I guess I should write something before this blog forgets that I exist! I just haven’t been in the writing mood lately, it’s been so nice outdoors that I have been outside working on the huge list of things that are begging to be done and when I come in after dark all I want to do is go to bed and sleep the sleep of the working man, which, put into simple words is where I am dead asleep before I have fully pulled the covers over myself. After the last decent snowfall, which left a mountain range of snowdrifts all down my long driveway, I decided to try pushing the snow with the tractor so I could use the car if I needed to. Well, I borrowed Kyle’s loader tractor and started pushing snow but that lasted about 5 minutes because the tractor got stuck and it continued to get stuck with such predictable regularity that I ended up moving more snow with the shovel while digging the tractor out than the tractor was moving with the loader so I took it back to Kyle’s place and decided to dig out the real snow machine. Last summer Kyle had borrowed the bulldozer, and since it isn’t exactly the easiest thing to move from place to place it was still parked over there and hadn’t been run in quite a while due to a washer that had fallen into the hydraulic pump while Kyle had a cap off. This washer had wedged in there at the first use and the hydraulics were a mess. I decided it wasn’t going to fix itself so I tore it apart and got the washer out, then I adjusted several things in there since I had it apart. I didn’t know how well it was going to start since it had been sitting for a while but it started and runs beautifully so I drove it over here. I hope the guys in charge of the road don’t get too mad about the Cat tracks down the road! It’s a long trip driving a clattering crawler down the road but ear plugs make the job a lot nicer. When I got home the snow just disappeared in front of that blade and now I have a perfect driveway. I was able to push more snow in 15 minutes than I could have with the loader tractor in days of hard work, there’s just nothing like a Cat for pushing things. I had forgotten how much fun it is to putter around on that old thing, just idling around. Working RPM is about 800 and I puttered around doing odd jobs that I had let go over the winter, like digging out the stock trailer (it had become high centered in a snowdrift while full of cows a few months ago so I had to disconnect it and leave it where it was). I cleared out all of the yard and roads and I pushed a pile of trees out of the way, cleaned up stumps and brush piles and leveled potholes and ridges from last years mud. When I wasn’t having fun pushing things around I tore into the big house to see what I was really getting myself into in regards to restoring it. It will be a major project taking up several years with my limited building knowledge and abilities, but when I am done I’ll be able to write a book on the subject! At one point I sat on the roof watching the sunset and wrote out all of the things I had always dreamed my farm would have since I was a little boy and when I looked over the list I found that this place has everything but one feature, which is a running stream. I guess that since there are so few clear running streams in North Dakota I shouldn’t be too unhappy about not having the one and only stream on my property!
I am beginning on the little cabin fix up project, though I shouldn’t really call it a cabin since it isn’t anything like a cabin. I guess the best word would be “cottage” but that sounds too much like Martha Stewart so I won’t use it just now. The next step is a trip to the lumberyard with the truck and trailer and a willingness to spend about a thousand dollars, which is one trip I don’t really want to take. I guess I’ll have to spend the money one way or another and I might as well spend it on getting this little place more habitable. If I keep hoarding money like I tend to do it will end up disappearing through inflation anyway so I might as well just get those things that will be useful to me.
I talked with my younger brother David this past weekend over the phone, which is a rare thing since he lives and works at Azure Standard in Oregon and neither he nor I get a chance at a telephone all that often. He is hoping to buy some land out there and have a peach orchard, which almost guarantees an annual visit from me right about the time the peaches are ripe! It’s so strange watching the family grow up. I am still stuck in the days when we were all little kids and now I have a niece, nephew, a little brother living on his own and a baby sister that tells us she is moving out of state as soon as possible, which probably means by this fall. I now understand what my mom used to mean when she said she felt so old. I feel like a fossil. I was invited to my neighbor’s birthday (102nd) and as I sat around visiting with all of the World War veterans reminiscing and telling stories of the old days I felt extra old. I love visiting and talking with the grandparents but I miss the days when we would go on a 5 mile hike or kite with a paraglider tied to a pickup which towed just enough to keep a person my size 100 feet in the air, or built the biggest rope swing we possibly could or going shooting out in the woods.
That’s no fun, I’ll have to mention the fine time we had yesterday when the Henderson family came down to visit. It’s great to see growing families, 5 ½ children is a great start in my opinion. Kyle dug out the old song book that we put together years ago and we were able to introduce the Henderson’s to some favorite songs which are Psalms set to music. It’s handy because they are pretty much word for word out of the Bible so memorizing is easy, we sang for quite a while and decided there has to be a way to get more people involved because it’s tough when only one person knows the music and only a couple of others sing much. I love singing and especially singing and doing music together as a group, it’s just that there is no real group around here so it’s more like solos or duets. There are several dozen Psalms that a friend of ours put to music which are really wonderful, but there are only 4 people that know how to play the music to them. Unfortunately, they are a bit tough to sing without accompaniment, some help is almost essential. I wish more than just about anything that there was someone else around here that I could teach them to so I wouldn’t be the only person playing. David was the only person around here interested in singing or music besides Kyle and now that David is 1500 miles away it’s interesting to say the least!
I’ve really been aware of God working lately. Things that have lain dormant for years coming to life, direction from Him and he is somehow making me happy to do things and endure things that just one year ago I would be kicking and screaming about! Sometimes the modification of a person is painful but keeping two eyes on the end result is an excellent pain reliever. I’ve almost finished the first go over pruning of 10 ancient apple trees here and it’s a great illustration to myself because I see what God does to a person in a very real way. We begin looking like the old trees I have, basically, a total mess fit only to be cut into firewood. He prunes out the dead wood, which doesn’t hurt too bad, we look a lot better and we think we have arrived. Well, not hardly! It’s when the real pruning begins that we finally feel the shears cutting out the crossed and misplaced branches. It’s fruit He is after, and not just the regular ugly and misshapen fruit. He wants the best, and he wants a good yield. The way to get that is to prune and when He prunes us we really should thank Him instead of complaining because He is doing a perfect and good work in us, not torturing us as we often would like to think!
Well, there’s my thought for the day. Tomorrow I plan on moving cows and that always reminds me of how we so often behave like cows or sheep. He herds us to new and better pastures and we fight and try our best to go the opposite direction. Anyone who has livestock will know exactly what I mean! It would be so simple if we would just follow God instead of having to be pushed and prodded. If we are pushed and prodded we have to realize it is our own fault for not following the Master.