The Abrahamsons

Donna by tree

2011-12-23T13:59:00.001-06:00

Donna by tree, originally uploaded by ibnabraham.

One that turned out kina nice. Bit fuzzy, but that works.

Turkey: Final Notes

2011-11-25T19:08:00.000-06:00

OK, I found a photo that Mary took of our turkeys when they were poults. Verrrry cute little birds.

And out little ones really liked to play with them. They were, as I wrote, the Broad Breasted Bronze, which is similar in many ways to the wild turkeys here in MN.

We used the largest roasting pan we own.

The little ones stuffed the turkey. Note the size compared to the girls. It weighed more than Inge or Donna.

We had to cover the roaster with Al foil. Mary, the little ones and I got it ready and in the oven at 7am. It was done at about 1pm at 350. But because the temp was high and time was short we didn't do the "low and slow" method--but the meat was fall-apart tender and delicious.

Below is the left breast. 11" at longest, 6" widest, 4" deepest.

The serving plate held only this breast and the left leg, and a small part of the giblets.

I bonded the rest of the bird and put the bones in the crock for broth.

With home made cranberry sauce, yams from scratch, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, and the pies (pican, coconut custard, and lemon merangue) it was hard to get outside after eating to clean the garage and drive the fence posts for the chicken coop.

Raising Turkeys for Food: How the experiment went

2011-11-15T20:59:00.001-06:00

Turkeys are really cute as chicks. When they grow up, well, for most people, they are not so much cute. We bought 2 turkey chicks last spring. We kept them in a washtub under a light in the dining room for a short time. They whistled their ascending three tone call and started jumping out of the washtub. So I built a lightweight cage (4'x2'x8') to keep them in the yard.

We clipped their flight feathers. One was Righty, the other, Lefty.

Lefty died in a storm in May. So only Righty was left. So, we renamed him "Thanksgiving Dinner".

Turkeys can be very mean. So I made sure that TD was given attention every day.

He was a very gentle turkey and liked to be held and petted. The Sunday School and Wednesday School kids would often play with him and pet him. Though, some of the kids were afraid of him, because they knew what their folks said: Turkeys can be mean.

TD helped me build our hen house. I think our friend Gus became a bit intimidated by TD's affection. While Gus was helping me with the hen house, he decided to put TD outside the pen. TD would come up to him and chuff, warble, and gobble.

TD was a free range bird. So we didn't buy very much feed for him. We had to move the pen often. Because turkeys are like geese considering the amount of excrement they generate.

Turkeys can make good pets. If they are handled frequently.

Perhaps TD was a bit confused, he really liked people. And my dad really liked him. He said goodbye to TD last of all after all our kids before he and mom left when they visited this past summer.

Anyway, the economics:

2 Bronze Broad Breasted turkey chics at $10 each.
about $15 of feed

Total expense, about $30.

TD's dressed weight is about 35 lbs.

Even with the loss of one turkey that's still under $1 per pound. Dressed turkeys were $1.78 per pound at Wall Mart when I checked today.

I think we did well.

Raising Sheep for Food: How the experiment went

2011-11-15T20:26:00.000-06:00

From August 2010 to September 2011 we raised two lambs for food: one ewe one wether (castrated). My original intent was raising them to feed our family, but they were also really wonderful pets.

I decided to raise sheep rather than goats or a calf for several reasons.

Goats climb. And goats eat almost anything. It would have been impossible to keep goats from eating shingles or siding off the house or church. As it was, the winter snow prevented us from keeping the sheep in a pen. Goats would have been impossible.

A calf would have taken much more food than sheep needed, plus liquid water through the winter. Sheep, like goats, don't need water. They can use snow and ice very well.

We bought 2 large round bales of hay and 1 of straw for the winter.

The sheep stayed by the house near their hay through the whole winter. In the spring we had to catch them a few times and tether them to keep them from eating the buds of hay from our neighbor's field. That provided some exercize for Mary and me. But they weren't bad for wandering off.

Based on what we learned, if we could regulate their feeding better we probably could have gotten by with only one bale of hay.

The sheep stand on their food and so quite a bit went to waste.

In the spring we needed to sheer them. I borrowed a clippers but found out that I couldn't do it. I either because I lacked the skill or because the sheers wasn't sharp enough. But a neighbor helped us out.

So, here's the economics.

2 lambs at $40 each.
2 Hay bales and 1 straw, total $70.
3 wormings, total $20
sheering $20
Antibiotics $10

Grand total $160.

Counting fence or tethers because these are used for chickens as well as future sheep (around $100)

That would make it $260.

The wether at dressed hanging weight was just over 70 lbs.
The ewe was almost 80 lbs.

That's $0.93 per pound dressed weight and $1.79 per dressed weight including the fencing and tethers.

All around a very good investment for the price of meat.

One great advantage with sheep, we didn't have to mow the lawn as much, and that cut down on the cost of gasoline for lawn mowing. I'm not sure how to calculate this into the cost of the meat. But it was a good benefit.

We enjoyed having Rammy and Ewey as pets. I served a bit of Ewey to our Bible Study group. We were studying the book of Exodus, and none of the Bible Study students had tasted lamb before. I think they all liked it.

Thanks to Mr. Malwitz and Podocheck for sheering and sheers. Thanks to the Sippers for help with dressing the lambs. Thanks to Sara and Betsy for the lambs. And thanks to Glenn Vettleson for the fencer, and Darrow Lundeen for the fence posts.

Thanks also to Drs. Hagan and Bovee for their vetrenary help in my ignorance. I've read Alfred Wight's books (James Herriot's series "All Creatures") but that's not a substitute for real experience.

Now, due to my inexperience I burned out the fencer using improper grounding techniques and copper conductors. We'll get a replacement this spring. Hopefully for under $50. Sarah and Betsy have three more lambs for us coming this spring.

If we get those lambs, we'll have them just for the spring through fall.

All in all, I enjoyed having the lambs. And I'm very glad that we could grow our own food inexpensively. Now I know more about shepherding. That's not an insignificant thing for a Pastor.

ELH 537 For Classical Guitar

2011-11-08T10:30:00.001-06:00

A transcription of ELH 537 "Day of Wrath" for Classical Guitar of DIES IRAE, Latin Melody, 13th Cent., altered. Meter 888 888 888

The transcription is found at this link.

Here's a midi file:

This hymn is number 601 in the old Lutheran Hymnary (1913, 1935 Augsburg) of the Norwegian Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod; number 607 in The Lutheran Hymnal (1941 Concordia) used by the churches of the old Synodical Conference; number 209 in the Wisconsin Evengelical Lutheran Synod's Christian Worship (1993 Northwestern).

From The Handbook for Lutheran Hymnal:

Thomas de Celano, friend and biographer of Francis of Assisi, is generally credited with the authorship of this great medievel sequence, the opening lines of which are taken verbatim from the Vulgate version of Zeph. 1:15. Julian, writing of the general acceptance of this hymn, declares:

The hold which this sequence has had upon the minds of men of various nations and creeds has been very great. Goethe uses it, as is well known, in his Faust with great effect. It also furnishes a grand climax to Canto VI in Sir Walter Scott’s Lag of the Last Minstrel. It has been translated into many languages, in some of which the renderings are very numerous, those in German numbering about ninety and those in English about one hundred and sixty. In Great Britain and America no hymn-book of any note has appeared during the past hundred years without the “Dies Irae” being directly or in directly represented therein. Daniel, writing from a German standpoint, says:

“Even those to whom the hymns of the Latin Church are almost entirely unknown, certainly know this one; and if any one can be found so alien from human nature that they have no appreciation of sacred poetry, yet, as a matter of certainty, even they would give their minds to this hymn, of which every word is weighty, yes, even a thunderclap.”

From another standpoint, Archbishop Trench says:

“Nor is it hard to account for its popularity. The meter so grandly devised, of which I remember no other example, fitted though it has here shown itself for bringing out some of the noblest powers of the Latin language—the solemn effect of the triple rime, which has been likened to blow following blow of the hammer on the anvil, the confidence of the poet in the universal interest of his theme, a confidence which has made him set out his matter with so majestic and unadorned a plainness as at once to be intelligible to all,—these merits, with many more, have given the Dies Irae a foremost place among the masterpieces of sacred song.”—Sac. Lat. Poetry, 1874, p. 302.

The translation, one of many excellent ones, is by William J. Irons, slightly altered. It was first issued in the privately printed Introits and Hymns for Advent, issued, without date, very likely 1848, for the use of Margaret Street Chapel, London. Julian has this to say about the origin of the translation:

It is well known that the Revolution in Paris in 1848 led to many scenes of terror and shame. Foremost was the death of Monsigneur D. A. Affre, the Archbishop of Paris, who was shot on June 25 on the barricades of the Place de la Bastille whilst endeavoring to persuade the insurgents to cease firing, and was buried on July 7. As soon as it was safe to do so, his funeral sermon was preached in Notre Dame, accompanied by a religious service of the most solemn and impressive kind. Throughout the service the archbishop’s heart was exposed in a glass case in the choir, and at the appointed place the Dies Irae was sung by an immense body of priests. The terror of the times, the painful sense of bereavement which rested upon the minds of the people through the death of their archbishop, the exposed heart in the choir, the imposing ritual of the service, and the grand rendering of the Dies Irae by the priests gave to the occasion an unusual degree of impressiveness.

[thus far the Handbook to The Lutheran Hymnal]

1. Day of wrath, O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the Prophet's warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning.
Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth,
Thro' earth's sepulchers it ringeth,
All before the throne it bringeth.
Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth
When from heav'n the Judge descendeth
On whose sentence all dependeth!

2. Death is struck and nature quaking;
All creation is awaking,
To its Judge an answer making.
Lo, the book, exactly worded,
Wherein all hath been recorded;
Thence shall judgment be awarded.
When the Judge His seat attaineth
And each hidden deed arraigneth,
Nothing unavenged remaineth.

3. What shall I, frail man, be pleading?
Who for me be interceding
When the just are mercy needing?
King of majesty tremendous,
Who dost free salvation send us,
Fount of pity, then befriend us.
Righteous Judge, for sin's pollution
Grant Thy gift of absolution
Ere that day of retribution!

4. Faint and weary Thou hast sought me,
On the cross of suffering bought me;
Shall such grace be vainly brought me?
Think, good Jesus, my salvation
Caused Thy wondrous incarnation;
Leave me not sin's damnation!
Guilty, now I pour my moaning,
All my shame with anguish owning:
Hear, O Christ, Thy servant's groaning!

5. Bows my heart in meek submission,
Strewn with ashes of contrition;
Help me in my last condition!
Worthless are my prayers and sighing;
Yet, good Lord, in grace complying,
Rescue me from fires undying.
Thou the sinful woman savedst;
Thou the dying thief forgavest;
Thus to me tru hope vouchsafest!

6. With Thy favored sheep, oh, place me!
Nor among the goats abase me,
But to Thy right hand upraise me.
While the wicked are confounded,
Doomed to flames of woe unbounded,
Call me, with Thy saints surrounded.
To the rest Thou didst prepare me
On Thy cross; O Christ, upbear me!
Spare, O God, in mercy spare me.

Happy Anniversary, my Love!

2011-09-30T06:53:00.001-06:00

Thank you for 22 wonderful years:

As far as the video is concerned, just close your eyes and listen....

What goes Up....UARS

2011-09-23T19:31:00.000-06:00

Image via WikipediaSing it, Sammy. "Catch a painted pony on a merry go round!"

A big satellite is coming down tonight, and it's calles UARS.

Do you remember when SkyLab fell? I do. And I watched it. I was a sci-fi space junkie. Now I'm in my office, father of 10, 4 congregations, lots of personal, family, and parish duties. But space still fascinates me.

UARS was launched in in September 1991 from STS-48 Space Shuttle Discovery. UARS cost about $750 million to build. (I couldn't find figures on the cost to launch and deploy) The original mission for UARS was 3 years. A paltry $250 million a year. There are plenty of American Taxpayers to fund that!!!!

The purpose of UARS was:

to study human effects on the planet's atmosphere and its shielding ozone layer. The UARS mission objectives were to provide an increased understanding of the energy input into the upper atmosphere, global photochemistry of the upper atmosphere, dynamics of the upper atmosphere, the coupling among these processes, and the coupling between the upper and lower atmosphere. This provided data for a coordinated study of the structure, chemistry, energy balance, and physical action of the Earth's middle atmosphere - that slice of air between 10 and 60 miles above the Earth. The UARS was the first major flight element of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth, a multi-year global research program that would use ground-based, airborne, and space-based instruments to study the Earth as a complete environmental system.^[2] UARS had ten sensing and measuring devices: Cryogenic Limb Array Etalon Spectrometer (CLAES); Improved Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder (ISAMS); Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS); Halogen Occultation Experiment (HALOE); High Resolution Doppler Imager (HRDI); Wind Imaging Interferometer (WlNDII); Solar Ultraviolet Spectral Irradiance Monitor (SUSIM); Solar/Stellar Irradiance Comparison Experiment (SOLSTICE); Particle Environment Monitor (PEM) and Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM II). UARS's initial 18-month mission was extended several times – it was finally retired after 14 years of service.

It worked until Jan 1992, fixed in June, broke again 14 months later, a partial fix was made months later, then in 1995 the earth sensor broke which led to a solar array failure, three fo its batteries failed in 1997, then in 1999 its backup tape recorder started to fail. A few of the sensors still operated, but UARS was decomissioned in Dec 2005 (14 years after its launch) and brought down to a destructive orbit that month. The International Space Station had to dodge the UARS one time so that the astronauts abord wouldn't be space dust.

The Highights of the UARS mission can be seen at this website.

But those Highlights aren't really objective science if you are willing to search through the scientific literature.

What matters tonight is that there will be a pretty fireworks display. Sammy Davis, Jr. put it to music, "What goes up, must come down!" I hope some of you can record it with your cameras.

It was pretty expensive fireworks. Someone should enjoy it.

Help Building a Hen House

2011-09-18T20:03:00.000-06:00

Well, we're finally getting started on the hen house so we can have eggs during the winter.

I framed it with 2x4s. The siding, roofing, flooring, windows, and door are all scrap from neighbors.

The kids want me to cut a half-moon in it so it looks even more like an outhouse.

I want it to be servicable and not really visible from the church.

Clara, Elsie, John, Sophie, Stella, Donna, and Inge are all helping with the details.

Mary, Louisa, and Matt also helped to move the frame back behind the house.

We also had some special help from our Turkey.

Thanksgiving Dinner is supervising my work on the door.

Any time the drill squeaked or made noise Thanksgiving Dinner had to make his gobbling sound.

I think he is probably lonely. Lots of chickens, 2 sheep, but the other turkey died in a storm last May. So he walks around us puffing up his feathers, rattling his wings, and chuffing at us.

Really, he's very gentle, just wants attention. Have you ever held and pet a turkey? Well, he's helping get the hen house done.

I'll need to get more scrap siding in the morning and a couple of palates to scavange for floor boards.

Cheap Pans for Camp Grilling or Home Grilling

2011-09-06T13:07:00.001-06:00

There are times when we buy really cheap baking pans for use on the fire or grill. Like the cheap pizza tins, these are usually available at any K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Target, or grocery store. A brand like EZ-Baker from G&S Metal Products Company makes a lightweight steel pan that costs less than $2 and most often are on sale for less than $1 per pan.

We get the plain pans and then season them. Besides being inexpensive, this seasoning is what makes them extra useful over the fire.

Seasoning steel pans is the process of burning/oxidizing some kind of fat over the cooking surface of the pan. The oxidized fat turns into thin layers of carbon. This thin layering of carbon then prevents the food from sticking.

Mary picked up a couple of 7"x1.5" squares, a couple 7"x10x1.5" pans, and a couple 13"x9" cookie sheets.The goal was grilled chicken, grilled yams, and grilled sliced potatoes.

Preparing the pans:
The pans work better and last longer if you season them before use.

At first use this means:

Washing the new pans and rinsing thoroughly.
Drying the pans in heat.
Letting them cool.
Coat the pans with a thin coating of high temperature oil (using a paper towel or some such): peanut, canola, grape seed oil, or--like most people--pork lard.
Place the pans in an oven heated between 250 and 350F. Bake for an hour and run a new coating of oil/lard, return to oven for another hour.

Let them cool, wipe off, store or use.

Cleaning the seasoned pans is done without much - if any- soap. And typically, after the pan is emptied, scraped, then I'll put some oil on it and set it on the grill/coals to re-season the surface.

(another discussion of seasoning pans)

Using the pans:
For yesterday's picnic at Old Mill State Park we had

2 Split Chickens
Yams
Potatoes

Split Chicken

Two chickens 3-5lb.
I split them up the sides along the thin ribs below the breast up to the wish bone. Then I chop off the rest of the neck.
The giblets and neck are placed in the bottom of the pan.
The inside of the back and front halves are seasoned.
The front is placed on the cutting board and pressed until the breastbone breaks or lays flat.
Put the front in the pan, skin/breast up, tucking the wings.
Put the back in the pan overlapping the bottom of the breast, skin/back up, tucking the drum sticks.
Season the top/skin side. Add other ingredients if desired.
Cover with heavy aluminum foil.

Place on hot coals, takes between 40 minutes to an hour. Use a thermometer to check the breast through the foil, if it's at 182F then it's ready to eat.
You can take them out of the foil and use direct heat if you desire for finishing.

Yams

4 Medium Yams peeled cut, sliced, with 1 onion, cut and sliced and 4 T butter. Place in smaller square pans, top with onion and butter.
Cover with heavy aluminum foil.
place in coals for 30 to 45 minutes.

Potatoes

Slice potatoes thin, coat with a bit of olive oil.
put on cookie sheet, cover with Al foil.
Burn the potatoes up on the coals on the grill. Possibly the sheet was to thin, or I got distracted. Grr.
Throw them away.
Try something different next time.

Camp Cooking Tools

2011-08-31T13:13:00.004-06:00

Baked Chicken (top) with fried beans and onions.

Food preparation while camping for a few days can be a challenge. The goal is to be able to prepare really good food inexpensively.

Also, we cook for more than 10 people at a time. So the tools need to be efficient, capable, and serve multiple purposes when they can.

Camp cooking is different than cooking at home on the grill.

First, you will have limited equipment with you. You can't just run into the house to get a different pan or tool. You can't finish off undercooked meat in the oven. So there will be a period of trial and error in getting up to speed using the tools you take along for food preparation. You may find that some things are not worth taking. And you will quickly learn what you should have taken.

Second, the kinds of food you prepare is a choice of what you can take with and what you can acquire. What you can take with you is determined by how much space you want to dedicate to foods that need refrigeration, water supply, and non-perishables. Foods you can acquire depend upon whether you will buy at local providers or gather your own foods -whether foraging, fishing, or hunting (local laws will apply). This second choice will also affect the kinds of tools you choose to take with you.

I'm going to describe the tools we typically take with us in our family van for food prep. We also take dishes, plates, silverware, cups, etc.

In short, the process for choosing tools over time is this:

Plan tools by meals and method of cooking,
Do your cooking the way you planned.
Take notes on what works and what wasn't so good.
Adjust your plans next time.

Stove

We acquired an old used Coleman two burner white gas stove for $15 which we use. But as white gas is relatively expensive (especially in tourist areas) we tend to use it as a secondary. Our primary cooking area is the camp fire.

Cooking on a stove like this can be a challenge. I've found two main problems in using this tool. I'm not counting the regular maintanance; cleaning, keeping the valve oiled, pumping, etc.

The first problem is precipitation. Water splashed in the burners reduces the efficiency of the flame and makes the flame hard to regulate.

The second problem is that cookware, pans and pots, need to be heavier and thicker to distribute the heat without burning the food. Thin steel camp cook kits for backpacking, for example, require a lot of attention to prevent scalding and burning over the gas flame because they don't distribute the heat from the flame very evenly.

Sterno Burner

Our last resort compact cooking surface. Yes, we've had to use it, and we're glad we had it with. But cooking for a family of 12 is not advisable. I think we picked this up at a and army surplus store in Mankato for $2.

Camp fire/pit

Rock Ring. (someone else's photo)

The style of campfire pit varies from place to place. Truly primitive campsites may require that you gather rocks for a ring and then put them back when you're done.

We've experienced: rock rings; steel rings; steel ring with grate; single sided, double sided, and triple sided fire pits with and without grates; standing grills with and without grates; and prefabricated stone or brick grills.

We've learned to check into what the campsite has available and to assume that the provided grating may not be usable either through disrepair or bad design.

Two sided without grate at our site in
Gold Basin Campground
Granite Falls, Washington 2009

So we carry a couple types of grating.

The biggest issue in expense with using the fire pit is the cost of wood/charcoal. In some places the charge for a small bundle of wood (18" long by 16" diameter) has been as high as $6 per bundle. Most national forest and parks allow you to gather fallen wood.

So two other tools are very useful: a hatchet (for splitting and chopping), and a camp saw (for cutting lengths). You can use the hatchet for both, but the saw is faster for cutting lengths. But then, you might need to keep a kid busy for a while--don't tell him you brought the saw.

Beware of local wildlife (bear, cougar, skunk, brown recluse, rattle snakes) as well as poison ivy, poison sumac, wild parsnip, etc.

Cooking over fire will discolor your cookware. In addition to the carbon blackening the cookware, steel will change color depending on how hot it was and how quickly it cools. The stock pot on the right in the photo above is steel, it's lid is blueish/purple with wavy lines of green and yellow. All this is to do with the reflectivity of steel during the tempering/annealing process. Kinda cool.

Grating

Free standing foldable grating is excellent in almost all the cases mentioned above.

We also carry a couple of sizes of grating from old grills: a small 15" round from an old webber grill, and a 24"x12" oven rack extension.

Pizza Tins

We carry at least three of these cheap steel pizza tins. They do bend and flex in the heat. They work best over coals rather than flame. One is used to keep the flames that may erupt off of what is being fried, the other is placed on top as a cover to keep the oils/food from erupting into flame.

We clean them by placing them in the coals after cooking is done. They are shiny when you buy them, they loose this color right away for the same reason as mentioned above.

Baked chicken drumsticks
between two Pizza Tins

I've also used a pair of these as an oven set between the coals and the back of a 2 sided pit to bake meat, fowl and fish.

Aluminum pie tins can be useful in a similar way, but they burn up pretty quickly if the fire is hot.

Fry Griddle

The pizza tins are too thin for even frying over a fire. We were given a thick aluminum griddle by my grandparents. Steel would be better, I think, because of the tendency of the aluminum to warp with use. Also, aluminum will burn if the flames are hot enough. And that can happen when grease from bratwurst or something else gets into the fire.

We use the third pizza tin to cover the griddle. The griddle is cleaned in the same way as the pizza tins: by placing it in the coals to burn off the oils and food.

Like the pizza tins, the griddle can also be used as a cover for other pans. You can see this in the photo on the top of this article.

The cost of these griddles can be high. Watch garage sales and look at places like Goodwill. You can get them really cheap.

Coffee Pot

Camping without coffee? Ugh!!!!

We have two percolators that go over the fire or on the stove. Our older percolater is the aluminum in the picture below. Only ours is pretty well carbonized.

If you use a pot without a filter or percolator you can make "cowboy coffee".

We inhereted both our coffee makers. But they are available used. Just keep your eyes open.

Cooking Pans
Lightweight Steel

Mary bought a set of thin steel cookware from REI (I think) back when she was in college. They've lasted well and are excellent over coals. But because the steel is so thin they can be problematic over flames.

The self-stacking design is great for packing. The largest kettle is 1/2 gallon. We've used it for oat meal/grain cereal, soups, boiling, and even raisin noodle kugel (with rice noodles). But again, they need to be tended carefully or you will get scorching, scalding, and burning.

Heavy Pressed Aluminum

We inhereted a family sized vintage set of stacking Palco Pressed aluminum camp cookware. Eight aluminum plates, eight green plastic cups, silverware, pots, lids (which are also fry pans) and handles. This belonged to my grandparents who had it since the late 1960s, I think.

Heat distribution is better than in the thin steel. The large pot is just over a gallon. These work well over stove or fire.

Fry Pan

A few years ago I bought the Coleman 9 1/2" steel folding camp frypan at some place like K-Mart.

It's the pan you see in the photo at the top of this article. Works great. We use the lids from the backpack cookware as a lid for the fry pan.

A very useful and long lasting tool.

The handle is, unfortunately, rubber coated. This makes its use over fire a choice. The rubber will burn off. But if you're carefull, you can keep this from happening too quickly. Use glovess. Molten rubber is almost worse than 400 degree steel. You can let go of the steel, the rubber sticks to your skin and keeps burning.

Stock Pot
One of our stock pots is visible in the photo about campfires above. We use a 2 gallon or more sized second-hand steel stock pot for camping. Primarily it is used for heating water over the fire to be used in cleanup, dishes, etc.

Tongs

Tongs are used for handling hot food, hot coals, and hot pans.

Get sturdy but cheap steel tongs without any plastic in them.

Some have a locking feature to keep them closed, while nice, this feature can be annoying. And the locks usually don't last too long.

The food handling use is obvious. But, handling pans might not be. Suppose you have a gloved hand (for pans) and a tongs. You're moving the chicken around, but then a log falls and you need to quickly remove the pan. Use the gloved hand and the tongs to move the pan. Don't take the time to put on another glove. Then use the tongs to re-arrange the coals. Move the pan back.

We usually carry 2 or three with. They're good for serving too. And if you're still cooking, the eaters might need one for the hot corn on the cob you just grilled.

Spatulas
OK, there are three different types we've found useful.

The rubber scraper/spatula is great for getting stuff out of cans and into the frypan, etc.

The stiff/or somewhat flexible putty scraper/spatula is great for cleaning debris off of pans.

The steel/all metal spatula is ideal for the grill. A long handle is very useful. Again, just a little flex, mostly stiff.

Mitts/Gloves
Again, there are three kinds, with three purposes: Cooking mitts/gloves, leather gloves, and welders' gloves. If you can only get one kind, get welders' gloves.

Gloves are necessary in handling the hot (400 degrees +) pans as well as handling burning logs.

Cooking mitts tend to be under insulated and have plastic fibers in them. These can melt into your fingers and hands. Get a well insulated mitt with all natural fibers. If you can, find a good grilling mit, not a common oven mitt.

Leather gloves can serve very well, but they get destroyed by handling the coals. I have a pair of Wells Lamont work gloves made of split grain cowhide that have lasted quite a good while. These don't insulate as well as the others, but they are a good camping tool for other reasons as well. So they can serve this dual purpose

My favorite campfire cooking glove is the leather welding glove. Just the right amount of dexterity with good protection.

Gloves will get grease on them. Cleaning leather gloves is not complex. Generally scrubbing/brushing with soaply water, drying and re-oiling with mink or neat's foot oil.

Cutting Board

Wood breaks too easily, but you can set a really hot pan on it. Plastic works really well, but melts if you set a hot pan on it. We bring one of each.

Knives
There's a good article about this topic at wikipedia.

The types we find most useful are:

Paring Knives
We get several of the cheapest possible paring knives, but we do also carry one Chicago Cutlery in our kit. The cheap knives have very flexible blades. The Chicago Cutlery blade is nice and stiff with a bit of spring to it.

General Use Knife
For general use we have a few Coleman fixed blade knives we've picked up over the years. They're good for gutting, skinning, and even cutting steak and veggies at the table.

Fillet or Boning Knife

Fillet/Boning knives are useful especially if you are acquiring meat or fish in the wild.

Chef's Knife
A Chef's Knife with a nice wide long blade can make cutting up veggies a simple task. It's also a lot easier to use this on a melon than a paring knife.

Cleaver

Cleavers are great in so many ways: from controlled thin slices of veggies to beheading a bird.

We have this Faberware soft handled cleaver. The end cap fell off just after the first use, but otherwise it's been great and very well used for the past year.

A good Steel and Stone
Keep the knives sharp and their edges straight.

Other tools
Of course, you may need some forks for helping to prepare meats and veggies, spoons for stirring and such. Possibly even skewers if you want to do shishkabobs.

A couple ways to start a fire: Lighters, long lighters, waterproof matches, magnesium and steel, and a candle. Most places will have sticks to rub together, but that takes considerable practice to do quickly. Maybe bring some charcoal starter fluid, it helps a lot on rainy days.

Two special tools:
A Can Opener - if your are taking canned foods, a knife can work, but it's dangerous

A Bottle Opener- If you plan to take corked bottled bevereages.

Again:

Plan tools by meals and method of cooking,
Do your cooking the way you planned.
Take notes on what works and what wasn't so good.
Adjust your plans next time.

Vacation: Pt. 2: Unexpected blessings

2011-08-31T08:39:00.000-06:00

Me + Camping almost always = rain.

It did. Our last day at the campground, when we were to be drying things out for packing.

Grrr.... So, we paid for another night camp.

You know, it actually hailed on us while I was frying the potatos over the campfire. Mr. Bear-a-noid came over to cook steak. He shared, we shared. A fun, if wet and cold meal and evening.

Next morning we went to W. Yellowstone for laundry and showers, and took a look at another campground for possible future use.

We got everything packed up but the sleeping bags and tents. Spent the extra night. And got going in the morning. Construction in the park caused us to go back up 191 to Bozeman.

So, a couple of years ago when we were driving through Montana and ND on the way back from Rachel's wedding there were Pronghorns everywhere. And, I wondered about hunting them, and how they taste.

Talking with a friend in Belgrade over the past couple years I have a place where I could possibly hunt. But it wouldn't be cheap meat like deer in MN. So, last June at her brother's wedding Jessica said she could spare me some cuts of Antelope and Elk if we could arrange somehow to transport it.

We got to Belgrade on our way back from W. Yellowstone. Still not sure of what our next adventure would be the idea popped into my head to give Jessica a call and trade for some Antelope and Elk.

I'm not sure she believed me at first when I told her we were at the McDonalds in Belgrade getting the kids a snack. But she invited us over. She gave us (thank you, thank you, thank you) some Elk and Antelope.

During a wonderful visit she made a couple of phone calls. Kinda cryptic, like.

Then she told us she had a suprise for us. Would we like to stay in a cabin on the Yellowstone River tonight for free just to recover for a day?

Um, let us think about that: "YES!"

Jessica and her son, Strand, took us for a beautiful drive down Trail Creek Road. The cabin is one her grandma, Lenore, takes care of as grounds keeper, down by Emigrant. (the area where they filmed A River Runs Through It and The Horse Whisperer)

Morning Star Ranch

It wasn't a cabin. It is a huge log home on 90 acres with 6 trout ponds and 1/2 mile river frontage on the Yellowstone River. It's called Morning Star Ranch. And the owners gave us a night for free just because Jessica's grandma asked.

Livingroom looking toward kitchen and guest room.

We were overwhelmed. What a wonderful blessing. Our thanks to Jessica and Lenore for setting it up, to Bob and Kitzy for their generosity.

Livingroom window, Emigrant Peak, and the Yellowstone River.

But wait...

Guest Room with Murphey Bed.

There's more....

Master bedroom with screen porch in background.

Lenore was on the phone with the owners. They asked who it was that was staying. When Lenore told them about us they asked Lenore to tell us we could stay the week for free.

Yes, we were overwhelmed and grateful at the generosity of these people we have never met.

Family photo at Roosevelt Arch, Gardiner.

Matthew and I did some fly fishing. We all went on day trips. The first trip Mary took the kids to Livningston. We all went to Gardiner and Jardine. We picnicked in Gardiner and did some tourist window shopping.

Pine Creek Falls

One of the days we hiked up to Pine Creek Falls. We did a lot of hiking. Mountains make it both more difficult and more interesting. Where we live, hiking means that you see the same house for 8 miles either direction. In the mountains you can come suddenly on to an unexpected stream or even a bear!

Well, we have bear at home too, but, I think you know what I mean.

Alas, Friday came too fast, we cleaned up the place, packed up, said thanks and goodby to Lenore and headed off to Billings, back to Val and Ron for a brief stop over.

We arrived in Billings early evening. Ron grilled, we all ate. Great company. Next morning they took us out to breakfast and we said good bye.

Our goal, a motel in Fargo so we could get to church in the morning.

As we got near Fargo there were no motels open.
Nor north all the way up through Grand Forks.

We ended up staying in Crookston at a total dive motel. Ugh. America's Best Value Inn--stay away.

Anyway, after church on Sunday we went back home to recover.

That's all.

Special thanks to Jared, Jim, and Randy for reading the sermon and leading the Office of Prime while we were gone.

Vacation: Pt. 1: West Yellowstone and Bear-a-noia

2011-08-19T14:44:00.002-06:00

We went to Montana:

North Dakota, right next to Montana.
You have to drive through this to get there from here.

Some of it looked like this

First day we got going late, but Ron and Val had stew and beds ready for us when we rolled into their place in Billings. Thanks so much.

After a nice visit with the Frees we sped of to West Yellowstone via Bozeman. Last time we went this way (2009) the park got closed before we arrived. Pres. Obama passed us with his motorcade on the road between Bozeman and W. Yellowstone.

Ruth, Louisa, and Iraina wading.

The park wasn't closed this time. We camped at Baker's Hole. Bob and Aimee camped at the KOA. Joel and Kathy camped with us at Baker's Hole the second night.

Louisa took this great photo of the Lower Falls Yellowstone River.

Mary planned this trip as a kind of family get-together. We were really glad that we could spend a couple days with Kathy and Joel and kids, and 5 days with Bob and Aimee and kids.

Grand Prismatic Spring, Midway Geyser Basin, photo by Louisa.

The days were hikes and exploring. The evenings were conversation, smoars and campfires.

But when we pulled into camp on August 2nd the campground bulletin board said a Grizzly bear had been sighted in camp that morning.

I'm not sure if this is Callum's hand or Louisa's,
But you'll see a pattern with signs and the kids.

Our next door camping neighbor made sure we, and everyone else in camp knew about it.

"Hey, there was a GRIZ through here this morning. You know, you gotta take care of your camp site."

Me: "yep, I live in black bear country and have been camping in Grizzly country since 1974. We'll take care. Thanks."

Callum needed to get closer to read the sign!

He: "You've got three tents, aren't you going to have an adult in each tent? THE GRIZ might get your kids!"

Me: "No, I'm not worried. We're careful. We will put our food away properly. Clean up properly."

He: "Hey man, it's THE GRIZ! Don't you have any PROTECTION?"

Me (starting to be both entertained by his paranoia and being annoyed at his interference with our setting up camp): "Yeah, 32 rounds. Besides, we spread out so not all of us will get eaten at the same time." (Yeah, I'm mean sometimes.)

He looked at me in shock, then smiled.

Elsie's photo at Canary Spring at Mammoth Springs.

He never cooked or ate in his campsite. He borrowed our campfire and brought food over to us once. Ate it at our campsite.

He: "Yeah, well THE GRIZ will probably come from the river on the other side of the campground and get those people first. Besides, I got my bear spray and my 9mm."

Me, thinking: "Hmmm, Bear spray is a much weaker formulation of self-defense pepper spray with a 30 foot range. Assuming there is no wind, and the bear doesn't like habaneros, and assuming that a grizzly capable of running 58 feet per second (40mph) will give you the time to take the spray from a safety holster, unlock the spray can top, take aim, spray, and move out of the area...... .. .. .. . ."

I've read The Journal of Wildlife Management article on the topic. I'm not really convinced. They did not include any comparative data about firearm usage. A nice cautionary response is found here.

Stella, Callum, Louisa, and Ian relaxing in W. Yellowstone
after and arduous walk through a tourist shop.
I like the funny placement of the lamp shade behind Louisa
It's like she has bolts coming out of her ears.

So we did a lot of hiking through Yellowstone National Park: All of us, Lots of walking. Some of us carrying bear spray and large calibre handguns. Just in case THE GRIZ showed up to ruin our day.

Callum checking out the veracity of a sign on the Bighorn Trail.
He survived.

Callum seemed the most eager to explore the more risky horizons, though I think he and Louisa made a pretty good team at these prank photos.

Louisa's photo of Orenge Spring Mound at Mammoth Springs.

We hiked several trails. One time, Bob and Mary took the littlest ones via truck while Aimee and I took the other kids on a hike around the road in the upper part of Mammoth Springs.

We walked the Norris Geyser Basin, but some of us had to defer to the necessities that small children have while on long hikes in public ("I have to go to the bathroom." And Donna dislikes public restrooms in strange places--who'd not?)

But, alas, no photos of the Norris Geyser Basin. Perhaps Aimee can fill in here?

When Joel, Kathy, and daughters were there we did the Midway Geyser Basin board walk. There were a few hats here and there near the geysers. It might have been windswept hats, but the ground was unstable and could swallow a person and scald him to death. So, we preferred to use the hats as cautionary examples.

A couple from Hawaii took our family photo after our picnic.

There were no shortages of wild strawberries and wild huckleberries on our hikes. And through a long hike on the Bighorn Trail we enjoyed the strawberries.

More boring vacation drivel in the next post or two.... Stay tuned....

Tina and Thor's baby Tesa

2011-08-19T14:00:00.000-06:00

Congratulations to Tina and Thor! Baby Tesa Rebecca was born last night at the hospital in Roseau.

Momma Tina and Baby Tesa

Tina and Tesa are both healthy and recovering well. I think Tina said that Tesa weighed 7lb 14oz, but I might not be remembering correctly

Papa Thor and Grandma Vicki with Tesa

Tina's folks had left just before I arrived. Thor and his mother arrived while I was visiting Tina and Tesa.

Tina and Tesa will probably be able to go home tomorrow eveining.

Thank God for His gracious care through the pregnancy and delivery.

Baptism will probably be in the next 2 or three weeks and at Oak Park.

Chicken Foot Soup

2011-07-22T19:51:00.000-06:00

Chicken Foot Soup is supposed to be wonderful.

Some of my chicken feet getting turned into soup.

I'll be making a standard American chicken soup stock with garlic, salt, onion peppercorn and such. But there are many ways the chicken feet are enjoyed....

Try it Jamaican Style,

Rahde Franke's photo of open fire cooked chicken foot soup in Jamaica

Master Cook Style,

No photo at this site, but there is a full recipe.

Japanese style,

Kirk Brown's photo of his mom's Chicken Feet Soup.

Chinese Style,

No good photo, but a good recipe.

Second Chinese Style,

The Mouse's photo of Chicken Feet Soup Chinese Style.

Adidas, Pinoy style,

Photo from the Over Seas Pinoy Cooking website by UT-Man.

and Chicken Foot Stock

Photo of gelled stock from Jenny at Nouriching Kitchen.

TRF Parade

2011-07-21T12:32:00.000-06:00

Thief River Falls held its annual parade for the start of the Pennington County Fair.

I missed the parade last year. The kids marched in it last year. This year Louisa, Clara, Sophie, John, Stella, Donna, and Inge marched with mom and me. They tossed out candy from the TEA Party float.

Just as we were starting out by TR Salvage.

Action shot of tossing out candy.

2 More Banjo Photos

2011-07-21T11:56:00.000-06:00

I completed the mussell shell inlays on the 2 Stringed Tin Banjo.

Donna holding the banjo

Tryin' an "Artsy" photo to show the inlays better.

A couple of unrelated things

2011-07-18T21:50:00.000-06:00

These are really two unrelated things. The first is our 1 surviving turkey. We started with two Bronze Broad Breasted turkey chicks, about 3 inches tall. One died in a thunderstorm. This one survived.

We had to clip their wings when they were small because they kept jumping and flying out of the tub we had them in when they were in the dining room. Now this one survives. They used to be called "lefty" and "righty" because of the wing clipping. But now this on is just called "Thanksgiving Dinner" or "Dinner" for short.

What amazes me about turkeys is their ability to change the color of thier head skin. "Dinner" can be bright red, pallid white, green, purple, and any combination. Of course, his feathers don't change. But he can change his head color in just a few seconds. I didn't know that turkeys could do that.

Now, the second, unrelated thing. I've put together some wood scraps and an empty mink oil tin to make a 2 stringed banjo.

The objects in the photo are to give scale. The guitar string package is ony about 5" square. The Mink Oil tin is 4" in diameter.

I used the tin, a branch from choke cherry or some small shrub for the neck. I glued a black walnut finger board on the branch.

This is the back of the banjo.

For the head I glued a piece of black walnut to oak. And then glued that piece to the neck at an angle. For the tuning pegs I used the same piece of oak.

For the bridge and the nut I used bone from a cow femur.

I need to tap-drill a few markers on the finger board, put a wire above the nut to keep the strings in place on the nut, and then stain and seal the wood.

The banjo is about 20 or so inches long. It sounds like a banjo with nylon strings.

Our smallest children like it because it fits their hands.

I have this vague memory of a cigar box guitar that my dad made when I was very young. I don't know if my memory of that cigar box guitar is accurate. But I think I broke it and disappointed my dad and mom.

Dad, Mom, sorry. Tell me if my memory is accurate at all.

And, I understand that you wished I'd have kids just like me. Does that mean that my kids will destroy this banjo too? I hope not. But it was fun and fairly easy to make. Now, maybe, I can make a real guitar. I have a sound box in the works for a renaissance 5 string guitar. I also have a middle-ages lyre near completion.

I think that I can complete the lyre fairly soon with what I've learned from making this banjo. I still need to work out how to shape the sides of the guitar.

Anyway, this is an example of what I do on my Mondays. That's my day off of work in the parish.

ELH 421 For Classical Guitar.

2011-07-12T15:37:00.000-06:00

The tune for ELH 421 is called Komm, O Komm, Du Geist Des Lebens and is transcribed and altered for the ELH from the 1693 Neu-vermehries ... Gesangbuch, 3rd Ed. , Meiningen. Meter 87 87 77

The Preliminary Classical Guitar transcription is here. I didn't have time today to transcribe the chords above the notation. Come back at a later date and I may have them done. The transcription has two variations: 1st a simple two note chord transcription, 2nd a full transcription .

Here is a midi:

According to Cyberhymnal this tune was written by Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703) the first cousin of Johann Sebastian Bach's father, Johann Ambrosius Bach. JC Bach was appointed organist at the Arnstadt court chapel in 1663, and at the Georgenkirche in Eisenach in 1665. In 1700, he became the Duke of Eisenach’s court musician.

The author of the lyrics for ELH 421 "We Are Called By One Vocation" is Karl Johann Philipp Spitta (1801-59). His lyrics are also used for hymn 531 "O Blessed Son Whose Splendor."

Lyrics:
We are called by one vocation
Members of one family,
Heirs through Christ of one salvation,
Let us live in harmony;
Nor by strife embiter life,
Journeying to eternity.

In a land where all are strangers,
And our sojourning so short,
In the midst of common dangers
Concord is our best support;
Heart with heart divides the smart,
Lightens grief of every sort.

Let us shun all vain contention
Touching words and outward things,
Whence, alas! so much dissention
And such bitter rancor springs;
Troubles cease, where Christ brings peace
And sweet healing on His wings.

Judge not hastily of others,
But thine own salvation mind;
Nor be mindful of thy brother's,
To thine own offenses blind;
God alone discerns thine own,
And the hearts of all mankind.

Let it be our chief endeavor
That we may the Lord obey,
Then shall envy cease forever
And all hate be done away;
Free from strife shall be his life
Who serves God both night and day.

Karl Johann Philip Spitta was born August 1, 1801, in Hannover, where his father, Lebrecht Wilhelm Gottfried Spitta, worked as a bookkeeper and a teacher of French. He descended from a French family of Huguenots, which had settled in Brunswick. As the boy grew up he early exhibited a mild and pious spirit. He was only four years old when his father died. The mother, who was a Christian Jewess, now had to shoulder the responsibility of giving the boy an education. She was an intelligent woman and a good mother. She desired above all that her son Carl should enter the university. But he was very sickly from his eleventh until his fourteenth year. Hence, she gave up the plan of having him study and secured for him a position as an apprentice watchmaker. This work did not satisfy the aspirations of the ambitious and pious youth, but he did not let his feelings in the matter be known to his mother, so as not to grieve her. He sought comfort and encouragement in reading the Bible and other good books, and by writing poetry.

In the meantime a younger brother died while occupied with studies preparing for the ministry. Carl confided his desires to a friend, who came to comfort him on the occasion of his brother’s death. It was with great joy that he accepted the offer of taking his brother’s place in the gymnasium in Hannover. In the fall of 1818 he took up his studies, and with such zeal and enthusiasm that he completed the course at the gymnasium by Easter, 1821, and was ready to enter the university of Göttingen. His teachers at the university were decidedly rationalistic in their views. He completed his theological studies in 1824. Until 1828 he served as teacher in Lüne, near Lüneburg. In 1828 he was ordained to the ministry and became assistant pastor of Sudwalde. He was appointed assistant garrison and penitentiary pastor of Hameln on the Weser, in 1830. In 1837 he received the permanent appointment to this office. But the military authorities, who had learned that Spitta was a pietist, refused to confirm the appointment. During the same year, therefore, he accepted a call sent to him from Wechold. On his birthday, August 1, 1847, he was installed as superintendent of Wittingen, Hannover; this was extended to include Peine in 1853; Burgdorf in 1859. On September 28, 1859, while working at his writing desk, he was stricken with heart failure and died in the course of about fifteen minutes.

Spitta began to write verses at the age of eight. During his stay at the university he wrote a great number of songs and poems and published a collection of folksongs for the laboring people. Among his companions at the university was Heinrich Heine, with whom he developed an intimate friendship. But when Heine, during a later visit in Lüne, where Spitta was engaged as teacher, began to scoff at the holy things in the presence of Spitta’s pupils, this friendship came to a sudden close. During the latter part of his university career a decided turn had come over his spiritual life. His work of writing hymns began in earnest in 1824. At that time he expressed himself as follows: “I will sing no more as I have sung. I dedicate my life, my song, my love, to the service of my Lord. His love shall be the theme of all my songs. He gave me the gift of song and of melody; I will give it all back to Him. It is the duty of every Christian singer to sing praises worthily to God for His grace unto us.” His most productive period as a hymn writer was during his stay in Lüne. During the still hours of the evening he would write his hymns and sing them to his harp or the piano. Later he drew his inspiration for many of his hymns from the glorious nature scenes in the beautiful valley of the Weser. He was also inspired by his companionship with intimate friends in Hameln. During his later years, his ministerial duties took up all his time. He wrote very few hymns after the year 1847.

In 1833 Pirna was published, the first edition of Psalter und Harfe. This work had the subtitle, Eine Sammlung Christlicher Lieder zur Haüslichen Erbauung. The second and enlarged edition, which appeared in Leipzig the following year, gained a unique recognition and distribution among all classes of people. Year after year new editions appeared. The 55th edition was issued in Bremen in 1889. This matchless success led to the publication of a new collection: Psalter und Harfe, zweite Sammlung, etc., Leipzig, 1843. The second edition of this collection was printed before the year was over, and its 42nd edition appeared in 1887. A third edition of older and later songs (hitherto unpublished) appeared after Spitta’s death. This was given the title: Spitta’s nachgelassene geistliche Lieder, Leipzig, 1861. These hymns have a more subjective and individualistic character. The fifth edition of these appeared in Bremen in 1883. In 1890 a new edition of Psalter und Harfe was printed in Gotha. This included both parts, both the old and later hymns, and a biography of Spitta. It is chiefly through his Psalter und Harfe that Spitta won the favor and love of the people. His hymns are noted for their noble and unaffected expression of thought. They are characterized by a childlike piety, deep Christian earnestness, and a fervent love for the Savior. They are clear, simple, and of suitable length. Spitta’s hymns have contributed in great measure towards awakening, renewing, enriching, and establishing the spiritual life of Germany and other countries, and have justly gained an extraordinary distribution among all classes of people.

In 1855 Spitta was created doctor of divinity by the university of Göttingen. He had a loving wife and seven children. Their home is pictured as a home of peace and song. During the evenings he would gather his family and their friends and sing his hymns and other songs, while the neighbors gathered near to enjoy the singing.

His son, Friedrich Spitta, born January 10, 1852, in Wittingen, Hannover, became a theologian and has since 1887 been professor of New Testament exegesis and practical theology at the university of Strassburg. He is especially known through his work on liturgics. He is the author of several treatises, among which may be mentioned, Luther and the Evangelical Service and Reform of the Evangelical Worship. [Dahle, Library of Christian Hymns]

The original words with this tune were by Heinrich Held (Komm, o Komm, du Geist des Lebens), in Praxis Pietatis Melica, by Johann Crüger (Stettin: circa 1664); translated from German to English by Charles W. Schaeffer, 1866, in the Pennsylvania Lutheran Ch. Book, 1868, alt.

Held's German Text:

1. Komm, o komm, du Geist des Lebens,
Wahrer Gott von Ewigkeit!
Deine Kraft sei nicht vergebens,
Sie erfüll' uns jederzeit;
So wird Geist und Licht und Schein
In dem dunkeln Herzen sein.

2. Gib in unser Herz und Sinnen
Weisheit, Rat, Verstand und Zucht,
Daß wir andres nichts beginnen,
Denn was nur dein Wille sucht!
Dein' Erkenntnis werde groß
Und mach uns von Irrtum los!

3. Zeige, Herr, die Wohlfahrtsstege!
Das, was wider dich getan,
Räume ferner aus dem Wege;
Schlecht und recht sei um und an!
Wirke Reu' an Sünden Statt,
Wenn der Fuß gestrauchelt hat!

4. Laß uns stets dein Zeugnis fühlen,
Daß wir Gottes Kinder sind,
Die auf ihn alleine zielen,
Wenn sich Not und Drangsal find't;
Denn des Vaters liebe Rut'
Ist uns allewege gut.

5. Reiz uns, daß wir zu ihm treten
Frei mit aller Freudigkeit;
Seufz' auch in uns, wenn wir beten,
Und vertritt uns allezeit!
So wird unsre Bitt' erhört
Und die Zuversicht gemehrt.

6. Wir auch uns nach Troste bange,
Daß das Herz oft rufen muß:
Ach, mein Gott, mein Gott, wie lange?
Ei, so mache den Beschluß;
Sprich der Seele tröstlich zu
Und gib Mut, Geduld und Ruh'!

7. O du Geist der Kraft und Stärke,
Du gewißer, neuer Geist,
Fördre in uns deine Werke,
Wenn der Satan Macht beweist;
Schenk uns Waffen in dem Krieg
Und erhalt in uns den Sieg!

8. Herr, bewahr auch unsern Glauben,
Daß kein Teufel, Tod noch Spott
Uns denselben möge rauben!
Du bist unser Schutz und Gott.
Sagt das Fleisch gleich immer nein,
Laß dein Wort gewißer sein.

9. Wenn wir endlich sollen sterben,
So versichre uns je mehr,
Als des Himmelreiches Erben,
Jener Herrlichkeit und Ehr',
Die uns unser Gott erkiest
Und nicht auszusprechen ist.

Translation:

1. Come, O come, Thou quickening Spirit,
God from all eternity!
May Thy power never fail us;
Dwell within us constantly.
Then shall truth and life and light
Banish all the gloom of night.

2. Grant our hearts in fullest measure
Wisdom, counsel, purity,
That we ever may be seeking
Only that which pleaseth Thee.
Let Thy knowledge spread and grow,
Working error’s overthrow.

3. Show us, Lord, the path of blessing;
When we trespass on our way,
Cast, O Lord, our sins behind Thee,
And be with us day by day.
Should we stray, O Lord, recall;
Work repentance when we fall.

4. With our spirit bear Thou witness
That we are the sons of God
Who rely upon Him solely
When we pass beneath the rod;
For we know, as children should,
That the cross is for our good.

5. Prompt us, Lord, to come before Him
With a childlike heart to pray;
Sigh in us, O Holy Spirit,
When we know not what to say.
Then our prayer is not in vain,
And our faith new strength shall gain.

6. If our soul can find no comfort,
If despondency grows strong,
And the heart cries out in anguish,
“Oh my God, how long, how long?”
Comfort then our aching breast,
Grant it courage, patience, rest.

7. Holy Spirit, strong and mighty,
Thou Who makest all things new,
Make Thy work within us perfect
And the evil foe subdue.
Grant us weapons for the strife
And with victory crown our life.

8. Guard, O God, our faith forever;
Let not Satan, death or shame
Ever part us from our Savior;
Lord our refuge is Thy Name.
Though our flesh cry ever: Nay!
Be Thy Word to us still Yea!

9. And when life’s frail thread is breaking,
Then assure us more and more,
As the heirs of life unending,
Of the glory there in store,
Glory never yet expressed,
Glory of the saints at rest.

ELH 420 For Classical Guitar

2011-07-10T20:57:00.000-06:00

Finished a transcription of BOYLSTON (L. Mason, 1792-1872) the tune used for "Blest Be the Tie That Binds" in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary (Hymn 420)

Transcription at Tuxguitar.

Listen to a MIDI version at:

The Lyrics for Blest Be the Tie That Binds were written by John Fawcett, and published in Hymns Adapted to the Circumstance of Public Worship (Leeds, England: 1782).

John Fawcett, Baptist preacher of England, was born January 6, 1739 (or 1740), in Lidget Green, near Bradford, Yorkshire. At the age of 16 he came under the influence of Whitefield and joined the Methodists, but three years later he became a member of the Baptist church of Bradford. In 1765 he was ordained to the ministry and was installed in the Baptist congregation of Wainsgate, Yorkshire. Seven years later, in 1772, he was called to London to succeed the famous Dr. J. Gills of Carter’s Lane. He accepted the call. After delivering his farewell sermon to the congregation at Wainsgate, six loads of household goods were brought up near the church preparatory to his leaving for London. But the congregation was not ready to bid him farewell. Men, women, and children thronged about their pastor and his family and wept. Fawcett and his wife also were moved to tears at the sight. Finally his wife said, “O John, I cannot endure this; I do not understand how we can leave this place.” “No, you are right,” he replied, “neither shall we leave.” Then all their belongings were unpacked and put in their old places. It has been thought that Fawcett upon this occasion wrote the famous hymn, “Blest be the tie that binds,” which is such a favorite in Reformed circles. In 1777 the congregation built a new church near Heddon Bridge, and about the same time he opened a school in Brearly Hall, where he lived. In 1793 he was offered the position of president of the Baptist academy at Bristol, but declined. In 1811 he received his diploma of doctor of theology from America. He died in 1817, at the age of 78. Dr. Fawcett wrote many treatises on theological themes, and a large number of hymns and spiritual songs. The greater number of his hymns are found in the collection, Hymns adapted to the Circumstances of Public Worship and Private Devotion, Leeds, Wright and Son, 1782, in all 166 hymns. About 20 of these are in general use. [Dahle, Library of Christian Hymns]

John Fawcett wrote this hymn in 1772. Miller, in his Singers and Songs Of the Church, 1869, describes the circumstances of its origin thus: “This favorite hymn is said to have been written in 1772 to commemorate the determination of its author to remain with his attached people at Wainsgate. The farewell sermon was preached, the wagons were loaded, when love and tears prevailed, and Dr. Fawcett sacrificed the attractions of a London pulpit to the affection of his poor but devoted flock.”

In Stanza 4, Line 1, Fawcett had:

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain. [Handbook to The Lutheran Hymnal]

Lyrics in ELH 420:

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

We share our mutual woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

When here our pathways part,
We suffer bitter pains,
Yet, one in Christ and one in heart,
We hope to meet again.

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

The tune BOYLSTON was written by Lowell Mason (1792-1872)

From Cyberhymnal:

Mason showed an intense interest in music from childhood. He lived in Savannah, Georgia, for 15 years, working as a bank clerk, but pursuing his true love—music—on the side. He studied with F. I. Abel, improving his skills to the point where he began composing his own music. Numerous publishers in Philadelphia and Boston rejected his early work, until it was finally accepted in 1822 by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, Massachusetts, his native state. However, the collection did not even carry Mason’s name:

I was then a bank officer in Savannah, and did not wish to be known as a musical man, as I had not the least thought of ever making music a profession.

Little did he know that “rejected” collection would eventually go through 17 editions (some sources say 21) and sell 50,000 copies. It was adopted by singing schools in New England, and eventually church choirs.

After seeing the success of his work, Mason returned to Boston in 1826. He also became the director of music at the Hanover, Green, and Park Street churches, alternating six months with each congregation. Finally, he made a permanent arrangement with the Bowdoin Street Church, though he still held his job as teller at the American Bank. Music continued to pull on him, though; he became president of the Handel and Haydn Society in 1827.

It was in Boston that Mason became the first music teacher in an American public school. In 1833, he co-founded the Boston Academy of Music; in 1838, he became music superintendent for the Boston school system. Lowell Mason wrote over 1,600 religious works, and is often called the “father of American church music.”

His works include:

The Choir, or Union Collection of Church Music, 1832
Union Hymns, with Rufus Babcock, Jr. (Boston, Massachusetts: 1834)
Carmina Sacra: or Boston Collection of Church Music (Boston, Massachusetts: J. H. Wilkins & R. B. Carter, 1844)
Cantica Laudis: or The American Book of Church Music (New York: Mason & Law, 1850), with George J. Webb
Musical Letters from Abroad (Boston, Massachusetts: Oliver Ditson & Co., 1853)
The New Carmina Sacra (Boston, Massachusetts: Rice and Kendall, 1853)
The Hallelujah: A Book for the Service of Song in the House of the Lord (New York: Mason Bros., circa 1854)
The Diapason: A Collection of Church Music, edited by George F. Root (New York : Mason Brothers, 1860)

My transcription of BOYLSTON was done from the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary using TuxGuitar on Linux Mint.

Parenting the Gravitationally Challenged

2011-06-30T13:57:00.000-06:00

My son, Matthew, is not a klutz, per se. But there are several times in his childhood where he has neglected to take gravity into account. Just a couple examples out of many experiences:

2 years old: Matt is outside, it's dark. My father is helping me outside. Matt looks up and leans backward to see the sky. He's on the top of three concrete steps. He falls over backward on his head, points up and tells grandpa: "Look! Stars!"

6 years old: Louisa finds Matt walking in circles out by the new swingset/sky-fort. He's confused, Louisa gets me. He's got a bump and grass stain on his forehead. ER, cat scan (yes, now we can show him he has a brain--use it)....conclusion: Matt sort of remembered falling out of the sky fort reaching for the fireman pole. He didn't remember landing.

16 years old (yesterday): I'm down at my office, Mary calls:

"Uh, Joe?"
"Yes, Mary?"
"Matt's over at Glen V's place. He had some car trouble. Apparently the car acted funny, so he was turning into Glen's place when the car died on the road. He got out to push the car to the side of the road. But he couldn't figure out how to stop the car from going into the ditch. Glen's getting him out. You don't have to do anything. Just thought you should know."
"Uh, thanks. I think."

Inside I was thinking about what it might cost.

Matt gets home driving the car he ditched!
"What was wrong?"
"Dad, my gas gauge doesn't work right. That's all."
"Not really, what about the ditch and stuff?"
"Glen got me out and gave me some gas. Well, once the car got rolling, I decided I probably shouldn't try to stop it by jumping in front of it."

Maybe he is learning about gravity, some....

Thank you, Glen. I know that Matt's not the only one of our family to run out of gas at the end of your driveway this year. Thanks for helping him and for helping me....

If you want you can see where he pushed the car into the ditch just east of Glen's driveway.

A bit tardy

2011-06-26T21:55:00.000-06:00

Sorry, I have been quite lax in posting here. Last weekend we had the death of a dear friend, a wedding, another wedding; then this week a wake and a funeral.

Please keep the family of Linda H in your prayers at this time of loss.

Please also keep Brett and Amanda, as well as Lucas and Sarah in your prayers at this time of joy.

We were blessed to have visitors. The family Louisa visited in Hawaii last year came to stay with us from Thurs through Saturday.

Their father could not come because of duties at Pearl Harbor Naval Base.

Here are Dot, Louisa, Sophie, Elise, Elsie, Ann, and Christina.

We're so glad you could stay. We had a great time and hope you did as well.

As the photo shows, we took them to the Red Lake County Fair. They seemed to enjoy our little small-town fair.

Ann's family took off on Sat. afternoon.

Sunday evening we went to collect all the fair entries and got taken by a surprise thunderstorm.

Here's Mary pulling out of the Cenex by the school.

The rest of the visit/fair/flood photos are here.

Reproduction of a 7th Cent Teutonic/Scandinavian Lyre

2011-06-13T12:47:00.000-06:00

I'm cheating. I'm using power tools and Titebond III. I'm also using Black Walnut instead of Maple. And I'm edge gluing strips of BW for the sound boards and box.

It will be a 7 stringed lyre, hopefully, when I'm done.

Similar style old Lyres.

I am not the Good Shepherd, nor, even a good shepherd.

2011-05-19T15:25:00.001-06:00

Last weekend was very full. Saturday was Tricia B's graduation. I also was to go to Firearms safety range day, but did not because of lack of time. But I did finish up the fence last week. There is sheep netting all around but for the gate. There's electric wire around the top and the bottom.

The sheep were very happy to be off their tethers for the first time since February.

So, Sunday was Confirmation at Oak Park: Noah, Cam, and Logan. Lots of family in attendance. Lots of small kids.

So Matthew decides to give the little kids lamb rides during the dinner and reception after the service. He had a lot of customers. He called it his lamb-rodeo. Lots of kids checked out the chickens and turkeys too. Kind of like a petting zoo. Then I took Matt to TR to drive, he did that, we watched Thor also.

Monday I ran to TR for hospital call, Ray B had a mild heart attack and is recovering well. Dropped off a Meditations magazine for Mavis. Got fuel. Got home.

Monday's supposed to be my day off. Glenn, Linda, Arlan, and Jared have lent me their rototiller. So I went to tilling the garden, expanding it a bit, and I felt something run into me softly.

It was the ewe. She and the ram were out of the pen.

This is not really a good thing for the plants already growing in the garden.

Monday was the "round up."

I am not the Good Shepherd (and thank you Amy S for pointing that out). It was difficult to catch either of them.

Why was the ewe so skittish of hands? Oh, yeah, the "rodeo" the day before. Grrrrr.

Arlan or Glen could be back any time to get the tiller, I wasn't even half done, now I gotta go chase sheep? WHO LEFT THE GATE OPEN? GRRR!

Um, who's the owner that knew kids were playing there and didn't check the gate last night? I am not even a good shepherd. GRRRR!

My sheep do know my voice. They followed, but not close enough to be grabbed. Finally I got the ewe (45 minutes of good exercise).

Clever Idea! (1/2 hour later) I opened the garage door and walked in. The ram followed. I tempted him with "Meat Bird Chicken Feed", he fell for it.

Triumph, and only 2 hours lost. Back to tilling.

Got 5 rows of potatoes in.

Now, what to do about the turkeys in the dining room. They jump out of their wash-tub every five minutes. Cute, very cute, but sooooo annoying.

So sore, so tired, Winkel on Tuesday in Ulen.

Glad I don't have to count sheep jumping over a fence in order to get to sleep. That wouldn't do it for me anyway.

New Guitar Transcription ELH 531

2011-05-13T12:03:00.001-06:00

I've done a new transcription for Classical Guitar of ELH 531 "O Blessed Sun Whose Splendor" Tune: HEAVENLY LOVE by F. Mendelssohn. Meter 76 76 D. Transcription at TuxGuitar.

Listen to a midi version here (mp3 format):

O blessed sun whose splendor
Dispels the shades of night;
O Jesus, my defender,
My soul's supreme delight,
Though fortune should bereave me
Of all I love the best,
If thou thy love still leave me,
I freely give the rest.

I know no life divided,
O Lord of life, from thee;
In thee is life provided,
For all mankind and me;
I know no death, O Jesus,
Because I live in thee;
Thy death it is which frees us
From death eternally.

Lord, with this truth impress me,
And write it on my heart,
To comfort, cheer and bless me,
That thou my Saviour art.
Thy love it was which sought me,
Thyself unsought by me,
And for thy ransom bought me
To live for aye in thee.

The rest of my hymn transcriptions for Classical Guitar are here.

Sheep and Stuff

2011-05-05T21:16:00.000-06:00

Mary did a post on the sheep shearing at this link, thank you Mr. Malwitz.

The ewe, Before

The ram, After.

Mary has the whole story.

She also did a post on our chickens here.


12 Cornish Cross, 12 pullets of 2 different breeds

Mary also picked up two Bronze Broad Breasted Turkey chicks for Thanksgiving. They are the traditional "Thanksgiving-looking" breed.

Well, I put up fence today. I'm about 1/2 done. I'm doing the sheep netting about 6" off the ground with electric fence at 4" off the ground and 3" above the netting. The electric is just inside the netting. This should keep the sheep from thinking they can jump over-since they need to get their nose over the fence to jump it. Or trying to push their nose under. And it should keep the chickens in and varmints out.

I'll need to rig up some kind of gate after that's all done. I'm using T-posts about every 25 feet with a re-bar support in between. I'll need to get some insulating spacers for some spots on the fence to keep the electric from touching the netting.

RLCC Elementary had their 4-6th grade Spring Concert this evening. Very nicely done. Clara did her solo very well. We mixed our family together with Chris and Alan's this evening to car pool with concert and track. Figured everything out. God home, realized we'd left Matthew in Plummer at a friend's place.

Best laid plans....

Roasted Jalapenos with Roe

2011-05-04T18:52:00.000-06:00

No photos, sorry, because the Vivitar ViviCam 5188 is a worthless piece of trash. Don't buy it, not ever. This photo is cobbed from google.

Somebody else's
stuffed roasted jalapenos
Thank you, Google

Now, to the roasted Jalapeno recipe.

We acquired more than a dozen Northern Hognose Sucker on Sunday from a generous member of the congregation. I cleaned them and froze them. But I was interested in the ways that the old timers used the roe. So, checking on several ways of curing and cooking, I settled on slow cook in the sack and then cool.

The flavor is kind of like eggs, kind of like fish. I can't fry them very well because the tiny eggs explode shooting other eggs clear across the room. The combination of hot oil and 6 shot sized eggs is a bit unpleasant both when it hits you and when you have to clean it up.

Off to the roasted jalapenos.

I just did two jalapenos, and I used some nice home pickled ones from this past fall.

The stuffing was :

2 Tbs. Sour Cream
1 Tbs. Roe from Northern Hognose Sucker (cooked and cooled)
1 tsp. crumbled ham.
1/2 tsp. chopped garlic.

Mash this all together into a paste, but leave some texture.

Make one slice in each of the jalapenos along one side from tip to stem.
Core them if you want to.

Put the stuffing into the jalapenos.

I put them in a little 3 inch cast iron frying pan (yes, they do make them that small), and placed them under the broiler until the jalapenos started to brown.

Pull them out and top with a pinch of shredded cheddar and mozarella.

Broil until the cheese starts to bubble and brown.

Top with a pinch of shredded Asiago.

Serve.

They were very good. The roe flavor went well with the rest of the ingredients.

Shear Fayal-yure

2011-04-27T14:18:00.000-06:00

Well, I gave it my best with what I had. Mr. P from Warren area lent me his sheep shears. I read. I studied numerous videos and books. Like this one:

I tested. I oiled. I checked tension-tension spring. I learned to put the sheep on its rump with feet foreward, head by my knees. Shears would make several cuts--when I kept the tension up. But then the head would fall apart after a few minutes.

Aggravating. :-\

We have one ewe with one shorn buttock and one ram with a shorn buttock and a shorn arm. They both have a couple of skin cuts from my inexperience.

Both are a bit ticked off at me for putting them on their backs and for nicking them.

I owe Mr. P a tension spring. Hello ebay, ...

Cindy B gave me a number of a neighbor that might be able to do the job for me, Willard M. Here's hoping....

I'd like to claim equipment failure, and...maybe it is even true. But the fact is that I just don't know enough about the clipper to know that it wasn't my failure--which does, in fact, make it my failure.

Right now I am Eunice Higgins on the Gong Show.

Feelings, nothing more than Feelings.

Easter Break-Monday..Tuesday

2011-04-26T08:01:00.000-06:00

Poor sheep, I still don't have a working set of shears. Will try to get complete set today.
Monday's break:

Moved the sheep to an area where there is shade.

Removed the fence around the garden. Moved the fence to behind the house. Fenced around the girls' "Garden Club" area.

Cleaned (Mostly done) the attached garage. Worked a bit on the rabbit hutch. Hoed some garden. Played some guitar and pennywhistle.Worked a bit on Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's "Somewhere over the rainbow" on the Tambura.

Made a catapult with Louisa.

Today, off to get the shears figured out, get some bunnies? Get some milk, visit some friends.

Mary and I should work on our songs and dance for the old folks homes. So far we've not decided on how many or on particular songs, just kicking around ideas and seeing which work well for us. Some that we've been playing together include Iz' "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", "Cinderella Rockafella", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "The Ballad of Darcy Farrow", "Tennessee Waltz", others, and several hymns.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

2011-04-24T20:46:00.000-06:00

Lent in a 4 congregation parish can be a bit of an workout.

This year we had only two funerals during the season of Lent: Helen C, and Bernice T. There were 3 separate services to prepare for their families.

The regular Wednesday School services continued through lent: 6 services plus 6 Wednesday Schools.

There were 6 weeks of mid-week services: 18 services (Oak Park and Nazareth alternate weekly).

There were 18 Bible Study classes following those Lenten services.

We held the regular 4 weekend services for the congregations during this period: 24 services.

Then we had Holy Week with 1 Wednesday School service, 2 Maundy Thursday Services, 2 Good Friday services, and the 4 weekend festivals for the Resurrection.

Totals for the Pre-Easter to Easter Sunday season: 7 Wed. Schools, 7 Wed school services. 50 Church Services, 3 funeral related services, asn 18 Bible Studies.

Grand total of 85 Preaching/Teaching engagements in 6 weeks. Add into that several shut-in visits, the regular office/clerical stuff, and a handfull of hospital visits.

Everyone in my parish is under my orders to be healthy and unhospitalized, and have no emergencies this week. I need to crash for a couple of days.

Today we were privileged to have Louisa's friend Rachel and her family as guests for our Easter Sunday dinner. We had a wonderful visit and a wonderful time. Rachel, tell your folks and brothers you are all welcome over again. It was great to get to know you all. Hopefully your Dad will be able to come next time.

Holy Saturday

2011-04-23T11:15:00.000-06:00

The Lenten journey is nearly complete. Happy Easter to you all.

I put new tires on the car this morning.

And I cleaned the Lent out of my car. Pastors with several congregations will understand what this means.

Now, some projects in process:

1) Stealing and getting things by a "Show of right" through the political process.

2) Harold Camping's prediction about May 21 being Judgement Day this year.

3) Using ELH, Book of Family Paryer, and the Catechism for daily devotion.

I have the articles for Word for the Week in the Grygla Eagle Newspaper for June and October this year. I'll re-edit the Halloween article into a couple of articles for October. The first two projects listed above should produce a couple of useful articles. I think I'll continue looking at the modern neo-paganaziation of Christian roots as a source for more articles.

Memorable Good Friday Morning

2011-04-22T10:52:00.000-06:00

I've got nine services from Wed of Holy Week to the last service on Easter Morning. Once in a while something unusual happens.

This morning, service at St. Petri at 8:00am. Well, we've had some raccoons living under the church during the winter. This week we were able to put out some traps. One was caught in a trap this morning. And it was not amused.

"Pastor! Do you have your gun with you?"

"Of course."

Tenebrae is a service of quiet contemplation. The strepitus is supposed to be at the end of the service.

Well, the younger kids will remember the loudest noise before the service began. We still have a couple more destructive raccoons to catch.

Blessed Easter to you all.

A couple more play photos

2011-04-18T17:11:00.000-06:00

Sorry, our internet has been acting kind'a funny the last few days. Here are a couple more photos from the play.


I can pluck the monobrow, just kiss me.

It's cold outside. And the reception in here is a bit colder.

Hmmmmm. Things aren't what I'd hoped.

Some Pics of the Oklee HS Play last night

2011-04-16T09:52:00.000-06:00

Mayonaise sher alotta fun in dis here play, omona tell you:

Dayz purdy wimin-folk.

Dayz a hair chop.

Dayz ol' cusses.

Dayz confuzd yung-uns.

Dayz more befuddled yung-uns.

Den days dem my-steerious strangers.

An that jes sum of da fun.

שלום! מי קורא מאשדוד

2011-04-15T14:53:00.000-06:00

תודה על הביקור

Simple Events

2011-03-31T21:56:00.000-06:00

Lent is going on apace, I'm glad for the regular times for Bible Study with the congregations during Lent.

So, there have been several hospitalizations, and those members seem to be recovering well. Thank God for that.

Today I put out a few pounds of Barn Lime on the sheep droppings. Rain was forecast for this evening. So the lime should help me with my clean up. Especially in keeping the soil from being burned up with too much Nitrogen. And for some people it helps get rid of the smell, though I don't mind that gentle rural fragrance-others might. So, I try to take care of it.

After I got home from Lenten services and Bible Study tonight Mary told me that our ram had fallen and tangled himself in his tether. After helping some of the kids I went to investigate.

Apparently the ram got tangled and fell from the hay bail so that he couldn't get up. He was limping and had choked himself a bit.

Mary untangled him, and noticed the limp. Clara went out later and reported that he seemed not as active and limped a bit.

So I went out after all these things. The ram was more subdued than usual. His limp seems to be gone. I checked his legs, mouth, eyes, lips, tongue, neck, walk and such. Aside from being a little less active he looked ok. But it was dark and I was using a flashlight and it was raining and sleeting.

I think it was his back left leg that was limping. Mary and Clara didn't tell me which leg. He just seemed a bit sore below the left hock-but he could have been a bit skittish when I grabbed him there. That would be normal.

I did a little internet searching on leg wounds to sheep and goats. Nothing definitive.

The funny thing is that when I came in I had this barnyard aroma on me. And I felt comforted by it. It might seem stupid, but that's the way it is.

I like having animals to take care of and which provide my family with food. Only my parents will appreciate how totally ironic that statement is coming from me.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for making me take care of pigs and the other critters we had while Jeremy and I were growing up. I really didn't appreciate it at the time. I'm starting to appreciate it now. And thanks to the late James Alfred Wight who introduced me to so much of the joy of animal husbandry through his books.

The Crib Tent

2011-03-30T12:55:00.000-06:00

Actually, this is just a bunch of photos, the crib tent is toward the end.

Just Married, Sept, 30th, 1989, Harvest Fest and Rosh Hashana

Dave taking a picture of Madeline on her first day of Public School. (Last Month)

The Sheep are doing fine.

Michael Jackson? Or a Knight that says "Ni"?

Inge and Stella looking out the window.

The Crib Tent

Who knew that such a simple thing could bring such joy. Each of our kids have enjoyed this little trick. "Time for nap!" "No!" "Do you want a tent?" "Yes!" "Climb in bed" Sound of feet running down the hall, a creek and a bounce. "Tent pease?" "Love you, Good night." "Wuv you, nite."

Pics for Yearbook four more

2011-03-25T08:46:00.000-06:00

Four more suggestions from Mary:

From Choose

Pics for Yearbook

2011-03-24T09:15:00.000-06:00

Two suggestions for Jeremy's yearbook photo:

From Choose

Bear Roast and Visits

2011-02-24T17:13:00.000-06:00

Well, I've wanted to hunt bear for a few years now. I haven't done it. We have a guide in one of our congregations who is willing to take me out. But I still haven't done it. Why? Because.

Because is two reasons. 1) it's a lot of meat, and if none of my family likes the flavor it would be waste. 2) I don't want to spend money on tanning the hide or doing a mount. I'm only in it for the food and the hunt.

A friend gave me a 4 pound roast from a bear he harvested last year. Yesterday I decided to cook it.

I sliced a big potato into thick slices to keep the roast up and out of the fat, in case the flavor of the fat would be unpleasant to my family. Put the potato and roast in the crock pot on high for 2 hrs. At that point I sprinkled on some salt and black pepper and put some onion slices on the top.

I have to say, the scent was delicious.

3 hours later we served it with fried potatos and veggies. It was wonderful. One of my kids kept asking (because she was suspicious) "What animal is this dad?"

Most liked the fat on their potatos too. The gravy was good.

So, Mary has given me her blessing to hunt bear. The flavor was somewhere between pork roast and beef roast. The texture was a bit soft because it had slow-cooked so long.

Now, I have to figure out what to do with the skin and such if I should get one this fall.

Today I went to three hospital visits, one in Grand Forks, one in Crookston, and one in Fosston. Long day with a lot of driving.

I have Ladies' Aid at Oak Park tonight. Then, maybe I can relax with a bit of Mary Stewart. It's a well told tale, but entirely fiction. I mean every part of it: from the Druids to the Mithraists, to the nature of the Christian Church in early Wales. All of the religious and mytery religions in the works are spun out of imagination and not history.

Tambur/Dombra/Tambura Video

2011-02-22T10:24:00.000-06:00

Just a quick uninspired improvisation with a slide to demonstrate what the instrument sounds like. Sorry the high notes sound a bit tinny, my digital camera's microphone had its limits.

Guitar Scores and Tabs for the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnal

2011-02-11T16:53:00.001-06:00

Image via Wikipedia

Not My Guitar

I've transcribed some hymns from the ELH for classical guitar. They are available at
http://community.tuxguitar.com.ar/user/joe/

You'll need the free program "tuxguitar" from that website to use them.

The transcriptions are made compatible with the music in the ELH so a guitarist can play with an organist or pianist.

I'm actually looking for help doing the transcriptions. They take time. And "Many hands make a task light."

Donna Singing Her Song

2011-02-11T10:19:00.000-06:00

Donna breaks out into song very often. Usually the rest of the kids aren't this quiet.

First Aulos

2011-02-09T14:51:00.000-06:00

TallCotton,�

Thanks for posting the video. The girls thought this would be a fun project for this afternoon.

We took bamboo steaks, trimmed, tempered, sanded. Made cheater's reeds from soda straws and started making holes.

BTW, if anyone has a how-to on making bamboo reeds and double reeds I would really like to learn.TIA.

Above you can see the size, below you can hear the results. Sorry, I just ran through some notes to check intonation and volume, No real sense to the notes.

I am very surprised by how loud such a small reed instrument is.

Giannini Brazilian Classical Guitar

2011-02-07T10:24:00.002-06:00

I bought this guitar in August 1985. It was my 5th guitar at the time. My first was a cigar box guitar that my father made for me before I was 6 years old. Later in about 7th grade, Mom and Dad gave me a child's student acoustic folk guitar, wire strings--very similar to the First Act kids guitars you can get at K mart and Walmart these days.

In my junior year I bought an electric guitar and an electric bass to play in two different bands, The K and R Rangers (Country), and Thief of Hearts (Pop). After High school I continued to play in various ways and that helped pay for some of my college and rent.

Just before I went to college I bought this Giannini. This guitar was priced at $600, but since the music store was going out of business and being repossessed by the bank, I got it for $110.

It looked funny, but when I took it off the wall to try it out, I loved it right away. I eventually sold the electric guitar and the electric bass. But I still have the Giannini, and it has gone through some hard times.

This Giannini is an AWKN 6 Brazilian "Craviola" style Classical, full size. 2 piece spruce soundboard, 19 nickel frets, bone nut, bone bridge. The body is pitched at low E. I don't know what the rest of the woods are. The Craviola body style originated in the 1970s.

I've replaced the head gears and tuning pegs twice over 25 years.The problem was my handling of the guitar and moving too often.

There are 5 layers of varicolored wood purfling around the front edge of the body.

The sound hole is in the Giannini Brazilian style, the rosette is a complicated pattern made with at least 4 different colors of wood cross cut very fine, with multi layered purfling inside and out. This is not a decal.

You can see the Model is AWKN 6 and the serial number is 10/0, a proof guitar.

The bridge has the same 4 tones of wood in 7 lines of purfling along the back edge of the bridge.

If you look carefully on the bottom left side you can see a very well done repair. In the fall of 1986 I fell asleep with the guitar in my dorm loft. I rolled over, it fell 8 ft and broke. My chemistry professor knew a luthier in Mankato who was able to do a brilliant job fixing it and charged me less than $40.

If you look closely you can see small inset mother-of-pearl fret markers on the top edge of the fret board. There are none on the face of the fretboard. The neck broke away from the heel sometime in maybe 1998. Probably moving damage. I don't remember. Mary took it secretly to a friend in Mankato who is also an excellent Luthier (David Begalka) and got it put back together for me for Fathers' Day that same year.

I've taken this guitar all over the US, from Atlanta to Seattle. It's been through a lot, and it still plays great.

Why Older Sisters get frustrated....

2011-02-02T12:28:00.001-06:00

Two photos showing why older sisters need to keep their rooms clean, their stuff put away, and their doors locked.

But it tasted good.

Just a little lipstick to help a girl look fresh.

Elsie's Birthday Party

2011-02-01T13:26:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we celebrated 13 years of God's blessing to us. Happy Birthday, Elsie.

She got all the candles out. Whew. That's a relief.

She got a light saber from Stella.

Another gift.
BTW, she got lots more than these.
I just didn't think you all wanted to see them all.

A Shady character showed up.

A Party Crasher!


The name is da-RELL, it's spelled Darrel, but it's pronounced duh-RELL' Can I has you number? Can I, Can I, Now?

Just some more gifts.

Just so you know............................

2011-01-28T20:54:00.001-06:00

This really is kind of embarassing, but I was part of the 1985 Mr. MN Teen pageant.

So, when I say, very clearly and with a loud voice "I did not win" I hope you understand.

I did a lot of funny things in Highschool and this was one of them:

All I can say is that Lisa or Lana or whatever her name was, was a nice girl. I just got my picture taken with her. She was important. I wasn't.

I met two guys who would go to Bethany Lutheran College with me. And two of my highschool buddies were separated from me during the contest.

Oh, well, Tim, Joel, and I are still friends from HS. And now Don and Randy are also friends from my college years.

But, well, I missed being mr. mn teen 1985. I didn't play enough foot ball or hockey or whatever. I just was too busy at home keeping our pigs fed so we could eat.

But the trip and pageant was kind of fun.

So, for my congregations, this is a "just so you know" post. I'm sure you have other embarassing stories about yourselves.

Just wait till the time is right.

And today we get more....snow....huh.

2011-01-28T11:29:00.000-06:00

Snow on the ground, snow on the tree, snow on the sheep, and snow on me.

Chili

2011-01-27T10:38:00.000-06:00

Yummy Chili

Diced medium onion
1/4 diced Green pepper
4 cloves garlic, crushed chopped
1/4c ground chilis/chili powder
2 Tbs paprika
1 c white beans
1 c black beans
2 c red beans
1 c kidney beans
1 qt crushed or diced tomatos

1 pt tomato paste
2 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper

add salt to taste.
Soak beans overnight or use canned. If you soak them use whey. Then they won't cause as much gas. If you like gas, just use the canned.

Cold and Fog Photos

2011-01-27T10:32:00.000-06:00

Cold and fog;

I-500 Snowmobile Race Photos and Video

2011-01-22T15:18:00.000-06:00

The First Day Route:

At our place:

At Plummer, the refueling station:

On the way home just south of the Clearwater church and Brekke's:

Some proofs for Jeremy's Sr. Photos.

2011-01-22T14:43:00.000-06:00

I did these when Jeremy was up here at the beginning of the month:

Baked Potatoes and spatchcocked Chicken Tandoori

2011-01-22T14:38:00.000-06:00

Potatoes baked in cast iron frying pan with whole mushrooms, shredded carrots, chopped celery, crushed garlic, basil, topped with shredded raw milk cheddar and roasted. Sprinkle of Parmesan on just before serving.

Spatchcocked chicken tandoori baked tender then roasted.

Louisa's pies.

Tart Rhubarb Pie, Pecan Toffee Chisel Pie, Toasted Chocolate Meringue, Lemon Meringue; all on gluten free crusts. Thank you, Louisa.

Domra, Dombra, Dombura, or Tambura? Or what

2011-01-22T13:40:00.000-06:00

A long and thin necked 4 stringed, steel strung, free bridged, small bodied, fretted, wood, strumming or plucking instrument.

I found this last summer at a second hand store. The neck was broken away on the back side from the heel. But I figured it could be fixed with some Titebond III. I took it over to a chair and plinked around with it. That's when I realized that it wasn't just a fancy wall hanging designed to look like a folk instrument, but a real instrument.

The neck is thin and deep, carved of one piece with the head. The little piece of metal on the back was used to hang the instrument from the wall as a decoration. The frets wrap around the fingerboard about 1/4" on both sides. The body is carved out of one piece of wood.

The head has an inlay of mother of pearl. The tuning pegs are geared brass and steel with an embossed brass plate. I'm not sure what the ends of the pegs are made from but it looks like they were to match mother of pearl. There is a tension wire under which the strings go before going over a bone nut. The tuning assembly is similar to one on this page on the Domra.

The fingerboard is the same wood as the neck. The bottom (high) strings have 24 frets. Three fret markers of inlaid mother of pearl at the 5th, the 12th, and 17th frets. The top (low) strings are chromatic up to the seventh fret and then follow the pattern whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half up to what is the 17th fret on the bottom strings. I've never seen this kind of half-fret design before. The final 5 frets are placed on the heel and the soundboard.

The sound board is glued over the body and made of three different pieces of wood. The bridge is bone and floats freely like a banjo bridge. It is missing whatever decorative rosette it had. I'm thinking of designs and looking at other examples of the Domra, Dombura, Dombra and eastern European Tambura.

Here you can see the arches of the bridge. It is held to the soundboard by the tension of the strings. The tailpiece is screwed into a piece of what looks like oak that makes up the bottom of the body. The tailpiece is of sheet aluminum marked with concentric circles . The strings are about 1/4 inch apart, making it a bit difficult to fingerpick. It is fun to play.

So, what is it? Does anyone know?

Project Idea for Summer Reading Program

2011-01-15T19:45:00.000-06:00

The Red Lake Falls Library puts on a reading program with different presentations throughout the weeks of the Summer. A couple of years ago I did a presentation on making bows and arrows in the old way.

I think I'll try to put something together on flute making for this summer. Anyone have good suggestions on stories and books with flutes, whistles, pan pipes, fripples, pennywhistles, etc. in them?

I already have the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Yesterday's Snow this morning.

2011-01-15T19:34:00.000-06:00

We've been fighting flu all week. Yesterday we thought we were done. Big snow event. Dropped about 5 inches on us without wind. Very hard to drive during the snow during daylight.

But we went out to visit some friends. No pukes all day. Not until we were half-way home, driving through the deep falling snow. I really hope we didn't share our flu.

Plenty of us sick (including me) this morning. I hope to have church on Sunday. Pastor Stafford covered for me at Mt. Olive this morning. Thank you.

See the snow stacked up on the rails. Those rails are 1 3/4 inches wide. The highest I could measure was about 4 1/2 inches. Just a puff of air knocks them over. There's 5 inches deep on the bracket for the wind chime.

Hipster Christianity, Contemporary and Relevant Services

2011-01-06T08:51:00.001-06:00

The following video is a satirical critique of the Emergent(ing) Church's use of the current fads in Hipster and Contemporary Popular Christianity. (hat tip: Pr. D. Thompson)

What I found very insightful is that this video presents a Hipster Contemporary liturgy in its essential form. The form of Hipster liturgy does not specify or restrict content except that it must be Hip, Contemporary, and Relevant, or "Contemporvant" as the video puts it. The video also hits on the fact that this form of liturgy emphasizes self-marketing and the social justice focus of Hipster Christianity in the Emergent Church.

In contrast to the above the form of liturgy the Confessional Lutheran Church restricts the content to the reading and preaching of the Bible, God's gift of grace and forgiveness to us through the proper use of the Sacraments and the proper use of Confession and Absolution, as well as the response of the believer to God's grace with prayer and hymns.

My favorite section: "Young hip guy welcoming all with graphic tee and cool glasses. 'I welcome everyone,' with arms wide open; revealing my tatoo, so you know I have a past; quirky transition to band, invite everyone to stand, 'Let's do it!'"

I've endured several services like this.

Sheep are funny critters

2011-01-03T12:14:00.000-06:00

Today the ram and ewe are standing on one hay bale while munching down on it. That bale is 5 feet up. They climb a bit of snow and then jump.

Here is from last November, a week or two before Thanksgiving.

Baaaaaaaramewe.

Clara with the ewe.

First Day of School Today

2011-01-03T07:37:00.000-06:00

That's 90 degrees difference from breakfast to going out to get the bus. Have a great day, kids.

Christmas Photos

2011-01-02T17:02:00.000-06:00

Christmas Guitar by Jeff Wahl

gf

Mary is adjusting well

2010-12-02T12:59:00.001-06:00

My wife has made a great many adjustments in her expectations and attitudes over the years. I suppose I have too. She used to not like the taste of venison. Now, well, I think she likes it fine. But there's one part of the whole "back to basics" or "hunting"--she says it's because it's a deer and not a cow (whatever).

She still gets a little put off when I have something like this on her kitchen table...even though it yielded 2 tender backstraps 28 inches long each. I have the tenderloins out of this, as you can see. They're softening up for a meal tomorrow. The back straps will go into the freezer, this deer was dry hung for 19 days.

Even if she don't like it on the table in this way, she'll like it on the plate.

Anyway, also put about 12 to 18 lbs of venison in cold brine to cure. Maybe it will turn out "ham"-like? The recipe says 3 days per pound for a medium cure. So, a month or a bit more, and we'll open it and see if it's all spoiled.

Venison

2010-12-02T10:42:00.000-06:00

This is about 3 deer, boned, sliced, packaged. Steaks and chops in white freezer paper. Jerky in the bags on the left. Sausage in the plastic bags in center front. Seasoned roasts in the plastic bags on the right.

I color code each deer so that it's easy to know which possession tag belongs to the meat. I still have about 1/2 a deer to cut up and probably 10-20 lbs of chunks to either grind for sausage or make seasoned roasts I have another 4 lbs in the drier for Jerky.

We're getting there. I think we now have enough food in the house to last until March, if necessary.

Couldn't Resist

2010-11-12T21:36:00.000-06:00

Deer hunting, rifle season

2010-11-09T13:21:00.000-06:00

Deer season for firearms opened last Saturday for our area. I took elsie out in the mid afternoon. We were there less than an hour when a doe walked out of the woods into our area.

She used 1 shot from my Winchester Model 94, .30-30. The range was about 150 yards and the gun has open sights.

Well done, Elsie!

Well, the field was very muddy. Elsie had to get her shoe out of the mud once or twice. And we had to cross a drainage area to get to the deer. Dragging it out was a chore. But Elsie helped with gutting and dragging. She helped to get it in the trunk, hang it in the garage, and she helped to skin the deer.

So we cut out the tenderloins for supper. Mary had an excellent soup ready to go with the tenderloins. Add to that some apples, oranges, and queso fresco, yum.

Good job, Elsie.

On Sunday afternoon I got my first deer of the firearms season. Sharrol J helped us to get it home and hang it. Thanks, Sharrol. Now we have 7 more tags to fill. We got skunked yesterday afternoon, and I can't hunt for two days now. Mary is going to Echo for Jeremy's concert tonight. Then, tomorrow, Mary will go to Minneapolis to pick up Louisa from the airport.

Alas, all good things come to an end, and so, Louisa starts her trip home to us from Hawaii this evening.

Very nice day

2010-11-01T18:28:00.000-06:00

Earlier today Stella (5) and Donna (3) helped me repair the sheep pen fence and put up a smaller fenced in area. Mary and Inge (1) came out and helped clear the sheepyard and garden area. Nice day, lots of work done.

Matthew and I went out bow-hunting white-tail deer this evening. Nice time. We were at the edge of a woods looking west toward the sunset. Sitting quiet. Watching all the wildlife. Hearing the whistle off the wings of geese and swans. 15 or more deer out tonight, not a single one in range.

Tried doing a call (the fawn bleat) scared them off. Duane, I need your help to learn to do it right, no grizzlies here so not as much risk as you--just black bear and timber wolves (and the occasional Mountain Lion).

Beautiful evening, warm, hundreds of swans and geese flying across the sunset. Heard a buck (I think) grunting in the woods behind us, the "social grunt." Mice and squirrels everywhere. I should change my pants. I smell like red fox urine.

An Update

2010-10-26T16:41:00.000-06:00

I've been under the weather for three weeks, our family has the same virus/flu whatever. But we're getting better.

My parents visited us last weekend and brought Jeremy, and his girl-friend. She slept with the girls--as if that needed to be stated.

We wanted Cassy to visit us so we could talk with her and Jeremy.

I'm so glad that my folks can stay with us. Mom and Dad, I love you. Happy Anniversary. Married in 1965. Thank you for everything you have done for us. But especially for your steadfast love for each other.

So, less important things, the Sippers gave us three roosters. They are in the pen with the lambs. Hopefully we can butcher them in the next few days. We've got a storm coming, and all. And if the Sippers need help with butchering their chickens, we'll help out.

One of my parish members was involved in a very bad car accident near Eau Claire, WI. He is bruised and a bit torn, but OK. He's on his way home with his wife right now. We thank God for keeping Brian safe.

Mary, the kids, and I cleaned up the garages and yard for the storm that's supposed to greet us tonight. "Welcome to winter in Minnesota! Here is your fuel bill, Ha, ha, ha, Ha!"

I flushed the radiator on the Van. The last time I flushed a radiator was on our 1979 Plymouth Volare just after Mary and I were married. Thankfully, it has been raining so the cats won't drink up any anti-freeze spills.

Matt and I have been out bowhunting for deer. But so far we have only scared the deer. Matt got off a shot at one, but because arrows are so delicate, some brush deflected his aim. I won't credit him with bad aim.

Sharise, if you are reading this, bring your family next fall. We'll give you rooms and meals, you can deer hunt (rifle or bow--your choice), or if you want, we can arrange a hunt for black bear with a guide. We can't pay for the trip or licenses, but staying here is on us: If you all can put up with the chaos of a large family and Gluten Free meals.

Louisa is enjoying her stay with our friends in Hawaii. She asked if she could stay one more week. Who wouldn't want to? I look outside at the rain that will probably turn to ice tonight and think of white sand, turqoise water, fresh pineapple, grilled pork, and sunshine..... aahh... (by the way, Louisa, that's not a "yes"-yet)

So, working on the calendar, the Christmas program, and other planning for the parish, this is a brief update.

But, I also want to point you in the direction of a very helpful article by Cassy Fiano on the direction popular society and promiscuity. It's a very direct article on what Cassy calls "pseudo-Feminism" and how it hypocritically embraces what she calls "Slut Culture". I want to thank you, Cassy, for your candid exposition and good research. Her article is somewhat explicit, so use your discretion as parents, but it is very helpful for talking with our daughters and sons --so that they can know the lies that face them about human sexuality.

"6 Brazen Advocates of Slut Culture on the Pseudo-Feminist Left" by Cassy Fiano.

Response to Dave's Post on Hipster Christianity

2010-09-27T10:11:00.000-06:00

My great friend Dave wrote a post reacting to the statement by Pastor David Fitch of Life On The Vine Church in Chicago, where Fitch said:

"Youth groups destroy children's lives."

Fitch and others are part of what they call the "Emerging Church" or the "Emergent Church." The Emerging Churches are the descendants of the Zwickau Prophets, Thomas Muntzer and other Anabaptist movements.

Reading through their theological statements I don't find Fitch's claim surprising. I'm going to list their claims and teaching to show that they actually do not offer the youth or their elders any actual grace from God. Rather, they are focused on self-righteous social action and mutual self-approval. Fitch's church is part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

While they confess salvation through faith alone in Christ they deny the Means of Grace and turn faith into a work done by man:

The Emergent Church On the Means of Grace:

From the "Statement of Faith" which Fitch subscribes to at Northern Seminary:

"The ordinances are two in number. Baptism is the immersion of the believer in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, following his confession of faith in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior; baptism symbolizes the death of the old life and the rising of the new. The Lord’s Supper is a memorial instituted by Christ to be kept by believers as a symbol of his atoning death, and of himself as the Bread of Life, the one through whom we have spiritual life and vitality."

So, according to Fitch and his associates: Baptism and the Lord's Supper are outward acts commanded by God where a Christian shows his or her sincerity and dedication to God and the Church. These "ordinances" are merely symbols, and do not convey God's grace, the Holy Spirit, and the forgiveness of sins. This is the standard Anabaptist position as it was taught by Thomas Muntzer during the Reformation.

The Emergent Church On Faith:
Also, from Northern Seminary's Statement of Faith:

"Humans are reconciled unto God only as they by faith appropriate for themselves the salvation provided in Christ."

This statement implies that faith is a work done by the human as he or she uses "faith" to "appropriate" salvation. This kind of statement embraces decision theology and the notion of free will in spiritual matters. It is, however, vaguely enough stated that there will be members of this group on both sides of the issue. That is: those who believe God gave them faith by grace, and those who believe that they had to choose for themselves by their own reason before God would forgive them. This latter expression is Arminianism and (no matter how much Arminians might object--free will is still) Semipelagiansim.

The Emergent Church On Where God's Word Is Found:

Several statements of faith among the Emergent/ing Churches say similarly to this (from Life on the Vine):

4. The Old and New Testaments, inerrant as originally given, were verbally inspired by God and are a complete revelation of His will for the salvation of men. They constitute the divine and only rule of Christian faith and practice.
....2 Peter 1:20–21, 2 Tim 3:15–16

However, in addition to this, the Emerging/ent Churches have no problem with following Thomas Muntzer's views on finding God's word outside of Scripture. David Finch wrote at his blog:

ONE SIMPLE ORIENTING QUESTION “What is God saying? How will I respond?”: Missional Discipleship

"As we have learned over and over again, this kind of “listening for God’ is often prone to sin and deception, and therefore requires the dynamic of the body of Christ for the truth to be discerned. The question itself “what is God saying?” is always addressed to the individual and the community at the same time. Never one without the other. It is necessary therefore to have in place the communal practices of worship, teaching, leadership, and discipleship as the context from within which we can discern some of life’s most confusing times. The communal processes of Matt 18 must be firmly ensconced in such a culture for this single orienting question not to into an individualistic “orgy” of ecstatic experiences. We must have a missional enScripturated culture to breed discernment. Together we have/learn the mind of Christ! (1 Cor 2.16)."

So, for Finch, God's Word and the "Mind of Christ" are the Bible And......

Yes, this is inconsistent with the statement he made on the Scripture as "the divine and only rule of Christian faith and practice."

(Well, actually, readers might have had a hard time following what Finch said. The Emergent Church and its teachers are so full of postmodernist philosophical expressions and arguments, vocabulary and neologisms that very often one cannot tell what they are really trying to say. Consider Romans 16:17-18: "¹⁷Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. ¹⁸For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.")

So, not only are the youth and their elders taught that faith is what they do, that the Means of Grace are what they do to demonstrate their faith and sincerity (as shown above), they are also directed to other sources than Scripture for God's truth.

The Purpose of Church in the Emerging Church:

Youthgroups are a sub-group and extension of the congregation. Why does the congregation get together?

Life on the Vine's website states the church's mission in gathering :

"Our goal is not to be a mega-body but an authentic body of Christ, through which God can work his wonders in the world. We hope that, by our living as the Spirit-filled Body of Christ, those who don’t know Jesus will find him in our midst."

From another page at Life on the Vine:

, our liturgy honors the last 2,000 years of Christianity while adapting to the language and arts of our culture. As participants in the living story of God, we try not to be passive observers during worship but provide ample room to speak aloud and move our bodies as a response to the message. More than emotional arousal or intellectual critique, we seek spiritual formation, a life of submission to the Lordship of Christ.

These statements describe the gathering and worship as the work of God's people for God and community. There is a strong emphasis on mission and social justice.

Consider also the statement of Dr. Ryan Bolge:

"What we've seen is that these Christ Followers who really want to make their faith real are doing it in a way that makes sense to the culture as well. And so, for those in the culture who have a favorable impression of Jesus, then this is a viable way for them to express their faith. Without necessarily the adoption of church practices that have accumulated over the past 2,000 years, that may or may not express faith in meaningful ways today. So these are faith communities that are very organic, very simple-- looking for ways to follow Jesus' example in this culture now."

Now, listen carefully in his video to the description of the Karaoke church following what I transcribed above. According to him, in the Emergent Church the "church" is what the people want it to be. There is no consideration for what Christ has said.

Christ gave us the Lord's Supper, Baptism, the Absolution, the Preaching and Reading of the Scriptures. These He told us to continue in until He returns. Note how this contrasts with the Emergent Churches' model of social contextualization and personal relevance.

So, the ultimate reason for a person to gather in the Emergent Churches is that the individual gets to shape what worship and faith ought to be.

What is there to offer the youth? All that the Emergent Churches are teaching them is to be selfish.

The Emergent Church on Prayer:

Scripture teaches that prayer is commanded by God and that He promises to hear our prayers. He hears our prayers because we have been brought to faith in Jesus Christ. But prayer does not motivate or make God do anything.

The Emergent Churches use prayer as a replacement for the Means of Grace.

From Life on the Vine's website:

"God works his wonders through prayer. Basic as it is, prayer is often a hard habit to form. That’s why the Vine provides ample room for making our requests known to God."

And so the youth (and their elders) are directed away from the Means of Grace and toward their own struggles with God in prayer to find a way, that they might hear some answer from somewhere outside of Scripture that will satisfy them.

Finch's Church on Youth:

The LIfe on the Vine's website states:

YOUTH DISCIPLESHIP is a community of youth and adults imitating Jesus and being the Church. The goal is not to keep our youth merely safe, nice, and happy, but to be alive in Christ--to walk with Christ, to listen to Christ, and to look for and share Christ in the world.

But they have thrown out grace, the means of grace, and the real reason for gathering as church. What is left to teach the youth?

Worship must suit your tastes or it is not "genuine" or "real."
Your faith must be active and doing things in the community and you have to feel it to make your faith "real."
You can't believe God's written Word when He says that the Lord's Supper is "given for you for the forgiveness of sins." You can't even believe Jesus when He says: "This is my body...This is my blood."
You have to find your own way to God by the time you reach maturity before you can be Baptized. And God didn't really mean it when His apostle Peter wrote "Baptism does also now save us."
Sermons should have some relevance to your own personal life and to society if they are to be of any value. Whether or not they are expositions of Scripture is not so important.

There are more rules that can be derived from their teachings. They also believe in the pre-millenial return of Christ. And unless their version of pre-millenialism is significantly different from others, that means they believe there is a second chance for people base on works righteousness.

11. The second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is imminent and will be personal, visible, and premillennial. This is the believer's blessed hope and is a vital truth which is an incentive to holy living and faithful service.

So, honestly, without the Means of Grace, what do they have to offer the youth? How can they " be alive in Christ--to walk with Christ, to listen to Christ, and to look for and share Christ in the world" when the very things Christ has given to his church in the Word through which He comes to us and grants us the Holy Spirit are stripped from their youth? Indeed, even their congregations are stripped of these gifts. In this they are "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! ⁶ For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, ⁷ always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Tim 3)

They fit the shape of the Church of Sardis:

"These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. ² Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. ³ Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you." (Rev 3)

Last Comments:

No congregation or denomination will be perfect. Humanity is corrupted by its inheretance of original sin. But any individual or group that looks outside Scripture for life, salvation, justification, sanctification, or the will of God is doing exactly what Eve and Adam did with Satan's temptation: They wanted to please God by going outside His Word and command, outside His promise--which are found only in the Scriptures.

There is a similar problem in the ELS, WELS, LCMS and other small groups of conservative Lutherans. The temptation to become hip. Our congregations are bleeding youth mainly because the youth cannot tell the difference between the denomination they grew up in and any modern E-Free or non-denominational church. Becoming hip means removing instructional and useful distinctions in liturgy, presentation, and teaching itself.

I want my kids to feel strange when they have to go into one of these hip services. I want them to feel that it is wrong. This is so that they can automatically be on guard to listen to the teaching that takes place.

I don't know why Fitch made his claim about youthgroups. But his theology and religious philosopy could end nowhere else than the destruction of the faith of the youth and the other members of his congregation and their associations.

Celiac disease, oh, well....

2010-09-16T07:26:00.000-06:00

I think we'll have to get going on a GF version of this:

Texas Chef Successfully Deep-Fries...Beer! | Field & Stream

Texas Chef Successfully Deep-Fries...Beer!

Recovery

2010-09-14T15:24:00.002-06:00

Surgery for my member who went to Bemidji went very well, even if the wait was long before surgery. He's home now and doing well recovering. Thanks for the prayers and still keep him in them.

Today I went to Fargo for Allie E. Allie is Ryan B's sister, see this post, this post, and this post. Allie (33yo mother of 2 young children) had a stroke at work yesterday at about 12:30 noon. Fortunately her co-worker saw there was something wrong and got help. Allie got the tPA shot in time to help her. tPA carries with it a not insignificant danger of hemmorage for the first 24 hours after the shot, so she was tested several times every hour until early this afternoon.

And she is tired, but talkative.

The stroke affected her right side and her speech. Yesterday afternoon she didn't have the use of her right side and couldn't talk, but soon after the tPA shot she started to get some movement back. This morning she was very weak, but she was able to move her right arm, fingers, leg, and toes. And she was speaking very clearly.

The stroke doesn't seem to have affected her vision, hearing, memory or clarity of thought. She remembers the bumpy ride on the helicopter to Fargo very clearly. And she remembers when the ER docter shouted out for the tPA shot.

When I was talking with her she seemed most concerned about her Mom and Dad and the affect this is having on them. So, Rod and Cheryl: when I left she was sleeping a bit before the MRI, but she wants you to know she's doing fine.

The doctors and nurses were all very happy with how much and how quicly Allie is recovering. Of course a lot has to be learned yet about her condition and she'll have some more tests and more work to do for recovery. Tomorrow they'll also do an echo cardiogram of the back of her heart and some more tests.

For all of her family and friends, the doctor said she has to stop smoking! Help her do that. Those of you who smoke, don't enable her. Quit for Allie.

She should be moving from ICU this evening to a regular room where the neurology staff can check her and give her therapy. One NP said that the next three weeks are where they have to work with her very intensely and quickly to help her get as much early recovery as possible. The longer the wait, the harder recovery is.

We thank God for His gracious providential care through medicine and the staff at the hospitals, for His gift of good positive and quick recovery for Allie, and pray that He may grant her a good and full recovery.

Please keep her and her family in your prayers.

When it rains...

2010-09-13T21:13:00.004-06:00

If you are coming back to this post and notice it is different, well, I decided to be less specific about some information. There were only three readers in that time from the original post, and I know who they were. Please just go with this version without any specifics for now.

---------------

Today I spent in Bemidji at the hospital with a member and his family. The gentleman had to have delicate surgery on his carotid artery to remove a severe blockage. It was supposed to start before noon. But there were so many emergency victims during the day that he didn't go in until around 5pm.

I haven't heard yet how the surgery went. I needed to get home. And they wanted me not to worry. It's Stella's birthday.

We had a small celebration with gift opening, but Mary's day went askew with all plans shattered. So we hope to have Stella's birthday dinner tomorrow.

After coming to the office this evening I got a call that another member had a stroke. I'll go to be them in the morning.

And there are some other members and a neighbor who have this week found out about or are dealing with serious medical issues.

Sorry I can't be more specific. And perhaps I won't be able to be more forthcoming in the future.

But all of these families have been through some really tough times in the past few years. Please keep us all in your prayers.

Hello, I'm Johnny Cash

2010-09-12T20:51:00.000-06:00

Great program on American Routes Saturday.
Listen here, at American Routes
Get a Rythem: A Tribute to Johnny Cash.

Skunk smell

2010-09-07T07:53:00.001-06:00

Image by fieldsbh via Flickr
The electric fence deterred a skunk from going after the chickens last night.
Some branches took down part of the fence, but the skunk apparently stayed out. Right at the NE corner of the fence there was spray all over the ground outside and just inside the fence.
But all the chickens and the two lambs look fine.

Recollecting our Trip Part 2 with more errors

2010-09-01T12:08:00.000-06:00

A Hotlink to the LSMMA Webcam, hope it works

OK, I left off when we went back to the campground at Gooseberry Falls. While we were at Indian Lake Campground, Mary took a couple of the kids to go Geocaching.

And if Mary wants to tell you how it went, she can do it on her blog. Me? No way can I say anything about it without getting a sore shoulder.

(But she didn't find the geocache)

Sunday morning we had a bit of a worship service, the girls invited the camper next to us over for devotion. We spent the day in the campground swimming and fishing and drinking the great water from the well there.

Monday, 8/16, we went into Duluth. We ate noon meal at Little Angie's Cantina and Grill, pretty good. It's part of the Grandma's franchise in Duluth. They had a gluten free menu.

After eating we went to the Great Lakes Aquarium. They had some fish in tanks there that the kids liked to look at. I liked it too. But the kids loved the model of the great lakes with running water, toy boats and locks. We should have brought the swimming diapers.

It was a warm day out, we dried up pretty fast on the walk back, across the drawbridge. Matt and I went down to the Harley Davidson Store.

We all kind of split up to go to the stores we liked. We met back at the fountains across from Little Angie's.

Then off for desert at the Cold Stone Creamery. (Not anywhere as good as The Chocolate Shoppe)

But, then, I can't eat at either place anymore.

Oh, I forgot to mention in the last post on the vacation, our van's cooling system sprang a leak just before vacation. We overheated when we were looking for a campground when we just left Duluth, near Lester Park. So we had to keep putting in water every time we stopped on the trip.

There isn't any water available in Lester Park, no tap water or pumps. We just used the creek water.

We left Duluth for Indian Lake Campground.

Tuesday morning we packed up and left for Gunflint. Well, actually, when we finally got everything packed it was mor like late-late morning, kinda, early, mid, late mid afternoon.

More later, maybe.

Um...

2010-09-01T11:13:00.000-06:00

hope to get the rest of vacation posted sometime soon.

For the people that wrote asking about my Teaparty speech, it's here

http://theabrahamsons.blogspot.com/2009/06/june-11th-teaparty-in-trf.html

Also, for the interested, lactofermented salsa over at paleoplanet.

To the reader in Morinville, Albert; we didn't go sucker fishing this year. Pickling by fermenting didn't work out last year. I won't try it with fish again. But Evelyn Lundeen's recipe is great.

Make a brine of 1/2 cup salt (not iodized) to 1 quart water. Place fillet of fish in crock with brine. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours. Then drain off and throw away the brine. Cut up into smaller pieces and cover with white vinegar 12 hours. Drain off and throw away vinegar. Pack jars with fish pieces and onions, alternating. Then boil: 3 cups white vinegar, 2 1/2 cups sugar, 1 cup Silver Satin wine, 1/4 cup pickling spice. Heat and cool and pour over fish. Cover and put in refrigerator for 1 week.

So, guess what I brought home last night?

So, now, I've got to finish butchering the chickens (7 left). And oh were they confused when I put the lambs in the fence with them.

We also collected acorns on Monday. About 4 pounds. I used a couple dozen and made some acorn muffins. They turned out really nice.

So, now I've got to pick up where I left off describing vacation.

To Mold a New Reality

2010-08-31T08:30:00.000-06:00

OK, long time for a response to Dave's classic rock post. Rock has been used to express rebellion against authority since the style was invented ("Yackedy Yack. Don't talk back!").

I'm interested in those songs/albums that protested totalitarian government-not the vapid songs like "Signs" sung by Five Man Electrical Band while they performed from a stage surrounded by security guards and signs that said "authorized personnel only."

For example,

Rush (2112, Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures);
Pink Floyd's The Wall;
Paul Kantner - Blows Against The Empire;
Rage Against the Machine
Sid Vicious
Black Flag,
Anti Flag,
Bad Religion,
Dead Kennedys,
Oi Polloi
Styx' Mr Roboto.

Rush, for example, puts the source of change and hope in the government:

And the men who hold high places
Must be the ones who start
to mold a new reality
Closer to the Heart
Closer to the Heart

The irony is that these groups tend to be pro statist and in favor of socialism.

Rush's lyrics could be (and sing this to the tune of "Closer to the Heart")

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

Dave, your question was about "Classic Rock" and what makes it "Classic." I think the word "Classic" means "I'm more than 35 years old and this is the stuff that was popular when I was in high school. Now I can't get a real job, so I DJ at the radio station and this is my collection."

"Wrong, Do it again!"
"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"

Church, State, Separation, Progressives

2010-08-30T22:32:00.000-06:00

OK, Progressives ( all of whom are fascists, social Liberals and loose constructionists) and, in the end what this means is that these groups all believe that statism or strong state government should take care of all an individual's needs and problems, even your great O cannot prevent his appointees from showing their true colors.

Education secretary urged his employees to attend Sharpton's rally | Washington Examiner

President Obama's top education official urged government employees to attend a rally that the Rev. Al Sharpton organized to counter a larger conservative event on the Mall.

"ED staff are invited to join Secretary Arne Duncan, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and other leaders on Saturday, Aug. 28, for the 'Reclaim the Dream' rally and march," began an internal e-mail sent to more than 4,000 employees of the Department of Education on Wednesday.

So, did you hear about this on the regular news media? If the Sec. of Ed. had told those 4000 people to go to Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" Rally on the same day (which was announced a year before Al Sharpton's rally), do you think the news media you usually watch would let it go?

It is an unfortunate truth that facts will not persuade a liberal (in the modern American sense).

But I hope that you can be persuaded by facts.

I dont know what offends me more, the assumption that the Sec of Ed has the authority to demand all Dept. of Ed. members to follow his lead, or the notion that his policial position was his in stead of belonging to the citizens of the U.S.

Recollecting our Trip Part 1 with errors

2010-08-22T22:34:00.000-06:00

The van all loaded for the trip.

Mary did all the planning for our trip to the North Shore of MN this year. We took off on the 5th of August for Grand Rapids, MN. The goal was to get a mom-and-pop motel (not too expensive, and willing to let 2 adults and 10 kids in as few rooms as possible).

Grand Rapids, MN is the home city of Judy Garland. There are lots of other special attractions, but Mary wanted us to get to a big musem. The Minnesota Discovery Museum: alas, it was not there, it was in Chisolm. There was another museum in GR with a similar name The Children's Discovery Museum next to the Judy Garland house. We didn't go there. Instead we went to a motel.

"OK eat, tell a bully, bully.
Hold your hanky, bully, bully."

The motel was managed by a man with a Pakistani or Indian accent with heavily trilled "r"s, who was kind of hard to understand. While Mary was negotiating with him he winked and said, "Aře you a membeř of AAŘP? I can give you the AAŘP discount. How aře you feeling--gřandpa?"

I cought the hint.

We went to a Mexican restaurant. The food was so so to poor for the rest of the family. I really liked my Chipotle Shrimp. (A Shakira CD was playing as background music)

Me leading Mary and the Kids
On the Lake Superior Shore.

Back to the motel. Girls watched "Wizards of Waverly Place", the boys watched "Destination Truth." I guess we could have done something educational, like the Blandin Paper Mill Tour, or the Forest History Center. But they didn't sound very exciting-esides, Selena Gomez' special guest star on "Wizards" was Shakira--the best possible role model for young girls to ever appear on Disney channel--well, mayby second after Raquel Welch. As far as I know Adrienne Barbeau and Caroline Munro haven't been on Disney Channel yet.

Friday the 6th we went to Duluth. The construction is bad there. We tried to get to the Thompson overlook, ended up on the Alpine Coaster road where we were welcomed. We weren't from Fondulac so we left for the lift bridge.

We started at the Rose Gardens in Duluth, looking for a nice place to make a picnic lunch. No joy. Too far to walk and carry stuff. Nice park otherwise.

We spent the better part of a day down at the Marritime Museum and the lakefront and pier.

After the museum we walked the pier to the lighthouse, drove across the lift bridge and decided we needed to find a place to camp.

I had taken quite a few photos with my camera, but the memory card died on me. I scrounged together what I could get with Mary, Louisa, and Elsie's cameras. So if anyone out there would let me use an eprom reader for the sd card, I'd be very grateful.

We made our way toward Two Harbors searching for an open campsite. None were to be had. We kept leapfrogging a silver family van from one site to the next, racing for the last open site. We got to Two Harbors and decided to go inland to the Cloquet State Forest campground named Indian Lake Campground. It's by Brimson, but don't expect to see any town when you get to Brimson. It's more of like a bend in the road with an abandoned house. It probably was something at one time, just like Roland.

The camping area was great, spacious and fairly private, even with so many in the campground on a Friday night. The drinking water from the hand pump was some of the best drinking water we've ever tasted.

I woke up early on Sat. morning, as one often does when one is out camping. I sat in one of our chairs by the fire pit and started some coffee brewing on a sterno. While I was sitting there a fox came into the tenting area eating up all the animal crackers the kids had dropped the night before. The animal was 2 feet away from me and hadn't noticed me yet.

I cleared my throat and he just looked at me in a kind-of disinterested way, like, "Oh, a human. Again. Where's another one of those crackers?"

He went of to visit the lady in the next tent site and hunt mice. He wasn't mangy, he was nice and clean with a good coat and bright eyes.

We decided to get down to Gooseberry Falls. So we packed up. We went down to the lower part of the park and parked near the lakeshore.

Now, all this time, from the AARP discount to the shore of Lake Superior, I am still wearing the air cast for my left ankle. And I am still using a cane.

So Mary suggests we go to the other side of the rock wall to the cobble beach at the mouth of the river.

Then she suggests we walk a way on the path along the river.

And then we set the kids at liberty at the lower falls.

I think they enjoyed it.

This one above is where Louisa got a leech between her toes. I think everyone at GB Falls knew something was going on.

There were all kinds of scary and dangerous cliffs, handrails without nets, sheer drops. But we made it to the top safely to see the following sign.

Those who know the falls know that this is on the North side of the river and what that path is like. The kids were great. And I did it all on an aircast, sprained ankle, and a cane.

As we got to the interpretative center we saw this sign on the door. It was meant for Louisa.

We got back to the campground. We hadn't brought along the geocache papers for GBF State Park, though we saw quite a few geocachers there.

Pajamas Media » NOAA: Warmest June Ever! Caveat: We Made It Up (Corrected)

2010-08-19T20:23:00.000-06:00

A must read article on the recent Global Warming....eh, um, oops, "Climate Change" claim that this past June was the warmest ever. It wasn't.

NOAA gets its data from Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The GISS only measures physical temps here on earth, and they have no thermometers in the Arctic.

So where'd they get their "warmest ever" Arctic temps?

follow the link, thanks PJ media.

Pajamas Media » NOAA: Warmest June Ever! Caveat: We Made It Up (Corrected)

Northern Lights tonight

2010-08-03T14:46:00.002-06:00

By the way, because of that huge solar flair on Sunday morning, we may have a spectacular show of Northern lights this evening. Keep your eyes on the skies through the night. Check the space weather at the bottom of this blog.

Monday, Monday

2010-08-03T13:08:00.000-06:00

Sunday morning the radio was winking out on the AM, even the FM seemed a bit funny. Found out later that there was a huge, as in HUGE solar flair going on Sunday morning. So, Monday,

I got all the burning stuff ready, the brush hay and stuff. The fire wouldn't start right away so I got lighter fluid. Then it took off.

"meeew!, meew! meew!"

Drat! One of the cats had put her kittens under the pile.

So, singed hair and beard, pulled off branches and got the 4 kittens out.

2 of them had singed hair, the other 2 were just warm.

I put them next to their mother, but they kept walking toward the burn pile.

They are cute. Stupid, but cute.

Several hours later, working in the garage I noticed fresh cat poop.

A lot of it.

Grr, stupid cats.

Cats are only grateful at the time you pet them.

Jeremy, Matt, and Louisa got home sometime around or after midnight. I don't know. I was asleep. I'm glad they're back.

Some Vacation Bible School Audio

2010-07-29T18:25:00.000-06:00

This is the audio of our program from July 9th at Nazareth.

The first song is one that the kids made up during a hymn-sing.
Sorry the audio of the second track is so uneven. I tweaked it as much as I could with Audacity.

Program at the Internet Archive.

Fatherhood .......

2010-07-02T13:04:00.000-06:00

Mary's off to get the camp kids. Jeremy and I are home with the two smallest.

After lunch I put them both to quiet time.

A few minutes ago I found them both in my bed with the sparklers we were going to use this weekend-half of them were broken and shredded all over my bed.

I hope they enjoyed their fireworks.

Gotta go get the vaccume.

j4f

2010-07-02T09:16:00.001-06:00

HT viralfootage.com

Camping/Wedding and Tornados

2010-06-28T14:20:00.000-06:00

This past weekend our family went camping in Ramsey Park, Redwood Falls, MN. Mary and I talked about a variety of different ways we could enjoy the weekend as a family get-away.

[While I'm writing this I have Rush "Closer to the Heart" running through my head, thanks to Dave S. and his question on his "The Gospel according to Carl Perkins" blog. I'll get back to you, Dave.]

My cousin, Amber, had asked me to perform the ceremony of Marriage for her and her fiancé, Adam. I had gone down to Belview previously to meet with Adam and Amber for pre-marriage counselling. Adam is a good man.

So (and, I'm sorry, I forgot my camera, so any pictures will come from others, later) we left late last Thursday morning. Matthew and Holly V. were willing to tend to our chickens and cats while we were gone.

Thursday morning we packed up, I moved the chickens, set up the electric fence, fed and watered them.

Then we were off to Ramsey Park. Redwood Falls is full of exciting history, including the Sioux Uprising of 1862. (Which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest early examples of the failure of Government to live up to its Statist promises.) But we were there just to have family fun while I attended to the wedding of my cousin and her betrothed.

Amazingly, the kids didn't have to go pee every 30 miles.

But on the way down to Redwood Falls we went through Wadena. As we came in on Highway 71 there didn't appear to be a lot of damage, though the old Pamida building had Sheriff cars and deputies around it. But when we turned onto 29 to go to Alexandria we started to see lots of horrible damage. I'm sure some of you have seen the images on the news. We saw steel quonsets from several blocks away sitting twisted upon houses across from the school; trees torn up everywhere, and houses torn apart. One house had it's side torn off, and we could see the spices and dishes stacked neatly on the shelf in the kitchen.

The devastation was visible further south as we went toward Deer Creek. I was told by family that one of my cousins had extensive damage on his farm south and east of Deer Creek. We saw a clean-up crew next to 29 in that area.

I'm glad that there are so many neighbors willing to help clean up after this tragedy. Please keep them all in your prayers. The mayor of Wadena is a nephew of one of my members at Nazareth.

We got to Ramsey about 5pm.

Some background info. Louisa had been in contact with her friend from Hawaii. It happens that her friend's family spends a couple of months of the year in New Ulm, MN and that they could meet us at the park. So we met Christina, Elise, Dot, and their mom, Ann, at Ramsey. They camped with us that Thursday evening.

It turns out that Ann was one of my students when I was a professor at Bethany Lutheran College. Her husband, Corey, was not able to be there, he is in the Navy and had to go back to Hawaii to attend duties. I'm sorry that we weren't able to meet him also. And I want to thank him for his service to me, my family, and our country. I know two other "Nukes" to whom we owe our lives and freedom, and whom I respect deeply.

Thursday eve' we set up camp and had a good time catching-up and meeting each other. [and, forgive me boys, I thought if my sons had any sense, they'd surely keep these wonderful Confessional-Lutheran young ladies in mind in the future!--Is that too much to say as a father?]

So, after supper and a SMOARs Friday came. We wandered about the park until it was time to say good-bye. But Louisa, Elsie, Clara, Christina, Elise, and Dot had other things in mind. Louisa and Elsie would go with Ann, Christina, and Elise. Dot would stay with us.

Friday afternoon, we showered and such. Thunder!

Well, it was a bit early, so we went for a drive before the wedding rehearsal. The rain was sporadic, the clouds frightening. I drove past the farm where the wedding would take place. To kill time I took us to Goldmine Bridge north of Delhi, MN.

The clouds did look ominous. After turning around north of the bridge over the MN river and going up the south slope I saw a vortex come up off a tree just to our left.

"Did you see that!!!?" I said.

Matt, looking in a different direction said, "I just saw a funnel cloud." (Or something like that)

Mary said something like, "Shut up, you'll scare the little ones."

So I drove to the farm where the wedding rehearsal would take place. And we waited over an hour under a Tornado Warning for the storm to abate.

The rehearsal went well, Adam's family is wonderful, they also fed us well.

We went back to camp and found all our tents full of water.

So we shopped around for a motel in Redwood Falls that would house two adults and nine children for a "reasonable" price--or whatever.

It was all a great adventure for the kids. And they got to swim in the pool on Sat. Morning.

Mary took Matt and Jeremy to help get the bedding to the laundry so we could camp after the wedding.

I stayed with the rest of the kids.

We got back to camp at about half-past-noon on Saturday.

Every ounce of effort was made to get the campsite ship-shape for the coming evening. Ann came and we traded kids back to their proper parents.

And I made a suprisingly good chicken dish on the campfire. I'll have to try to remember to post what I did. Wow, even the left overs are great.

Then, when the time came we dressed for the wedding and went off to the farm.

The wedding was nice. I preached on Ephesians 5; similar to, but a different sermon than I had for Tina and Thor's wedding at Solway two weeks before.

It was a nice reunion with family, and a good meeting of new family.

But the storms came.

There were tornadoes to the east of us. My aunt and uncle, Roger and Nyla, volunteered to help us break camp. Mom and Dad took our youngest children with them to their house. We were to go there after we broke camp.

At least the rain was warm.

The sirens were screaming in Redwood Falls, Campers were running to the WPA buildings for shelter from the storm. I was on top of the van, strapping on luggage carriers. The van was full of water, I was full of water, the kids were full of water, my aunt and uncle were full of water. And we drove through the Tornado Warning to my folks' house.

The rain started to let up when we got near Delhi [by the way, that's pronounced "Dell---High" not like in India "Dell-EEE"]

After unpacking, stripping, laundry, drying, etc. all went to bed in a warm cozy house.

Thank you, Mom and Dad. Thank you, Roger and Nyla.

Sunday morning came, Church at Rock Dell with Pastor Faugstad. We sent Louisa, and Elsie off with a friend at Rock Dell to camp: Thank you Jeanne. We sent Matt off to camp with Pr. Faugstad, Thank you.

Clara, Sophie, Stella, and Johnie stayed with Grandpa and Grandma. They'll come home this coming weekend. Mom and Dad want to be at the Oklee Centennial.

The Camp kids will come home with the youth group kids at camp.

We got home about 10pm Sunday.

Matt and Holly kept the chickens alive, and my, how they have grown. They even managed to move the chicken tractor to keep the chicks healthy.

Thank you, Matt and Holly.

Water, feed the chicks, read and go to bed. Donna and Inge slept most of the trip, so they were awake till late.

Jeremy had no problem sleeping.

Neither did we.

Hope you have a nice vacation.

Oh, remind me to put up my bratwurst recipe. It tasted great.

Chick Video

2010-06-16T23:09:00.000-06:00

I almost cut off the tip of my left hand middle finger tonight. Stupid. Cutting an onion. I didn't sharpen the knife. If I had there would have been no problem. But I was in a hurry. Don't be stupid. Always sharpen your knives. If you have to use too much force with the knives you might lose finger.

Now, the video of the kids and chicks when we got them home two weeks ago.

Bierdna; The Bear and Chicks

2010-06-16T22:50:00.001-06:00

Over the past few weeks this has become a more common sight. This particular bear was just north of the tracks and pipeline on Polk Co. Rd. 6. West side, North and across from Pedersen's.

The photo is from two weeks ago when we went to Bemidji to pick up some baby chickens to raise for food.

At first we had them in a kiddie pool in the basement.

That lasted just a couple of days. I had already built a chicken tractor. We put the chicks in the garage inside the chicken cage to protect them from the cats-and Inge.

Inge is an amazingly enterprizing one-year-old. She wants to feed the chicks. She'll grab one of her toy teacups, sneak into the garage and scoop out of the feed bag that is as tall as she is. One scoop at a time. But a lot of feed can be spilled on the floor in five minutes.

The chicks are bigger now. They are the Cornish Cross breed. They grow really fast. We have them outside during the daytime now. And soon they will be outside day and night.

I bought 12 expecting that we were incompetent enough to have most of them die on us. No such luck so far. Still all 12 are alive and starting to try to fly. The Cornish Cross are supposed to reach maturity in 6 to 8 weeks.

We got these chicks kind of as an experiment to see if we could keep chickens alive in a limited space and while keeping the property neat.

I hope to post a video from the first evening we had them home.

Deepwater Horizon, some perspective

2010-06-09T07:01:00.000-06:00

Here's a useful article on helping frame the disaster in the Gulf.

Sick Slicks: Counting Down The 13 Worst Oil Spills : WebEcoist

Sick Slicks: Counting Down The 13 Worst Oil Spills

Here's a summary list from the article:

Exxon Valdez: March 23, 1989; Prince William Sound, Alaska ; 35,000 tons

Torrey Canyon: March 18, 1967; Scilly Islands, Cornwall, England; 123,000 tons

The Odyssey: November 1988, 700 miles off Nova Scotia; 132,000 tons

M/T Haven: April 11, 1991, Mediterranean Sea, off Genoa, Italy 145,000 tons.

Amoco Cadiz: March 16, 1978, Portsall Rocks, Brittany, France, 223,000 tons

Castillo de Bellver: August 1983, Cape Town, South Africa, 252,000 tons

Ekofisk Oil Field: April 22, 1977, North Sea, 263,000 tons

ABT Summer: May 1991, Kharg Island, Iran; 260,000 tons

Nowruz Oil Field: February 10, 1983, Iran.260,000 tons

Fergana Valley: March 2, 1992, Uzbekistan, 285,000 tons.

Atlantic Empress/Aegean Captain: July 19, 1979, near Tobago in the Caribbean, 287,000 tons

Ixtoc I Oil Well: June 3, 1979, Bay of Campeche near Cuidad del Carmen, Mexico, 454,000 tons

Gulf War Oil Spill: Jan 23, 1991, southern Kuwait, 1,360,000-1,500,000 tons

Deepwater Horizon; April 20, 2010, Gulf of Mexico, 10,000 tons per day; let's say 51 days to date, about 510,000 tons.

Gaining my Morels

2010-06-08T15:40:00.000-06:00

Some friends dropped these off for us. MMmmmmmm. I think it was 3 to 4 pounds fresh. That's less than 1 pound dried. But awesome.

Thank you.

Whole Chicken on the Grill

2010-06-08T15:37:00.000-06:00

I used the low and slow method suggested by the BBQ Pit Boys.
The process was based on this beef brisket recipe of theirs.

Beef Brisket Barbecue Cooking Recipe by the BBQ Pit Boys

The chicken turned out wonderfully.

Some catching up images.

2010-06-08T15:31:00.000-06:00

Easter/Passover/Pesach Full moon with a spring burning of a field.

Inge with Easter candy

The table with paintings at our cabin.

Watercolor

2010-06-08T15:12:00.000-06:00

I've been dabbling back into watercolor since January. I never was good at it, but I enjoy it.

The kids like it too.

My amaturish stuff is at
Photobucket

Field, Farm, and Poplar

Building, Wheel, and Poplars

Stella, pencil

Sophie, pencil

After Easter Getaway

2010-06-08T15:03:00.000-06:00

Well, my parents visited us for Easter. Jeremy came up. Then after Easter,

Mary and I took the 9 younger kids to Elbow Lake for a couple days of family only time.

This was the first time we've ever seen the ice of the lake this early.

Pray for peace

2010-05-21T09:24:00.001-06:00

The Euro just became valueless in todays market.

FTSE Plunges To New Low Over Euro Fears - Yahoo! News UK

"The market is becoming increasingly sensitive to signs that slower growth in Europe is spreading outside its borders," said Jane Foley, research director at Forex.com.

European finance ministers are meeting this afternoon in Brussels to try to boost faith in the euro.

Whatever Germany does, the euro as we know it is dead - Telegraph

Mrs Merkel is right: "The euro is in danger… if the euro fails, then Europe fails." What she has not yet admitted publicly is that the main cause of the single currency's peril appears beyond her control and therefore her impetuous response to its crisis of confidence is doomed to fail.

Remember your European history.

And Remember basic economics: No money, no food.

Abrahamsons I haven't met.

2010-04-01T13:46:00.000-06:00

Every once in a while I like to google for others with my name. So, while we may not be related, here are some interesting people named Abrahamson:

Yosef Abrahamson, 16, right, with his mother, Dinah, and his sister, Sarah,
near their home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Professional bull fighter Jonathan Abrahamson demonstrates his craft. Photo courtesy The Omak Chronicle, Okanogan County, Wash.

JENNIE ABRAHAMSON

Stockholm, Sweden

Sultry, tender balladeering - imagine a mixture of Robyn, Eva Cassidy and Sinead O'Connor and you'll appreciate the kind of quality this girl oozes.

Jennie Abrahamson - In This Life To Live

Rose Ann Abrahamson, a women’s northern traditional dancer. Stanford Pow-wow 2007.

Director Lenny Abrahamson at the Irish Film and Television Awards in 2008.

The European Banker, John Abrahamson with SEB.

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) James A. Abrahamson

And:

Shirley Abrahamson, chief justice on Wisc Supreme Court

Prophecy from America's Past, 1948

2010-03-29T13:44:00.003-06:00

Mary showed me this video. She will probably put it on her blog. But it is well worth watching. This cartoon comes from Harding College, Arkansas in 1948.

Buckskin and Maple Syrup

2010-03-28T21:54:00.001-06:00

No photos uploaded yet. I'll try to get them.

Buckskin:
Well, I saved one good hide from last fall's harvest. I tried with some others last fall, but gave up too soon. I put the salted hide in a 35 gallon trash bin with water and hydrated lime. Let it set for several days. Saturday I scraped it. The hair came off very easily. I did manage to burn my hands a bit with the hydrated lime. "Moisturize me, Moisturize me!"

There were an incredible number of deer ticks embedded in the hide. Scraped them out too. I folded the hide, put it in a trash bag and into the freezer for scraping this summer. Then I got the other old hides. Another one is in the hydrated lime and water now.

Maple Syrup:

Gene A called Saturday to ask if we wanted 10 gallons of Maple Sap. "Yes!" I said. He came over today. I've had it on a burner in the garage now for about 7 hours. It has reduced to about 3 gallons now. I will turn it off before bed. If I do it right we might get 3 pints of home made Maple Syrup from the batch.

The garage smells really nice right now. Thank you, Gene.

"Lent" is "Lenthening"

2010-03-27T20:52:00.000-06:00

"Lent" is the time of year when the days grow longer, in English, "Spring." For the historically observant Christian, it is the season following three Sundays after Epiphany is done. The first day in Lent is Ash Wednesday, 46 days before Easter.

So the length of the Epiphany season depends on when Easter takes place.

Easter is the Sunday following the full moon of Passover.

In our Gregorian Calendar that ends up to be the first full moon after March 20th.

If that full moon is on a Sunday, then Easter is the following Sunday. So if the full moon happens on March 20, then Easter is March 27 (as it was in 2005 and will be in the year 2016). In the year 2008 Easter happened on March 23rd, the first Sunday when the full moon happened after March 20th. In 2011 Easter will happen as late as April 24th.

If you are interested in learning how to figure out the date of Easter on your own, you can go to this link.

Lent is a penitential season for most Christians. As the days lengthen in this season we look forward to the light of Easter and Christ's Resurrection. During this penitential season of Lent many Christians are taught to focus on giving something up that they enjoy.

The purpose of this "fast" from one or more enjoyable things is to discipline our physical bodies.

For some people in nominal Christianity this is a way of paying respect to God, for some others it is a way of self-denial and a holy obligation--a work that they believe will please God; for others it is a way of disciplining their own bodies to make their bodies subject to their own will rather than to the cravings of the sinful nature. But there are many in Christianity don't deny themselves anything during this Lenten season.

Such a seasonal requirement for a fast is not demanded by God in Scripture. Fasting is required by some denominations for their members. It is encouraged in other denominations; recommended in others; ignored by some. And in a few denominations any fasting is condemned simply because other denominations in Christianity require it.

Lent begins 46 days before Easter on Ash Wednesday.

The pre-Easter season is roughly 49 days and the post-Easter season roughly 49 days. The Sunday before Lent begins is called Septuagessima "50th" day before Easter. 50 days after Easter is "Pentecost."

As the days of Lent lengthen so does our appreciation of Christ and the debt He paid for us with His life, death, and resurrection.

In my own observance of Lent it is a season of self-denial, great physical and spiritual obligation, and extensive time spent on the parish. My family doesn't get as much of my attention as they deserve.

This year I have had a fairly easy Lent. During this season I have the regular 4 weekend services, the Wednesday School and worship service for Wed. School, three weekday worship services, plus three weekday Bible Studies. This is on top of regular visits, hospital visits, family time and such. I have this every Lent.

But over the past 9 years I've usually had at least 3 and as many as 6 funerals during this season. Each funeral means two more sermons.

This year I am thankful that I have had no funerals (so far) during Lent. This has been a wonderful gift, allowing me to do better at my regular duties to family and parish.

But it has still been a very busy season. And I apologize for not posting more regularly on what I've been doing. I just didn't get to it.

Sorry, readers, but this blog is one of the things that I tended to give up during Lent. There just isn't all that much time to write.