Blogs

I came across the article yesterday via Facebook. Just a short post on the Desiring God blog by Jon Bloom concerning Keith Green. Yesterday was the 28th of July, and the 28th anniversary of the plane crash that took the life of the 28-year-old singer, and DG wanted to mark that anniversary.

I wasn't ever a great fan, or devotee, of Green when he was alive. Mainly, I think, that was not a matter of musical taste but because at that point in my life - especially prior to the age of the web and easy music downloads - I had neither the time nor the money to invest in his music. I am certainly familiar with much of it though, as is anyone who has spent any considerable time in evangelical churches of any persuasion, I'm sure. (Leeks and onions by the Nile, anyone?)

What caught my attention in the Desiring God blog post was this paragraph:

Keith was in love with Jesus in a way that few seemed to be. His passion was the kind I read about in the New Testament. Keith was real. You could tell just by listening to him.  And you could also tell that Keith wasn’t mainly about music, he was about a message. He didn’t care about his career; he cared whether or not people followed Jesus. Keith was all about spreading a passion for the supremacy of Jesus.

"All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out." (John 6:37)

Father, give them to Jesus. That's all I can say.

"Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee, How great Thou art, How great Thou art!"

It's warm and sunny, the chickens have been squawking madly - though they have fallen silent at the moment - and both of the children are still asleep, amazing as that is. I know they will both be up soon, and Addie will need a bottle when she awakes, so I am stealing a moment to think and remember.

It was a week ago at this hour that we were preparing for the wedding rehearsal, and our good friends were so hard at work to prepare that wildly popular gourmet Italian meal for those participating in the wedding itself. This is twice now that Bruce and Lisa, Cal and Anita, and Tim and Teresa have blessed us so richly with the depth of their friendship and their amazing culinary skills. I do not know how to adequately thank them.

So now, Jon and Kelly are married and I officially have another amazing daughter-in-law. How blessed we are, as well, to have these two incredible women in our clan. So grateful to my gracious God for bringing them to us.

My family came, and that was so good, to share a little of our world with them. All except Mom, of course, who wanted so badly to dance at this wedding. Casey's family, too, yet also without one. A little bit of bitter mixed with the sweet, much like the symbolic wine of the ceremony itself.

Enough for now. I just heard a deep sigh from the littlest one next to me here, signaling that she is not long to sleep most likely. And I'd best go check on Brijette.

When I first started on this chicken adventure a year ago, I ordered my chicks by mail from a hatchery in Iowa. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of ordering three roosters, and even more unfortunately, they mistakenly sent me four of them, leaving me with just 21 laying hens.

Time, elements, a blockheaded hound dog, and a .22 have whittled the flock from 25 birds to 20 a year later, including the one rooster who met his demise at the business end of my son's rifle because he was just too mean to keep. That leaves me with 3 remaining roosters and just 17 laying hens.

I have been mulling whether or not to attempt to replace the missing birds, and have vacillated between not wanting any more of them to concern myself with and thinking of all the folks who have gotten into the habit of buying eggs from us. No mail-order hatchery will sell fewer than 25 birds, however, and I knew I did not want that many. If I was going to get them, it would have to be locally.

I found this new theme, called "Danland", on the Drupal web site the other day and thought I'd give it a shot. I like it OK, but I need to figure out how to change out the photos to some of my own. I know there is documentation on how to do it, but haven't had time yet to prepare images and get it done.

UPDATE FRIDAY EVENING

The images are all mine now, anyway. I'd still like to slow it down a bit, though.

UPDATE AGAIN

Looks like I managed to slow the "slideshow" down considerably. I like this better.

[A quiet moment, Brijette and Adelynn both asleep, but a moment almost certain to be just that: momentary. Maybe time to sneak in a quick post, though.]

I recently took the plunge and upgraded from Adobe Creative Suite 3 to Adobe CS5. If that means nothing to you, let me throw out one word: Photoshop. If you are on a computer reading this, I'd guess there is just about a 100% chance you have at least heard of Photoshop. You would almost have to live in a total digital vacuum, I would guess, to not have heard of it.

In the various flavors of the Creative Suite, Adobe packages a range of high-powered software designed for professionals in the fields of print design, web development and design, and video production. Photoshop is one part of that package, along with such titles as InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Flash. Since such design work is how I partially make a living, since I skipped the upgrade to CS4, and since I have a couple of projects in process right now that can benefit from some of the added and improved features in the new suite of programs, I decided to add one more item to my list of business tax deductions for 2010.

So who needs a coyote around when you have a moronic hunting dog who just doesn't get it? Yes, I was sitting here at the computer trying to order a new cell phone for Tim when Anna yells down that the glorious yellow lab who lives with us, despite weeks of getting zapped for even looking hungrily at a chicken, had taken one down. Five birds I've lost now since I bought them - two to the dog - and not one of them a rooster. If he is going to take one, why can't it be one of the useless ones?

And the phone, that's another thing. I will not draw this out, but why is it that whenever I deal with some monstrously large national corporation I nearly always come away feeling violated, used, taken advantage of in some way? Is it because I have been?

Which brings me to this.

[I am sometimes a little weirded out by how my mind works, actually.]

The other day when we were at the greenhouse, Casey made the comment to me that she is working on being less practical. It is hard to imagine someone more historically pragmatic than my wife, and her ability to recognize that that is not always a positive quality, and to actively do something about it, is delightful to me. (Yes, I am probably the opposite, to a fault, but this post is not about that problem.) So, browsing the narrow aisles of this lushly green interior, she is looking at vegetables and herbs and flowers with an eye towards pleasure beyond the merely functional, and I think that is good.

I have to say, it was wonderful to have Casey home all weekend, without church duties, on this weekend off. Today in particular, we spent it mostly together: a relaxing lunch at LA's Place in Pike Lake, followed by our annual 100+ mile round-trip trek to Byrn's up in Zim to stock the garden. We will leave shortly for a Mother's Day dinner with the kids at the new Mexican restaurant in the Fitger's Mall.

Casey and I had just sat down to watch a movie last night when I looked out the window and noticed movement in the trees across the yard, on the other side of the fence. It didn't look like a deer, which we are accustomed to seeing out there, so I looked carefully to try and identify the source of the movement. All I saw was a dark gray to almost black blob at first - hard to tell the color exactly due to the light and shadows of the setting sun - until it raised it's head and I knew I was looking at either a large coyote or a wolf.

No snow in March. No snow in April. Three inches of snow on May 7.

I can't say it bothers me much, as it seems to do to a lot of people. It will all be gone by this afternoon, I'm sure; tomorrow at the latest. And it's moisture that will seep into the ground slowly and not run away. Seems a good thing to me.

Still, Duluth is weird. (Though I know that Duluth was not the only place to see snow.)