These are some of the purple coneflowers (echinacea) growing in my flower garden at home. Nothing extra special, but I'd like to think I'm kind of like them. First of all they are native to the prairies. They are very colorful and tall. (I think I fit that also) They are a very useful flower and spread a lot of seeds for regrowth the following year.
They are low maintenance, but in mass are absolutely gorgeous!

Purple coneflowers inspired those who established Western Illinois University to select purple and gold as our school colors! Cool, eh?

Storm rolling in...

There is something very awe-inspiring of seeing a midwest thunderstorm rolling in. This one came in last night and left us with some rain and cooler temps.

The interesting part was just sitting and listening to the thunder roll through the area. There is no doubt the power of the thunderstorm.

I sometimes believe it is God's voice saying, "Be silent and know that I am God."

Some people find them very disturbing...I find them somewhat comforting. There are no lights of the city, no sounds of vehicles to disturb your ears, nothing but just the pure sound of nature.

It lets you know the power of God.

Life lessons - it's what you value at Christmas and every day of the year!

This is one of my most favorite Christmas presents this year. A dish towel. Yes, it is a dish towel, but not just any ordinary dish towel.

My grandmother, Jessie Yess, had embroidered this dish towel, but there is more to the story as Paul Harvey says.

My mother said when she was little, her grandmother Emma Jane Smith, my grandma Jessie's mom, came to live with them. Grandma Emma Jane was 71 when my mom was born. She lived to be 85.

Mom said Grandma Emma would ask Grandma Jessie for busy work in order to "contribute" something. She wanted to feel needed. Grandma Jessie would give her dish towels to hem. During the day, Grandma Emma would hem them by hand and give them to her daughter (Jessie). At night, my mom (Sharon) said she would remember seeing Grandma Jessie sitting taking out the hems in the dish towels Grandma Emma had hemmed during the day.

The next day, Grandma Emma would ask if there were any more needing hemmed and like clockwork, Grandma Jessie would hand her a batch and say, "Well, yes...these need to be hemmed."

At one time Mom says she remembers Grandma Emma getting wise to the situation, but the main part of the story is she wanted to feel needed. She wanted to contribute something to the household. She was getting older and couldn't see as well and probably couldn't do a lot of other housework she used to do, but she wanted to stay busy and do something.

This wonderful story of love showed me we ALL want to contribute something to the greater good - no matter our age. We want to feel needed and useful. No one wants to be a burden on others or offering no contributions in life.

This was a way Grandma Emma could feel needed, wanted, useful. What a wonderful love story about how a daughter made sure her mother felt those wonderful things.

This dish towel reminds me of my grandmother and how she was always busy helping do things like canning, playing with my sister and me, or folding laundry. Little things that showed her love for us. And that's why I value this simple dish towel so much...for the memory of that alone.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and I wish you a wonderful, useful New Year!

Yikes!

I very clearly remember this Christmas. I certainly didn't think Santa was going to show up! I think I was smiling because my mom and dad told me to, but I was secretly SCARED TO DEATH! What if he knew we'd been bad and I was getting coal? My sister, Cathy, in the photo is even more scared!

But, thank Heaven, Santa brought us good presents and we ALWAYS remembered the year that Santa appeared on our doorstep!

Harvest time!

We began cutting soybeans in the field behind the house today. Here's a look . Quite a bit of dust flying for having had 5 1/2 inches of rain just two weeks ago! Steve's in the combine; Erik in the tractor with the grain cart behind.

Happy 5th of July!

What? Happy 5th of July? Don't you mean 4th of July? Nope...5th. Here's my thought process.

On July 4th, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress . Actually on July 2nd, the Congress had already voted to declare independence from Great Britian. It was later published and signed near the beginning of August.

So, why Happy 5th?

On the Fourth, we actually made a statement as a country saying, "We're not gonna take it anymore." We listed the reasons why, what we believed to be the ideal nation, etc, but on the morning of the 5th, can't you imagine those of the Continental Congress waking up to wonder, "What did we just do?" They had pledged EVERYTHING they had to see this through!

It's a whole lot easier to say, "I'm not gonna take this anymore and I'm changing something", than it is to actually do it. Once you've made that public statement you have to begin to formulate how the action will take place; how you will change what you believe to be substandard. How many of us have said, I'm gonna lose weight, or I'm gonna finish school to wake up this next morning thinking, ahhh...maybe tomorrow.

Well, these people had no choice. They had made a rather bold statement of independence and now they were known for it. People would be judging them on how they had achieved that goal or fallen short. They would judge them if they individually profited from the situation.

So, I believe it much harder to actually put the statement into action and today was the day of action for our country. We could no longer talk about doing something, we had to move, take action, change the world. And...overall, I believe it worked out very well.

But...I imagine for a little bit on the morning of the 5th of July, 1776 there were some men who wondered What the heck did we do yesterday? And today, July 5th, 2008 there will be more men wondering the same thing, but for different reasons! Happy 5th!

Large snow drift? Cocoon? Alien?

Actually, the answer would be none of these! It's a large haylage/silage bag. We put in hay and oats to fill 550' of bag this past week. It will "mature" into a wonderful feed for winter and I LOVE the smell when the bags are opened to feed the cattle. I think the cattle love the smell too! Ron Byers of Berwick had the team to do it. We supplied the field, the location, and a tractor. His guys had trucks to haul it and the know-how to do it! It was like a well-oiled machine! A truck would come in, dump it's load into the unloader which filled the bag and voila! That truck would pull out and shortly later another would pull in.

Secretly I'd like to go out with a BIG magic marker and draw a funny face on it or something else. Not sure I can get away with that one!