A Day of Mourning

I neglected to mention that the town has lost one of it's citizens. Mr. Alfred Carroll passed away the other day after a long, hard battle with cancer. Mr. Carroll owns one of the big ranches around here, and we attended church with several of his children, and one child is the superintendent of schools here in Lytle. Please be in prayer for his family.

Yesterday, was 9 months since my dad passed away. I find it very lonely, though I have sisters, a brother, a mother, grandmothers, and assorted relatives still around. My dad called me every day or so, to check on me, and I called to check on him. I miss that...

**************************************
I have been feeling quite depressed lately, from a mixture of things. The house not selling, not getting to move as quickly as I wanted, and stress from family members. I have been to the point of crying, and I never really cry this easily, but the past year has been tough on my emotions (yes I have them.)

Sunday the Pastor asked us to seriously commit to depending on the word of God, including reading it on a daily basis. A handful of the congregation came down front to publicly commit to do this, and to be held accountable.

I didn't really know what to read this morning, and all of a sudden, I heard this voice in my head to read Psalms 20. Here is what is says in verses 1-2.

"May the Lord answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion."

In verse 4: "May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed."
Verse 5b: "May the Lord grant all your requests."

These verses and other readings help me to feel better, and motivate me to get moving today. I feel very weepy, and sluggish, and I just want to stay in bed. Sometimes, I am overwhelmed by the sheer futility of life. I'd love to be a hermit, as long as, I had books, I'd be just fine.

Recently I also found the Book of Common Prayer. This is a book for the Episcopal Church, but I have read about it for years in a variety of biographies on the Puritans, Susannah Wesley, and others. I located it at the FEAST home school, used book room for $2.00, and thought I'd get it. It is actually a very good book, with all sorts of written "prayers" and suggestions for scripture.

What I like about it is that is has been used for worship for almost 400 years. (I like old things). The Marriage service and the order of worship for funerals, baptisms and ordinations are contained in the book. Very useful for the future for sure. I have my paperwork to perform marriages from the State, though of course I am not a Pastor. I don't believe in women as Pastors, but it might come in useful in the future, if needed.

Update:

It's the end of the day, and I thought I'd just update what has happened today, I have a bad memory, and this helps.

Candi arrived around lunch time. We looked through a few textbooks that I had bought at FEAST for homeschooling. We then headed out to the land for lunch. We had sandwiches and sat at the table under the umbrella, while the kids rode the four wheeler, and the garden tractor. The guys fished a little.

One of my hens was "murdered" by her own family. I don't really know which chicken did it, as it's pretty quiet in the coop. The even stranger thing happened, when I came back to bury the chicken this evening (we had to leave so Candi could get home to start supper), the chicken was GONE! It had to be a hawk, buzzard or coyote that took it. My money is on the hawk. We have LOTS of them on the property.

Lauren actually spent about an hour up at the road, sitting on her four wheeler with binoculars looking at the red tailed hawks. Her dad went with her to ride closer to them, but of course the noise of the four wheeler scared them into flight. I need to take my camera, and take a picture of all of them. They sure do love to sit on the ground under the trees. Haven't been able to find any pellets yet, but we are still looking. Lauren saw an owl too in the tree, she said. I'll go look another time, and look for pellets from it too. (FYI: pellets are the regurgitated bones, etc., that a bird of prey cannot digest. Finding the pellets is great, as you can open it up, and see exactly what the bird ate. Normally, you can buy these from a Science supply house, but if I can find them lying around, why not?)

I spent the evening weeding the garden with a hoe, and moving the watermelon runners to head another direction. They are overtaking the garden, and I want them off of my other veggies. I need to hoe another large area, and plant more green beans. I also planted some Yarrow in the large container, that is housing my St. John's Wort.