Today I decided to leave a small fountain of water going on the north cottonwood tree. The other one is looking good after watering it for a week. Today Lydia came to clean. While I was chairing Kiwanis Nancy shopped Cross Plains and said it felt good to shop Dollar General without someone bugging her about leaving. We had a good Kiwanis meeting with Rick Austin's son Aaron who is also a Church of Christ minister telling about bringing youth with him from Moore, OK to do mission work in CP while helping with the VBS at the CofC.
We drove through Stephenville and got to Granbury in plenty of time to get Nancy's new tooth installed. She then had to shop Lowe's to buy paint for her scenery painting project. We then stopped at Braums for a sundae. I have started the sprinkler on Nancy's lawn. It is as dry here as at home.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
END OF JUNE UPDATE
I plan to update more often, but feel compressed by other obligations. I got behind on publishing the Flame and worked until almost 11 p.m. Friday night and felt that I did a poor job. Saturday I thought of other things I should have added to the news of the church. We came home yesterday and I printed copies of the Flame for those who don't have internet. Today we had our new pastor, Kevin Morton, preach and I served as worship leader. Nancy made beans for the Fellowship dinner to honor the new pastor and his wife, Lee Anne, who joined the church today. She also attended my SS class.
We have had interesting deer interactions. A couple of days ago we were driving down the highway in Eastland County when a doe and fawn were in the road ahead of us. The doe was in the road and the fawn on the East side. I slowed and the doe ran back but the fawn decided to cross the road. The doe followed and vaulted over the fence, but the fawn had to find a hole that he struggled through. And then here at home Jeff Ramey planted two new roses on either side of my walk. A pair of young bucks with little mossy horns came to eat corn under the feeder and one came up into the yard and started eating the leaves off the rose bush. Because I was watering them, the grass was green and I first thought he was just grazing the grass but then I watched him eat leaves from the rose bush. I opened the door and scared him off, but now there are virtually no leaves on either of the new bushes.
I let the cottonwoods go without water until they lost all their leaves. I normally don't irrigate but I gave in and now run a little sprinkler water on the trees and the leave are coming back. I will have to keep watering to keep them alive. Last Tuesday we went to a meeting a Judy Luter's. She invited us to a special presentation at the Callahan County Historical Commission on the WWII places in Texas. I was familiar with some of them having been in the Army Air Corps where I took basic training at Wichita Falls after starting in San Antonio at one of their air bases. Later I came back to SA to be assigned to a base in Utah where I was separated because I had qualified for aviation cadet and wasn't sent to training. A lot of veterans came to bases in Texas as well as a lot of prisoners-of-war and Japanese and German internees. I hadn't realized that Germans were interned along with Japanese.
We drove to her house into a rain storm. It was raining with pea sized hail as we got there. We got a little wet even though we drove up close to the house. It rained and hailed for at least three hours while we were there. We drove back 5 miles north to my house and we had had almost no rain. Cottonwood got 2 inches and I got 0.3". It helped my grass a little but I am having to water my roses and new crepe myrtles.
Nancy volunteered to help paint the scenery for the Library play MURDER AT THE BARBARIAN FESTIVAL that is scheduled for September 17. I play the part of the mad scientist. Nancy is working on large background scenes and of course I have to help with that So we will be busy the next many weeks.
I had gotten off Facebook but our new preacher plans to use it and Twitter for communicating with the church so I got back on today. I still have trouble navigating the site. I would rather use blogs but realize I need to post often.
We have had interesting deer interactions. A couple of days ago we were driving down the highway in Eastland County when a doe and fawn were in the road ahead of us. The doe was in the road and the fawn on the East side. I slowed and the doe ran back but the fawn decided to cross the road. The doe followed and vaulted over the fence, but the fawn had to find a hole that he struggled through. And then here at home Jeff Ramey planted two new roses on either side of my walk. A pair of young bucks with little mossy horns came to eat corn under the feeder and one came up into the yard and started eating the leaves off the rose bush. Because I was watering them, the grass was green and I first thought he was just grazing the grass but then I watched him eat leaves from the rose bush. I opened the door and scared him off, but now there are virtually no leaves on either of the new bushes.
I let the cottonwoods go without water until they lost all their leaves. I normally don't irrigate but I gave in and now run a little sprinkler water on the trees and the leave are coming back. I will have to keep watering to keep them alive. Last Tuesday we went to a meeting a Judy Luter's. She invited us to a special presentation at the Callahan County Historical Commission on the WWII places in Texas. I was familiar with some of them having been in the Army Air Corps where I took basic training at Wichita Falls after starting in San Antonio at one of their air bases. Later I came back to SA to be assigned to a base in Utah where I was separated because I had qualified for aviation cadet and wasn't sent to training. A lot of veterans came to bases in Texas as well as a lot of prisoners-of-war and Japanese and German internees. I hadn't realized that Germans were interned along with Japanese.
We drove to her house into a rain storm. It was raining with pea sized hail as we got there. We got a little wet even though we drove up close to the house. It rained and hailed for at least three hours while we were there. We drove back 5 miles north to my house and we had had almost no rain. Cottonwood got 2 inches and I got 0.3". It helped my grass a little but I am having to water my roses and new crepe myrtles.
Nancy volunteered to help paint the scenery for the Library play MURDER AT THE BARBARIAN FESTIVAL that is scheduled for September 17. I play the part of the mad scientist. Nancy is working on large background scenes and of course I have to help with that So we will be busy the next many weeks.
I had gotten off Facebook but our new preacher plans to use it and Twitter for communicating with the church so I got back on today. I still have trouble navigating the site. I would rather use blogs but realize I need to post often.
Monday, June 13, 2011
CROSS PLAINS WEEKEND
I put out an email about the events going on in Cross Plains the weekend of June 10-12 about the Robert E. Howard fans, the Barbarian Festival and the international rocket launching contest. My grandson, Jim Wilcox, who teaches engineering at Devine High School and inherited the Rocket Squad this next year called and said he had to go to the rocket launching. My daughter, Kathy, had already said she was coming with my two granddaughters, Valerie and Vanessa. Vanessa backed out when she decided she needed to study for her RN certification exam she takes on the 17th. Kathy brought her friend Carol Thormer and Jim brought his two sons, Christopher and Brent. They got here just before the Friday night dinner.
Friday night we had six but released one seat at the Robert E. Howard dinner. Sue Neal joined Kathy, Carol, Val and me. We sat next to Carol and Wallace Bennett where Kathy got some good information on possible future jobs from Carol Bennett who works in the rehab business. The two speakers told about the development of the REH Fanzines through the years and how interest in REH has grown since REHUPA (Robert E. Howard United Press Association) was formed in 1986. There were old photos of the first BBQ on Saturday night held at our place here on Halsell Hill. That brought back some memories.
Saturday we started at the new art museum run by Kim Cunningham, who is the daughter of Chad Cunningham, who is the brother of Brad Cunningham who owns the huge homes behind me. They built a new fence and took out mine when they developed their place. Kim take photos but sells art from other local artists like Mary Barton. We went next to the REH museum for the tour. Nancy and I had gone to the Library and museum Friday afternoon. At the museum we saw our next Methodist pastor and his wife. Also Carleton Stowers came in with friends from the Metroplex. He is the nephew of Tom Stephenson, whose wife Arlene was working at the museum and as president of Project Pride was the MC of the dinner last night.
We then drove down the road to the park where the Festival had the old auto show, old tractors, and all kinds of booths selling all kinds of stuff. We ran into Susan Hunter who said that the rocket launching was supposed to be over by 2:30 so Jim, his sons and I grabbed some food from Bubba's food booth and headed out there. The women stayed to visit the Library on the way home. We went to the International rocket launching contest to get there just as they broke for lunch. They had not launched as many rockets that morning as they planned. About 1:30 they started launching again and we got to see 3 launches before we left. The rockets were about 6 feet tall and carried the students experiments in the nose cone that seperated from the rocket on the way down. The experiments were a parachute holding an egg that had to survive along with instrumentation that sent GPS data back to their computers on the ground to help them locate their package to see if the egg survived. The rockets launched so high that they went out of sight so we didn't see the rockets or the parachutes with our eyes. One team had recovered a package from the morning launches. Their egg didn't survive. The teams were from Instanbul, India and a number of US colleges. None from Texas. They generally had 4-6 team members but one team was one person. The site was out in a large pasture with a lot of cactus and other rough places to walk. The temperature was around 100 degrees. We came home and took a nap.
Sunday Jim and Val helped me teach my SS class. We just started a study of the Psalms. Jim had just completed a study and helped me a lot. Everyone else came to church where our pastor gave his last sermon before moving. His wife Julie gave me a good report on the resolution against the Methodist stand on teaching only evolution. I had presented a resolution last year and Rev. Jim Senkel had his this year that received a lot of discussion with many saying they wondered what we believe. Jim had sent me an email saying that 30% supported the resolution but that 100% of the young people voted for it, so we agreed our future lies with the young people. There will be more resolutions presented to the General Conference to reverse the action of the 2008 Conference. Hopefully more Methodists will ask themselves what they believe and that creation science should be taught as a possible theory along with evolution.
Today we went to Abilene to have a wedding portrait made. I left my hearing aids to go back to the factory for reburbishment and will get them back in a week or so. It is good that I can hear fairly well.
Friday night we had six but released one seat at the Robert E. Howard dinner. Sue Neal joined Kathy, Carol, Val and me. We sat next to Carol and Wallace Bennett where Kathy got some good information on possible future jobs from Carol Bennett who works in the rehab business. The two speakers told about the development of the REH Fanzines through the years and how interest in REH has grown since REHUPA (Robert E. Howard United Press Association) was formed in 1986. There were old photos of the first BBQ on Saturday night held at our place here on Halsell Hill. That brought back some memories.
Saturday we started at the new art museum run by Kim Cunningham, who is the daughter of Chad Cunningham, who is the brother of Brad Cunningham who owns the huge homes behind me. They built a new fence and took out mine when they developed their place. Kim take photos but sells art from other local artists like Mary Barton. We went next to the REH museum for the tour. Nancy and I had gone to the Library and museum Friday afternoon. At the museum we saw our next Methodist pastor and his wife. Also Carleton Stowers came in with friends from the Metroplex. He is the nephew of Tom Stephenson, whose wife Arlene was working at the museum and as president of Project Pride was the MC of the dinner last night.
We then drove down the road to the park where the Festival had the old auto show, old tractors, and all kinds of booths selling all kinds of stuff. We ran into Susan Hunter who said that the rocket launching was supposed to be over by 2:30 so Jim, his sons and I grabbed some food from Bubba's food booth and headed out there. The women stayed to visit the Library on the way home. We went to the International rocket launching contest to get there just as they broke for lunch. They had not launched as many rockets that morning as they planned. About 1:30 they started launching again and we got to see 3 launches before we left. The rockets were about 6 feet tall and carried the students experiments in the nose cone that seperated from the rocket on the way down. The experiments were a parachute holding an egg that had to survive along with instrumentation that sent GPS data back to their computers on the ground to help them locate their package to see if the egg survived. The rockets launched so high that they went out of sight so we didn't see the rockets or the parachutes with our eyes. One team had recovered a package from the morning launches. Their egg didn't survive. The teams were from Instanbul, India and a number of US colleges. None from Texas. They generally had 4-6 team members but one team was one person. The site was out in a large pasture with a lot of cactus and other rough places to walk. The temperature was around 100 degrees. We came home and took a nap.
Sunday Jim and Val helped me teach my SS class. We just started a study of the Psalms. Jim had just completed a study and helped me a lot. Everyone else came to church where our pastor gave his last sermon before moving. His wife Julie gave me a good report on the resolution against the Methodist stand on teaching only evolution. I had presented a resolution last year and Rev. Jim Senkel had his this year that received a lot of discussion with many saying they wondered what we believe. Jim had sent me an email saying that 30% supported the resolution but that 100% of the young people voted for it, so we agreed our future lies with the young people. There will be more resolutions presented to the General Conference to reverse the action of the 2008 Conference. Hopefully more Methodists will ask themselves what they believe and that creation science should be taught as a possible theory along with evolution.
Today we went to Abilene to have a wedding portrait made. I left my hearing aids to go back to the factory for reburbishment and will get them back in a week or so. It is good that I can hear fairly well.
Friday, June 3, 2011
WATCHING STARS
It is June already. Wednesday night Nancy and I sat in her swing and watched the stars come out. It stays light late and they were slow to come out. I finally saw the Big Dipper and waited until more stars showed up. I was looking for satellites or the Space Station, or even one shooting star but none came into my limited vision.
We are back on our schedule of being in Cross Plains on Saturday to get ready for SS and church and staying through Kiwanis when we go back to Granbury. Nancy spent yesterday morning mowing her lawn and even mowing some new paths through her forest. We walked those paths this morning looking for the limb clippers she had lost off the mower yesterday. Found them along with two golf balls back in the trees. This place was a deer lease when it was a ranch and I guess it was used for golf practice.
We are going through the process of getting a new preacher for the Methodist church. I will serve as Worship Leader for the 19th when we have Bonita Horton, our own lay speaker preach and for June 26 when our new preacher preaches his first sermon.
I went to the Brownwood District meeting to explain the Central Texas Annual Conference and they mentioned that there would be two resolutions, one that is Jim Senkel's resolution to teach creation science as well as evolution. I commented to the group that their vote was important and left some hand-outs that I prepared arguing against evolution and for teaching creation science. I was greeted with blank stares and only one person commented that he supported me. Last year my resolution that was more strongly worded was turned down. Jim is toning his down to argue that both are theories that should be taught equally. I hope that his approach works but the committee recommended denying the resolution. We will see what happens. At least we are making them think about their vote.
See my creation blog for a new post.
We are back on our schedule of being in Cross Plains on Saturday to get ready for SS and church and staying through Kiwanis when we go back to Granbury. Nancy spent yesterday morning mowing her lawn and even mowing some new paths through her forest. We walked those paths this morning looking for the limb clippers she had lost off the mower yesterday. Found them along with two golf balls back in the trees. This place was a deer lease when it was a ranch and I guess it was used for golf practice.
We are going through the process of getting a new preacher for the Methodist church. I will serve as Worship Leader for the 19th when we have Bonita Horton, our own lay speaker preach and for June 26 when our new preacher preaches his first sermon.
I went to the Brownwood District meeting to explain the Central Texas Annual Conference and they mentioned that there would be two resolutions, one that is Jim Senkel's resolution to teach creation science as well as evolution. I commented to the group that their vote was important and left some hand-outs that I prepared arguing against evolution and for teaching creation science. I was greeted with blank stares and only one person commented that he supported me. Last year my resolution that was more strongly worded was turned down. Jim is toning his down to argue that both are theories that should be taught equally. I hope that his approach works but the committee recommended denying the resolution. We will see what happens. At least we are making them think about their vote.
See my creation blog for a new post.
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