Before and After

Here is my dog before his haircut.


Here he is after his haircut.

Avian warfare

Early this morning, while I was out walking the dog, I saw two eagles fighting with a flock of crows in mid-air. The crows appeared to be the aggressors. The eagles were flying along, and the crows were chasing them, and bumping into them. The crows were cawing, and I heard the eagles' cry. Weird. Then on the drive home, along the Hannegan, I saw a small bird chasing a crow and flying at it. What's with the birds?

If I were an ancient Roman, say, I would consider these events omens, and try to guess what they foretold for me or my country. Eagles are the symbol of the U.S. Or they can simply symbolize "flying high." Crows are symbols of what? They're black, like ravens. And I don't know what kind the smaller bird was. I'll have to keep thinking about what these sights might portend.

Growing, not growing, and other things

The peppermint has grown a lot.



Three of the four spreading petunias are spreading. The fourth one had a health crisis. It seems to have recovered, but its development is behind the others.

The tea rose is the last rose I have. All my roses have this issue where the leaves turn yellow, as these are starting to do, then they all fall off. Then new ones grow, and the cycle repeats. The plant doesn't die, but when the leaves fall off, it's not very attractive. I don't know if it's too much or too little water or sunlight, or a disease, or what.

Growing flowers

Pansies blooming.


Rosemary is blooming, too.

The contorted filbert is leafing out, and the verbena is starting to bloom.

Springtime evening

Beautiful moon tonight. Funny how it looks bigger in real life than in the picture. I had an artist speak at my store once, who does a lot of local landscapes, and he said he often has to exaggerate the size of Mt. Baker in his paintings, compared with how it looks in a photo, to match the impression it makes in your mind when you see it.


The robin who was here a while back built this great nest, but now he doesn't seem to be living in it. I thought maybe my pottering around my flowers last weekend might have scared him off. Or maybe one of the neighborhood cats (two of whom I saw noticing his activity) ate him. Tonight I thought I saw him again. Hopefully he just moved into a tree.

Up close and personal

My dog.

Pentecost, May 11, 2008

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:1-4)

Where the birdies is

Yesterday in the early evening and this morning, I was sitting on the couch reading. I kept thinking I saw some fluttering, but when I looked up, I wouldn't see anything. Finally, I saw a robin with a lot of grass clippings in his beak. He seemed to be going to the upper deck, so I went upstairs, but saw no nest, so I figured he was nesting in our pin oak tree. But later I went to look at my own plants and discovered the beginnings of a nest on this drainpipe under the floor of the upper deck:



In the center of this picture is the householder. Click on the picture to see it larger. (Use the "Back" button on your browser to come back to this page.) Besides showing the robin, it also shows how gray the sky was today.

Later in the afternoon, the nest was quite a bit larger:

I'm interested in watching the process, although I'm concerned that when I water and move my potted plants I'll disturb the birds and possibly make them abandon the nest. I'm also concerned that cats could fairly easily get to this nest. We get a lot of cats in our yard, trying to catch the birds at our feeders and bird bath. They would just have to climb the posts of the deck and reach out, or even see if the drainpipe could support their weight.

My dad is disgusted by the idea that the birds will make a mess on the lower deck. I don't mind. After they leave, we can clean it off and get rid of it. I'd like to see the baby birds hatch and grow. We'll see what happens.

More plants

I filled the last half whiskey barrel. It's on the shady side of the deck and has shade loving plants in it. In the center, a calla lily--such a regal flower. Around the sides, some pink and white variegated leaf plants, and some lobelia with light blue and white flowers. If all goes well, the lobelia will eventually trail over the edges of the pot.

Two hanging baskets at the end of the deck have lobelia with dark blue flowers at the edges and a vibrant red begonia in the middle.

And I planted the second French lavender I bough the other weekend. It is in the foremost pot below.

For my folks

On the upstairs deck, attached to the part of the house where my parents live, I put some plants for their viewing pleasure.

Both pots have geraniums of a pretty white and mauvey-purpley color, and one has light purple spreading flowers, the other white ones (snowdrops).

New developments

The verbena in the pot with the contorted filbert is getting some blooms. Isn't that a pretty flower?


I bought this sun sculpture for two reasons. The first is that it cost $4, while everything else in the same bin was over $20. The other is that I often doodle faces that combine the profile and front view, as does this object. The combination must be important to my unconscious.

A terrible beauty

As far as I know, this, Mt. Baker, is where Kevin LaFleur left this life and entered God's presence. He went to climb Baker Saturday, April 26, his friends realized he was missing on Monday, April 28, when he didn't come to work, friends and rescue workers searched for him most of the week, when the weather on the mountain permitted it, but Saturday, May 3, the Sheriff's Department suspended the ground search. I heard at church today that some friends were making a final attempt today to find any trace of him, but I have not heard that they found anything.

We, his church family, and also his own family and all his friends are left to assume that he died up there. People at church were crying as we prayed for his family and friends and for the searchers. He is a loss to our congregation, that's for sure. I feel so sorry for his family not to know the circumstances of his death or where his body lies. We know that his soul is with God.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:7-8, 16b

Ascension Day, May 1, 2008

Ascension Day is possibly the most overlooked church holiday in American Evangelicalism. It is always on a Thursday; it is 40 days after Easter and 10 days before Pentecost, both of which are always on Sundays.

Here's what happened:

When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God. (Luke 24:50-53)

After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"

He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. "Men of Galilee," they said, "why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven." (Acts 1:3-11)

Here's why we care:

Heidelberg Catechism

Q & A 46
Q. What do you mean by saying, "He ascended to heaven"?
A. That Christ, while his disciples watched, was lifted up from the earth to heaven and will be there for our good until he comes again to judge the living and the dead.

Q & A 49
Q. How does Christ's ascension to heaven benefit us?
A. First, he pleads our cause in heaven in the presence of his Father. Second, we have our own flesh in heaven—a guarantee that Christ our head will take us, his members, to himself in heaven. Third, he sends his Spirit to us on earth as a further guarantee. By the Spirit's power we make the goal of our lives, not earthly things, but the things above where Christ is, sitting at God's right hand.

Q & A 50
Q. Why the next words: "and is seated at the right hand of God"?
A. Christ ascended to heaven, there to show that he is head of his church, and that the Father rules all things through him.

Q & A 51
Q. How does this glory of Christ our head benefit us?
A. First, through his Holy Spirit he pours out his gifts from heaven upon us his members. Second, by his power he defends us and keeps us safe from all enemies.

Pray for the Lost

And I mean that in a literal, physical way. A dear young man from my church is missing on Mt. Baker. Pray that a friend or rescuer will find him and save him.

I am keeping in my mind the picture of Jesus the Shepherd who persistently searches until he finds the lost sheep that he loves. I'm praying, "Jesus, save Kevin."

What rejoicing there will be if Jesus carries Kevin on his shoulders back to the family and church family who love him.

New Link

I've added a link on the right to Stuff Christians Like, which seems to be written by a likeable, intelligent guy with a good sense of humor, some insight, and withal a great love for God's people. I found it through a link on a blog by a first cousin once removed.

New plants

I bought and planted some new plants on Saturday.

This one, I LOVE. It's a contorted filbert. The picture gives some idea. It's gnarly! Around the bottom are verbena, which will get purple flowers.In the front, biggest pot, is heliotrope. I first bought this because I heard my Grandma Kok loved it. It reminds me of lilac, with the purple flowers and sweet scent. To the left in the smallest pot is a celebration rose. I have never had this before. I can only go by the picture on the label what the flowers will look like. I try a few new things every year to see if I like them. If I do, I repeat them in future years. Behind those two are ones I put up pictures of before, a peppermint and some pansies.
This is the celebration rose up closers.
This is a French lavender. I bought it because at the nursery my sister in law was holding several of them, and I could smell how wonderful they smelled from a couple feet away. I bought two. I have to get a good enough pot for the other one. The leaves look fern-like, very pretty.

Plants and more

These half whiskey barrels have impatiens in the middle and creeping jenny around the edges. These are shade-loving flowers, and the barrels are under the upper deck. The creeping jenny will grow over the edges of the barrels and trail down, and it will get little yellow flowers. The impatiens, which are "double" impatiens with rose-like blooms in a hot pink will fill the centers. I forget the official names of these, also for the shady side of the deck; the folk name is something like "stained glass windows." The leaves are green around the edges with a deep, dark red in the middle. If a freezing temperature is predicted, I'll have to put them in the shed before nightfall. Once frost danger is past, I'll put them on the cement retaining wall around the deck.
This is my view when I sit just outside my door on the sunny side of the deck.
I bought this sign to hang on the house wall above a little bench just outside my door.

Obligatory cute puppy picture

Just because . . .

. . . he's so darn cute.

Backsliding weather

The weather has not stayed as springlike as Saturday. They say that this Saturday will be 30 degrees cooler than last Saturday. I'm hoping they are wrong.

Various plants

These are the ivy and the creeping jenny that will grow around the manneken pis to hide his plumbing. Both are survivors from last year. Peppermint. Just planted the baby plant on Saturday.
The herb barrel. I took out the parsley, which had become overgrown. What remains are sage, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and tarragon.

Pansies and Petunias: Purples

Purple pansies in a ceramic pot. I love the center, so dark purple it's almost black, and then the little circle of yellow. Multicolored pansy. Yellow with purple veins, and purple or mauve, with purple-black middle, and again the yellow center.
The multicolored pansies viewed from the side of the wooden shoe planter.
Spreading petunias. Again, hoping that later pictures will show incredible growth. The blooms are supposed be--what else?--purple. In the middle of the barrel planter, a clay bird.

Fuchias: Four times four

Yeah, I know--they all look alike. However, I have four baskets with four fuchsia plants in each one, so here are the pictures, one of each basket.

One reason to take the picture is for contrast. I hope that later in the summer these fuchsias will be cascading luxuriously over the sides of the baskets, and it will be hard to believe they were ever this small.

Potting

In terms of weather, Spring really arrived today. It was warm and sunny, a little windy in the morning, but in the afternoon just delightful. I bought some potting soil and potted some plants that I bought earlier this week. I do container gardening on my deck.

I used four hanging baskets I had last year and put four fuchsia starts in each, then I made two pots with pansies and one with peppermint. In a half-barrel, I put four starts of spreading petunias. I have not grown petunias before; we'll see how they do. I trimmed back some creeping jenny, and cut back a tea rose that gave forth quite a few whiteflies as I worked. I fertilized all my new plants, plus the six lavender I still have from last year, the herbs in a half barrel (I pulled out the parsley because it was overgrown, leaving sage, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and tarragon). The last thing I did before going indoors was spray the tea rose with vicious chemicals that I hope will get rid of the whitefly. I also kept that pot a little away from the others in the hope the whiteflies will not infest everything else.

I have motivation to plant and tend my deck plants this season, because I know that later in the summer out-of-state siblings are going to visit. I like to make the deck a nice place to hang out when the family is going to get together. Years when I know that no one from out of state is coming, sometimes I still make a nice deck, sometimes not.

They say the weather will go back to cold and rainy tomorrow. We'll see. Anyway, those April showers, they bring the flowers that bloom in May, so it's not raining rain, you know, it's raining violets.

According to Wikipedia, the violet and the pansy are the same flower, or at least the pansy is a type of violet. I never knew that. I always thought violets were some flower that grew only in England, as it is in English novels that I have most often seen them mentioned. But I guess they just call pansies violets over there, or we call violets pansies over here. So I have actually grown many violets in my day without even knowing it.


In Little Women, Beth embroiders pansies on slippers for Mr. Lawrence, and in his thank you note he says that heart's ease is one of his favorite flowers. I love folk names for flowers.

And, I often remember when considering the term "pansy," in the first draft of Gone with the Wind, and up until quite close to publication, Scarlett's name was Pansy. Can you imagine? Another literary Pansy is Isabel Archer's step-daughter in Henry James's Portrait of a Lady. In her case, the name is appropriate.

My birthday suit

This is me in the outfit I bought on Saturday. I bought it with a Macy's gift certificate from my boss, which she gave me for my birthday last week. Not too shabby, huh?


My family and I were celebrating my 47th birthday, which occurred last week.

I remember when I was teaching a few years ago, one of my students asked me on my birthday how old I was. When I told her (I must have been about 43 or 44) she apologized for asking. I don't have too much of a thing about age. I was born at the time God appointed for my birth, so my current age must be the right one for me now.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
(Psalm 139:13-18)

There's comfort.

Spring and the renewal of life

This week I saw my first dandelion. I think that was about Wednesday or Thursday. Since then, I've seen more. And some yellowish-green leaves are starting to come out on trees. That makes me think of the Robert Frost lines, "Nature's first green is gold, / her hardest hue to hold." I learned those lines from a movie that was out when I was in college. I think it was called The Outsiders. The boys in it were supposed to be the poor, socially disadvantaged boys in a high school, and I think one of them dies tragically. One of them, perhaps the doomed one, quotes that poem. As I recall they were played by extraordinarily good-looking young actors.

It was based on one of those books teenagers are supposed to like, all about how miserable adolescence is, often with drug use and unwanted pregnancies thrown in. I hated those kinds of books. I liked romance novels, particularly the works of Georgette Heyer. When I read, I did not care to escape into some school setting even more miserable than my own. I preferred to go someplace more pleasant.

Anyway. What I meant to say is that spring is progressing; days are longer, more flowers are blooming, trees are budding, all that good stuff.

And today I bought a new outfit and two new pairs of shoes. These are the shoes. Tomorrow I'll wear the new outfit to church. It's black pants and a black top with a white inset, so I'll wear the black shoes with it.



I really like loafers, and that's what the brown shoes are. The black shoes are sort of Mary Jane-ish, but they have a little design cut into them.

That reminds me of a pair of shoes I had in high school. I guess some trends are coming around again. Both shoes are Hush Puppies, which reminds of that song, "I got my Hush Puppies on, I guess I never was made for glitter rock and roll."

And it's good to get new clothes in the spring. It's part of that renewal thing that's going on.