The weather early this morning wasn’t the most pleasant with it being in the 50’s along with the wind bearing down on us from the north. These teeter-tottering temperatures are reminding me of what was going on during our winter months. Without a doubt, we do need rain, and soon.
With another Sunday morning having arrived, I headed straight to my darkened corner to get my contemplative prayer session started. Today’s was another good one because I wasn’t being encountered by that evil entity which had been haunting me off and on for months. For whatever reason, I felt as if it no longer had the strength to taunt me, so either it was destroyed by our Higher Power, or it’s busy tormenting someone else. Most of my deep praying was for a friend who’s been having some health issues which for some reason, has not yet been diagnosed, so hopefully my prayers were heard, and the doctors will soon find out exactly what’s wrong and able to treat it. It bothers me immensely whenever seeing really good people suffer. All in all, it was a very good and uplifting session which now has me on track for hopefully another productive week.
Knowing I had a late morning pre-listing appointment with a seller, I changed into my gardening clothes and headed back to my victory plot to get a recent shipment of white onion sets planted. I’d already prepared the area where they were to go, so all I had to do was set the lines, dig the trenches and start planting. As chance would have it, those 160 onion sets created exactly three rows, so if they all grow, I’ll be storing and sharing organically grown onions this Fall. If they turn out like last year’s crop, I’ll be fully pleased, because those were the tastiest I’ve had in years. Don’t you know, there’s really nothing like a darned-good onion?
My next job was to get some strawberries picked, and the moment I opened the gate and walked into that fenced area, I immediately knew those vile raccoons and possibly possums were in there eating them. Talk about seeing red! Irregardless what anyone says, we definitely have an exploding population of deer, raccoons and squirrels. Because you likely don’t notice, I dare say if you drive maybe five blocks in one direction, you’ll for sure see one squirrel, and maybe two or more. Back when I was growing up, we rarely had issues with deer, squirrels, raccoons and opossums, but for whatever reason, they’ve definitely learned to adapt to City life. I’ll have to go and find my live traps and get them set in my strawberry patch. I’m sure they’ll enjoy a half-can of cat food better than my strawberries. My last little chore was to clip off some additional garlic flowers which I’ll soon be putting to use.
Once I was changed back into my street clothes, I headed out to my pre-listing appointment, and even though I was a good five minutes early, the seller was already there waiting for me, and moments later, I was being given the full tour of the house and grounds. After a good visit about pricing and mentioning a few things that needed to get taken care of before I list it, I set another appointment for an office visit tomorrow, just so I could have a look at some legal documents the seller had neglected to bring with her. I don’t think it’ll be a hard sell, and only because of the size of the home and the lot it’s situated on.
Since I had some time to kill, I decided to stop at a cemetery, just so I could pay a long over-due visit to several family graves. In spite of not being there for at least 3 years, I walked right over to the spot where that branch of my family’s tombstones were located. I’d almost forgotten a portion of Psalm 130 being inscribed on one of their stones which I considered moving because all it said was, ‘With the Lord there is Mercy’, which was rolling around in my mind for several hours afterward. For some reason, I’ve always been spiritually moved by those many Psalms out of our Old Testament.
Before I left, I went wandering thru the old section, and for whatever reason, I stopped at a very old stone which had one man’s and two women’s names and dates on it. I took a picture of one side which is tonight’s photo, just as a reminder of how hard life was back during our first settlers’ times. From what I read, the husband lived to be 81 years old, his first wife died at the age of 35, and his second wife had passed at the age of 61. More likely than not, his first wife must’ve died from child-birth complications. Back in those days, going full-term with pregnancies and then getting thru the birthing process, were very dangerous times for women. My great-grandfather’s first wife died in her early thirties, and likely due to birthing complications, and again, they were also part of North Iowa’s settlers. I know it sounds terrible, but I wouldn’t be surprised if back in those years, on average, the men out-lived the women, whereas in our most current generations, women outlive their husbands.
After my appointment was over, I changed back into my work clothes and went to work at getting my pepper plants weeded, along with weed-freeing several flower beds. Those three hours went by with a whoosh, and likely because I was deeply focusing on creating visuals of what the daily farm lives must’ve been like back in the 1860’s thru the 1880’s. My thoughts were so intense at times, I could swear I was even connecting with their joys and sorrows. Not to worry, it was all good.
If you have time, do a little investigating on ‘Terror Management Theory’, and only because I happened to read a very good article early this morning on the subject, which talked about the on-going effects of tribalism, and especially the existential terror that gets built-up in the psyche of those who allow themselves to be duped by all these crazy conspiracy theories. What I read, was definitely a confirmation of what I’ve come to believe a decade ago. Please be diligent in not allowing such craziness into your lives.
Tonight’s One-liner is: The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.
