GOD SAYS "GOODNIGHT"

I was blessed with this sunset while leaving a recent Thursday evening service at Bellville's Storyside Church where I serve duty on the safety team. 

I discovered this church as a guest of my son Brian and wife Kate a year ago this month.  It is the most meaningful and vibrant place of worship I have ever experienced.  Except for wintering in Florida I have not missed a Sunday service since I started.

Some folks may find that remarkable given I had not had any connection with a bricks and mortar church in the past 60 years.

I am comforted to now learn God's grace may find my behavior excusable.

Thank you God!

GEOCACHE POTPOURRI--

We stumbled across this "Gregg Mill Bridge-1881" while meandering home via back roads from a geocache outing in Frazeysburg recently.

While we were exploring inside the bridge a couple of ladies stopped by and shared some of the bridge's history as they had been raised nearby.

A day or so later I was reviewing that day's geocaching activity and discovered there was a cache on this bridge.  We were unaware of that because we did not have cell phone coverage during our impromptu visit.

Armed with that knowledge and finding several other caches nearby we went back for another visit.

That's Sue in the second picture enjoying a beautiful view of the underlying stream.  The bridge is located in the northeast corner of Licking County, and, for the really curious it is shown on page 60 of the Ohio Atlas & Gazetteer.

Several Days Later...

we were geocaching at Malabar Farm with son Craig and doing some exploratory work on a challenging multi-cache located there.

I had studied the cache description and it sounded like the final container of that multi might have been located in a "cave" I had explored on a ranger-guided tour there 10 years earlier.

That's Sue (a 70+ year young, great-grandmother) leading me out of the cave's entrance while son Craig spelunked his way through the cave, exploring the exit I had remembered from all those years ago.

Your's truly is a 76+ year old, great-grandfather and, at the moment of this composition, is really wondering about the sanity of folks our age fiddling with these kinds of challenges.

Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, later that same day we were enjoying Knox County's Honey Run Park in search of yet another geocache.  That's son Craig (below) taking a peek at a very interesting ridge formation there.

This was our third visit to this park in search of this cache and, in spite of the cache owner's correction of the latitude/longitude by 200 feet or so, we remain unsuccessful.  Craig and Sue (below) are having fun with our disappointment while they flank an old inscription in the rock near where we should have found the cache.

To close on a more positive note here's a photo of Sue taken on a recent visit to this same park which features Knox County's only waterfall:

GOBBLE, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble

Picture this:

I was sitting on my upper deck and sighting in my new .223/5.56 Ruger Mini-14 Ranch rifle.

For those of you not familiar with this caliber, it is very noisy and at that point I had fired about 15 rounds.

While I was evaluating my latest five rounds I noticed movement under my hanging bird feeder (about 30 feet away) and there were momma wild turkey and four chicks snacking on seed messy songbirds drop from their untidy munching habits.

I was astonished momma turkey would be in my woodsy neighborhood, let alone being that close to me and my noisy gun.

This thing is so loud I put on my hearing protection before I get it out of the gun safe.

Well, maybe not quite that loud.

Meanwhile, I sat there in plain sight of momma who kept an eye on me while she and her chicks enjoyed lunch.  Probably 10 or 15 minues worth before they wandered leisurely back across my driveway and down over the dam.

Thank you God for yet another of your visual, natural treasures.

*            *            *

Did you notice the somewhat odd headline?  ...my typographical representation of momma and her 4 chicks.  😊

A LITTLE PIECE OF AMERICANA--

Geocaching brought Sue and I to the village of New Haven in southern Huron County Ohio.

There in a side lot beside a town church we found this "Little Free Library".

It was a gaily painted little box about 6 cubic feet in size and full of books.  A few for all ages.

The rules were simple.  You may help yourself to a book if you like but please leave one in its place.

No library card necessary here.  In fact there was not even a librarian any where to be seen.

The geocache at the site is a project of Girl Scout Troop 50393.

We found that nearby geocache and reflected on how nice this country could be if a little slice of Americana like this could be found on (and survive) in neighborhood streets all across our land.

Thanks Girl Scout Troop 50393.  You brought a smile to our hearts.

CAT HOUSE
Be it ever so humble...

That's the south end of a mostly northbound cat snoozing in her much-too-small abode in our Florida camper.  I think Sue may have bought this gizmo while Daisy Mae (her cat) had most of her growth to adulthood remaining.

But, as you can plainly see, it doesn't really matter.  In fact, the cat never once even got into this warm and fuzzy thing for a year or so until, one day, Sue offered this warm and fuzzy thing to a friend (and cat owner without a warm and fuzzy thing).

Whereupon, Daisy Mae promptly zipped into the cavernous opening and refused to come out until the visitor was long gone.

Not sure the building inspector would approve this 19 cubic-centimeter space as a suitable dwelling for Sue's cat but we keep it hidden anytime the inspector appears to be in the neighborhood.

Don't want any lawsuits from a bleeding cat-house inspector who tries to condem Daisy Mae's obviously comfy digs.

GOD'S GRACE WAS WITH US--

I shivered in pleasant spirituality as the rising sun snuck under a residual storm cloud Easter morning on the beach in Vero Beach, FL.

Cetainly I was witnessing a celestial sign of the very triumph sought to be celebrated this day.

For the past 60 years or so my tabernacle has been wherever I paused to give thanks to God for life's blessings and pray that I always would be worthy of his grace.

In the summer of 2016 I discovered my son's church, now known as Storyside in Bellville, OH, and became a very active participant.  Soon, I will be back in OH and anxious to resume my immersion in God's house of wonders.


Meanwhile this baptism on that Easter morning was a symbol of one Christian's commitment to forever holding God's hand while another peaceful soul renewed her solitary celebration on this day of resurrection.

A Very Belated
HAPPY EASTER--

Sue and I attended sunrise church service Easter morning at the ocean in Vero Beach, FL and I did some nice pictures of the service but was unable to get my DSLR camera to play nicely with the laptop so I could not process my photos and publish a blog story.

Since the laptop is achieving geriatric status itself I simply planned to wait until I got home and turn this challenge over to my computer-shop friends at KOSI in Mansfield--thinking the likely solution could be a new laptop.

But, just today I wondered if the problem might be in the card reader since I had shifted to Windows 10 awhile back and might not have "driver" software that could make the card reader and laptop friendly playmates.

Turned out my also aging cardreader was obsolete.  I promptly bought a new one, and was able to salvage my pictures.

Here's a photo of us celebrating Easter dinner on our patio that day with a family of our friends from Syracuse, NY.  That's Sue on the far left, then L to R;  Eva Tordson, Wendy Smart, Dee Weeks and hubby Dick and Brad Smart.  Eva, Wendy and Brad are brothers and sisters.

Not only was the occasion part our continuing celebration of Easter but it gave Sue an opportunity to prove her capability in the camper's kitchen, a skill, heretofore, mostly suspect with our good friends.

Jokingly, of course.