Saturday, March 5, 2011

"...Your faithfulness reaches to the skies..."

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. How great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies." Psalm 57:9-10

So many people ask how I am and I say, I am fine. They say would you tell us if you were not fine? I say, I might. Honestly, I do not hurt except for the raw sores on my legs which itch and hurt, especially when I GO CRAZY SCRATCHING. But there is no pain in my abdomen. Is there really a cancer there? I imagine there is not and the whole thing is a bad dream. Well, anyway, that is all the truth.

Back to what I used to do---I have always loved chickens and usually all my life played with them, helped catch them, gotten in the eggs, and used the empty chicken house as by play house...no wonder I have these tiny black specks in my lungs (histo plasmosis). But also I have read that most people in middle Tennessee have this because of living in a "basin" that is full of birds. I have told about our experience with our first chicken house after we married and the chicken being killed. Years later, our daughter was in the Future Farmers at school and she had chickens as her farm project. We had about two dozen, and a rooster who was such a mean one and strutted all over the chicken yard all day and would try to attack with his spurs if you got near him. At night, when they were on the roost, I could go in and pet him and he would just "cuddle" and be so sweet, but he had to have his image in the day time! Well our neighbors hunting dogs got in the chicken yard and killed several and when we ran them out, the others were so traumatized, they could not even stand up. So we organized a line of tables and several of the family killed, got the feathers off, and cut up the chickens and put them all in our freezer. That meat was so tough, we could hardly eat it because (we found out later) they were so scared! So we have not had any more chickens. I will always miss them, having fresh eggs, fresh chickens, although we could not kill them now... that is not a favorite job!

We have been so blessed over the years with opportunities to do so many things,and to expose our children and grandchildren to so many experiences. God is so faithful! One of our "greats" spent some time here tonight and we have such fun, talking to her. She recently got to go to the Tennessee Museum and saw the SAME mummy cat and man there that we saw 60 years ago. Don't you love continuity! Thank you God for giving me life to be with our babies!

1 comment:

  1. Barbara Johnson-ClarkMarch 6, 2011 at 4:36 PM

    Hi Bev,
    The girls were worried that they saw John without you this morning at church. I assured them that you were in a ladies class somewhere, but I didn't think you were home sick. They pray for you, and they worry about you. (I do, too.)

    I've got a funny chicken story. We'll call the people Bob and Betty, but you know these friends at church. A few years back Betty told her sons to go out and move the chicken pen and clean and then move it back. It didn't have a bottom. While moving it, the boys got into a fuss and dropped the chicken pen on two of the chickens' legs and broke them. Upon seeing what they had done, Betty went wailing into the house and called Bob. His very matter of fact answer was, "Kill the chickens. We can eat them for dinner." But Betty couldn't do this. She thought this out as we women are likely to do, and she got some plastic table forks, took the handles and taped the chickens' legs to them for splints. Those hens' legs healed up nicely, and they were soon back to walking and laying again. When Betty told the story at our Care Group, she said, "Well I just couldn't kill those birds; they were my best layers!" So I guess the moral to this story is, if you want someone to keep you around a long time, be very good at what you do. (-:

    Much love to John and you, and I wish you a week of itchless days!
    Barbara

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