Frost!

We had our first frost of the year last night, about two weeks later than normal—and it was a hard frost. I didn't cover anything because it was so late. The daytime temperatures aren't going to stay warm enough for any meaningful growth for tomatoes, peppers, or squash.

It was a good, if dry, summer for gardens. The strawberries were small and few because of the heat and dryness, even though I watered them. But other than that, the rest of the garden has done well. I have three 50-gallon rain barrels, and I emptied them twice because of the drought. I even had to augment that with city water by filling one of the barrels twice. And when it did rain, it was sometimes too much—one week we received seven inches of rain in five days! Because I have raised beds, they were able to absorb it, but it sure made a mess elsewhere.

I haven't posted much on activities this summer, either because of laziness or being too busy doing other things. The truth is, blogging isn't the attraction to me it once was. Part of that is the community that blogging used to represent has moved to social media. That happened about eight to ten years ago, but I resisted. And part of it is that other things take up the time that I used to spend blogging.

Being a contract employee has its benefits, such as flexible hours. But it also has the downside of seeing too much of life as billable hours. Work tends to creep into every corner. After almost ten years of doing this, I'm still learning (or maybe not learning) to balance that. And the amount of time I don't spend reading nonbillable stuff or blogging is a direct reflection of that.

That being said, this summer did contain a couple of trips to see my parents. The first trip, Ryan (our son) and I intended to take my 89-year-old dad on a canoe ride down the Red Cedar River. I had called the outfitter a couple of weeks before, but the water was too low, but it had rained that week and the water level looked good. But once we got there, they had closed because the water was too high! So, instead, we talked and visited—and rescheduled.

The second trip, we managed to get the canoe ride in, going from Riverside Park in Menomonie to Downsville, but the water was definitely low. I had to get out a few times for a push-over, and Ryan had to get out once, but dad was able to stay in the whole time. And because the water was so low, we scraped more times than I would like to admit as an experienced canoeist. When we got to the end, the outfitter said that the water had dropped six inches since we had put in two and a half hours earlier. We wouldn't have been able to do it if we had delayed a day. But we had a grand time. The weather was beautiful and dad enjoyed it, as did Ryan and I!

Ryan and I had decided to turn the rest of the weekend into a bike trip, so from there we headed over to Eau Claire to ride the Chippewa Valley Trail down to Durand, stay the night, and then ride back up the Red Cedar Trail to Menomonie on Sunday. My parents would then shuttle us to where we left our cars (neither of us have a bike rack, or a car big enough for two bikes, a bike trailer, and gear).

That worked like a charm. The campground in Durand is very nice—and cheap! Only $5.00/night for a tent with no electrical hookup. It's right on the Chippewa Valley Trail. We had an issue with our gas stoves, but they worked enough to make supper. The next day, a surprise was to find that some friends of Ryan's were staying there, too, attending a wedding. They generously cooked our oatmeal for us. We had a good visit with them and then rode back to Menomonie and then home again.

Below are a few pictures.

Ready to go.

On the water

The campsite

Ready to go on Sunday. Note the trailer vs. panniers.

These are from the garden

Theodore the toad amidst the squash

The marigolds did great this year!

Great news

I just heard from our son, Ryan, that I'm a grandpa again! That makes nine! Lydia Joy was born this morning at 7:26. May she grow up to be a mighty woman of God.

Where do we go from here?

Simple: Grand Marais Minnesota. When? End of June. Why? Because we will be assisting the fine folks at Sawtooth Cabins.

All good things come to an end this side of eternity, and it is time. I love my job here at Eisenbrauns, but it is time to move on. This has nothing to do with Eisenbrauns; don't go looking for hidden things that aren't there! It is just that God is leading us on.

Eisenbrauns will do fine without me and I will always look back with good memories of my time here. And, I hope to maintain my friendships with the people here. They are some of the greatest. You would have a hard time finding a better boss than Jim.

We are excited for multiple reasons—one of which is that our daughter and 5 of the grandkids are in Grand Marais. We are looking forward to being 13 hours closer to them—and only about 5 hours from our son and 2 more grandkids.

We sold our house, closing on it about 2 weeks ago. In a miraculous move of God, it was only on the market 9 days and we didn't take a loss on it. This in a housing market where most houses are on the market for 6+ months and people take 10-20% losses.

So, where are we living right now? Well, that's another God thing. The place we used to live opened up for 3 months: April-June. Just exactly the time we needed.

The only down side is that the move is timed so I won't have a garden this summer...

Just a few numbers

Yesterday, July 27, our daughter turned 30; on Saturday, the 30, our son turns 27. I don't know, just struck me as funny.

Hey Renee! Congratulations on surviving the first third of your life :)

Vacation

As you probably noticed, I'm back from 2 weeks of wandering the world. OK, actually, I'm back from 2 weeks of spoiling the grandchildren :)

We had an enjoyable time—and an interesting time. While visiting Joel and Renee, I went on a day hike/canoe with Joel and Ryan (our son). Along the way up the Gunflint Trail, your tax dollars were at work; they had torn up 5 miles and it was some of the worst road I have ever driven on. For part of it, you couldn't exceed 10 miles per hour, and even then it was horrendous.

We made it to our put-in point and canoed to the bluffs we wanted to climb. You can see some nice pictures of them and from them here. After an enjoyable morning and afternoon, we headed back—over the same bad road. At the end of the washboarding, I shifted into second, accelerated...and heard a whine and clunk. Uh-oh. As I pulled over to the side of the road, transmission fluid spilled out onto the road. A short hike to the nearest phone (cell phone reception? are you kidding!) to call the tow truck and Renee and all was in control. Well, maybe.

The tow truck driver said he could repair it by Friday, if he could find the parts, which seemed likely. Once Renee came, we headed in to town to see him at the shop. His first words were, "We've got problems." He led me to the car and pointed to a nice separation of the axle from the frame. Literally shaken loose by the washboarding. Since a Metro is a unibody, there was nothing to do except bury it.

No problem; we can rent a car and drive it back, or so we thought. God had other ideas. Who would think that there wouldn't be a single car available for rental in Duluth and Minneapolis-St. Paul on a Tuesday! Guess we need another option.

We headed to the shop to see if he had any junkers we could buy cheaply. He had just gone to lunch! Hmmm...How about the local car dealer? Ryan and I walked in and I told him my car had jut died. He asked what I was looking for. I told him I was used to getting 50 miles per gallon. Rather than the expected look of terror, he said he had a used 2006 Prius. Ouch. I haven't had car payments for 14 years. But, that seemed to be what the Lord was directing. So, we are now the owners of a Toyota Prius with 50,000 miles.

By the way, it gets 57 miles to the gallon :)

New baby!

I'm a grandpa again! Ryan and Emily had a baby girl last evening. Here are the details:
Evelyn Madeline
7 lbs 11 ozs
20 3/4 inches
6:08 PM Sunday, May 3

I'll post pictures once I have them.

Updated, 4:19 PM. Here's a picture:

Where's the fire?

<idle musing>
I was talking to Ryan, our son, the other day and one of the topics that came up was the Ephesians in Acts 19, where they burn their sorcery scrolls. The text says that the value was around 50,000 drachmas, but what does that mean to the average reader? Not much. So, to help Ryan get a better idea of what the value was, I decided to make a few assumptions and calculate the value in dollars, so here we go...

The average income in the U.S. right now is around $30,000.00 per year. That works out to about $15.00 per hour. Assuming that a person works 8 hours per day, that means they make about $120.00 per day, before taxes. The average income for a day worker in New Testament times was a drachma. So, let's extrapolate and get an approximate market value for the scrolls. $120.00 x 50,000 = $6,000,000.00! Yep, that is the correct number of zeroes. $6 million! Don't like that number? Think that I should allow for 30% in taxes? OK, but that still comes to $4.2 million!

And, this wasn't any mega-church, either. Let's suppose that there were 120 members, a very large church for the time. That means that each person burned $50,000 worth of books! No wonder “the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.” These people put their money where their mouth was—almost 2 years' worth of wages, up in smoke! How many people in today's church would be willing to do that? More importantly, would I be willing to do it?

Hmmm, let's bring that a bit closer to home. I currently have a little over 1,000 books (I have been cutting down my library for several years now), and I would estimate that the value per volume is around $18.00—some are worth much more, some much less. That means my library is only worth $18,000, at most $20,000. Better add some more stuff on the pile. My bike is worth about $1800; Debbie's is worth about $800; our car is worth less than $1,000. The lawn tractor is worth about $300. And I can't forget the trailer for the bike, $300.00; and the Yakima™ rack is worth a couple of hundred. That still doesn't even bring me to half what they got rid of. I'm running out of stuff to throw on the fire...

You get the idea? They got rid of anything that stood between them and God. It wasn't the cost that mattered, it was whether it got in the way of serving God with their whole hearts.
</idle musing>

News

Since Joel and Renee have announced it on their blog, I guess it is OK to publish it here, too: Debbie and I are going to be grandparents again! And, not just once, but twice. Ryan and Emily are also expecting a baby, although theirs it due in May.

Guess where Debbie and I will be next Spring?

It's Monday

Haven't had access to the Internet since Thursday, so perhaps a bit of an update would be nice...

Ryan and Emily's wedding was Saturday, and it was wonderful. Their prayer was that God would be glorified and people would see Jesus in everything that happened. Their prayers were answered. We saw people we hadn't seen since the last wedding (Renee's four years ago); others we hadn't seen since we left Minneapolis over 4.5 years ago. After the reception we helped Ryan and Emily take their gifts to their new apartment and left them in peace :) They flew out Monday AM at 6:00 for Florida. Ryan's work has paid for their airfare and lodging for 8 days at Fort Lauderdale! Emily had never flown before, or seen the ocean, so this is quite the treat for her. I just hope they don't get sunburn.

Saturday evening we went to "The House" which is an emerging-type church in Burnsville on the charismatic side of things. This is Ryan and Emily's home church, so we saw quite a few people that we had met at the wedding that morning. Afterwards, several of us joined together in prayer for baby Emily Grace (Junebug).

Sunday we went to see some friends in Chaska (where we used to live in the Minneapolis area). We had a good time catching up and praying with people from our bible study there. After that, we headed over to another set of friends and prayed with them for healing of their marriage. God broke through, and there was a great time of forgiveness and healing. They had been separated, but after last night, they are back together. We praise God for the restoration and pray that they would continue to walk in forgiveness with one another. By the time that was over, it was a bit late to take the kids back to Clyde and Pat's—we had laid them down to sleep at the last place—so we stayed the rest of the night.

Today, we returned to Clyde and Pat's to the news that Renee had gone into labor on her own late Sunday night. They admitted her Monday morning and broke her water around 10:30 Central time. And that brings us up to date. We don't know anything more yet, but they are expecting a baby girl before evening...

More when I have it.

So, what is happening?

Basically, nothing. We arrived in Minneapolis Monday morning after driving through the night. That same afternoon, Joel and I went up to Grand Marais (about a 5 hour drive) to get the kids and their clothes. Debbie stayed with Renee. Tuesday morning Joel and I did some things that they hadn't been able to do before leaving Friday night—they weren't expecting to leave for another 6 days—and packed up the kids' clothes and grabbed the kids. Then, off we went for another 5 hour drive back to Minneapolis. Along the way, we stopped outside of Duluth for a nice cold picnic. The wind was off the lake, which always makes it cold, but it had been 35 F the night before, and was only about 50 degrees at noon. But the lake is still beautiful and we threw our share of rocks into it :) We arrived back in Minneapolis around 5 that night. So, in about 36 hours, I had spent around 20 of them in a car :(

We have the kids and are staying with Ryan's future in-laws, Clyde and Pat. They have a large enough house and a 3 acre yard, so we aren't cramped. They have been great, and the kids are doing well. Joel and Renee come every day to see them after their morning doctor's appointment. Renee has been having contractions off and on, but nothing to really get things moving. Right now, as I write this, they are having an ultrasound, which may tell more, but I doubt it.

Yesterday afternoon, Joel, Clyde, and I went for a nice hike in the nature preserve near their house. They have about 7-8 miles of trails and we did about 5 miles of them. Saw 3-4 deer, 1 wild turkey, and numerous birds.

Last night I helped Ryan pick up their new bed and put it together. They got a nice one bedroom apartment in Bloomington (a near 'burb of Minneapolis) with a nice big yard. Very quiet and peaceful. Ryan has been living there for about a week; Emily is still living at Bethany. They believe in sexual abstinence until marriage—would that others would also!

The only drawback about staying where we are is that they have no high speed Internet and no network for me to attach my computer to even for dial-up. Right now I am sitting in a Panera Bread and typing this, trying to get caught up on e-mails, and do some other stuff.

We left in such a hurry, that I copied the wrong files to my computer, so I am going to try and get those so I can get the Biblical Studies catalog done while I am here.

Family update

We have some good news, and some concerns on the family front. Some of you know that Debbie and I have two grown children, both living in Minnesota. First the good news:

Ryan is getting married! Yep. He is getting married to Emily, a woman who loves the Lord and whom he has known for a couple of years now. The wedding will be in the Minneapolis area on May 31, 2008.

And, Renee and Joel are expecting another child. The baby is due sometime in the middle of June (they have been given two different dates, the 12th and the 17th). They just started a blog with some good pictures and a nice summary of their Christmas. I hope you enjoy it :)

Now the concern:
The pregnancy is a high risk one, since their first child was delivered via a C-section. So, on Tuesday, Renee went in for a routine ultrasound. The results were not clear, but seemed to indicate a problem with the baby's heart. So, they scheduled an ultrasound at a better hospital in Duluth (2.5 hours away) on Thursday.

Last night Joel called with the results. His first words were, "This is not a healthy baby." Yikes! Words that no parent/grandparent ever wants to hear. Apparently, there is an enlarged aorta, which could indicate a bad or small valve in the heart. They took an amniocentesis and will have those results on Tuesday when they meet with the specialist. There is a 5% possibility that it is genetic, which could mean Downs Syndrome or death shortly after birth.

At this point it looks like they will do surgery immediately after birth, but that means Joel and Renee will have to stay in Minneapolis when the birth gets close.

More details as I find them out.

Please pray for Joel, Renee, their kids, and the baby. I believe God still does miracles, but I also know that His ways can be a good bit different than ours. I know what I want, but I need to let God tell me what He wants. I don't mean that to sound wishy-washy because it is not. I have seen God do physical healings—on myself and others. But, I have also had my prayers go unanswered.

When Renee had Rachel after having Joshua via C-section, they told her she might be able to deliver naturally. So, she tried. After several hours of labor, it looked like things weren't going well so they transfered her to Duluth. They told her that she had a 10% chance of delivering naturally. The prayer chain started, and that 10% became 100% as God intervened and allowed a natural childbirth.

When I got hit by the truck on my bicycle, the entire medical staff told me my knee would need surgery based on the X-rays. They also told me I would have arthritis at the joint the rest of my life. The prayer chain started, and I didn't need surgery and I don't have arthritis, either.

Update: I fixed the link on Joel and Renee's blog. They now have a note at the bottom entitled Prayer.