isn’t a place for the really big racks.
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