November Gray

After all the brilliant colors of fall have faded, grayness conquers the sky.

Still beneath are some rich browns and reds: cotton, milo, and, every now and then, a bright green field of winter wheat.




I cut through the countryside today, just for a close-up look at the windmills, the crumbling farm houses, and the straight gravel road.

It follows fence posts down to the draw, then swerves to cross the bridge.
"There's nothing prettier than black cows on a green field with white windmills in the background", say the farmers around here, "unless it's black oil and a long buried pipeline." You've gotta love 'em.

November Colors

In the mornings, it's gone gray--skies overcast and valleys misted. We watch for this friendly orange flame waving from the oil rig. It has become a landmark on our way to school.


Our leaves are almost all on the ground now. This, the second harvest under the sycamores, still reflects an afternoon sun-- brilliantly.

These are the gold reds.
Now for green blue.








As I left school today this was
behind me, overcoming the grain elevator--a swarm of incoming cold blue swirls.

Operation Christmas Child

My little students finished packing their box today in children's church. We decided to send it to a boy, aged 4-9. After we packed it, several of the children prayed that it would arrive safely and be a joy for that little boy. Here they are, praying for their box.

Wherever you are in the world, little boy--in a refugee camp, a slum or a flooded pasture--we want you to know that we are sorry you live in such awful circumstances, and that we want to help you, and bring the light of God's love into your life. Amen.

Petra! Nineveh! Babylon!

While learning about Major and Minor Prophets in my Old Testament class, we kept hearing about three great cities--once terrible enough to melt the courage of a thousand little villages--now lying in the rubble of their own annihilation, brought to their knees and covered by desert sand--myths buried deep and doubted by all who questioned the writings of obscure Hebrew prophets.




Today, all three cities have been unearthed and rediscovered. So amazing are the ruins that we still stand in awe of them. Towers, moats--sixty feet deep, walls as thick as a city street, magnificent buildings carved into the sides of canyon walls. We've been researching--my students and I.

Since there are no skyscrapers out here in the country, we had to use the grain elevator for comparison. It works well actually. It's as high as the palace section of Nineveh's wall, as high as the cliff face of Petra, and not nearly as high as the walls of Babylon--and the walls of Babylon stretched for fourteen miles, all the way from our little town to the interstate, and beyond. When you look at it that way, it's impressive! If you look closely, you can see the boys' class clustered at the foot of the elevator.

The main part of this elevator is 120 feet tall. With the additional tower on top, it extends to 170 feet.

Some of the facades in Petra were 120 feet tall, and the cliffs around varied from 100 to 300 feet high.

The walls of Nineveh were 53 feet high for the most part, but one area by the palace was 148 feet high, and the walls were also 40-55 feet thick.

Babylon's walls were higher than 170 feet tall--Herodotus said 350 feet tall--and the wall was a double wall that stretched for fourteen miles.

I took a picture on the way to school, approaching the elevator in the distance in order to imagine how one would feel traveling toward one of these great cities. We can see this one from our town, which is around 13 miles away. Just think what it would look like if it were 14 miles long!


Today we took a short field trip during class and walked to the elevator. While there, we recorded our City Chants, took a few pictures, and just stood and stared upward, thinking about those three colossal cities, and the walls that defended them so long.


Yet Petra Fell...just like Obadiah predicted.
Nineveh Fell...with a flood and an invasion, just like Nahum prophesied.
And Babylon was given to Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede...an "invulnerable golden kingdom"...invaded through the dry bed of a diverted river. Well, Isaiah did say it would happen.

Mighty kingdoms rise and fall, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.

Cheers for Ancient Cities

After we looked at the elevator walls, we crept inside one of the gateways, got into our teams, and performed our chants. The echoes ringing around us, the wheat above our heads, grate on the floor, wind and dust whipping by. . . it was like an arena.

Sunlight Strikes the Sycamores at Seven

Fred the Farmer

If you've looked at children's toys lately, you've seen Bob the Builder--videos, trucks, books, and other such items. Well, in our church there's Fred, the Farmer.
Typical of the surviving prairie farmers in this area, he has worked incessantly all his life to make a success of his farm, his town, and his church. He's in charge of the courthouse clock tower, the church cemetery upkeep, flower arrangements at church every Sunday, and a host of other voluntary tasks that quietly get done without anybody noticing...oh and he still farms, and, somewhere, he finds time to weld and build. (You're not much of a farmer around here if you're not also a mechanical engineer, painter, cement worker, and welder.)




One day, I asked Jean, Fred's wife, if my carpool and I could swing by her house and take some pictures and whether we would be attacked by the farm dog if we got out of the Suburban. (I hadn't seen him, but I just knew they would have a big old dog guarding the place)
"Sure, come by anytime," she told me. "and that dog won't bite you, but he just might lick you to death."

So, driving home from school a couple of days ago, we cut through the country. When we ran across Fred's house, I pulled in and talked to the man himself--just as he was leaving to plow a field.

"Go ahead and take all the pictures you want," he told us. "See, there's the new sculpture I'm working on. It's going to be a sphere--8 feet in diameter."

Sure enough, there it was in the driveway. "This rock pile," he continued, pointing to a tall stack of stones, "well, one night, soon after they put this line here to anchor the electric post after the last big ice storm, I came running out to check on something and tripped over it...so I put this stack of rocks to keep that from happening again."

Tori and I snapped away; She really liked the metal silhouettes; I liked the birdhouses. They sit calmly in the garden against a wild prairie background, keeping little birds safe from the ever present threat of chicken hawks.
Anyway, here they are...a tribute to the ingenuity of Fred the Farmer, Jean, his wife, and their friendly, old brown dog, who followed us faithfully around trying to lick us to death.

P.S. Tonight my husband informed me that they are naming a bridge for Fred. He's famous around here for his county commissioner days. Doesn't surprise me in the least.

Hit the Trail, Bessie

Cattle Trails are one of those things in life that seem mysterious to me. These bulky bovines have the entire field at their disposal. Yet, plodding down to the water, they stay in a line--so carefully placing their hooves that they create deep trails in the sod. Are they trying to save the grass for grazing, thus making their highways as narrow as possible? Or does the deepened rut comfort their feet with the knowledge that other cows have passed this way and survived? Humans, rushing for the water, would probably each make a beeline of his own, laying siege to the pond from every direction...maybe even staking out a claim in the form of a boat dock.

Elijah and Marie took this picture; they've developed a love for photographing the land around here. That same day, they found an old farm house in the area and took this picture of an ancient, abandoned boot.

What a hard, dry earth these prairie settlers conquered!

I loved the boot. It was like finding a footprint on the moon.

First Hour Friday ...after the "away" game Thursday Night.

There's a Camera Lover in Every Crowd

I spent a few minutes in children's church today, taking pictures for the box they are sending overseas with Operation Christmas Child. They've decided they are going to bring toys for a little boy--cars and baseballs; marbles and lemon drops and maybe peppermints. . .and we're putting the pictures in to show what an adorable group we are. Check out the precocious little red-head in the middle, and you'll see why I call him Calvin.
(to his grandmom, if you are seeing this, relax. I'm sure it's just a phase)
Anyway, whatever it is, it is contagious...
(no, really, I prompted them on the last one)

Pumpkin Rolls

We spent eight hours Saturday making 75 pumpkin rolls for a senior fund raiser. It's a tradition at our school--seniors selling pumpkin rolls and chocolate rolls. My guess is that we will need to spend two more days like this to meet the popular demand...or at least one more--for the chocolate lovers.


My seniors were real troopers, though, working hard most of the day, only pausing a few times to congregate in the teachers' work room and watch the ends of a couple of football games.) Counting all the kids and all the adult sponsor/parents we had a dozen workers. Lots of fun...but exhausting as well.

Photography Apprentice

This was the morning of the fall concert...the morning after the far-away football game...the morning after some students' cars were vandalized while they were on the bus returning from the far-away game...the morning after one senior hit a racoon on his way home, broke a hole into his radiator and sat beside the road until help arrived at two o'clock in the morning.

However, placidly unaware of these earth-shattering events, my passengers and I rode into a gorgeous orange sky on the way to school. I knew If I stopped the suburban to take pictures we might be late, so I handed my camera to the "shotgun" rider, Tori.

She took pictures through the windshield, experimenting with the night setting--which, by the way, is too blurry for a hand held snap from a moving vehicle. Here are some of her best shots.

Wordless Wednesday

Bump In The Night

At two o'clock in the morning--back when my husband was young and brave and impetuous--we heard a fearsome bumping in the basement. Since the door to our cellar opened onto the back porch, and the door to the back porch had a latch that didn't work well, anybody could have sneaked into that damp hole under the house. Who knew...maybe an antique dealer was going to dig for old medicine bottles down there, or maybe some big-time second-hand appliance dealer wanted our nearly new hot water heater. This called for rapid intervention. There was no time for panic. Grabbing up the nearest weapon, my superhero in the undies but minus the cape, bounded out the back door, down the stairs to the basement and strung an arrow into his compound bow. It was dark. There were two eyes shining in the corner--over by the hot water heater (my second guess seemed nearer the truth). He aimed and shouted as he used his elbow to turn on the light. One very puny kitten, pale and petrified, trembled before potential impalement. Disappointed, the Lord of the manor lowered his mighty bow as the cat streaked between his legs and ran back out into the night.

"It was a cat," he said sheepishly as he returned to the bedroom, "a very small one."
"Good," I yawned, four-fifths asleep.
"Not very exciting, though," he complained.
"Could have been. It could have been a skunk."
"True. True. Why do you have to be so uninspiring."
"Cause I'm sleeping. It's two in the morning, and all sane people are sleeping."
"Sigh." He crawled back into bed. But he left the bow leaning against the wall...just in case.

Sunday Scribblings

Ignoble Peace Prize

According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

It would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. Of course the rest of the world wants a weak America; they would love to dictate the actions of our leaders. Our current president is suggestible, a pawn for those who insult us openly while they fawn over him as a great peacemaker. As long as he persists in his delusions: that bread and circuses will satisfy, that our foreign policy is best expressed with smiles, surrenders, and simperings; that the great nation he leads is an evil nation and deserves every attack terrorists can send us, he will continue to gain trophies from those who hate us. Why are we surprised?

Obama had only been in office for eleven days when nominations for the Peace Prize closed. During those eleven days, and for months before, he was busy campaigning and charming and criticizing the country he aspired to lead. So what great deed precipitated this award? And why so soon? Why couldn't they wait until he finished a term in office at least?
They couldn't have.
Why not?
Because their purpose was not a noble one.
They were not honoring a great man; they were simply affirming his political alignments, seeking to further manipulate the thinking of the nation he represents.
Who knows? In three years their award might seem even more ludicrous, their real agenda even more obvious. They could not take that chance.

Sorry, Mr. Noble.

Swinging in the Clouds

Someone is finally going to have to take this camera away from me...or else my morning ride to work needs to be much duller with no orange sunrises and junior high girls singing Gloria Domine en Excelsius (or something like that). If you look closely at the first picture, you can see seven little birds perched on a line and coddled by the clouds? That's what I feel like sometimes on mornings like this--I have six carpool riders so we are seven, traveling along. It seems like I'm a very insignificant, very ordinary little gray bird--surrounded by extraordinary cloud beauty and song beauty and just reveling in it all.

A Rainy Sunday

Claye and I went for a drive this afternoon.
She drove and I took pictures.
It wasn't hot...or cold...just misty and muted.
Tiny droplets of rain hung in the air and there was hardly any wind.
It was perfect weather for the freshly plowed fields, and even the cows out in the pasture seemed to enjoy the feel of it on their backs as they munched peacefully beside the little farm roads.




Anyway. Here are some of the best pictures.