A Day in the Life of . . .

June 25th, 2011
Iten's Acres

"This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it."

     The day begins when the sun unapologetically shines its light in my eyes as if to say, "Rise and shine old man, another day has come."
     Mom is sleeping in today, though, she actually has been doing this more and more lately.  Perhaps, it's not "sleeping late" anymore, but the new normalcy.  Anyway, while she rests, I begin my day.  First, I slip on my old hiking boots--a gift from my sister Janice and her husband Dewey--and then I get on the computer--a gift from my sister Chloe and her husband Larry.  It's amazing that if you just stop and reflect for a moment how easy it is to be reminded that you are loved.  On the computer I check my gmail email, check the page for the St. Louis Cardinals--yes, they lost AGAIN (sigh), and then go to facebook.  A couple folks get a "happy birthday," a few things to pray about, a chance to offer some encouragement, an opportunity to victimize some poor unsuspecting soul with an Iten pun.  Since it's the 25th ( a multiple of five for all you mathematically challenged readers), I'll put a devotional on my page, bathed in a prayer that at least one person will be encouraged, edified, or warned by what I write today.
     "Al, I'm getting up."  The call goes out, and I take off my writer's hat and put on my son/caregiver one.  I help Mom up, get her into the big chair by the double glass doors, find her glasses, and hand her her Bible so she can read while I put on my chef hat and fix breakfast.  Mom always begins her day with Him.  Breakfast is served:  poached egg, toast, jelly, a little sausage or on some days a little country sausage--fried baloney.  And, of course, 365 days a year--hot green tea with milk and honey.  No matter the temperature, hot tea is a must.  After breakfast, the table is cleared, dishes done, Mom is helped back to her "viewing area,"--I have a container garden right outside her "windows":  pansies, marigolds, dianthus, lantana, petunias, dahlia, blue cress, daisies.  There's also a flotilla of hummingbirds lining up for the feeder attached to the window, and she can see a great deal of the front of my property as well, including one large flower bed right by the house.  She will spend the morning reading, enjoying the scenery, interacting with the Hospice nurse when she drops by, listening to the radio or hymns on CD.  Mom never has a bad day.
     Once she's settled. I take my morning walk of Iten's Acres.  I have to get armed first:  find the camera, tie my boots, spray a little OFF in case the mosquitoes are waiting to ambush me, and put on my old baseball cap.  I am now officially an amateur horticulturist.  From last evening's walk I already have flowers in my mind that I expect to bloom today so I can photograph them for Tuesday's June Blooms on fb.  The first decision I need to make is do I go to the left or to the right.  There's no hurry to decide.  I can stand for a moment on the back patio and admire the dozen or so lilies right in front of me, the astilbe in the shade behind the house, the hosta that are about to bloom, and the container garden of impatiens, coleus, allysum, and begonia also on the patio.  Today, I hang a left, camera ready.

Click: a hydrangea is blooming for the first time in three years.  I think a really cold winter three years ago convinced it that it was in the wrong time zone.  But this year a bloom--pink.  Hmmm.  I remember it as being blue.  Ahh, well,  Beautiful is beautiful.

Click:  a surprise!  the first morning glory is blooming in the bed by the house.  I hope Mom can see it!  An old-fashioned purple one.

Click:  a stunning red oriental lily in one of the beds by the pond.  I was expecting this one.

Click.  Click.  Click:  Cosmos blooming everywhere--pink, white, wine, red, even yellow.  Don't you just love annuals that propagate themselves?  The "children" always imitate the beauty of their "parents."

Click:   a dark pink miniature hollyhock.

     An interruption:  Here comes Gus.  His family has gone on vacation and left the poor guy to fend for himself.  Oh, they left him with plenty of food, and if he wants a change in his menu, he can always go over and eat Bonnie's.  She doesn't care.  She's on a wild diet.  And there's plenty of water in my pond for when he needs a drink.  What he misses, though, is company.  I pass the test.  Lots of petting.  Lots and lots of petting.  He spends awhile with me as I continuing my wandering.  He keeps running ahead of me, stopping, putting on his cute and lovable face, and expecting to be petted some more.  I, of course, submit--without complaint.  Suddenly, he turns tail and heads for home.  I guess, he's had enough affection for now and wants to be sure he's home when the family returns.  "Later, Gus."  Ahhh, I should have taken his picture for Tuesday's show--a furry dogwood.

Click:  a new lily in the lily bed.  This bed is not yet up to spectacular.  There are about fifty lily blooms in here every day.  In a couple of weeks, there will be 100 to 150 blooms every day of every color you can imagine.  Spectacular!!  Throw in some larkspur (can you see the rabbit?), sunflowers, gladiolas, and it's quite a show.  I dead head yesterday's day lilies; it's the new blooms' day, and continue the walk.  I hope I'm not walking too quickly for you.  I try to maintain a steady pace of five and half acres per hour.

     There are several "old" Asian lilies that are begging to have their picture taken again, but I resist, and walk through the trees and out to the back meadow--Ohio's Big Sky Country.  (Click:  sorry, couldn't help taking another picture of those huge yellow Asian lilies in the bed right as you come out of the woods.  Love yellow.)  Another decision:  do I check out the rock garden first or last?  Last.  I stroll through the wild area.  It takes quite awhile.  Nothing new here:  hundreds of daisies hanging on, a few yellow poppy, some sunflowers and black-eyed Susans, hundreds and hundreds of wild meadow roses--every shade of pink known to man, obedient plants, spiderwort, primrose.  Tons of color everywhere.  Did I ever tell you how much I love the wild area?  I love the wild area.  Click.  Click.  Couldn't help it.  Click.  Sorry.  Again.
     Back up the hill, slowly, by the rock garden, heading home . . .  A voice!  My neighbor Dennis has been cutting his lawn, and he stops to have a chat.  I had waved to him when I first arrived out here; I need to mow my grass later; I'll wait 'til he's done so I don't have to compete for the barn swallows.  We exchange some neighborly banter.  Bonnie joins us for a few moments but soon wanders off.  Human talk bores her, I guess.  Dennis is a good man and a good neighbor--a blessing from the Lord.  After a pleasant conversation we both continue our day.
     Back through the trees, into the house, check on Mom.  I try to bring her a new lily or other flower every day for her vase on her table.  She loves it.  We talk for awhile and then, I fix her some lunch.  She doesn't eat much for lunch anymore.  The Hospice people don't seem too concerned.  Expected I guess as age continues its march toward Home.  As her soul grows younger, her body continues to fail.  Soon she'll have a new one.  Lunch today is hot tea--duh--and a piece of cherry pie. 
     This afternoon I need to cut the back meadow and the paths in the wild area.  I get Mom settled in for the afternoon and head out to mow--officially called "feeding the swallows."  I gas the machine and begin.  The swallows join me immediately.  What beautiful creatures.  Blue-velvet, winged acrobats.  Tireless participants in the feast provided by the bugs fleeing my lawn mower.  It takes me over two hours; they never desert me.                                                       "Mowing the hillside pasture--where
                                                            the flowers of Queen Anne's Lace
                                                           
                                                            float above the grass, the milkweeds
                                                            flare, and the bee balm, cut, spices

                                                            the air, the butterflies light and fly
                                                            from bloom to bloom, the hot

                                                            sun dazes the skies . . ."

     Finished.  Lovely afternoon.  I finish and the swallows head home.  It's not far.  Dennis' barns.  I can hear them singing, "So long, and thanks for all the. . ," bugs.  Yes, doubters.  Mowing can be a joy.  Good for the soul.
     Put the mower away.  I have to take a walk out back and enjoy the work accomplished.  Excuse my pride.  "The mowers work too is beautiful, granting rest and health to the mind.  He walks the long traverses of the healed and healing slant.  He sweats and gives thanks."
      Evening.  Suppertime for Mom.  Poached egg, toast, sausage, hot tea.  Sound familiar?  She loves it.  After dinner we watch Antique Roadshow and Lawrence Welk together, and then I put her to bed.  Read her a Psalm, tuck her in, turn on the heating pad, kiss her goodnight, turn on the radio.  Nothing spectacular is required.  Just simple love.  Memories are made of them, are they not?
     I check the computer.  Add a few comments from the day on facebook.  It's kind of like an abbreviated journal at times, isn't it?  Turn on the Cardinal's game, but they fall behind early AGAIN.  Fair-weather fan that I'm becoming, I turn it off and read.  A little poetry, another chapter in a book on apologetics I'm rather enjoying--"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist."  A late phone call to a friend, the exchange of ideas and encouragements, goodnights.
     The day ends with a miracle.  No, really.  I go upstairs to brush my teeth and after I turn off the lights, I happen to glance outside, and pause, mesmerized.  Hundreds upon hundreds of lightning bugs.  Myriads.  From the ground to the top of the trees, from every direction, flickering lights.  God's firework display, a few days early, without the booms--unless you want to count the bull frogs croaking in the pond.  I stand for minutes.  Incredible sight.  Surprised by serenity when I least expected it, in a place I never thought it would ambush me.  Been there?
     Time for bed.  Prayers first.  When you pause as you pray, it's amazing all the people and needs God brings to your mind.  I don't know, often, what the people need, but He knows.  And to bring their names up in His presence adds perfume to the incense of prayers around the eternal throne--a sweet smelling aroma, a sacrifice of confidence in His unfailing love and wisdom.  Sleep.  "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  If I should die before I wake, I know the Lord my soul will take."
     One day in the life of . . .  Tomorrow will be another day in the life of . . .  Either a twenty-four hour one or the Heavenly one of the eternal present tense.                                                  
     "This is the day the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it."

A New Walk

     I have a new favorite quote.  I used it in my last blog I think.  "Every walk is a new walk.  Walk slow."  Simple truths have such elegance.  And it is true.  In the almost six years I have been at Iten's Acres I'm sure I have walked my place literally thousands of times; and yet; I'm just as sure that no two walks have been the same.  Different routes, different companions, different observations, different sounds, different smells, different weather.  Every walk has been unique.
     And, if you'll indulge me, let me give you a practical illustration.  God has given me new beauty every walk the last five days.  Last Friday I discovered gorgeous blue spiderwort coming up for the first time in my wild area--a whole patch of it.  The angels had been busy planting when I wasn't looking.  Strange name, beautiful flower. On Saturday three miniature roses decided to form a trio of color.  And I found them all within steps of each other--a red, a darker red, and a lovely pink.  I could stand in one place and enjoy them all--a symphony of color, a triangle of the glorious.  Sunday was yellow day.  Three yellow lilies--in flower beds, in the wild area, in the rock garden, two unknown by me yellow wildflowers, tall trollius by the pond and in the bog area, a yellow poppy in the meadow.  The sun was leaving its fingerprints all around the acres.  And each yellow was different--different shades, different heights, different forms, different leaves, different environments.  And you had to walk the entire property to see them all.  A walk for those with a "sunny disposition."   Monday, if I wasn't "walking slow," I would have missed the new.  Hidden in the middle of the lily bed was a small red agastache.  Red, tub-like flowers, a hummingbird cafe.  (I'm sure my ruby-throated friends prefer the natural sweetness to the artificial stuff in the feeder on Mom's window.)  I had even forgotten--steel-trap mind that I have--that I had planted it there.  But there it was.  Unafraid to compete with lilies.  Yesterday, the surprise wasn't found until an evening walk.  Tritieleia.  A small gorgeous purple and white flower.  (See next Tuesday's June Blooms on fb for an up close encounter.)  For some reason I always think that they should bloom earlier in the spring, and I've just about convinced myself that the little beauty  must not be going to bloom this year and abracadabra! there it is.  And always more flowers than there were the year before!  Two beds with a new decoration.  And you know what?  When I walk today, it will be a new walk with new surprises.  My imagination is no match for the real thing.
     And sometimes my imagination runs away with me.  I often wonder what it would be like if the Lord gave me another twenty years so I could see my vision of Iten's Acres take form.  I could walk my place on earth and see all the shrubs mature enough to bloom, all the little trees I've planted actually look like trees, all the flowers I've started to naturalize having fulfilled their purpose with twenty years of spreading--I could have a thousand daffodils blooming in the spring.  What if?  Or even more outrageous, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to wake up one morning and see that while I slept my vision became perfected--everything mature, no weeds or grass in the flower beds, all the seeds I've planted germinated and abloom.  One entire growing season--mid-March to frost--perfect in every way.  Silly stuff.  The first is highly unlikely; the second an impossible miracle.  (That's redundant, eh?  What would a "possible miracle" be?) 
      So, where do those ideas come from?  Why with all the beauty that I actually have and enjoy on Iten's Acres do I feel pangs of dissatisfaction, a fit of "what if"?  I think it's an Ecclesiastes truth.  Even as God's child I will never be fully satisfied on this fallen earth populated by "chief of sinners" like myself.   What does Paul say?  "The whole creation is groaning, waiting for the day of redemption."  God has put "eternity in our hearts," and we long for the new heaven and the new earth.  And that's a characteristic of our eternal state we don't focus on enough in my opinion.  God in His love for us is going to create a new earth.  Do you wonder what Adam experienced on that seventh day?  Do you wonder what that glorious creation looked like?  As God's child you will enjoy and experience such an earth yourself--for eternity.  Can you imagine that?  Think of how breath-taking this fallen world is and try to envision the new one.  Christ for the joy of spending an eternity with us in such a creation "endured the cross, despised the shame."  "Hallelujah, what a Savior!"
     Today, on my current Iten's Acres I will enjoy my walk and the beauty of God's world--weeds and all.  My trees and shrubs will keep on growing at their natural rate.  And, to be perfectly honest, I will take some pleasure in seeing that progress until my homegoing.  And my soul will find rest in that simple but marvelous truth:  there's a New Walk coming.

First Impressions

     "They" say first impressions are important.  If so, I think Iten's Acres is in trouble.  If you were to pull into the acres and stop your car in preparation for a "tour," the "first impression" would not be overwhelming.  The duct-taped, broken-down mailbox isn't exactly a beauty--duct taped on a broken pole, the address hidden--you might be able to see a 5, sitting at a forty-five degree angle, immersed in tall grass.  Not exactly a "wow."
     If it had been raining at all, you would need to be careful stepping out of your car in order to avoid the mud puddle covering the driveway.  And the driveway itself looks like a cow path--minus any cow "evidence" to avoid stepping in though.  To the right is a large area of grass that has not been cut yet all spring!  It's too wet.  My mower would get stuck.  Looks like you've driven into a bog.  The grass is over your head.  Not very impressive.
     In fact, now that the trees are full, you might not be able to even see the house.  You might be tempted to turn around and leave.  There are some impressive trees--a large pine, a decent size corkscrew willow (it looks better in the winter when the snow covers its twists and turns), and, of course, the huge red maple that looks magnificent in the fall.  But in spring--really not all that impressive.
     But don't put the car in reverse.  Despite the "first impression" I promise that there is lots of beauty here to be seen.  And as someone has said, "Every walk is a new walk.  So walk slow."  The flower beds hold beauty from March to frost.  The wild areas the same.  The wild acres out back are about to explode into gorgeous.  Even the rock garden/rock pile, though its spring glory is over, will have beauty in it all summer and fall.  Right now it has adopted a host of wild daisies!  They look lovely surrounding the red leaves of the quince.  And soon the water lilies will be in bloom to enhance the pond in bright yellows and reds.  (Until then you can watch the flying flowers--black with a touch of brilliant red on their wings.  They will call you all kinds of blackbird names since they've begun to nest, but your self-esteem can take it.)
     I do have plans to improve the first impression.  Not a new mailbox; it would make it too easy to find me. But I may add a couple of hibiscus or peonies right at the turn.  Maybe a small bed of--what else--iris, with room for some annuals for the summer.  And maybe a wooden planter or two on the other side of the driveway.  But for now, not a very good first impression.  "They" would, no doubt, leave.  And "They" would miss out on the beautiful.  First impressions are overrated in my opinion anyway.  I'd rather make a good lasting impression, wouldn't you?