Fridays are often a light day around the blog. Silly videos, silly stories, nothing too heavy. Today we’ll be taking a more serious note because there is a need for all of the prayer warriors out there to grab a knee and cover some folks with their love.
I can unabashedly ask this of the readers because so many of you have written privately to me about your lives and the joys and sorrows you face. I also know that you are a praying bunch. Today I’m calling upon you to let it fly for a bit and lift some folks up a bit higher.
Let’s start with David. David is a man I’ve never met, but we share a common ancestry in the military. He’s very sick right now, lung cancer, and he’s in need of your prayers. He had surgery this week and his recovery isn’t going well at all. Let’s lift him up first.
Second on our list is my friend “J” (God knows her name, trust me.) She needs you to pray for her in this transitional stage of her life. She needs some equitable treatment, some forgiveness, and some love. We can do that for her, can’t we? Let’s cover her with prayer.
“F” is next. She’s in a lot of pain, physical and emotional. She’s someone I’ve known for the majority of my life. When you have a second for the next few days, ask God for some healing for this good woman.
“S” is in need of your prayers today. I haven’t talked to “S” in a while, and these periods of silence are usually turbulent times for him. Right now, let’s hold him up for God to cherish a little bit more, to lavish blessings on him.
Several of my friends are struggling with addictions. I wrote a silly piece the other day about canning being my addiction. It’s not funny when it’s truly “a day at a time.” Spend a few moments in quiet contemplation for those who work so hard to stay sober every day. I’m proud to claim them in my life, and if it wouldn’t violate their privacy I’d name them all as my brothers and sisters in this life. I love them that much for their courage.
Please pray for the parents of my generation who are in failing health and their children. The pain and fear that goes with a parent being sick are burdening some who are close to me. I’m blessed, my mom is as healthy as a Kodiak bear (His name is Larry – the bear) and doing well. Others are not and need your prayers as do their children.
Finally, pray for the clergy. I have a lot of friends who are pastors and they never talk about it but many of them need prayer and support in their personal struggles. Keep them lifted up as they help us gain entry to Heaven.
Since you’ve all worked so hard in your prayers, it’s time for a nice video. It’s not really about this kind of prayer, more about loneliness. They need prayer as well. Besides, any excuse to watch Dionne Warwick sing “I Say A Little Prayer.”
I have described many of her strange habits over the past 18 months. The most unusual is standing barking at the back wall of the house. Not at the door, but a segment of the house that … I guess it makes her mad. She will race over there and bark on occasion when nothing else is available. Go figure.
One of her most consistent targets for nutty behavior is her nibbling. She has a nervous thing where she presses her teeth up against fabric and clicks them together. No real damage done, makes her happy, no big deal. Then a few months ago I found my very best blue shirt with a ragged hole in the hem. It was exactly the size that a giant group of moths, or a single Sheltie, might make if they spent the whole night chewing. Here and there I found broken buttons that were not the product of moth damage – one culprit in mind. Then the blue shirt showed up in the laundry basket with another chunk out of the hem. Make that three.
I jokingly said to my wife that as long as Stormy stuck to the parts on the hem and left the collars alone we were going to be okay. Last night that changed. My favorite “church shirt” had a new collar design. Kind of ragged. No collar button left, either. So, we’ve moved on to a new era.
I’m to blame for this. It’s payback for her getting a new collar yesterday. Her old one was just too snug. In the past 18 months there has been a lot of food bribery in our house. Snacks make sheepdogs with issues come closer. She likes her treats, we like giving them. She’s not obese, but she’s not the skinny dog that moved in with us. Well, maybe she’s obese. But she’s happy and relaxed more of the time and I figured something out a while back – she’s got maybe five years left on the clock. A few pounds isn’t the end of the world.
I guess she figured if she got a new collar I could use one as well. I wish she’d decided that the ratty jeans next to the shirt were a better target. Jeans are $15.00 at Fleet Farm, shirts are $40 at the fat guy store.
I’m not mad, just amused. Nothing is safe from her since she has run of the house. But she only picks on my clothes. I suspect I should be honored. I am. I am truly blessed to have her in my life.
Thanks, God. I’ll buy a new shirt. It was time anyway.
My wife has made discreet inquiries about getting me some help with my problem. I’m pretty sure there’s no 12 step meeting for people who make jam. I really can’t imagine “Hi, I’m Joe, and I have a problem with canning fruit jam” being greeted with anything but “Will you share your recipes?” Nope, no applause, no discretion, just an invitation to share your skills on Pinterest. I checked the Hazelden website, not even footnoted.
I’m joking about it being a serious addiction. People with addictions who are in recovery hold my highest esteem. There are, however, some serious parallels with my canning jam.
Let’s start with the obvious: it costs a bundle. That little gem in the picture above is an item I coveted since I first saw it – about 5 seconds before it went into my cart at Mill’s Fleet Farm. It’s a cherry pitting machine. You pull the stems off, load the feed tray and whack the black knob. It pushes a sharpened rod through the cherry and expels the pit into a small container below the feed tray. Saves a lot of manual labor, cussing, and cuts with a knife as you manually pit cherries. You grab a bag of pickling salt here (just in case I want to do something with beets) and an extra six cases of jars. Why more jars? You never know when something good will be on sale that needs to go into the pot and get canned.
How does it all start? In my case rhubarb was the gateway fruit. I’ve always admired the stuff, liked the jam, never happy with what I could buy (when you could even find it in the store.) My friend Carol was freebasing the stuff on a weekly basis. She called it baking. Yeah, sure. Put a bit of granola and brown sugar in and it’s rhubarb crisp. Nothing more than baked product. But it led me to ask if she could can some into jam.
Two weeks later we were hiding out in her mother’s retirement home, slaving like a couple of meth cooks over a hot stove. Nobody would suspect we were cooking a batch in there unless we set off the smoke detector. We let the nursing staff know we’d be using the stove. We didn’t tell them why. They found out in the end: we bought them off with a couple of jars. Stirring the pot, adding pectin, and hoping for just the right froth to appear. Once we had froth, we had product.
Like everyone else who turns out a good batch, we shared with friends. Pretty soon coworkers were asking for it by name. That’s when it turned ugly. We’d missed the deadline for the Minnesota State Fair. We vowed to make it in time next year. And the planning began in earnest.
So far this year I’ve canned three times. The first one was like unto a cornucopia of delights. Rhubarb mango, rhubarb orange, rhubarb raspberry, and rhubarb strawberry. We just kept pumping out jam until the table was full and no more fruit was within reach.
The mango was special. It made people a little crazy. We’d even doped a batch with spice to see what heat would do to the mix. The answer was trouble: we made a plan to do another big batch in two weeks (once the heat had gone down.)
That batch was spicy all right. But not spicy enough for me. No, I wanted more heat, more flavor. So I made a batch that is code named “Norwegian.” If you live here you get the joke – it’s hot – very hot. It’s got an “N” on the label and it doesn’t stand for Nasrani.
Carol and I agreed that I’d stash the goods in my basement. I’m up to using a second rack now, the first couldn’t take the weight. God help me if the feds find out what’s down on those shelves.
Rack #1 – full…
That’s when I asked Carol if I could go solo. I knew I could do it if I was careful. She agreed. I was an experienced cook in my own right. So I got 24 pounds of cherries, pitted them and let them have it with a very sharp knife. They soaked all night in citric acid (preferred by mugs like me) and then I started them on the road to product by putting them in the fridge.
Raw ingredients. 24 pound worth.
The next morning, while the batch warmed on the counter, I had breakfast with friends. I let it slip what I was doing that day. My friend (let’s call her Patsy Keech for her own protection) wanted in on the deal. She’d always wanted to make jam, and she knew it would be safe with me: I don’t talk. (Except in silly blog stories.) So we agreed to meet a few hours later: she’d drive her own car and park down the block.
I cleaned jars, set water boiling, and heated the batch for the final run of the season. No sugar this time. Just honey. It was another experiment I’d soon regret.
Hours later we had used up all the pectin, filled the first load of jars, and refilled the boiling water pots. That’s when it got crazy: we went nuclear. I wanted a cherry jam that would leave a mark on your palate and make you crave even more. We started with cayenne. Then cinnamon. Then more cayenne. We let it bubble until it looked just right. It tasted good – burned a bit, even. So we canned it and rushed it to the basement. You could hear the “tink, tink, tink” of the jars sealing as we pulled them from the hot water.
Before bed I checked the load. They’d set up perfectly. Now they were ready for labels and distribution.
Kept in the basement, out of sight.
Today I delivered the first batch in a white plastic bag that said it had greeting cards in it. Two hot, two tart, no pictures of Santa anywhere.
But I’m done for the year. The wife said I’d get caught. I still have a few cases of jars. I know my customers will return the “empties” and hope for more next year. We’ll see what the future brings. I don’t know if I can kick this thing or not. But I’m not sure I’m going to try very hard.
Sooner or later you’d think she’d learn. Then again, I don’t pick up on things all that quickly and she is my canine companion. There’s video below, but here’s a picture for your entertainment in the meantime.
Stormy is never quite sure what will be the most annoying part of her day. It might be a diesel engine, a small child screaming in the park, birds flying in her yard, strangers in the alley, or the evil garden hose.
Over the past few months she’s become more and more insane when the hose comes out. What you don’t see in the video is her athletic performance in trying to get that stream of water. Both before and after the video I tried really hard to keep her dry. Good luck.
The neighbors would drive down the alley and remark to each other, “Dear, why is Joe sitting in a lawn chair with his right arm held high over his head.” The answer would be, “Because that stupid dog can’t jump that high and it keeps her dry.” Yes, I sat there like some lunatic version of the Statue of Liberty so that the stream of water was over her head even when she jumped.
Why the lawn chair? Well, glad you asked. I’ve done more walking and spent more time on my feet in the last three days than I have in years. My tootsies are sore and mildly blistered. After a day on them once again, I voted for sitting in comfort and watering my garden and the new lilac bushes. That’s when the deranged sheep dog attacked the water. Without further ado, I present the video:
If I didn’t turn the water off she’d drown in her own yard. She is absolutely insatiable when she gets going on that kick, biting the stream of water until she’s got a lung full. Nuttier than a Snickers bar. She’s sneaky as well. Did you notice the casual approach to the water? What isn’t clear in the video is the eyeballing going on out of camera shot. She was planning her approach. I can be out there for an hour, and at random intervals she’ll come screaming in from the side and leap through the stream. I don’t know about you, but those fangs look dangerous to me. I’d hate to see what she could do with them if cornered.
There’s a drippy dog in my living room right now. Much drier than a few hours ago, but still a bit moist around the edges. I love that goof. She’s always coming up with some new quirk. I hope you liked this one.
Say a little prayer for her. Part of the funny is her obsessive behavior coupled with anxiety. It’s good to see her on the attack: means she’s not taking it lying down. She still needs to know that I’ll protect her from anything within my power – except the hose. She’s on her own for that dingy idea.
There is a misconception in America among many Christians, especially my fellow evangelicals: we are a persecuted church. I beg to differ, and I hope you get your act together quickly. But first, a graphic:
The graphic above is my personal whack at the jihadist scum and their sympathizers that run loose across the globe. The rather thick symbol that looks like a “U” with a dot in the middle is the Arabic letter Nun (pronounced “noon”) and you will find it drawn on homes, businesses, cars, and undoubtedly carved into the bodies of dead Christians. Yes, that’s what happens when you are a truly persecuted church. You are marked with symbols. I’m trying to remember the name of the last group that popularized that sort of thing, but all I can come up with is stars and mustaches. Wait! I remember now, the Nazi party made Jews wear yellow stars. History – ain’t it helpful?
The scribbles below the Nun are for Nasrani. That is the Arabic word, somewhat derogatory, for Christians. It indicates one who follows that fellow from Nazareth. Arab Christians self-identify as Missiahia – followers of the Messiah. But since Islam doesn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah, that isn’t very popular.
It’s a pain to spray paint it on the family home across the street, so the lazy swine just use the letter N to abbreviate. You see, true to the tenets of Islam (which means submit, not peace) Jews and Christians are allowed to exist only upon the sufferance of their rulers, the Muslims. In practice this means that you are given a chance to convert to Islam. Not an option? Okay, pay a tax on every penny you will ever see to the caliphate. Don’t like that one? Oops, out of options: you get the sword.
Yes, convert, taxed, dead. The progression for those fuzzy and wonderful guys who are running amok in Syria and Iraq. Did I mention that our president and his government are backing that bunch of haters against the Syrian government? Oh, yeah, we don’t talk about that much in our press.
Therefore, until I die, that will be on the upper part of the blog. It is a reminder that having people complain about your church bells, ban your cross from the public square, be rude to you, and all the other minor annoyances we face, are not persecution.
On the other hand, a government that forces you to pay for abortions, restricts your free speech within your own church, and indoctrinates your children that Christians are evil, isn’t far removed from the Jihadists that now control parts of Iraq and Syria. (Did I mention that we have backed them in the civil war there? I thought so.)
I am a Nazerine. I am a Christian. Got a problem with that? Tough.
