Flowers for a February Wedding

Visiting Otavalo and Cuicocha

Our Home Part2

Kathy creating something delightful in  her kitchen.

Like this scrumptious banquet we had one evening.

I like the workbench, the grindstone, the lighting overhead. I have gotten a leather belt repaired and a couple other things done. Two basketballs still need patches on them as summer vacation starts. 

I hated to take apart the boys' music room in the last house. It meant ending something when the basement band years were gone. Then while the visited us, Ben set up the new music room. Wow. 

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

 -Matt. 11: 28, 29

Our New House - Pt1

Hardwood floor and skylight dress up this bedroom. A built-in study nook fills an opposite corner. 

Glad, so very glad to have our guest room  full for a few weeks in May. Thanks boys!

Priority One that Kathy established was transforming an office into our dining area. Great idea.

A warming fire in the hearth can be as entertaining as watching the tube. More calming too.

Nana's quilt on the bed. A Pioneer receiver and Gerard turntable tell you that Levi is our retro guy.

Oh To Be A Tree

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

The strength of a tree is such that it can break concrete. Then it lifts the weight.

This is destructive to a sidewalk, but it serves to remind me of the psalmist’s words. I am nourished by the Word, just as the tree is fed by waters in the soil by the side of the river.

God’s strength is matched by the compassion He shows to frail beings such as I am. As John Mark McMillan wrote, “loves like a hurricane, I am a tree. Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.”

Watered well and with a tap root way, way down into the soil, a tree. Breaking the constraints that this temporal world’s values impose on me. And experiencing His Holy Spirit’s wind and the free gift of mercy.

A tree

the Psalmist’s simile

I want Your wildness to blow through me

Your refuge too, is where I flee

I submit my all to Thee

And That's The Way It . . . Will Be?

He is young; he is bright, bilingual, ambitious. And he wants to be a journalist.

We have had lunch and talked (watch short video* now).

A soccer player, he aspires to sportscasting. I haven’t doused his desire to reach ESPN.

Neither have I made all of this look easy (“like on TV”). Many journalists exert the dogged diligence of toiling on in relative obscurity. (Having served in ag journalism, I love the line about “pork belly futures . . .”) But this trait is unportrayed by the quick conflict/resolution plots of television and cinema.

The journalist was negative, more so than I have been. This is due in part to my young friend’s interest in sportscasting. Whereas people may starve themselves of news (especially international news, decimated by budget cuts) the appetite for sports coverage remains. “Seventy-five percent of what people come to the page for is sports,” observed Mr. C of the Deseret News.

Time was, sports formed a portion of a newscast, even as the audience grabbed a view of the world from trusted voices – journalists’ voices. Walter Cronkite comes to mind, of course.

As my young friend attempts to learn something from me, the easier part is to evaluate journalism of the past. The harder part – as audiences continue fragmenting into niche segments – is to predict job possibilities and the future.

And to sound authoritative and conclusive with a summarizing statement like, “That’s the way it will be . . .”

*Video by: Lee Gjertsen Malone.

Some Shots From Ecuador's Coast

Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,

Your justice like the great deep.

You, LORD, preserve both people and animals.




















Yes, he is in there . . . yeah, he's there. Possibly a stenocercus iridescens, or iguana to most of us.








Here . . . let's get closer. A LOT closer. Actually, I never got near him. I helped a small crab escape the swimming pool where someone had put it. Yeah, picked that out of the water.


As to the beached eel, I was willing to let it be. I pointed it out to a passing beachcomber, and with his stick, he flicked it into the water.






And what do you suppose is going on here?




















Pelecanus occidentalis, which is known as the brown pelican, captures fish by a spectacular plunge from the air. Other species of pelicans swim in formation, driving small schools of fish into shoal water where they are scooped up by the birds.












There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.