Wisdom – Page 37 – Home's Cool!

Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Inspiring, Photos, Wisdom

It’s a Worm Table!

Posted on September 7, 2011September 7, 2011 by Katharine

The couple that built the house we live in is no longer living, but they had amazing foresight. Everywhere we look, we can see signs of commitment to excellence.

For instance, the electrical breaker box has every switch labeled. Puzzling for months over the one switch labeled “Worm House”, we searched until we figured out the worm house was actually the chicken house/woodshed.

We knew the worm tables were down there, but we hardly guessed what they were. The industrious ones who built two houses on this property and maintained an enormous garden, were human after all. They fished. They loved having their own source for worms. Or they sold worms. What work went into their lives for a bit of pleasure or a few extra dollars!

The worm tables, consisting of framed, 1/2″ mesh wire, were for sifting out worms, I guess. I know the soil under these tables is uncommonly rich and free of the usual rocks from around here. It makes very good garden dirt and a great side-dressing for those plants that seem to need extra nutrition.

I can imagine a grandchild’s wonder as he watches a shovelful of soil reveal its inhabitants. I can imagine the child’s taking all this culture for granted, walking in such luxury of self-sufficiency, hardly guessing all the work others have put into this place.

A little like I tend to do, myself.

I say, “Oh, good, a chicken house,” and forget all the work in those rough-hewn boards. I stroll around a pond and never think that someone had to bulldoze it. I retrieve canned goodies from the basement without realizing all the engineering it takes to perch a house over a hole in the ground.

But I want to remember, to think, to realize. I want to be thankful for someone’s foresight, for those who went before and built for those who would come after.

Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Photos, Rain, Wisdom

GOING DOWN!

Posted on September 6, 2011December 18, 2014 by Katharine

down with temps — DOWN With Temperatures!

I cannot believe we finally have cool weather! I cannot believe it. But I am thankful. Oh, YES!

A week ago, it was a full fifty degrees warmer, here. Now I am running an exhaust fan and drawing all this cool air into my stuffy house and listening to birds and squirrels chirping and chattering.

It is a gift.

Our ma cat appreciates it NOT. No one explained to the cats they would need their warm coats today. The pre-heated sidewalk gives relief, though, as Puddy hugs to it, waiting for the sun to rise over the treetops.

Not me! I’m dressed for 100 degrees, sitting in a 60-degree breeze, shivering and GLAD!

This cool weather did not bring rain with it, though. We are still more than 12 inches below normal for this year. Usually, we receive much rain in August, around 5 to 10 inches. I guess it all went to Mississippi and the Carolinas. Since it is the second year running that we have not received normal rainfall, trees are dropping like flies. We’ve lost about 3 per acre on our property.

tree population going down — One Twin Dies

Our neighbor has lost half of a gorgeous set of twin oaks in his pasture. It is sad, but we must look at what remains and be glad some trees have stronger roots and can survive. Maybe we’ll help harvest the firewood from our neighbor’s tragedy, turning it into something useful, so it is not a total loss.

Life is like that. We help each other turn our tragedies around, don’t we? We help make sure our losses are not total losses. We reach out to each other, perhaps grim-faced, but determined: We will not be completely defeated.

And we’re not.

Blessings of Habit, Coffee-ism, Homemaking, Inspiring, Photos, Wisdom

LOST AND FOUND: One Large Closet.

Posted on August 31, 2011August 31, 2011 by Katharine

Yesterday, I finally launched a work I meant to do last year.

And the year before.

Today I actually dragged half the contents of the master closet out into the bedroom and kitchen.

Kitchen? Yes; it’s a walk-through closet connecting the kitchen and bedroom. My side of the bed is exactly ten steps from the corner of the stove where the coffee pot sits each morning. Heh, heh.

just ten steps — Just Ten Steps from Zzz-land!

But I digress . . .

There used to be no terrific place to put all my sewing project business. However, there was this enormously gigantic closet in the master bedroom. And we are the type that has a normal amount of clothing. So . . .

One new electrical outlet later, and voila! I had a lovely galley sewing room, with space for zillions of yards of fabric to hang on coat hangers around me. Excellent!

Except it was also still our closet and sometimes I put outgrown or off-season kids’ clothing in there. And schoolwork that needed filing. And large skeins of yarn for crochet projects. And gifts I’m hiding until someone’s gift-day comes along. And stuff-Mart bags stuffed with stuff I needed to deal with. And back-logs of un-ironed items. And a multitude of craft supplies.

It was becoming unnavigable.

So yesterday, I hit it.

However, I also needed to wash a couple of intricate loads of laundry, hard-boil a dozen eggs without ruining them, and fix myself breakfast and lunch on time, since I had a tutoring appointment in the afternoon. So I did all of it at once, listening to the washer while watching the eggs come to a boil, and taking bites of my breakfast and sips of my juice, between trips in and out of that closet, loaded down with boxes, etc., and at the same time, sorting contents according to what was throw-away, storage, or put-away. Also re-charged my cellphone, did chicken chores, and made a new pot of coffee.

We call it multi-tasking, and we are good at it because we do so much of it. So many aspects of keeping a peaceful home depend upon it.

Our home is not too peaceful, right now, though, but rather torn out and scattered, waiting for me to finish it. Oh, the worst is over; just have to fit a few things back in, the right way, then enjoy it again.

And when it comes to the soul, aren’t most of us also in that shape?

Inspiring, Photos, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – “Up”

Posted on August 28, 2011August 28, 2011 by Katharine

Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.

– John 12:31-32

Blessings of Habit, Homemaking, Husbands, Inspiring, Photos, Rain, Sayings, Wisdom

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

Posted on August 27, 2011September 27, 2013 by Katharine

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP AT OUR HOUSE

Ever have a day when your plans vanish? I’m there. It is good, though.

Today, I assist my carpenter. UP there.

You see, in our world, snow hardly ever falls, but last winter, we frolicked in lots of it. And our guttering suffered from lots of it. It sagged. It bulged. It pulled loose.

Then we learned the rest of the story.

Rot.

In our world, rain usually falls in buckets. Torrents. Sometimes, rain so furiously dumps on us in sheets and waterfalls, that we have seen it splash against a neighbor’s roof with enough force to make a wave that actually rains UP a few yards before surrendering to gravity again.

We need the guttering.

So, today, in firm belief that someday rain will actually fall on us again, we are removing the guttering, removing the siding, mending the rotted places, and re-attaching everything.

It’s a little like other problems: Have to deal with the cause of it to really stop it.

“GREAT DAY FOR UP!”
–Dr. Seuss

Believe it or not!, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

This. Means. War.

Posted on August 26, 2011June 6, 2014 by Katharine

Just finished a good book by SQ. Rushnell containing a moving story about the Vietnam War and the damage it caused. It mentions the memorial, the 500-foot long black wall. It tells of visitors moved to tears by the more than 58,000 unlived lives and living heartaches represented there.

To say they died trying to protect us would be a fair statement even if some disagreed.

We could not say that about some others who have died:

The aborted ones have no memorial to speak of.

Oh, sometimes we display a few wooden crosses to make a statement, a temporary protest. When we put the crosses away later, though, we prove it is not a memorial.

But if a similar black wall existed for these dead, it would have to be at least a thousand times longer than the one memorializing the war dead. At least.

I read that three million people visit the Vietnam War Memorial each year. Hard to believe roughly 10,000 visits per day, isn’t it.

But at that same rate, if the aborted ones could have lived to visit the Wall, it would have taken them about 17 years, just to go there. It is that many.

To buy one rose for each MILLION would cost about $250.

To educate them, the public schools would have garnered about $270 billion.

Per year.

And that’s where their money really went.

Believe it or not!, Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Wisdom, Womanhood

Missing Children Found!

Posted on August 24, 2011November 10, 2018 by Katharine

How many children would you guess are homeschooling in the US, today?

Two Million.

That’s one in every 25 kids of school age.

empty desk What this means is that in every classroom that holds 25 children, one is missing. And it’s because of homeschool.

The schools don’t like us home educators very much because of it.

They feel they are losing too much money because of it.

But they forget two things.

They forget we don’t get that money. Their argument is with their own bought-and-paid-for legislators, not with us, if anything is amiss or missing in public education.
They forget abortion.

Abortion has killed far beyond 55,000,000 since Roe vs. Wade.

That is more than EVERY child in EVERY classroom currently in America.

Missing.

Dead.

We’ve killed that many.

Look around you.

Every child ages 5 – 18 has at least one counterpart who is missing. because he or she was aborted.

They could have doubled their money, had they thought about it.