A Peaceful Spring

For those of you who know my friend Nancy Gray, you will appreciate her blog today. I have a link over there to the right side of this page. It's called Positively Indecisive and I highly recommend reading her. She used to write every day but has now fallen into sloven habits and just writes whenever she damn well pleases. I was encouraged this morning to find her writing about pretty much what was on my mind this morning. Anytime I find myself getting close to Nancy’s mind-set I consider it a great blessing from God.

So now I have to change it up for you and look at things a bit different today-- savor another flavor, if you will. When you are finished, go read Nancy and see how she looks at the idea.

I’m glad to have life return to our usual routine after having our granddaughters visit for their Spring Break week. They are the perfect age—seven and nine years old. They can look after their own needs and don’t wake up at 5 a.m. wanting food. Just give them a few electronic devices and leave them alone for the most part. But as happy as I am for the return to a mature lifestyle, I just enjoy the hell out of their visits.

Whenever we have them stay with us for more than a day or so at a time we call it Grand Camp and start the week out by making a list of what we want to do with ourselves. We ended up with about 15 things on the list and the only thing we didn’t get around to was bowling. Periodically we would have morning announcements so everybody could be clear what everyone wanted to do and how we would accomplish this. I like to keep things organized. No shabby camp here.

Things we did that Seemed Like Great Ideas at the Time:
1. Going to Six Flags during Spring Break.
What we learned: Though the weather was indeed pleasant it was just a really stupid idea. Just like the year we went in August and the park set a record for the hottest day on record, this week was probably the most crowded day ever. Our family has a knack for these things. You might consider us as a great resource. Watch us and do the opposite.
2. Sleeping out in a tent.
What we learned: It’s still too freaking cold at night.

Things that really were good ideas:
1. Making paper. Yes, we were making it out of paper scraps; in essence, making paper out of paper. But it was a great lesson on where things come from. And to my amazement, it worked.
2. Buying fish to put in the pond. We got a hundred fish. Fifty 6-inch catfish and 50 tiny Blue Gill the size of a quarter. The girls were fascinated to watch them swim off and can’t wait to try to catch them when they’re old enough. The fish, that is. The girls are old enough already. Except I don’t know what we’ll do if anyone catches a catfish. All agreed they look really nasty and no one wants to touch one. Now I’m wondering why on earth we bought them in the first place.

Life has been very quiet for me lately and I’ve come to enjoy it that way. I have started enjoying the serenity of life out here in the woods to the point where noise really bothers me now. So you can imagine how it felt to go to Six Flags Amusement Park on one of the most crowded days. I found myself not only noticing the noise but disturbed by it.

Back home I wanted to give the girls the experience of sleeping outside in the natural world. How many kids nowadays have the opportunity to sleep outside and without street noise—no sirens, no cars honking, no traffic hum. But as we lay there picking out the occasional sound of the wild; the owls, frogs, coyotes, and birds, all I could hear was a generator that powers some kind of oil or gas pump about two miles away and it bummed me out. That generator has been making this dull noise ever since we bought this land over twenty years ago so I know it’s never going anywhere. Then our new neighbors have put up a light on a pole. The first few times I saw it I thought it was a full moon rising. At least it’s not one of those really bright ones. It’s more of an orange glow. But it still unsettles me that this light is not going anywhere. I’ll have to live with the generator and the light—just when I was settling down to enjoy the quiet life.

I find myself wishing for more land farther away from civilization. Maybe a couple of hundred acres farther than 20 minutes from a gas station. Surrounded by undeveloped acreage. But that isn’t a very peaceful way to view the world, either. Just being content with what I have and where I have it is probably my next goal.