I woke up in the middle of the night last night furiously scratching at some mosquito bites. In my half-awake state, this seemed like a blog-worthy event and I thought, “I’m going to write about this torture of itching.” In the morning, sanity having been restored, I realized how silly that was, but I liked the phrase enough to use it for a blog post title.

Our pretty little garden has begun yielding its produce already. Of course, we’ve been picking asparagus for the last few weeks, but today I plucked a few kohlrabi from out of the soil. These strange looking tuberous veggies look like alien spaceships with all sorts of tentacles coming out of them. I cut off most of the tentacles before taking a photo, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

We’d never heard of these, nor eaten them until about 15 years ago when they appeared in our CSA box. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and when you join a CSA, you get weekly boxes of produce from a local farm. Anyway, I took that strange vegetable out of the box and thought, “What on earth do you do with these?” I ended up cutting the outer peel off, cutting them into “sticks” and serving them with dill dip. Yum. I highly recommend these – really! And if you want to do it up right, here’s the recipe for dill dip:
2/3 cup mayonnaise,
2/3 cup sour cream,
1 tablespoon dried parsley,
1 tablespoon dried minced onion,
1 teaspoon of dried dill weed,
1 teaspoon of garlic salt.
Mix it all together and let it all mingle together for a couple hours before serving.

And on the subject of vegetables, I’m conducting a little survey. I cut open a red pepper tonight for a salad and was struck by the appearance it had. Do you think the pepper looks more like (A) or (B) below?

Vote early, vote often!

Is it time to go already? I really must delete this in the morning before the red pepper screams and rages at me.

St. Croix State Park is the largest state park in Minnesota. It’s also the park that taught me just how out of shape I have gotten since our last hike at the end of October last year. Our hike was to be 4.0 miles, mostly along the St. Croix River, and when I inquired at the park office about the terrain, she said the Hiking Club hike was fairly flat. She also said we might see a black mama bear and her cubs, which had been seen by hikers the previous week. I didn’t bring the trail description booklet on the hike like we usually do and we ended up having reason to regret that. But let’s start out at the beginning, on a sunny, cloudless day around 9:00 a.m. with a temperature of 57 degrees. We both agreed that we could not have chosen a better day.

We hadn’t walked more than a few yards when we realized that a dose of bug repellant was going to be in order. We sprayed it on liberally the first time and more liberally the second time about an hour later. The mosquitos were our constant companions, keeping up that steady whining noise for which they are so well known. For the most part, the bug spray formed an efficient, if smelly shield. But no matter – we were glad to be back on the hike, walking amidst spring greenery with our cameras, ice water, and our plant-identifying app.

It turned out that walking “along” the St. Croix River meant walking on a high bluff along it where you couldn’t see it for the many trees. There were several places that had steps down to the river if you wanted to get up close and personal. I thought we could do that when we got back, an optimistic thought indeed. We stopped here and there to take photos and to try to identify the various flora on our path. By now, as seasoned hikers, we knew that most of what we saw, we’d seen on other spring hikes at other parks. Each time is like the first time, though and photos were taken.

‘Tis the time of year for columbine and after taking a photo of an attractive grouping of them, I thought about how inextricably the name of the plant has become attached to the killings at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999. At least for me. A few years ago I listened to a book by the mother of one of the killers which was very compelling and interesting. I recommend it: A Mother’s Reckoning by Sue Klebold.

We also saw a few remnants of burnt trees here and there, proof of a somewhat recent fire there (although it could have been many years ago). And that got me thinking about the Hinckley firestorm of September 1, 1894, Hinckley being the nearest city to St. Croix State Park. There’s a museum in Hinckley that commemorates that disastrous fire and I believe one of the local cemeteries also includes a monument to those who died in the fire. If you want to know more about that, check out the book Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 by Daniel Brown, which I read a couple months ago.

By the by, we came to a section of the hike where you really could see the river and not far along that part of the trail, we came to the sign for the Yellow Banks CCC Camp.

I hadn’t read the trail description carefully and had thought that we’d see the actual camp, but instead there were some informational plaques with photos of the original camp, now long gone. If we’d brought the trail booklet with us, we would have at this time perhaps looked at it again and noticed that we were supposed to tour the entire CCC camp loop and then return. But we did not. We were relying on the usually excellent HC Trail signs at the parks and there was no sign indicating that all of that was part of the hike. So we decided to by-pass the rest of the plaques and move on. This was a sad, sorry moment.

We kept walking, looking at maps along the way which indicated a loop up ahead. Oh, that’s the loop we’re looking for, thought I, having at least remembered that the word “loop” was in the trail description. But it was taking FOREVER to get even to the beginning of the loop and my legs, hips and knees were feeling very fatigued. Along the way, a few bright spots would occur, such as the sight of a downed cottonwood tree resting in all of the cloudy white fluff from the seeds. Remarkable! And then we surprised a group of turkeys. They took flight and I was too late to get anything but an unfocussed shot of the last one disappearing into the woods.

When we finally started the loop, I was excited. This was going to be where we’d come around and start heading back. The only problem was that the loop didn’t seem to understand the concept of looping. It kept going on nearly straight, or so it seemed to me. Kris stopped to look at something and I kept moving doggedly ahead, focused only on getting back to the car at this point. The beauties of the wilderness ceased to be of interest. I heard the noise of a very large animal on my left in the brush and wondered if this was the black bear. It was a deer that came out practically right in front of me on the trail. Once again, my camera was too slow.

We finally reached another map and it was at this point that we understood that we’d way overshot the mark on the hike. Going forward to finish the loop was unthinkable – we weren’t even halfway through. We decided to turn around and go back. I can’t tell you the despair I felt at this, mostly because I was already feeling like I couldn’t walk one more step and it appeared that we probably had about 3 miles to go.

Kris walked a little ahead of me on the way back, which was fine with me – I figured that he could let me know when we were getting close and I was definitely slowing down. Even though it was only 70 degrees, it seemed like 90 degrees to me. My hands were swelling up with the heat, my fingers like fat sausages. I had the idea that maybe if I held my hands up, it would help to “unsausage” them. Kris turned around at some point and was amused to see me walking as if I was being held up.

The way back was an endless trudge, or at least it seemed so. “This is the trail that never ends…yes it goes on and on my friend…” That was the song running through my brain. I made an effort to recall encouraging Bible verses about perseverance. One of the first Bible verses I memorized back in the day was Isaiah 41:10 which says, “But they who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength. They shall rise up like eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” That would have been a good one to rally my spirits, but I didn’t think of it then. Every bend in the trail filled me with hope that we were close to the end, and every bend let me down. Kris pointed toward something. “Can you see our car?” I called out hopefully. “No, but it’s the highway, so we must be getting close!” he said cheerfully. “I don’t want to know about the highway,” I snapped uncharitably, “Just tell me if you see the car.” They say that when you are pressed, you show your true nature. Or that when the cup is jostled, what spills out is what’s really inside the cup. I’m not proud of what spilled out of the cup at that point.

Well, here I am typing this up, so clearly we persevered, the trail ended and I did not perish from exhaustion. It took us an hour longer to do the hike than if we’d understood and followed the Hiking Club trail, but on the other hand, we got to see a few things that we wouldn’t have otherwise. G.K. Chesterton said “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” It’s all in the attitude, isn’t it? So looking back, in spite of the extra miles and the fatigue, I want to remember this hike as an adventure.

Afterward, we stopped by Camp Nathanael, a Christian boys’ camp that Kris brought our sons to when they were growing up. We spent the afternoon applying polyurethane to boards which were going to go on the walls of the dining hall. God’s world in the morning, God’s work in the afternoon. It was a good day.

Knee score: 3-4 (fairly level terrain, long hike)

I’ll probably delete this in the morning. Phew!

Next hike: Camden State Park

I came to it late in life – so many years wasted!  And I was amazed that something so wonderful could have been completely distasteful to me before.  I am, of course, speaking of my conversion to asparagus, which happened in my 50th year.  It actually began some years earlier when my oldest son (then 11 or 12) asked for asparagus to be part of his birthday meal.   I tried in vain to talk him out of it.  “Pete, it’s HORRIBLE stuff!  It always made me gag when I was growing up.  Seriously, you’ll hate it and you definitely don’t want to have it with your birthday meal.”   I really thought I was doing him a favor, and would have done a similar kindness if he’d asked for (shudder) lima beans.  However, the laddie insisted and I, having always granted the birthday meal requests, gave in with a sort of “you’ll be sorry” kind of sigh.  I bought fresh asparagus, steamed it, buttered and salted it and, just to show my exalted state of maturity, tried it too.  Hmm…not bad.  In fact, it wasn’t nearly as disgusting as I remembered.  I assumed it was a fluke and let it go for 8 or so  more years, at which point the lingering memory prompted me to agree to grow it in our back yard.  After tasting the first harvest, the conversion was complete.  Now I await the first appearance of asparagus spears each spring with joyful anticipation and haven’t been disappointed yet.  I’m always ready to extol its goodness (try it!  what have you got to lose?).

And so it is with Jesus.  I came to Him late, as well – in my 25th year.   Throughout most of my growing years I found Jesus distasteful.  I didn’t even want to say His name.  The concept of sin was unpalatable.  Don’t make me eat that stuff!  Then one day, like a fresh breeze blowing, the thought occurred to me “What if it’s all true?  What if there is a God who made the world, who made me?  What if Jesus really was who He said He was?”  If you knew the state of my heart, you’d know without a doubt that a breeze of that nature did not originate from within – it was Holy Spirit driven, all the way.  Still, I tarried and fussed over all sorts of objections – things that seem silly in retrospect.   And what’s all this about sin?  Really?  Not me – I certainly was a very nice, kind and altogether good sort of person.  I’m not saying I lived in a continual state of happiness and peace, but I just didn’t think the charges fit.  I blush to think about that first prayer in which I challenged God: “Okay, if I’ve sinned, you’ll have to show it to me – I just don’t see it.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever since had a prayer that was so swiftly and penetratingly answered. 

Over the next 24 hours I saw it all, the soul full of deceit, selfishness and pride, packed in a general mud sauce.  Yuck.  That fresh breeze blew up into a massive humbling whirlwind.   But after all my tarrying, there was grace, mercy and forgiveness, and when I said yes to Jesus, an unquenchable joy.  He has never disappointed me and I will forever extol His goodness. 

O taste and see that the Lord is good
Psalm 34:8

This is a post I wrote for my previous blog about 10 years ago. I’ve been doing a lot of writing today of other things, so I decided to make my blogging life easier by republishing an old one that came to my mind as we finish up asparagus season here.

Don’t make me delete this post!

My grade reports in elementary school frequently had the phrase “easily distracted” added. I can’t deny the charge.

I got on my iPad this afternoon to do something productive that’s been on my “to do” list. And then I saw that I had 8 Pinterest notifications. I don’t like to have my screen sullied by all those red notification circles, so I got on Pinterest to update my notifications and get rid of the circles. You’d do the same thing, wouldn’t you?

While doing that very short electronic task, I saw a few ideas for how to use dried flowers showing up in my feed. What a coincidence! I just dried some flowers last week! In reality, there are no coincidences in the world of computers and the internet. It regularly anticipates my need based on my browsing habits and I’d sound off in an outraged huff if this weren’t actually pretty handy sometimes. I might be like that frog in the lukewarm water that doesn’t notice the water is getting hotter and hotter until it’s too late.

So instead of tackling something on my “to do” list, I ended up doing this instead.

And voila – bookmarks! Okay, now I need to get back to my regularly scheduled activities.

Was I going to delete this in the morning? I may or may not get distracted by something else.

I grew up in a house that used a dinner bell. In fact, I sort of inherited it once we started having children, but it’s not the bell you see above. It was old and falling apart, so at some point we bought this one that you could mount on a wall and had our last name engraved on it.

I derived a great deal of pleasure out of ringing that bell. If someone else was ringing it, the noise was irritating, but if I was the one ringing it, the sound didn’t bother me at all. At any rate, we didn’t use it for anything other than a call to the table for a meal. My mom used to ring it outdoors for us, since we might be somewhere else in the neighborhood at supper time. It was plenty loud and could summon us from where ever we were, within reason. What could be a happier sound than the one that tells you that food is ready to be eaten?

We’d come to the table, sit in our appointed spots, and then grace would either be spoken or sung. Our spoken grace went like this: “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food.” The musical grace was sung in a round. There were 8 of us altogether, so this was quite the performance. “For health and strength and daily food, we give Thee thanks O Lord.” It was always fun to be chosen to start the round and for some reason it felt awkward to be the one to finish it. We proceeded to eat and have lively conversation, punctuated with the occasional complaint from one sibling about not getting as many servings as another sibling who was being a PIG. Those kinds of accusations were frowned upon, of course. But mostly there was just a lot of happy chatter.

I sat on my Mom’s right and if I started resting my elbows on the table, she’d poke the nearest one with her fork. Ha ha – that’s table etiquette training for you! I didn’t like peas and found lots of sneaky ways to get out of eating them. Sometimes I put them in my mouth and then, pretending to take a drink, I’d sink them to the bottom of my cup of milk, to be thrown out later surreptitiously. That only worked if the milk wasn’t in a clear glass. Another tried and true method was to put them all in my mouth, and then put my napkin up to my mouth as if to wipe it and proceed to unload the peas into the napkin. I’d crunch the napkin up and either throw it away after the meal, or if I was worried about it being seen, I’d accidentally “drop” the napkin and push it under the radiator to be retrieved later. One time I went back for the napkin, felt under the radiator for it and pulled out a dead mouse. That put an end to THAT method.

Does anybody use a dinner bell anymore? Perhaps it is a lost tradition, along with eating meals together as a family.

I’ll probably spit this blog post out later. It tastes too much like peas, which I’m still not terribly fond of.

When our family of children doubled from two to four all at once, we decided it was time to look for a larger house. We were living in a two-bedroom house at the time and it was starting to feel squeezy. In an amazing providence, we ended up buying an old farmhouse on three acres out in the country, just a mile or so from my husband’s place of work. Perfect!

As soon as I could, I took a stroll around our large property to see what we had growing on the “farm,” as it were. To my delight I saw lots and lots of rhubarb sprinkled here and there. I hadn’t cooked with it myself, but remembered my Mom making various rhubarb items when I was growing up. I harvested a bunch of it and brought it in the house to prepare it for freezing. It was a little hairier than I had remembered, so I called a friend of mine to make sure it really was rhubarb. Also, the stems were sometimes hollow, which seemed odd. She and I talked it over and after describing the leaves, we agreed it must be the real thing. I cut up all of it and put it in freezer bags, looking forward to making many baked items with it.

The next day, I received a visit from someone who lived next to Kris’s research facility. It was just like you always hope – people in the country like to drop by with welcoming gifts. She brought me a large bag of rhubarb that she’d just picked. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’d also just harvested and cut up a bunch of rhubarb, so I took it and thanked her and after a short chat, she went on her way.

I looked in the bag of rhubarb she’d given me and my first question was, “What on earth did I just cut up and put in our freezer?” I found out later that I had gone around our whole property harvesting burdock, a large-leafed weed. You can imagine how thankful I was that I hadn’t cooked anything with it right away. “Here honey, I made a rhubarb pie for us!” I may never have lived that down.

I’ll probably cut this post up and freeze it in the morning. But there will be no blog post pie.

On our walk around the neighborhood, we often pass by a house that has a sign by the front door that reads “Come In – We Are Awesome.” I’m old enough to remember a time when we weren’t throwing the word “awesome” around like so much confetti. My dad was a teacher and I recall the day he told me that the new word that everyone was using was “awesome.” He didn’t think much of the trend.

We have a reprinted 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster. I thought it would be interesting to see what Noah had to say about the word “awesome.” Guess what? It’s not even IN the 1828 dictionary. He has defined the word “awe,” however, so I think we can extrapolate from that word how he would define the word “awesome.” So here we go:
1. Fear mingled with admiration or reverence; reverential fear.
2. Fear; dread inspired by something great or terrific.

It’s somewhat amusing to contemplate someone putting that on their welcome sign. “Come In – We will inspire fear, admiration, reverence and dread in you!” Of course, the meaning used now for awesome is more in the line of “very impressive.” It seems a long way away from the original meaning of the word, though, doesn’t it? And furthermore, it seems to detract from the compliment if you have to say it about yourself, in my opinion.

Wait – that’s not just my opinion. Proverbs 27:2 says “Let another praise you and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips.” I set that verse to music and sang it with our children when they were growing up. I’ll tell you a little secret – I needed to hear it as much as they did. Maybe more.

I don’t want to be too hard on neighbors we’ve never met. In all likelihood they are very nice and welcoming people, especially with a sign like that by their door. But I’d hesitate to call anyone truly awesome, other than God.

“For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the might, and the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe.” Deuteronomy 10:17

I’ll probably delete this AWESOME post in the morning! Just kidding about the “awesome” part.

I got a bee in my bonnet about pressing some flowers after seeing an ad for making bookmarks with them.

But the bee wasn’t done yet. It was buzzing around my head saying, “Write a poem! Write a poem!” So I obeyed the bee.

I picked some juicy bleeding heart
I cut a few of its leaves
The freshest pink, Creator’s art
Pressed between the sheaves

Next ‘twas boldfaced pansies
Colors of purple and gold
Delightful silken fancies
Flattened ‘til they’re old

Lily of the Valley!
With delicate perfume brushed,
The leprechaun O’Malley
Will weep to see you crushed

In flower press academic
These lovelies have been laid
Time will make them poetic
E’en as their colors fade

Be happy they were selected,
These denizens of the yard,
For they’ll be resurrected
On a bookmark or a card

I should probably delete this before leprechaun O’Malley finds out I used his name in a poem.

I woke up last night and starting fretting about something that was on my mind. It was hard to let it go. I thought about a Bible verse I’d memorized a long time ago: “When my anxieties multiply within me, Thy consolations delight my soul.” Psalm 94:19.

I was certainly doing some multiplication of anxieties, but what about those consolations of the Lord? Not only was the psalmist consoled by the Lord, but those consolations were a delight to him. A delight! It’s hard to think in those terms when you’re in the anxiety-multiplying mode, but there it is.

I reflected on some of the promises in the Bible that would console me in this hour of worrying. “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19.

That one hit the spot. I decided to spend some time ruminating on that. Better to sit on one truth than to go chasing a bunch of worries about what might happen. I was consoled. I found myself drifting off to sleep again. My soul was delighted.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning with a delighted and consoled soul.