DOWNSIZING

Photo courtesy of www.cbc.ca

My wife has a small house cleaning service.

Most of her clients, customers, employers, have been with her for years.

She has noticed a strange thing.

Many of these when they get an empty nest, or retire, decided it's time to "downsize" their house.

What puzzles her is that nearly every time the house ends up being

Bigger.

Photo courtesy trendingcelebrities.blogspot

BARBED WIRE TREES

Barbed wire trees.
One of the oddities of the evolutionary process.

You know how trees are.  Apple trees produce apples.  Pear trees produce pears.  And nut trees produce nuts.  As expected barbed wire trees produce barbed wire.  As with other trees, the fruit does not resemble the tree it's self.

Barbed wire trees differ in one respect.  Like maple syrup comes from the trunk of the tree.  Barbed wire comes out of the trunk of the tree also.

Barbed wire trees are one of the latter developments on the evolutionary scale.  You do not need to go back even one million years to find their origin.  In fact, scientist have not found any evidence of a barbed wire tree before about 1865 to 1873 A.D.

Further, barbed wire trees seem to be falling out of the evolutionary process.  All wise mother nature has seen there is less and less need for producing barbed wire as our world becomes more urbanized.  So barbed wire trees are becoming a real rarity.  I consider my self fortunate to have a few on my property.

Above is a two strand species.
On my place I have found one, two, four and five strand species.  But that is in only about one hour of searching time.  No doubt there are some of the missing species also if I will but be diligent in my searching.

The picture above is one of four strands coming out of a four strand species. The barbed wire is of the old rust colored style barbed wire.

The picture below is one of the most productive of all the barbed wire tree species.  It is a five strand species tree.

"The fool hath said in his heart,
There is no God."

THE OLD FOSSIL

THE OLD FOSSIL

No that is not me.

It is better looking than I am and better preserved.

Just another one

The picture below is the area the fossils were found.  With out trying very hard I have found at least half a dozen fossils in an area of about 40' X 40'.  Most of these are (were) sea shells.

Now what were sea shells doing on top of a hill about fourteen hundred feet above sea level and four hundred miles from the closest sea?

Believe it or not,

"And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark and it was lift up above the earth.  And the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth, and the ark went upon the face of the waters.  And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth;  and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven were covered."
-Genesis 7:17-19 (KJV)

GUIDANCE

O.K.  

So it's a rabbit.  But what is the big deal?

Well!  The great granddaughter wanted a bunny.

So that is a command to grandpa, is it not?

I have raised rabbits on and off for years.

I have bought and sold rabbits.

I may not be smart about rabbits, but I have learned a little.

All rabbits do not make good pets.

We planned on going to the live stock auction in the neighboring county.

This old man was not about to pay the price a pet shop asks for 

and unknown quality rabbit.

Prayer time.

I ask God to go ahead of us and have the right rabbit for us.

To prepare the way and give us a good rabbit for the kids.

You know,

"Trust in the Lord with all you heart,

and do not rely on your own insight.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight you paths."

-Proverbs 3:5,6 (RSV)

At the sale grandpa was able to come up with enough money ($7.00)

to let the granddaughter take her pick out of a large cage fully of rabbits.

I never in my life have seen a rabbit adapt so quickly to a new life.

Even on the way home in the kids laps.

Below is Jordin holding "Dude".

END OF A HARD DAY

I know how that feels.

Been there and done that.

It's either hard work or old age.

But a good night's rest seemed to fix it.

It latter made the 1.7 mile over to my place and graded

my drive way.

Thank God for healed road graders.

THE LEADER

"... and a little child shall lead them."

My great grand daughter leading grandpa in Bible study.

Praise God. It was her idea.

Lead on girl.

THAT'S THE WAY LIFE IS.

VACATION TIME

Even a grandpa and grandma need a vacation.

That of course is time to "poke around" some place out of the rut.

We have pets. "Granny" has a cat, dog and even wanted

chickens. I'm down to one rabbit.

The beautiful part about pets is,

they need care, CONSTANT care.

So someone had to stay home and take care of

the critters.

Guess who?????

So,

that thing below is what granny used to

poke around on while I stayed close to the house.

Granny "Poked Around" on that thing in;

Miami, Cancun, Belize, Honduras and Grand Cayman.

The thing below is what grandpa poked around on.

Hey, that's the way life is.

Grandpa poked around in Washington and Madison counties.

But the critters got fed.

This is one of the places that granny poked around.

And this, of course, is where grandpa poked around.

I have no idea what this stuff is. But that is the kind of stuff that

granny found while she was "poking around".

And this is the kind of stuff that grandpa found while he was

"poking around"

That's just the way life is.

At least I found a couple of good pieces of pipe and that

old microwave oven. (Already made something out

of the oven.)

Am I complaining?

Not on your life.  The Scriptures say,

"A man can inherit a house and money

from his parents,

but only the Lord can give him a sensible wife."

-Proverbs 19:14 (GNB)

And God gave me a dandy wife.

Love that woman.

Ladies are first you know.

But that's the way life is.

PS.

You know how men love to go shopping with their wives!

I did not have to wait outside of one store while she shopped.

Isn't God good?