One filled with joy preaches without preaching.
~ Mother Theresa

Today is my 52nd birthday and, OH! How I wish... and hope... and pray that I can be that person.

I can't get that scene out of my mind. ...The one from "Grey's Anatomy" Sunday evening. I do that with movies a lot; there are scenes that I can't get out of my head and I analyze it and replay it until I can make sense of it. It's why I don't watch horror movies and it's why I don't watch "ER" anymore. When TV drama leaves one with a sick feeling then why watch it? I could even tell you the episode that caused me to stop watching "ER", that left me so disturbed, but that's another story and I am talking about "Grey's Anatomy" right now.

Here's what happened. There had been a horrible train wreck. Most of the victims had died in the crash and the hospital was all-hands-on-deck for all of the trauma victims being brought in with horrible injuries like amputations and burns. There was one pair, strangers until this incident, that had a long pole that had impaled them and pinned them close together , face to face. They were both conscious and in some discomfort but no pain (shock, our body's response to "This pain would be too much for you too endure."?)

The victims were joking with one another & the staff, trying to make the best of the situation, as their predicament was being evaluated ("does anyone have a breath mint? & "my wife would be jealous of me being this close to another woman but today I think I'll get a pass") The man's wife and the woman's fiance were on their way, flying in, but bad weather wa keeping them from arrival.

The surgical team examined their x-rays to see what kind of internal injuries there were and discovered that both were in deep trouble with sever internal injuries. If the pole were removed both would surely die, bleed out before the surgery team could even get them on the table. Someone suggested that if a person were removed form the pole, instead of vice versa, the other person would have a chance as they could then work on the one impaled person as they removed the pole...I guess. The woman's injuries were so severe, being to the heart, that it was belived there was no chance for her. There was a brief argument that her injuries, being more severe, should be the one saved, in the hopes that he might be able to survive the removal if they worked quickly enough. After discovering that she had no feeling in her toes that she was not goin to survive no matter what they did and that she should be the one removed. The surgical team went in to tell the patients the situation.

They were kind and caring and obviously saddened. Both patients were stunned. He was horrified and demanded that they take him instead, but the doctors explained that then they would lose them both. It was so unfair, he said. Oh, she was so brave! She said it would not be fair either way. She understood the situation. There was some more converstion...about what to tell her fiance. She asked Tom if he believed in heaven, by now she was leaning heavily on him, laying her head on his shoulder, and he said confidently "Yes". He asked if she did, she answered "I want to".

Snow was all over the Sunday evening weather forecast. Predictions of 6-8 inches or even more for our area were being made on every channel. It would begin Monday afternoon beginning with rain then sleet then the fast & furious arrival of wet snow, accumuating quickly.

There was excitement in the air Monday morning. We might be in for one crazy day, as only someone working in the business of education can understand. The wind was blowing like mad all day. At one point the gigantic pole vault pillow over at the football field was lofted into the air and over the fence. It blew across the road and into the front yard of the school. The first and second grad classes watched it fly and some were frightened there was a tornado coming. But there was no tornado, no snow either. Just a bit of sleet off and on. The kids' hopes for an early out were squelched but the predictions were still coming in from all media that we were in for a horrible snow storm...the time of which kept creeping slowly later and later.

We were sure to have a snow day on Tuesday and everyone really got their hopes up. It began to rain in the evening and then more sleet. But there was no early morning call from the phone tree telling us that school was off and there was were no school district names scrawling across the bottom of the TV programs. It all went North of us..except a pitiful inch or less. How disappointed we all were children and teachers alike. We have Spring Fever one and all!

So I drug myself downstairs after a quick glance out of the window to get my cup of coffee and get my mind right for the day ahead. It all seemed like a cruel joke. They had been so sure! There had been no waffling, no maybes, no "if"s. I was pouting, I think, as I dressed and heade out the door.

Well, it was pretty, I had to admit. What a first day of Spring this was. We had such gorgeous weather last week! The crocuses were blooming and the forsythias. Daffodils were close to blooming as well. Oh, how we all needed that sick day/snow day to help with our Spring Fever.

But as I drove up our gravel road, as happens to me so often, I began to notice the beauty all around me. Yes, it was a very small and shallow snow but it sure was a beauty. And it was obviously a Spring snow. The kind that is wet and sticks to every thing it comes in contact with. Every tree branch, tall weed, and even the barb wire of the fences were highlighted with the snow. It was pure contrast with the dark wet branches and roads and the clean white snow clinging to the edges of everything.

I thanked God for reminding me that in all disappointments there is something beautiful and good if we look for it. How much more lovely and satisfying to the eye was this snow than if the first day of Spring with a miserable cold rain. It could have been that! and the snow will give the flowers a drink just as readily.

The hail smashed into the windshield and then splattered into a blob of slush that the windshield wipers quickly whisked away. They clattered against the Jeep as we drove to church. Zeke let me out at the door as I pulled my raincoat close and grabbed my hat to keep it on my head in the wind and rain. An icey marble hit me right on the knuckle and it hurt!

I praised God for the much, much needed rain after the dryest February in recorded history of this area. I also thanked him for slipping in that, much needed before the deluge, day of warmth and sunshine yesterday. By the time we left church the rain seemed to be winding down.

We headed out to lunch with the family and then split up to our varied destinations after. Beau and I were headed to the local retirement home with the church Youth Group to play Bingo. It was raining again and as we drove back on from the city we heard the first tornado warning. It was for the county which we had just departed but Angus and Zeke were still there shopping for shoes.

I met up with Sheila at the church where the Youth were to gather. It was still early. The rain was pouring down and there was more hail. Tornado warnings were sprouting up all around us but we didn't know it. We just stood staring out the big window at the storm. It eventually subsided and we headed over to Westbrook.

There were a couple of kids there already waiting for us and Beau and Sheila's daughter Courntey with us so we decided to go ahead with the fun. Two more kids showed up a few minutes later. Not a great turn out but under the circumstances; not too bad.

The old folks were gathered in a room just having been dismissed from "taking cover" during the last T. warning. They were not being allowed to leave this room because they were to keep gathered in case there was another warning...another storm was predicted to pop up right behind the first. We quickly set up some tables as the folks watched us half-interested. I wished I was somewhere else...like at home by the fire.

I was the caller as the kids sat at the tables with everyone else and played, too. It was quiet at first but after the first "Bingo" everyone began to loosen up. We had brought silly prizes and found that, just like with the kids, candy is the favorite!

I accidentally popped open the Bingo ball cage from which I was pulling out the numbers. The little numbered balls bounced all over the floor and that got a pretty good laugh as I scrambled around after them. We played about 45 minutes and by the end everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, including the teens that had shown up in spite of the storm! Most of the folks stopped to thank us as they headed off to their rooms and we cleaned up. The activities director thanked us as well, telling us how edgy the folks were about the storm and the possiblity of the tornado and how the Bingo had taken their mind off of their worries.

Sheila and I had almost canceled the trip when the storm was at its worst. It had seemed to be clearing off and we had been unaware of the Tornado Warning in our area, so, although delayed, we set out to see. God's timing is perfect and we got there just in time to do what was needed. We thought we were playing a silly game but in reality we were showing some worried people that there must be nothing to fear. God so often puts me in the right place at the right time!

Today was the year's first perfect early-Spring day. Part of the perfection was it's being a Saturday, a day for play-work instead of pay-work. I was up early and I could hear the birds singing and predicting the beauty of the day. I poured a cup of coffee and stepped outside. I was not disappointed..it was really here! Spring was in the air! I could feel it and smell it and hear it!

Angus fixed biscuits and gravy for the still morning-groggy boys while I made biscuits. He was anxious to get outside, too, and didn't even wait til breakfast was over. I saw him slip away and noticed him outside raking last autumn's leaves off of the back lawn. I cleaned up breakfact and wasn't far behind him. Cleaning out the shed was my goal but I soon found myself helping Angus with the leaves. I was annoyed with him for burning his pile of leaves instead of composting them and he suggested that I was welcome to come and take them wherever I wanted to. Beau helped me drag a tarp piled high with leaves up to the garden but I knew I wouldn't be able to make that trip many times. I took several more, smaller loads up the hill before I gave up and decided to just rake them into the creek. We finished the yard and were into the cleared part of the woods....the part that we mow once or twice a year to keep the underbrush from taking over. Angus wasn't even raking now just burning the leaves where they were. I was raking around all the trees as fast as I could before the tiny flames could singe them.

It was warm out but a gentle breeze was blowing enough to cool us a bit and keep the leaves burning. It felt good to work and be outside and to be with Angus and Beau. In my mind I could look at the blackened earth and see the grass that would grow from it with the rain that is expected tomorrow. I knew that as awful as it appeared right now in the weeks that followed the fire will have gotten rid of the dead leaves and brush and allowed for the rejuvenation of the grass that will be peaking through the ground in only a few days. I could imagine sitting on the back sipping my morning coffee and gazing into the cleared woods at the blankets of Sweet Williams, Wood Violets and the umbrellas of the May Apple leaves.

I thought how hard life seems sometimes and all looks so dark and dead and it looks as if there is no hope ahead. But, there is hope, even when it can't be seen... except in our imaginations or our dreams. And life begins to sprout some green again, soft and thin and weak at first but the love of our friends rains down on us and the love of our God shines down on us and soon we will grow stronger and thrive again and we know that there will be color in our lives again too.

I get philosophical when I work for fun and joy, using muscles that have grown winter soft and standing in soft smoke that twists up into the sky.... The first perfect Spring day of the year.

"We need to cook the turkey and free up some freezer space." Angus said. He was thinking about the fresh beef we will have next week when we have the steers butchered. He was thinking about Zeke coming home for 10 days of Spring Break this weekend. With all the boys home the turkey idea sounded great. Angus wanted to invite his parents as well...and, maybe, his nephew and wife. Okay, sounds good.

Hmmm, probably should invite his big brother. And his other brother, too. Oh, yes and he told me he also invited his sister. Then he'd have to invite his other sister even if it would be unlikely that she could make it. You can't invite everyone and not her (and her 5 big kids)! He was right of course. And Zeke invited his girlfriend (who ended up bringing a friend with her).

Somehow a nice little Sunday dinner with the family turned into a major cook-&-clean-all-weekend feast event. We weren't sure whether there would be 10 people or 20. We brought the long table up from the basement and more dishes...just in case. Dug out the tablecloths and the folding chairs, too.

We ended up with 13 family members gathered in holiday fashion on a regular ol' Sunday. There was barely enough food but much conversation and laughter and love. We discovered that there is as much to be thankful for around a big turkey dinner during Lent as there is in November.

We may just have begun a new family tradition!

There was a scritchy sound coming from the back deck. Angus told Beau to open the window and let SuzeeQ inside. Beau reached around behind him and raised the window just in time to see, not a sweet kitty, but the flash of a striped raccoon tail as it jumped from the deck to a nearby tree.

Now, that wouldn't be any big deal if it weren't for the fact that our just, almost, full-grown chickens are just, almost, to the egg laying stage of their lives.

Oh, we've had raccoon problems before! We finally gave up with chickens a couple of years before as the raccoons slowly picked off our flock one by one. Yes, raccoons are ominvores and cruel ones at that. They are crafty creatures and work at night which makes them tough criminals. Every now and then I'd hear that chicken-scream in the middle of the night. Didn't know chickens could scream? It isn't a pleasant sound to be awakened to...kind of a cross between a screech and a scream and a shocked one-last-cluck-for-life.

So we borrowed Lou's live trap this time. She has had similar problems protecting her chickens and has an awful story regarding a little kitten she had in her screened-in porch. Did you know raccoons can tear right through screening? They think that kittens are very tasty treats.

Anyway, Lou hates raccoons with a vengeance. So she bought a live-trap after the kitten vs. raccoon incident. She, like us lives on the edge of a woods. Her woods happens to connect to the woods of our local State Park so she has all kinds of wild life, mostly which is wonderful.

So...she loaned Angus her live-trap. It sat in our livingroom for a couple of days while the male members of the family checked it out and discussed their plan and figured out how the thing worked. Lou gave us some tips, for she has had success and failures with it. Did I mention how smart raccoons are? She said that she had the best luck using a hotdog for bait and that it must be tied securely at the back of the cage because those dang raccoons have a long reach and seem to know exactly where that triggering device is. She had one fellow that, with much jiggling of the cage, actually got the hotdog without triggering it. The guess is that he rolled the cage upside down so that the step-on trigger was above his head!

Angus decided that a peanut butter cracker would do since he had no hotdog handy. He put it out on the deck for two nights with no takers. I suggested that perhap the raccoon investigated the other night and finding no food but only humans frightening him away and being a smart animal, was not about to return. Maybe we shouldn't try to entice him back.

Unfortunately, by now he was in hunter-mode and faced the challenge. He tried again, this time setting the trap in the middle of the path at the edge of the woods. Now... keep in mind that Angus works nights so who do you think has to deal with a caged animal in the morning? That would be me. I mentioned this but he didn't seem too worried about it. I also queried him what he expected me to do with it, if caught....or a worse scenario, if it caught a SKUNK? The great white hunter had no ideas about that but, never-the-less set the trap out closer to the chicken coop.

I forgot all about it as I readied myself for work in the morning and said good-bye to Beau as he headed for school. Into the kitchen I went for one last cup of coffee before I headed out and rememberd the trap. I glanced out the kitchen window and there inside the cage was a possum pacing slowly back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He'd had his peanut butter breakfast and was ready leave.

I called Angus and told him that I wanted to let the little guy loose but I hadn't messed with the trap and needed advice on it before I let him escape. Angus didn't want me to set him free since possums are not chicken friends either but since I seemed determined he told me to wear gloves since possums can be mean. Of course I could only find one stiff old leather glove but set out to my job.

I could not figure out how to open that dang thing as the creature hissed and cowered! By now I was late for work. What to do? If I left it there our dog would surely harrass it all day and that seemed just plain cruel. I went in, found an old Indian blanket and threw it over the cage and headed out for work.

Later that afternoon Angus and Beau relocated Mr. Possum several miles away into a nice woods down the road. They had no difficulty. Mr. Raccoon is still at large.

It happens regularly that I am roused from slumber by the light of the full moon. It is a weird feeling to be awakened by that big white eye peering into my second floor window in the wee hours of the morning. When it first began happening it was eery but as it became familiar to me I began to welcome the oasis of calm and peace in the middle of the night when evrything feels soft and warm.

I wake and wonder why I have... and then I notice the light flowing in on me and see that beautiful moon through the branches of the tree outside my window. It always feels like a fresh cozy blanket gently spread over me. I feel like a child whose mother has slipped in late at night to check on me while I sleep. She sees that all is well and gently and lovingly brushes the back of her hand across my cheek as she leaves....awakening me just enough to feel her love for me before I slide back into my dreams.

I see that big old Moon Eye staring in and it always makes me think of God. It reminds me that he is always with me and that he does watch over me always. It reinforces for me the faith that, even when I forget about him, he remembers me. He's guiding me always to the right path, shining his light so I will not be lost in the darkness, leading me back when I've stumbled. And I feel peace.

Now, when the moonlight wakes me, I send up a grateful prayer. Sometimes it is just a few short words of thanks and other times it is a heartfelt plea for forgiveness and guidance. Always I fall asleep in God's arms for the rest of the night and wake in the morning rested and grateful for the new day.

I discovered a new thing about myself yesterday on my way to work; I still can't pass a puddle with a thin film of ice on it without tapping it with my shoe as I walk by. Some people just never grow up, even at 51 years of age.

CJ and Anah headed out yesterday. They will go down to visit Joey in Springfiled before leaving for Tucson. It will be a long drive but they are young and in love so the traveling will be an adventure. They were here for 9 days and did not wear out their welcome! That is a long time to have guests, I think, in a busy crowded home. Of course, they spent much of their time visiting friends and with Anah's family.

CJ can drive us crazy with his know-it-all attitude and we can drive him crazy for the same reason. We both tried to keep that in check and things went well. It was good to have him home. I hope the tradition will continue. We are fortunate that Anah's family lives in this town, too!