Getting Ready

I have always said that any nice weather we have in Iowa after Thanksgiving is a gift. It's a time when we wrap up all those unfinished jobs as we get ready for the winter season.

 Last Sunday afternoon several of us went for a hike at the Cedar Bluffs. There are trails in the timber to a bluff overlooking where the Cedar Creek runs into the Des Moines River southeast of Tracy. The trail shows some Iowa history as it goes along an Indian burial ground at the top of the area and some Indian carvings on the rock face of the bluff.

This hole was made by a tree spade getting ready to plant a tree. After a dry brown summer things are still very green for late November. If you look close you can see Jan's still mowing yard.

Here comes the tree. The dirt that fits in the hole that's around the roots on a four inch tree weighs around four ton. Wayne, the gentleman who delivered the trees, is the father of a family friend. He has been a Cadet counselor in church just about all his adult life helping young boys get ready to become men and assets in society. 

Those of you who have visited us before may have remembered we had a sidewalk to nowhere. We never got it finished. Well I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and get it ready to pour concrete. No guarentees it will happen but at least I finally made a plan.

We have a tradition at our church. On Thanksgiving morning during the service we bring our Thanksgiving offering to the front as a congregation. I like it. It makes giving more intentful and meaningful. 

After Thanksgiving dinner the big guys and little guys had target practice. They were making sure their guns were ready for hunting season.

Our family had a busy week. We ran four toolbars applying fertilizer as we were getting ready for our and others 2013 crop.

I am always amazed at how much smaller things appear from what you remember in past history. This is old hwy 163 through Otley. Now a busy 4-lane goes around the little town from SE Iowa to Des Moines. Not that many years ago all that traffic came right through town on this narrow road. 

This is the week when the Christmas season kicks into high gear. There is shopping to do and decorations to put up and programs to practice and dates to save for holiday get-togethers. What a fun and busy time getting ready for meals, fellowship, and sharing together. Even the story we read and sing about Mary, Joesph, the animals, the manger, baby Jesus, the shepherds, and the angels is heartwarming. No, Santa Claus wasn't there. So what was and is the reason for all the celebration? 

Yesterday as I was putting on anhydrous south of Pleasantville I came up on this old pioneer cemetery out in the middle of nowhere in the back of a field. What interesting stories if these graves stones could talk and tell of more Iowa history 150 years ago.

Those Indians at the beginning of our talk, these pioneers, and our own lives have and will become history. History is His-Story. We are all in God's plan down here on earth. The history of Christmas  was also God's plan. Christmas is God's gift of His son, Jesus, to all who accept that gift including Indians, pioneers, and us. So the reason we celebrate this coming month and give each other gifts is to say Thank you to God for His gift by giving and caring for each other, His children. God's gift gets us ready to see Him in heaven when we are gone and part of history.