Surprise!

 

There are surprises that aren't so good. Like the huge spider that was in the kitchen sink when I went to get a drink of water last night.

But surprises can be great, too, like the year I turned 49 and Randy treated it like a big birthday. He invited our families to eat out and then go "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" at Music Theatre of Wichita. I didn't know anything about it until we got to the restaurant.

Another one of those good surprises? I found the photos from Lincoln, Nebraska, that I thought were deleted from my camera's memory card. The photo I took of Kinley on our brief stop in Topeka looks like she was dressed for a surprise party, doesn't it? (My Great Aunt Opal sent the birthday hat and some beads from a birthday party at Leisure Homestead. Our little princess loved the crown and the bling.)

The gazebo at the Sunken Gardens, Lincoln, NE

The photos weren't crucial. They weren't from a wedding or from a family reunion. But it wasn't like I could just go back to the Sunken Gardens or Antelope Park and take them again. I thought I was going to have to use my lower-quality cell phone photos for my report from the Great Plains UMC Annual Conference for the church newsletter. It was better than nothing, but I was still a little perturbed at myself for "losing" the photos.

So it was a happy surprise to find them! As I took this photo in the Sunken Gardens, I had thought about Randy's insistence that he wear K-State shirts to golf at Big Red Country courses while I was at the conference.

While I got lots of church business during the day, the gardens did their own "preaching," too.

All the world  is an utterance of the Almighty. 

Its countless beauties, its exquisite adaptations, 

all speak to you of Him. 

–Phillips Brooks, clergyman and author

This email devotional with the quote above arrived about the same time I found the photos.

 

God's "countless beauties" may be found in a Kansas wheat field ... or exploring perfectly-manicured gardens in a city.

I just have to take the path that opens my eyes to God's gifts all around me.

A Time to Act

Open your heart to the beauty that surrounds you.

(From the same email devotional)

 

A Time to Pray

Dear Lord, please help me to see the beauty of every day.

Today, I hope to see wheat harvest in action again after a three-day hiatus. Randy tried cutting yesterday afternoon and the wheat tested 19. But, with no rain overnight, we hope to be back to harvest mode this afternoon. I'll be taking photos of golden wheat again instead of golden roses.

Best-Laid Plans

Best-laid plans: I often have them.

They may be as meticulously plotted as an interstate highway. Or they may meander and shift like sand on a dirt road pummeled by the Kansas wind. But I like my plans and my lists. They just don't always work out as well as they do in my head. Know the feeling?

We spent last Tuesday night in Topeka. It was, admittedly, a roundabout way to get to Lincoln, Nebraska, for the Great Plains United Methodist Church annual conference. But there was a certain little girl who lives in Topeka that needed a visit from Grandma and Grandpa. Brent drove over from Manhattan, so we got to share a meal prepared by Jill and Eric and served under their backyard gazebo.

Then, Wednesday morning, I joined some 1,800 other lay delegates and pastors from United Methodist churches from every corner of Kansas and Nebraska.

Since it had rained, Randy went along for the ride. Actually, he drove the whole time, so I guess he went along for the "drive" ... in more ways than one. While I spent the time in meetings during the day, he "drove" little white balls across the landscape of three different Lincoln golf courses.

We ate at some fun places in Lincoln's historic Haymarket district. Thursday night, we went to the Sunken Gardens and Antelope Park, where I took dozens of photos. I posted one from Antelope Park to Facebook, but I thought I'd edit the rest of them and share the best ones after I got home.

I was trying to be a stellar church lay delegate and post photos from Pastor Ben's Friday night commissioning service to the Stafford United Methodist Church Facebook page. I accomplished that goal. 

But, in my efforts on an unfamiliar computer, I guess I erased the memory card. So my pictures of Kinley, the gardens and other snapshots of the conference are gone. As I told Jill (who is my anti-clutter preacher), she will have one fewer memory card to throw out one day.

So, I will have to be happy with the photos of Kinley I received by text last week. And I am.

Princess Kinley and her Royal Coach

Can you imagine what a sticky mess it is to feed a roomful of 2-year-olds watermelon?

My only scenic photo of Nebraska is the rainbow that I took on our way home on Saturday, which I also posted to Facebook.

But, that's OK. I'm back to the County Line, where we may not have Sunken Gardens or a rose garden. But it's beautiful, all the same, especially after more rain. We got 0.50" while we were in Lincoln and then 1.30" Saturday night into Sunday morning. So, it will likely be a couple of days before we try cutting wheat or get back into the hay field.

It may not be the lily pool at the Sunken Gardens. But it's beautiful, all the same.

The Season of Hope

It seemed fitting to return to the Holy Family Shrine near Gretna, Nebraska, on the first Sunday of Advent.

Earlier in the day, we'd watched a family light the first Advent candle at Jill & Eric's church, The Water's Edge, in Omaha.

It was the candle of HOPE. Their pastor, Dr. Craig Finnestad, began his Advent series by preaching on hope. He admits that the story of Mary and Joseph is pretty familiar to people of the church. But he added:

"It may be familiar, but nothing about this story is ordinary. It is a prophetic and powerful story that applies to all of our lives. It is a story about hope. We learn from this story how to get along with others in difficult situations. And we learn to trust God and His ways.

"One day, God looked at the world and knew a better way existed. So He became human and lived as one of us. The world hasn't been the same since. For the optimist, the sad, the exhausted, the young, the old, the sinner, the saint, the poet and the athlete - the only things God really gives us are rest, peace, joy, hope, love, grace, forgiveness, healing and salvation - which is just as well because those are the things the world really needs."

We stopped as we were on our way home, after spending the weekend with Jill & Eric.


On a cold, blustery day in late November, the scenery wasn't as vibrant and colorful as it had been on our first visit in June. But, in some ways, it was more timely as I kept thinking about the message of HOPE as we entered the Advent season.

The symbolism of the mother and child is prevalent at the shrine.

This statue was titled, "Root of Jesse." As a blossom is the glory of a flower, so is Jesus the glory and fulfillment of the line of King David. In the sculpture, Mary and the infant Jesus appear as parts of an abstract flower. The metal folds represent roots, stem and blossom. The roots are planted in the earth, shown as a hemisphere.

The sculpture was inspired by a poem:

Lo, how a rose e'er blooming.
From tender root hath sprung.
Of Jesse's lineage coming.
As men of old hath sung.
It came as a flow'ret bright
Amid the cold of a winter
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah was foretold it
The rose I have in mind.
With Mary we behold it.
The Virgin Mother kind.
To show God's love a'right
She bore to men a Savior
When half spent was the night.

It was the perfect way to spend an Advent afternoon before a long ride home. There, with my family, the season of Advent truly began anew for me.


And I felt that glimmer of anticipation, separate from the huge to-do list of gifts to buy and goodies to make.

Bring on the season of HOPE!

Different Perspectives

In its purest form, the flight of a golf ball carries
the human spirit with it.

Soaring hopes. Rising aspirations. Lofty goals.

Against the winds of adversity, over the nagging doubts of the mind,

above the gravitational pull of earthbound struggles,

the flight of the golf ball symbolizes man's greatest achievements
or his greatest disappointments.

Randy might buy that little blurb in The Prairie Club's Yardage booklet.

I prefer Mark Twain's view of golf:

Golf is a good walk, ruined.

Mark Twain

I tried golf. Randy bought me my own set of secondhand, left-handed clubs. But I was bad at it ... really bad.

And, as a lifelong perfectionist, I hate being bad at things.

Randy is a much more patient student. And he's worked at getting better at golf. During the past few years, it's become his favorite hobby.

So he wanted a golf day during our vacation. I was fine with that ... as long as I could carry a camera instead of a golf club. I think we were probably both happier with the arrangement.

It was a beautiful day and a beautiful new course near Valentine, Nebraska. The Prairie Club is in its first year of operation. Currently, there are two courses - a prairie course and a pine course.

We (and I use the term we loosely) did the prairie course. I was glad. Randy and I can relate to pastures. And this course was basically carved out of a pasture.

We might not have been quite as much at home in the clubhouse. Randy halfway expected a valet to hand him a towel in the bathroom. It was pretty fancy.

But there were definitely glimpses of home while out on the course. The practice balls were dumped in a washtub.

What man could resist trying to plunk a ball in the stock tank on the practice range?

Certainly not my golfer.

You wouldn't think about Nebraska being a mecca for golfers. But there are several world-caliber courses within shouting distance. This newest one is south of Valentine, Nebraska.

The Prairie Club was conceived to be a place as pure as the game itself. On the prairie, there are no distractions. On the prairie, the quiet envelops you. It is just you and a little white ball with the vast prairie links in front of you. The sky and the grass and the wind move in concert, and you are left to find your small place in the grand scheme of things.

You can probably tell that italicized blurb was also from the Prairie Club booklet and not my stunning prose about golf. No amount of fancy writing is going to convince me that playing golf is enjoyable. On the other hand, I'm right there with them appreciating the quiet and the sky and the grass and the wind (Well, maybe not the wind.)

In the midst of "Big Red" country, my K-Stater left his mark. (As Brent says, it takes a true fan to wear K-State purple in Nebraska after the Wildcats' demise at the hands of the Cornhuskers this year ... but true fans, we are.)

It was near the end of the golf season for the Prairie Club, which closed its links at the end of October. It was the only way Randy probably would have paid to golf there. Instead of the $250 daily green fees, he paid the temperature high for the day before, plus more for a cart. Still, it was the most expensive round of golf he's ever played. It was definitely pricier than a round of golf at the Stafford club, where he plays league golf when he's not on the tractor.

This was the halfway stop on the course. It looked like a shack, even if it wasn't.

We could have had a hamburger there, but we just bought an exorbitantly expensive bottle of Diet Pepsi instead.

We were at home with weathered-looking buildings and hay bales and grazing cows, all of which were part of the day's scenery.

It was a good day. He only lost two balls.

It was sometimes overcast, but it didn't rain until the next day, when we were on our way home. (We wish it had rained here at home.)

Now those course designers were smart people. They got my Kansas farmer to pay to spend the day in a pasture, even when he was on vacation.

Now back to reality ... Our time in the pasture this week will be a bit different. We will be chasing things in the pasture. It just won't be little white balls. More on that later ...

Critters

I see my fair share of critters around the County Line.

But we had a whole new menagerie of critters on our recent trip through the Black Hills and the Badlands of South Dakota and the sand hills of Nebraska.

Nearly 1,500 majestic bison roam the prairie of the Custer State Park.

One scene reminded us of home. The bison "babies" had been weaned from their mothers, a process we will do with our cow-calf herd in early November here on the County Line.

We got a "taste" of bison at our lunch stop at the Blue Bell Lodge.

Randy had the BBQ buffalo sandwich. I had buffalo stew in a bread bowl.

The weirdest encounter was with burros who had no intention of moving off the 18-mile Wildlife Loop road in Custer State Park.

People literally were weaving around them on the road to continue their journey. They reminded me of cattle who sometimes have to be nudged from a feed bunk with the fender of the pickup.

The wild burros (who didn't appear so wild anymore) trace their roots to a herd that once hauled visitors to the top of Harney Peak. At the rate they move these days, it would take awhile.

I had rolled down the window to get a photo of two small burros running and playing on a pretty fall day.

I did get the photo. But I also got an unwanted "kiss" from a slobbering burro.

It was a little too up close and personal for me. However, Randy got his laugh for the day.

We didn't see mountain goats in the wild. But one little one did "climb" up on a rock outside of Mount Rushmore. Mountain goats aren't native to the Black Hills. Introduced into Custer Park in 1924, a well-established herd now lives in the Needles-Harney Park area, though we didn't see them the day we were there.

We also saw pronghorn antelope while on the Wildlife Loop.

We saw deer quenching their thirst at the Niobrara River at Valentine, Nebraska. (Not that we don't see plenty of deer around here. I just hope I don't see them jumping out of the ditches in front of my car.)

Our trip to the Badlands led to a sighting of bighorn sheep.

It was like our own little version of Wild Kingdom ... without the television screen.