This is Ben

This is Ben, one of our two golden retrievers. Ben is kind of a clown. He has issues. We don't use the retrievers for hunting but, as you can see here Ben is ready for anything.

Ben loves to bring you stuff in his mouth but does not in any way want to give you the item, whatever that might be. As he holds it in his mouth he gets terribly excited and wiggles and squirms whining the whole time.



He's nuts about empty paper towel tubes. He can be anywhere in the house and hear when one is being taken off of the paper towel holder. If he's upstairs he comes tearing down the steps to get his tube.



Ben also likes bringing his food to you. Like anything else he doesn't want to give it up he just wants to show you. He really likes eating it in front of someone. He'll bring one piece of dog food at a time, show it to you and then munch it noisily in front of you. This seems to give him an extreme amount of joy.



Like I said, Ben has issues. Just about everyday he makes little piles of dog food on the floor. If he can't get anyone to watch him eat he'll set one piece at a time on the floor in a little cluster, with perhaps as many as ten pieces laying there. Then we have to get after him and tell him to eat his food, at which time he happily obliges us. Otherwise you don't know where you might find the dog food. You find it at the most inopportune moments, almost falling over as a pile of food crunches under foot. This can be a little annoying but, who can really get mad at Ben, since he is quite sensitive and is keen to pick up our displeasure.



In the house Ben's brother, Tucker is the boss. Tucker is bigger and more assertive. But, outside that's another story as Ben is faster and more agile than Tucker. Outdoors Ben shows Tucker who's in charge. It's like they have this little agreement. Tucker rules the house and outside Ben commands respect by running circles around him.

Here Tucker is on the left and Ben on the right. They're brothers. Most people can't tell them apart but, Tucker is heavier and has a bigger head. They've been good dogs. Though they are family pets they belong to our kids, Ryann and Brianna.

We've always had dogs and have had a number of them over the years. We currently have four. Three in the house and one outside. We'd really like to get a sheep dog to guard our growing flock of sheep. Between stray dogs and a growing wolf population it is time we give it serious consideration. Perhaps next spring we will work on getting one.

Well, speaking of dogs they're begging to go out right now so I'd better sign off and let them out.

Until Next Time

Winter's here

Winter has come early in the north woods. I already got stuck in the snow once with the garbage truck. Well actually, I couldn't make it up a slippery hill and had to slide back down it. That's a helpless feeling sliding backwards down a hill and the whole while hoping no one else is coming that you might run into.

I've been in that situation several times before where I can't get all the way up a hill and have to try to back, back down. The problem is with my little garbage truck you can't ease back down because on the slippery stuff, the front brakes lock up and you can't steer at all. The front end will go where ever it wants and it's soon becomes a wild ride. I've tried tapping the brakes, lightly holding them or not even using them at all. No matter what I try it's a hair raising experience until I come to a stop at the bottom.

It's been cold here with a little bit of snow cover. The sides roads still have quite a bit of snow stuck on them and are slippery in spots, though they do a pretty good job of sanding them. For the past few days I've been using the pick-up truck with our dump trailer to pick up garbage because the little garbage truck has a bad wheel bearing. One nice thing about the pick-up is it has four wheel drive.

I have these things I call "cleats" that I put on the tires of the garbage truck. They go on like chains but they aren't chains. They're made of small cables inter connected like chains. They work well but, the down side is your not supposed to go over 30 miles per hour with them on and not on dry pavement either. Around here in the winter often the main roads that are salted the pavement becomes dry. Not all of my routes are on the side roads. I frequently drive the main roads getting from place to place.

It takes me longer to do the route when I use the pick-up and trailer because it takes longer to turn around and such, so my dad went with me yesterday and is going with today to help out again. He really shouldn't be doing much because of his heart but, he likes to help out when he can. If you would, please pray for my dad, his name is Larry, the doctors say he needs a valve replacement and he might be going in for heart surgery before long. We are hoping for a healing because God can certainly heal him if He so chooses. My dad has had a number of healings in his life and we don't see this condition any differently than things he's dealt with in the past. But, if not, then we are hoping and praying for all to go well with surgery.

We hadn't expected winter type weather to set in so quickly this year. We were expecting some more mild weather to get some things done. The way things look right now we could be in for a long old winter. We still have a hundred chickens on pasture too. Didn't plan on that either this time of year. We couldn't get chicks when we wanted them so this last batch is running quite a bit late. We have been thinking about putting them in the green house to finish them. We just have to harvest out the rest of the carrots that are up there and Kelli has some herbs that are still going. We thought it would be cool for the chickens to go in there and clean up all the beds for us. The only thing is, we have some stuff stored in there that we'd need to cover up other wise the chickens will poop all over them. That's one thing about chickens, they're pooping machines. Great fertilizer that's for sure, but a chicken has no discrimination as to what they'll poop on. If they can get on it they'll go on it, period!

Well, I thought I'd make a quick post this morning because I had a little time to kill, so here it is. Now my time has quickly run out and I gotta get, sooo..........

Until Next Time

Some Pig

Winds of Change

No need to mention the outcome of the recent American presidential elections since the whole known universe is all too aware of the results. But, "change" is on the wind. The whole world is clamoring for change. And for good cause. With the never ending war on terror and all it's outward manifestations,( ie. people dying and suffering and bleeding), with the economies of the world teetering on the brink of complete disaster, with the cost of living around the globe continuing to squeeze every ones budgets like an ever tightening noose.

Change is what we all want, change is what we need, how convenient that the new American president elect has offered it at such a time as this in history. But, just what kind of change, remains to be seen.

If you think about it, the past almost 8 years have given us so much change it's enough to make your head spin. So in all reality the proposition of change being heralded today, is change that's supposed to change the change, that has already occurred, right? I mean hardly anyone is happy with how things have gone during the past eight years. Who wants wars and rumors of wars? Who wants a failed economy? No one in their right mind!

The world wants a savior , someone who will undo all the damage that has been wrought over the past 8 years. Change is what we all want. Right? But, undefined change is relative. My idea of change might not necessarily be your idea of change. One mans change might be another mans nightmare. A campaign based on undefined "change" is brilliant. It appeals to all people who are fed up. Fed up with the changes that have been brought about since 911 and the Bush administration.

How convenient that at virtually the same time change is being heralded by a $450 million dollar presidential campaign a "new world financial order" is being called for out of the seeming disorder of the current world economic system.

Mankind insists on building their empires and trying to find their own way to heaven. They kick God out and say "I'm doing it my way".

Recently a nearby town had a wake up call at the local high school. There was a couple bomb threats and a death threat on several of the students. The death threat said that the kids named would be shot at noon the following day or something like that. As a precaution the young people named on the list were pulled out of school and one of them reenlisted in a different school district. Two suspects were being held for the bomb threat but, none had been implicated in the death threat as of the other day.

Kelli and I had breakfast at our local diner and this scare was being openly discussed by all the patrons. People wondered about the motives, was it all some kind of sick prank or were they really dealing with some disturbed individuals? After we left the restaurant I pondered the discussions we had just heard in the diner and I said to Kelli, "What do we expect, when we remove the idea of God from the schools, banish the ten commandments and tell kids they come from monkeys?" What do we expect when we remove all semblance of a higher authority? A kid might say, "just because the principle and the teachers say I can't shoot my fellow classmates what makes it wrong?" "Who are you to tell me what is right or what is wrong?" "Who are you to define morality?" With out a higher standard our kids have learned that it's all relative. The lines between right and wrong have been not just blurred but, erased. After all, what is right? What is wrong?

It's the same thing with society. We've banned God from public discussion. We want to go our own way. Define our own rules. We want change. We want things to be good again. So we look to man made solutions and systems. Just like in the days of the Tower of Babel we seek to find our own way to heaven. We set up high places. We look to earthly saviors or worldly wisdom to bring about the change we all so desperately want. It will never work. It cannot. Just like every empire that ever came before it will crumble.

The bible tells that false messiahs will come before the one true messiah, Jesus, really comes. It's been said that bank tellers aren't taught to study counterfeits to know what one looks like, they are taught to study the real thing and then, when they see a counterfeit they'll know it when they see it. In the same way those of us who know the true messiah will know when an impostor comes on the scene. This new messiah is not "the one" as so many have been suggesting. He's just one of the many false Christs that are foretold in the bible that are to come.

The true messiah will and does bring real and lasting change. But, we don't have to wait until the second coming, we can have it right now. When we except Him (Jesus) as our personal savior true change starts in the heart and spills over into the world around us. That's the "change" the world really needs.

Until Next Time

Dusting of Snow With A Splash Of Color

The leaves are down and we got a dusting of snow this last week. The snow is gone since we've had some nice days. One of the kids took these pictures and I thought they were neat, so here they are. Some of our sheep are pictured.

The brownish yellow trees are tamaracks. They look like evergreens in the summer but, lose their needles in the fall. They are always the last bit of color turning a fairly bright yellow to golden brown as they go through their cycle. Then the needles float away on the breeze as the trees soon become bare once again.

Until Next Time