Sunday, March 31, 2013

Easter!


He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. –Matthew 28:6

Easter is the most joyous of holidays, for it is celebrated in commemoration of our salvation through the resurrection of Jesus Christ!

May you be blessed on this day, and evermore in His salvation.

Sincerely,
Bob and vanilla

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Rerun of a fun story


String Too Short to Tie


This story was posted last fall.  It is an Easter story, though, in a manner of speaking, so here it is again at this joyous season.

The Pig and the Duck

Our cottage was situated on a very nice lakefront lot with a fifty-foot seawall and pier.  The area close to the seawall, especially at the east end of it, was soggy a good bit of the time, though it was planted to grass.  Too, forget-me-nots grew freely in that area, and very pretty were the shiny blue punctuation marks they provided in the lawn.

Across the lane and opposite our next door neighbor's house lived a young man named Steve with his son, Trey.  One summer, probably about our tenth year at the lake, Steve acquired a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig as a pet for himself and his son.  What a cute little pet!  The neighbors adored the animal, and it was allowed, more or less, free range of the territory.


Summers come to an end, though, the October leaves are raked, the pipes are drained and the cottage is put to sleep for the winter.  But oh, frabjous Spring when the place is reopened and "the season" starts again!  Now we discover that Pig, while still very friendly, is much larger than she was in the fall.  As the summer wears on and the days become hotter and hotter, the human inhabitants of the environs spend more and more time in the lake.  The Pig likes to swim, too, and she strolls across the lane and down to the lake for a dip betimes.  However, she is a pig, and pigs are given to rooting and wallowing.  Pig discovers the soft spot in our yard this side of the seawall.  The little blue flowers are so attractive.  Let's dig them up!  Pig is a very talented digger, and when the hole is sufficiently deep to satisfy her needs and accommodate her body, she wallows.  This is not a pleasing behavior to the human inhabitants.  Pig must be banished from the yard.

Now it should be related that Pig had a playmate and frequent companion, for at Easter time Steve's next door neighbor acquired a little duckling.  Duck grew, as ducks will, and it attached itself in friendship to Pig.  Everywhere Pig went, Duck tagged along.  Duck's owner would take Duck to the lake and attempt to get it to swim, but Duck was having none of it.  Believe it.  A duck that did not want to be in water.  So much for the old saw, "Takes to it like a duck to water."
Karen was frustrated that Duck would not swim, for it was her plan that when fall came the duck would respond to the call of the wild and fly off to wherever ducks go when the vee formations soar overhead.
I was fortunate enough to witness this little vignette.  One afternoon Pig walked across the lane and down to the lakefront.  Duck waddled along close behind.   Pig stepped into the water, launched herself and started to swim leisurely around the area.  Duck stopped on the bank, quacked loudly, no doubt scolding Pig for her reckless behavior.  But it became clear that Pig was enjoying her swim and was not giving it up.  Duck stepped into the water; and to her surprise she discovered that she could remain afloat on the surface.  Then she discovered that she could swim!  Oh, fun together with friend in the water!  The story of the pig that taught the duck to swim.

Fall came, leaves were raked, and so on.

When the cottage was opened in the spring we missed the presence of Pig.  I saw Steve one evening and asked what happened to Pig.  "Well," he said, "she went to the farm.  When I got her I was told she would probably get to a weight of 45 pounds in her adulthood.  When she got to 150 pounds I realized that I could no longer keep her as a house pet."

All things come to some end.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Good Friday

String Too Short to Tie

 

 Yes, when He was on the cross, we were on His mind. Think of that!

 "And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." -Mark 15:38

By the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we may enter into God's Holiness.



BBBH does this song.  It is my favorite number in her repertoire.  I think we have it on tape, but it has not been digitized.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Moonshine

er, I mean, Moon rise 
through the Oaks.
String Too Short to Tie





Clear!

Pictures were taken on the eve of the full moon,
March 26 about five hours before officially full.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Fishy? I Think Not


I wish to express my appreciation to Bob Warr for allowing  me to  use his blog as a platform for my posts for an undetermined length of time.  Thanks, Bob.

Sincerely,
vanilla

STRING TOO SHORT TO TIE 


Disclaimer: This article is for entertainment purposes only. It is not a theological treatise, nor is its intent to make fun of anyone’s practice of faith.

Fish on Friday

We protestants who lived north of the Arkansas River chided (read: made fun of) our Catholic friends who would drive south of the river on Fridays to partake of their evening meal, for there they felt free of conscience to eat red meat. It was widely believed that Catholics were to abstain from meat on Fridays as an integral part of the practice of their faith. Failure to do so made the offender a sinner in the eyes of fellow Catholics and a hypocrite in the eyes of the protestants.

The trip across the river had its roots in some medieval history. Because of their service in the Crusades, Pope Urban II granted a dispensation to Spanish counts allowing them relief from the meatless Friday rule. In 1571, Pope Pius V extended the dispensation to all lands under Spanish rule. Hence, Spain’s colonies in the New World were excepted.1 Even though Spain had long since lost her rule in the New World, and even through domination by various peoples, and right on into the twentieth century American world in which I lived, the observation continued in those geographical areas originally dominated by Spain. In the West, the northern boundary of Mexico was the Arkansas River, and hence the Catholics of Texas, New Mexico, and a portion of southern Colorado considered themselves under the dispensation of Pope Pius V.

In 1951, the faithful in the area were advised that indeed they should follow the practice of abstinence from meat on Fridays, along with the rest of the Catholic world. Much confusion exists to this day, and Catholics generally believe that to eat meat on Friday is not sinful, but that Friday should be a day of penance as clarified by the Holy See in 1966.2

2ibid.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Blog On Loan

Friends,

I have been approached by vanilla, owner of the blog "String Too Short to Tie."  He has explained to me that for some inexplicable reason he has lost his Blogger Dashboard which makes posting and managing his blogs extremely difficult.  He has noticed that I have been posting but rarely recently and he wondered if I would allow him to co-opt my blog until such time as he figures out what to do with his.

I have agreed to this, so starting tomorrow, the content from STSTT will be published on "Bob Warr and Picket Fences."  I hope you enjoy reading the material presented here.

Until later.
Sincerely yours,
Bob Warr

Monday, March 18, 2013

You've nowhere to go but up when...

...you wheel your cart into the Walmart self-check out area and the check-out monitor says, "Take your cart out and get at the end of the line."

I mean, when you are insulted by a wallyworld employee,...