Happy Birthday Kara

This is the first time I've posted the same thing to both blogs. It's because today is a special day that I need to make sure gets noticed.

Today is the 29th birthday of our second daughter. She was our spring baby, and has been that all of her life. She grew up in the pink fluff of a princess, often seen donning a tiara while playing in the sandbox. As though to memorialize the maturity of her "pinkness", she named her first daughter Scarlett, a color that must start out as pink before it deepens with age.

Kara has a smile that shows her gums. She is still a little apprehensive about going to the MacDonald's counter by herself. If any male dares suggest a car repair, she is under the hood in a flash proving there is nothing under there that a girl can't fix. Her baby Scarlett enjoys the best researched diet on the planet, and her husband Nate is the only person that laughs as much and enjoys the same quirky brand of music as much.

Our father God showed Kate and I his love by blessing us with Kara.

See you tonight at the party!

Shame on us

It's a bad time for eggs and small chickens. I really don't hear anyone expressing their outrage at the way we exploit these innocent little creatures and their tiny unfertilized precursors. I wonder if there's a Democrat or Republican position on the outrageous practice of parading the little chickens around like they were just meat or something?

Oh.

They are just meat?

Oh.

Never mind.

God doesn't believe in atheists

I listened to an intellectual who identifies himself as an atheist evolutionary biologist. Interesting choice for a scientist’s title, he includes what he chooses not to believe in describing his science, as though he is threatened by the thought that God will not agree with his view of science.

The talk was an arrogant rant by someone who is as much as daring God. He said that in order for an intelligent being to have created the earth, the intelligent being would have to have evolved over along period of time. That’s a good one. I guess it’s too deep for him to understand that God has always been, he can’t grasp that because he is trapped in his evolutionary construct.

I remember a time when I was very young, pondering how you must get bigger and bigger the older you get. At age 5 or so, when I thought this, I saw the world through the eyes of someone who grew constantly. Nobody told me that the rate changed and that at a time you stopped growing. I suppose if I’d been a scientist, I’d have calculated that someone living to 100 years old would have to be something like 10 feet tall.

Much the same, the vehemence evolutionists feel for people who believe in the Bible’s creation story is masked in a superior pseudo intellectual view that assumes that things must be very old because for the things they think happened to happen at the rate they observe - a vast number of years – billions – is required.

They reject the notion that the earth is only thousands versus billions of years old, not because they can prove it, but because if they believed it their theories would be set aside. So, instead, they ridicule those who believe the God who made us, because they believe they are superior to that belief and that they have discovered a truth greater than God.

Whew.

Cutting up

It's getting ready to be mowing season again. The grass is getting a little fuzzy as the more fertile parts of the yard speed things up...thanks to our neighborhood yard fertilizer (a large chocolate lab named "Moose"). There are myriad things hanging around the yard that will soon be mulch...sticks, leaves, maybe a small toy or 2...

I love the smell of mown grass, especially the first one of the season. The grass looks so grateful to be trimmed, and the yard is so much less a wasteland. I love surveying the yard as I go, seeing what has grown over the winter, where the critters have found a home. I hate finding where my son left a tool, that shoe that went missing months ago, or a rock that somehow grew in the middle of the grass.

My mower came back from the shop where it got it's winter service. A branch new oil filter, a brand new set of blades. We are ready. C'mon spring...

The "BEB-IN-ATOR"

This is a great time of year. As spring springs, I love seeing the new life coming out of the old dead, gray stuff of last year. I love the metaphor of God's love, how He made the sweet, tender, green appear out of the old gray of my life.

There is, however, a problem with spring. Right now there are insects who are appearing from their winter languishing to move out another generation, to keep the species going. As they do, especially right now with a dearth of new plant growth to feed on, they are often left to hang out in large numbers waiting for the succulents to appear.

Such is the lowly Box Elder Bug (BEB). They love to feed on the juices of soft white wood roots from trees like hollys, soft maples, and, yes, box elders. They spend their winters as adults hiding out, and on the first hint of warmth from the sun, they appear in the millions on the warm siding of houses or the bark of the trees they love, hoping the juices will start flowing.

Of course,the gentle BEB is harmless. They really don't bite or chew or destroy. They do leave little poop stains on the surfaces, but it washes off. I think the most harm they do is appear in large wriggling masses on your house, their little almond shaped red-and-brown bodies writhing about as if in some kind of bud orgy, making you explain to all visitors that the mass of bugs that is making them want to puke is harmless....

Eeww.

Being a beekeeper, I am sensitive to using any kind of persistent insecticide. Additionally, we have a daughter who is a cancer survivor, so deadly chemicals are not a big favorite. Hence, the problems...how do we eliminate the BEBs?

I figured it out today. In my garage I have a manly-garage vacuum on the wall. It boasts a 30 foot hose and enough sucking power that you have to make sure there are no small children in the area when you crank that baby up. Once I sucked the paint right off a fender. Not really.

Anyway, I had a flash of brilliance today. I fired up the garage vac - took the hose outside where the BEBs were basking and wwwhhhheeeeaaawwwhh (that's a loud sucking sound) - down the hose they went - by the millions. You could hear them crashing into the hose wall. If you listened carfeully, I'm sure you could hear their surprised little shrieks. (not really)

You need to understand - they were crawling all over the front side of our 2 car garage. Now they are enjoying whatever the BEBs enjoy in the cozy quarters of our garage vac steel tank.

And for good measure I sprayed in some bug spray to make their rest final.

So now, we wait. Will they find their way out? (that would be bad). Will I forget to empty the container after they die and their bio-mass creates a massive stink? Or, have I discovered an earth friendly way to finally rid the house of this awful scourge?

Stay tuned for the next episode of "The BEB-In-ATOR"

Later.