Skunks, Snakes and Sugar in the tank...

As Jasper raced up the stairs the other night after a last potty before bed, Matt followed behind with a big sigh and an intense "shew, that was close!" I thought maybe he had tripped on the steps but when he came into the kitchen I saw the look on his face and I asked what was wrong. "Jasper just chased a skunk and ran into a cloud of spray!" Sure enough I smelled my beautiful girl and she stink, stank, stunk!

 It wasn't as bad as if she had been sprayed directly, but the stench filled the entire back yard so that we had to close the windows because it was beginning to fill up our house. Matt is not one to cause alarm, so when he saw the skunk running away, he just called Jasper, gathered the rest of the four legged crew and came back inside. There was no shouting for help, or yelling at Jasper. In fact, if it hadn't been for the stench and the look on Matt's face, it might have been several minutes before we heard the whole story... as for Leah, she tends to have a flare for the dramatic...

The last time I heard Leah scream was when the pear landed in her eye... that is, until two nights ago when the loudest, most blood curdling cry came from her voice and it said one word, "MATT!"

It was actually guttural in sound, and to be honest the first thing that came to my mind was that an arm had fallen off, a dog had died, the end of the world was upon us- I had no clue. Matt and I dropped the bricks that we were unloading out of his truck and ran to see if we could somehow soften the blow of whatever this life altering event was. Then I heard, "it's a snake, a snake!" Now around here we have a very different cry for "snake". When Leah or my mom come upon them, it's a high pitch, girly type of sound that instantly alerts the hero to grab a shovel and come as soon as possible, just not at the speed of light as Leah's scream seemed to require. Fortunately there was a shovel close by but Matt only managed to mam the poor thing before it squirmed it's way into a massive pile of rubble from the old retaining wall we recently tore down. Not seeing where the snake went, and not willing to give up the hunt to save the damsel in distress from the creature that represents Satan's first triumph over woman (and man for that matter), Matt moved the entire pile for fifteen minutes chunk by chunk until the serpent was uncovered. I delivered the first blow chopping the devil icon in half, only to watch it's front slither away before Matt landed the death blow removing his head from the rest of his body.



     To Matt's disappointment, Leah was not there to see our heroism as she had taken the dogs back upstairs, but my mom watched from inside of the basement and if there is anyone Matt wants to look like the hero in front of, it's mom. Luckily, there are few better ways to look like a hero in her eyes than ending the life of one of those slippery creatures. I would just as soon let them live and take care the the bugs and varmints around here, like whatever it is that keeps getting into our wheat we have stored in the back of Uncle Jac's '52 Chevy pick-up in the shed.

 

We saw a bunny hop in there the other day, so Matt is in the process of building a no kill trap (although I can't promise what he's going to do with them after he catches them...). Our schedule has been so busy we haven't had the time to finish shucking the rest of our wheat. It's dry, but I don't know how much we will have left after the bunnies have had their way with them! It's the little things that weigh on my mind as I close my eyes before falling asleep. "We really need to build a mechanism to help us shuck the wheat; I need to go to Lowe's tomorrow to pick-up concrete; what kind of wood should we use to build those forms?; is it going to rain because my Jeep is out and the top is off; did I send an invoice to that client, we start their visits tomorrow!; we HAVE to can the tomatoes we picked tomorrow or they will start to rot; I really want to start writing a novel; I wish so-and-so knew how much God has a simple plan for their life and if they could just see it, all of their problems would be wrapped in His hands; God, please soften the heart of so-and-so, that they might see that beautiful plan you have for them..." and boom, I'm out like a light.

     My mom reminded me the other day of the time she got up to drive to work (as secretary of a mechanic shop) only to find that our Ford Festiva wouldn't go above 25 mph.

She called into work and while this particular shop usually only worked on expensive foreign cars, they told her to bring it in if it could make it. Since she only had a 12 min commute at the time, she chanced it. Upon inspection, they discovered that someone had put sugar in her tank. I have no idea who would do something like this, but we think it was just some punk kids, since friends/neighbors of ours actually had their car window broken too. How much like our lives this story seems to be though. I like to think of our minds like that gas tank.
 The world dumps all of this sugar in us and at first we think it's sweet. but little do we realize that it's slowing us down. They say that we only use 10% to 20% of our brain power. I don't think that's actually a quantifiable fact, but I do believe the idea of it has merit. Think about that; if we could tap into the other 80% to 90 % or even half- just imagine the things that we could accomplish. Sadly, when we are abused, lied to or cheated by bad people we lose even more of that relatively small amount of brainpower that we had. In the case of the Festiva, they flushed the lines, put in a new gas tank and away we went. How amazing would it be if that could happen with us! Go into the shop, flush our minds, and away we go! With Jesus, it is that easy. 1st Commandment: Think, I "Love God".   He renews our minds everyday!

There really are no dull moments around here and I guess we like to keep it that way.

As always, remember, Jesus is that beautiful Light that expels all darkness.

Until next time, thanks for the visit!

Love Yall,

~ Michelle