Winter walks

Our February has held many sunny, although still cool days. Often on a sunny day, I will call one of my neighbors, MaryLou, to go walking with me. MaryLou, a retired nurse & widow, is also in the Women's Neighborhood Bible Study that I teach. So she often asks me questions about the homework as we walk. Her background is minimally Catholic. We usually are dog-walking, as well. I have Ari, our mid-aged golden retriever, on a leash & MaryLou dog sits a lot, so has a variety of dogs on her leash. In this photo, she was dog-sitting a little dog named Zippy. We walk up & down the steep hills in our area, which act almost like a treadmill for us. The scenery is great & we get our vitamin D for the day.

Strengthening my core...

A year ago I was experiencing enough sciatica on my right side to give me motivation to try something new to help my lower back. I began taking a semi-private pilates class once a week with Kate J. in the blue top below. Pilates slowly increases your flexibility & strengthens your core muscles, which in turn take the stress from your lower back. A year later, I am now without the sciatica, am much more flexible & have started a second pilates class. It is a mat pilates class that the club gives free to the members, but it is much harder than working out on the "reformer" above or the "cadillac" below. The exercises include a lot of stretching, but also include push-ups, pilates sit-ups done very slowly & other exercises that make me break out in a sweat as I do them. As I have continued the semi-private classes, I have been praying for Kate & Elaine, the other student - a fifty year-old, second grade teacher. God has also been impressing on me I Timothy 4:8...bodily exercise profits a little, but is temporal. Exercise in godliness profits for eternity. So I have asked Him to give me exercises in that area as well. It's kind of like asking God for patience, however. Exercises that build the fruit of the Spirit & help me die to my "camel, old nature" also make me break out in a sweat. I leave my comfort zone, yet strengthen my real core...my character that I will live with for eternity.

Those darn cats!

Shadik's latest fieldmouse catch that she proudly carried to our back door.

Shadik, now between 10-11 months old, enjoys basking in the sun on our porch. She still loves nothing more than stalking & jumping on her rival for my affection. Yes, these were both my daughter's cats. However, my being the one who feeds them & pets them & just spends time with them...has done its work. They now consider me "their person". If you look closely at Rachel, the middle-aged cat of 12-13 human years, you can see where bits of her fur have been pulled out by Shadik or herself. When stressed, Rachel reaches around & pulls out bits of her own fur. She leaves these all over the house for me to notice. It bothered me until I recalled that some cats urinate all over the house when they are stressed. I'll take Rachel's bad habit any day over that, especially since her favorite napping place is on the comforter on our bed! We declawed Rachel years ago when she had nearly demolished Esther's bedroom door by using it as a scratching post. She totally ignored the official, carpeted scratching post that we had bought for her. So she is in a handicapped position when Shadik pounces on her. She tries to "psych. out" Shadik with loud hissing & growling, but Shadik figured out months ago that Rachel is fairly defenseless. Louis will not let me take Shadik to be declawed yet. She scratches the furniture, like our piano below, when she misjudges a leap. She has made most of our upholstered furniture her scratching posts, despite the catnip-odor on her official post. Rachel likes that odor more than Shadik & can be found rolling herself around on the post. Louis remembers the blustery day that Shadik was chased up one of our tallest pines by a coyote. We couldn't find her in the dark & windswept rain. We were convinced the coyote must have eaten Esther's kitten. The next day after church, while it was still raining, we finally located her by a tiny mewing coming from the tiptop of the tree. Her claws had to be sore after hanging on to the swaying top for hours and hours. She looked so teeny, being sopping wet. Louis used our longest ladder to get about a third of the way up the tree, his bow-hunting apparatus to winch himself up another third of the way & finally coaxed her down to him from there. After this very long hour of fear for Shadik & himself, he is anxious that no animal finds her outside defenseless. Her small teeth would be overmatched by those of a fox or coyote.

However, Shadik has found worthy prey herself. She has caught numerous fieldmice & now is catching these darling little birds that fly around our horse & sheep water troughs. When they land for a drink, they make themselves vulnerable to Shadik if she is outside. I like her catching the mice, but not the lovely birds. She even caught a hummingbird already! I have such a love-hate relationship with these two cats.

My Shomer/Guardian

The fallen bull pine, viewed from the back of our barn, after Jon, our neighbor, had sawed off the limbs & part of the trunk.


God is my Guardian! Twice this week I have seen how God is constantly watching over me to protect both me & my property. "Shomer" is the Hebrew for guardian & shows up in verses like Psalm 121:3-8. "ADONAI will guard you against all harm; He will guard your life. ADONAI will guard your coming & going from now on & forever."

Our neighbors to the south have a very tall, but very dead, bull pine tree close to our fenceline. We have been afraid for almost two years that it would blow over in one of our strong windstorms. Its location gives it a 50% chance of taking out our electric fencing & about a 20% chance of hitting our garage/barn. This time of year, our horse & sheep hang out around the back of that barn because that is where they are protected from the wind & also where we feed them twice a day. If the tree fell toward the barn, it would most likely fall on one or more of our animals as well. We had mentioned to the neighbors that it would be wise to cut the tree down before it fell of its own accord. That way one could control the direction of its fall. Our neighbors had finally decided to cut it down this Spring. Friday night one of those horrendous windstorms hit our area. It spread pieces of branches & dead pine needles all over our lane & front lawn. It also snapped that tree. God had it fall parallel to our fenceline, where it didn't hit a thing. Jon, our neighbor, was out with his chainsaw yesterday. As he chopped limbs off the tree for firewood & began to also saw up part of the trunk, I told him how thankful we were that God had protected our property. Jon said he had been up on his roof Saturday morning straightening & repositioning his TV antenna. He happened to glance our direction & noticed the tree stump. He couldn't see much else for the rest of the trees in between. He got weak-knees & almost fell from the roof in his dismay that the tree might have damaged our fence, barn or animals. Jon sent up a quick prayer & scrambled down to walk over & get a better look. He was so relieved, that he shared God's wondrous sovereign protection as a praise on Sunday morning.

Yesterday the thought, " I really need to change my oil," kept running through my mind. Have you had an obsessive thought like that? "I really must change my oil today." I can easily push something like that to the back of my mind & agenda. It was one of those sunny, blue sky days that just begged you to come out & soak in some Vit. D. I finally obeyed the urge. Chris, the owner of the Lube station that I frequent about every three months, came to the waiting area about ten minutes after I had surrendered my keys & Yukon. He said the seals on my front axle were leaking & hardly any fluid was left. He advised that I get this repaired quickly, as I could end up losing my ability to steer my car at an inopportune time. Finding out that he could do the repair & that my budget would allow it, I told him to go ahead. His daughter drove me to the athletic club so I could swim my half-mile while he worked on the Yukon. Megan returned to pick me up a couple hours later. Chris guided me over to where the Yukon was still up on the rack. "You are one fortunate woman," he said. "See how the inner parts of both your front tires are worn down to the core, whereas the rest of the tread looks almost new? That clued me in that your seals were the least of your problems. See how the Pitman arm & Idler arm are worn & extremely loose? Have you had any steering problems?" I had not noticed any problems, but could see what he was showing me. Evidently, God has protected me from a sudden cessation of any control of the Yukon via the steering wheel. The obsessive thoughts were His way of drawing my attention to an accident waiting to happen.