Anybody out there?

Just wondering.  No pictures with this one, I guess.  I knew this would be a big waste of my time.

The Story of the Buck on Our Wall

She was the oldest of three, with a brother younger by 2 1/2 years and a sister younger by 4 1/2 years.  When she was 12 she was one of three young ladies to take the first Hunter Safety Course offered at the hunting club to which her father belonged, with about a dozen or so young men.   She hunted a few seasons with her father, then her brother joined them for a few seasons.  She never had a chance to shoot at a deer, despite being a patient and quiet hunter.

Well, one year, her father and brother decided to go hunting in the Big North Woods with her godfather/uncle, cousin, and other men in the family.  No girls allowed.  Not even a girl willing to carry a gun and sit in the cold dark waiting for the sun to rise and then wait for some deer to come along.  Not even a girl willing to help in the drives later in the days toward the end of the season.  Now, she knows her Dad didn't want her hearing the guy talk between hunts, especially after a few beers!  He would do all he could to protect the innocence of his sweet little girl.

Her senior year of high school, a handsome young man asked her out.  He was a serious hunter, trapper, and fisherman.  In fact, just before he asked her on that first date, he had been hunting out West with his Dad and uncle.  A year later, he and his uncle went bear hunting in the neighboring country to the north.  Sometimes he and she hunted together.  In fact, she split her time hunting with her Dad and her sweetheart.  Sadly, they never all hunted together.

That second year of dating, was the year mentioned above.

The night before opening morning, she carefully laid out her apparel and gear.  She checked it out once, twice, and envisioned her routine to quietly leave the house without disturbing her mother and sister in the wee hours of the morning before the break of dawn.  She went to bed early and set her alarm to go off at probably the earliest time in her life to that moment.

The next morning, she arose to realize she had slept past the alarm!  Oh, no! SHE WAS LATE!

She called him and apologized.  He laughed and said it was alright and that she should just get going; he would wait for her.

She quickly slipped on all her hunting clothes and grabbed all her gear and quietly slipped out of the house.  She put her gear in her car and slowly drove down the driveway, waiting to turn on her headlights after she was sure they would not shine on the house, then she eased up to the speed limit on the country road, and then the highway.  Suddenly, she realized that she didn't remember handling her gun!  She pulled over and checked.  Sure enough, she had not grabbed her five-shell shotgun!

Now, there was another problem.  The transmission of her car was out and she could not drive reverse.  The highway seemed wide enough that she should be able to carefully make a U-turn right here, if she went far enough over on the right shoulder at the beginning of the hard turn left.  It would save a few minutes from going all the way to the little village up the road and turning in the high school parking lot.  So, she put this plan in action... and got stuck in the opposite ditch as her turn was too wide for the road!  OH, NO!

She was very near a dairy farm.  She humbly trudged up to the farmhouse.  No fear of waking anyone as the barn lights and kitchen lights were brightly shining already for the morning milking.  She asked to use their phone to call her sweetheart and explain her embarrassing situation.  The farmer offered to pull her out when he was done milking.

But, her sweetheart, poor guy, was quite twitterpated, and he kindly told her he would be right there; not to worry.  He borrowed someone's truck and came to her rescue.  Then, he told her she should not go back for her gun.  He would lend her one when they got to his house.

Oh, by now his parents' kitchen was full of hunters.  There was a wonderful country breakfast.  She was much too uptight to swallow anything and passed on a hearty breakfast.  There was no time anyway!  The men did tease her a bit, but as they were still strangers, they held back.  Besides, she was likely the first girl or woman to ever join them!  Good gentlemen, all of them.

In the car, she had decided that she should just sit in her stand, gunless.  She was quite determined this would be a just punishment for being so foolish and told him so.  Now, he finally showed his frustration.  He thrust a single shell shotgun at her and told her she better use it if she had a chance to kill a deer!  He was quite serious.  She decided it was best to comply.

Off they went.  The arrangement was that he would leave her at her stand and then go deeper into the woods, out to the swamp, and she would not budge until he returned for her.

Her spot was next to a small man-made pond at the edge of the woods, two fields, and a swampy area.  She settled into a comfortable position and waited for dawn to break.

Everything was very still at first and it was COLD!  She sat very still and tried to pick out things in her surroundings.  Gradually, her eyes adjusted and steadily dawn broke, slowly lighting the world.  She was startled by an owl that swooshed by and settled down in a tree in the woods.  Then, some birds started their morning songs and gossip.  Squirrels and maybe rabbits started to stir.  Now, she could see her breath hanging in heavy clouds in the air close to her face.  It was really COLD!  When she needed to shift her weight or rearrange her legs, she did so

                                   ever

                                                     so

                                                                   slowly

so as not to make a discernable noise.  She wiggled her toes in her boots to keep the blood flowing and discreetly exercised her fingers so that no motion could be detected.

There is nothing in her experience as peaceful as sitting in this setting and experiencing that wonderous time between dawn and actual sunrise!  She offered prayers of gratitude for all of God's creation. The majesty of God is undeniable in such a setting.

Well, she heard it before she could pick it out with her eyes.  Across the pond,

                 something was snapping branches.

                                      Something bigger than the squirrel that had been scolding her and running around from tree to tree near her.

She concentrated her vision on the area and scanned it, careful not to move her head.

Finally, a beautiful buck broke into her vision.  He showed no sign that he detected her presence.

Immediately, her heart began to race and she became conscious of her breathing.  She needed to remain calm and motionless.  He kept moving towards her, around the edge of the pond.  He was absolutely BEAUTIFUL.  Eventually, she could count the points on his majestic rack.  He was an eight point buck!  He was sturdy, with a strong neck.  He kept coming and did not even realize she was there.

Slowly,

          slowly,

                    slowly, she raised her gun from her lap to her shoulder.  She lined the sight to his left shoulder and followed him as he continued to come ever closer.  She continued to breath as sofltly as possible and to calm her heart as best she could.  She prayed that if it were God's will, she would cleanly kill this perfect creature with her one shot.

She carefully released the safety, as soundlessly as possible.

                   He may have perked his ears at that, but decided the noise came from a little woodland creature or something.

                               He began to graze at some tall grasses growing between the shore of the pond and the field.

She continued to wait patiently for her one shot opportunity.

                                  She began to remind herself that she must squeeze the trigger gently,

                                                  careful not to jerk the gun.

She was thanking God for this experience too!

          The buck was seeming to slowly angle away from her, still grazing casually,

                  still oblivous to his danger.

It was time.

                    She squeezed the trigger,

                                           the gun pounded into her shoulder,

                                                                         and the shot blasted loudly through the air.

The buck jerked up his head, looked straight at her, took a whiff, snapped up his tail, and bounded away from her.

          She had to empty her barrel and reload.

By the time she had a second shell in the gun, the buck was out of range.

       He bounded into the woods.

About a half an hour later, she heard shooting behind her, in the general direction of the buck's path (if he stayed on a straight trajectory) and in the general direction of where she thought her sweetheart was sitting.

As the morning went on, the sun eventually rose to a mostly cloudless sky.  The mists of the dew rising dissipated.  It was still cold, but mostly from not moving.  The sun even warmed her right side a bit.  She continued to scan her surroundings, careful to move very slowly when shifting her weight, wiggling her fingers, or moving her arms a bit, and to make no noise.  She reviewed her experience with the buck again and again.  She continued to praise God for these glorious surroundings.

Through this entire morning, once leaving her home, she was oblivious to the actual time.  She left that for her sweetheart to track.

As the morning continued, she heard shots here and there, sometimes she was sure made by others in their party, sometimes from the neighbors' lands.

After a few hours, he came back for her.  She could see his blaze orange clothes were covered in blood.

She did not speak until he came right up to her.  He said he thought he heard her shoot and asked if she had seen anything.  She just said she missed one, and then said it was obvious he had not only seen one, but been busy dressing one!  She asked what he got.

Well, he had quite a story to tell!

They began to walk to the hunting cabin and he quietly, but very excitedly told his story.

He had heard her shot.  About a half an hour later, a beautiful eight point buck broke into his sight.  He killed it.  While he was dressing it, he was startled by another buck breaking into his area.  It was an even bigger buck!  ELEVEN POINTS!  He grabbed his gun and killed that one too!

When they went back to bring them out of the woods, she affirmed that the "smaller" one, the eight pointer, was indeed the one she had missed.

The eight point rack only was mounted.

The eleven point buck's head was mounted.

The spring after the next gun deer season, he asked her to marry him and she accepted his proposal.

The head mount did not fit in the apartments they lived in as their first two children were born.

Eventually, while pregnant with their third child, they bought their first house.  The head mount then was moved from his parents' basement and has had a place of prominence in all three of their homes.

When they exposed the original log walls of this old farmhouse, it finally looked at home.

There ends the story of how this one buck came to be on our wall.

He has company and that is another story that only his hunter can tell.

Rainbows...

Rainbows have been a special symbol for me as long as I
can remember.  Of course, I know the Bible Story about Noah's Ark since very young.  I know that there were two animals of every kind; male and female on that ark.  I know that there were four married couples; each a man and a woman on that ark as well.  I know that the rest of the creatures of the Earth had been destroyed in a terrible flood and that this ark held the people and animals that would repopulate the Earth when the waters receded.  I know that God put that rainbow in the sky as a sign of God's covenant with Noah (and all of us) that never again would God destroy all the peoples and creatures of the earth by flood.
From little on, I was taught to look for rainbows whenever it was raining while the sun was shining.  I loved the rainbows that showed up in sprinklers too!
I love the colors of the rainbows.  Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.  Well, I still don't understand the distinction of indigo between blue and violet, but I accept that it must be so!  Seven is a holy number in the Bible.  So, perhaps the indigo is in there to make sure there are seven colors?



 
One time that remains very memorable to me was when I was a teenager.  I was on my way to pick up a friend one afternoon, when I saw a beautiful full rainbow in the field.  I stopped my car to get out and just enjoy it while it lasted.  Then, I got back in my car to find I WAS OUT OF GAS!  Yup!  Could not start at all.  No cell phones in those days.  I considered walking to my friend's house, a few miles up the road.  Well, before I had to do that, a group of young men I did not know stopped to offer help.  They said they knew my friend's brother.  I didn't know them.  I prayed a silent prayer and decided to let them give me a lift to my friend's house, which they did.  I don't remember anything else, but that I was glad they were good men.  I think that God protected me that day because I was appreciating that wonderful rainbow when I became a young lady in distress.



I am 3/8 Irish and learned of the myths about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  But, I reject superstition and seek Truth.

I also have always loved how Judy Garland sings Somewhere Over the Rainbow in the movie The Wizard of Oz.  I always hoped I could sing as beautifully!  Then, when she opens the door after the house lands when the tornado is over, I loved how the movie goes from black and white to full color.

A long time ago, my then-boyfriend/now-husband told me that someone claimed to have driven THROUGH a rainbow and that it was all sparkly and bright!  How I wish this were true and that I could have such an experience! 




My fiance and I chose wedding stationery that had a rainbow on it and I composed a verse, "Our love is the gold at the end of God's rainbow".  I was trying to merge the Irish idea of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with the concept of the rainbow being a sign of God's covenant to Noah and our marriage covenant.  God is love and we can only love because God loved us first.  So, our "pot of gold" is our love, found at the end of God's rainbow.  I know the whole thing is convoluted!

Well, God blessed us with five children.  During the last pregnancy, we realized we would be a family of seven.  We did not know if I was carrying a boy or a girl, so we called the unborn baby Rainbow.  When our son was born, his nickname was "Roy Boy", short for Roy G. Biv.  Eventually, I dubbed our family "The Rainbow Gang", as there are many people in our area with our surname.  I labled everything with that!  Eventually, I created a family "logo" and used it on computer made greeting cards.

Eventually, we bought 79 acres of land and dubbed it Rainbow's End Farmstead.

I was so pleased when my neice created some artwork that accurately captured the essence of our moniker.

As our children grew, they learned that a certain population has tried to high-jack the meaning of "rainbow" and they were embarrassed that people might think we were part of that group.  But, I have told them that we don't have to hand over the true and first historical meaning of the rainbow - the sign of a covenant made to a group of people who were to re-populate the world!  They also objected to the word "gang".  Well, after years of bantering, I have conceded and we are now the Rainbow Family!

So ends my story about rainbows and why they are significant to me!

Thank you to our Veterans!

I am so grateful to have been born in this place during this time in history.  Oh, there have been times I wish I could have lived before most technology hit the scene.  There are times I wonder if the world will recover from the challenges of recent attacks on values that have been held dear for most of human history.  But, then, I remember that only God sees the BIG PICTURE, and will make all things good.  So, today, I live in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave and I know that many people have served our military to protect us all.

I will do my part to vote with my faith and with the best information I can gather.  I will do my part to communicate with elected officials to remind them always that this is one nation UNDER GOD, that IN GOD we trust, and that this country was founded stating that Americans have the inalienable rights to LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Science has now proven what God told us in Holy Scripture; that life begins at fertilization.  Gotta mention that!

A Woman Named Laura

When I was in second or third grade, my teacher read a chapter of Little House in the Big Woods every day to my class.  I couldn't have been more bored.  This may come to a surprise to my children and others who think they know me so well.  But, if you really do know me, you know I don't always do well with being read to.  Sometimes it works well, sometimes I am better off following along with the text in front of me, sometimes, as in that classroom, I just drift off into my own little world.
I think it was by the end of fourth grade that I picked up that book from our little school library and read it on my own.  Well, I was fascinated then and hurriedly read through the entire series, ending with These Happy Golden Years.  I eventually found more posthumously published books and now consider the series as ending with The First Four Years, with West from Home, and Letters from Home as supplements.
As an adult, while working at an independent book store/coffee shop, I discovered the historian William Anderson, due to a beautiful book about Laura that we had on display.
During my elementary and even high school years, I would begin every summer reading the entire series (eventually through The First Four Years) before anything else.  The older I became, the less time it took.  I think in the end I completed the entire series in about three days.  My parents saw to it that I received the entire series in hardcover when I was in sixth and seventh grade or so.
I remember when the pilot to "Little House on the Prairie" aired on television.  I thought the movie needed some tweaking (Where was Pa's beard?  Why did Mr. Edwards look more like Pa should have looked and not at all like a tall, blond, clean-shaven Swede? Jack?- Give me a break! That actor dog was no brindle bulldog!), but overall, I was quite pleased with the adaptation of the book.
Then, THEY BLEW IT!  First of all, the series rightly should have been called On the Banks of Plum Creek and should have changed the name and location as they went on and on and on!  Oh, I was DISGUSTED!  Sure, they captured the look of most of the main characters (except the problematic casting I mentioned in the pilot).  I boycotted it.  I called it The Michael Landon Show.  I absolutely refused to watch them hi-jack the lives of REAL PEOPLE as shared by a REAL PERSON.  As time has gone on, I have checked in on the re-runs and appreciate that it was a wonderful, wholesome family show.  I will always wish they would have used fictional names for their cast of characters, who grew farther and farther from the true people that Laura wrote about in her autobiographical series.
When I grew up and had my own children, they were only allowed to watch the pilot movie.  I read the entire series to the older children before the youngest were born.  A chapter a day while they ate dessert (it did help me to read out loud and not eat).
My children were given hardcopies of much of the series.  I think only my oldest son read the entire series and appreciated it.  Such is life...
My neice enjoys it and I enjoyed going to Laura Ingalls Wilder Days at a state park with her.  Years ago, our entire family went to a Laura Ingalls Wilder Day at another historical place.
I enjoyed dressing up and playing with my sister when we were young, wearing a bonnet and long dresses.
Eventually, I enjoyed putting together period clothing for that time period and volunteering at our local historical village with some of my children and nieces and nephews over the years.
I learned so much from Laura.
I embraced her values and longed to be much like her; strong, independent, spunky, adventuresome.
I even live in a house that began as a log house with huge logs.  The first years here, I tried to adapt Laura's can-do spirit to make this place a home we could all enjoy.
Well, in the end, I am not like Laura and I doubt she would like me much.  I know I would be embarrassed if she were to stop in for a visit.
I often ponder about all the changes that Laura lived through during her 90 years on this planet.  She began living in a tiny log house in a big, densly wooded Wisconsin.   She traveled in covered wagons to Kansas, Minnesota, Dakota, and Missouri.  Eventually, she witnessed the first bicycles, then motorized "horseless carriages", and eventually AIRPLANES.
At first, her family posted letters.  Eventually, telegrams, then the telephone.

She lived before radio was invented, then television.  I am thinking she was astounded by the development of films.
She was born shortly after the Civil War, then lived through two World Wars and the Korea "police action".  She died three years after Elvis cut his first record and before the many changes of the 1960s.
I can only wonder what she would have done with the Internet and mobile phones!  I think she would have been so excited by the walk on the moon.
I am grateful that Laura created this wonderful series of books to share what life was like in her early years.
Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder left a wonderful legacy and continues to inspire people born long after her time.

School of Hard Knocks

Blogging is quite new to me.  While completing my profile, I was given the option of a random question that asked what safety school my cat goes to.  Below is my answer.  When I tried to get a second random question, this answer remained and a question that had nothing to do with this appeared.  So, I learned I only get ONE random question.  Well, now I have the subject of my first post!

We have enjoyed our working farm cats for many years now and usually reserve naming them until they prove they are intelligent enough to survive the dangers of their freedom. This summer, however, we prematurely named eight kittens and have now suffered the sadness of losing our Rex, King of the Kitties. Short lived our little lion king!  To preserve our hearts, we will return to our naming rule.

This photo was taken about 24 hours before this lovely and lively little kitten decided to play "chicken"  with our vehicle.  I never knew he was underneath.  Perhaps we gave him too much attention and he just trusted we were omniscient?