There wasn’t much going on with my office in the real estate world, which in turn sent me off to get a promised favor done for a friend/client of mine who was in desperate need of having someone cut back a row of overgrown bushes, along with ridding her long flowerbed of those vile mulberry trees that seem to pop up everywhere, which is caused by birds eating their seed-filled fruit, and ‘sowing’ them elsewhere via their droppings. Speaking of mulberry, I think I mentioned some time ago the fact that their limbs and branches are z-best for smoking and/or barbecuing, and since I’m a curious one, I actually tried it, and yes, you can definitely tell the difference in a very good way. Now if someone would make a small business out of it, we may possibly be rid of the excess volunteer mulberry trees we have growing all over North Iowa.
I spent a good two hours getting those bushes fully cut back, just so their roots will now trigger new growth. The giant lilac bush got severely cut back, and only because their root stems shouldn’t be any bigger around than a quarter, and believe you me, the ones I cut out were almost as big around as a small lemon. Honeysuckle bushes should also be similarly trimmed back.
Once I had all that brush loaded, I drove out to the landfill and dropped it all off in the area where they collect and recycle wood and brush. There was definitely a line of people waiting to drive onto their scale, so I’d say I was out there for well over a half hour, and as I was driving home, I was a bit surprised I managed to get all of that done before the Noon hour arrived.
As I was nearing the west-side Casey’s General Store, I decided to stop and grab a cup of coffee, and when I walked up to pay for it, I noticed the headlines of today’s newspaper saying, ‘A tale of two churches: Historic Mason City church hands over its reins’, and since I refuse to pay the bloated price for that rag, I waited until I got back to the office and read the article online.
Well, as of Sept. 08th, The First Christian Church will be sold for one dollar to a Charles City based church called, ‘One Church’ which follows the practices and beliefs of the Wesleyan Methodists. My gosh! It wasn’t but a week ago when I made a note to myself to do some investigating on the status of First Christian Church’s current standing. Today’s article mentioned they were down to 15 to 20 regular attendees, and the average age of their remaining congregation being eighty years old. Wow! Seeing that church go under is a crying shame, but as all of us church-goers know, the bulk of our mainline Christian denominations are now similarly struggling. Believe it or not, I was even thinking about stopping over there this past month whenever it appeared someone was there, just to ask if they’d allow me to play their monster pipe organ. It’ll be interesting to see if ‘One Church’ will have it played on a regular basis.
As chance would have it, St. Paul Lutheran did purchase their collection of bells which are now being played by a number of their members once a month. Oh well, it’s just another sign of how times have changed since the pandemic hit. As they’ve said, it’s easy to get into the habit of going to church every Sunday, but the pandemic’s shut-down has made it hard to get people back into their old habits.
Most of my afternoon was a return to my little/big project, and since I hadn’t been there in many days, I had to get myself re-calibrated and pick up where I left off. Yes, it’s coming along, but not as fast as I was expecting, but I’m still on a burn to get the majority of it finished-up before the cold weather arrives. Sometimes I get angry with myself over it taking so long, but then I become a little more forgiving when remembering what I actually started with. I promise to take photos and share with you once it’s finished.
Someone asked me today while I was out working, why I always seem to be plugging away at something, and after a short pause I said, “Well, I’m not like most who’re so very much into themselves where selflessly doing something for others is unfathomable.” I purposely said that because the person questioning me, spends more time sitting around waiting for God to take him, but unfortunately he like most, don’t realize that we don’t wait for God to come and take us, but rather God on a prescribed day, comes a-looking. It may sound terribly simplistic, but filled with the hard truth. Right?
While out working on those bushes, I managed to get a the above shot of a dragonfly, and just for your information, they’re highly regarded in other cultures. For example: In Japan, they represent courage, happiness and re-birth. In China, they represent financial prosperity, good luck, and an improvement in investments. And lastly, in India they’re associated with vision and the receiving of intuition and guidance from our higher self. Personally, I’ve always found them a summertime delight.
Tonight’s One-liner is: The truth is something that burns, as it burns off dead wood, and people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, because they’re 95 percent dead wood.
