Summer has gone - what next

This year has been one of the most difficult ones we have been through in quite some time. I don't think I have seen one that gave us such a wide range of varying weather conditions as this years has. For the most part it has been a long hot summer.  In the area I live in it has not rained. Not one significant drop since June. A few days before the summer  soltuce was the last time we had any kind of moisture.
It seemed like the day summer started the top of the temperature gauges blew off and the hot vents opened upon the world.  Watching the news reports the world itself had some severe weather that seems impossible to consider a natural disaster.
The poles are melting faster than once predicted.. One news clip I saw showed tourists on a cruise ship off the coast of Greenland  capture on camera a wall of glacial ice brake off falling into the ocean causing a sudden rise in the waves that rippled back against the ship.  In the same segment they showed satellite photos of Greenlands glacier in one weeks time the snows from the first set show the ice to be thick and solid. The next showed the same area but under a different lens focus. I don't remember what they called it , but the blue image revealed how much the snows melted from the summers heat wave.
Ground that hasn't seen the light of day since the flood waters were frozen are now revealing themselves. Secrets long covered by our prehistoric age have been found under these snows.  History of a time long forgotten that gives proof to facts recorded by survivors.
As winter moves in I can't help but wonder what changes are in store for us . Some of our winters have been unusually mild ones. Others have been extremely hard. But that's nature. The unknown. The uncertain is what we live for. It keeps us searching for answers.

Times of Change

This summer has really been one of the worse in some time. The heat remains in the high 90's almost daily. The drought is really taking hold. The Platte river that runs through Nebraska is dry. Most summers when we get into August it drops down to a very small stream. This summer it is gone. Not one trickle to be seen for miles.
     The emails I read of the news reports is really sad. The planet is changing from all this heat. The polar ice is melting faster now than ever. Greenland seen from the bird's eye of a satellite in just four days time show how one day the snow covers the in tire land mass, in the next has melted down to the solid ground that hasn't seen the light of day sense the flood when the glaciers froze.
    What really saddens me is the animals that live in the poles. The polar bears, seals, walruses, foxes, penguins. Their habitat is melting. What will they do when there is no more snow for them to hunt, dig caves to hibernate and bear their young. They can't hunt to feed their young they will all die. It's so sad to see how all these changes so effect those who are unable to change and adapt to the changes. Zoo's can't be expected to take in the in tire species of life.
    This planet is their world too. For countless generations we have shared this world with all those other species. We intrude on their habitat with force they fight back. Just as we do when we are intruded upon. The way we now intrude has taken away whole sections clearing wide ranges of land for agriculture leaving nothing for the animals to hunt.
    This drought is really spreading. It is changing the world everywhere. A few winters ago the changes in the storms were reaching the strangest places. Dumping record amounts of snow in some of the warmest places on earth that have never seen snow. Stirring up some of the weirdest storms ever seen. It reminded me of that movie made in 2005, Day After Tomorrow.(Paramount.) In that movie everything froze over taking the in tire northern hemisphere.
    This summer is taking on a the aspect of a time when Elijah faced the heathen kings in Gods kingdom with apostasy. God plagued the land with drought for 7 years. Because the people turned from God to worship idols. He set drought upon the land to turn the people back to him. That kind of drought the world has never seen at that time.
    Where will this drought lead us?
    Some days I fear the worst for us as a people but more for all the wildlife that have no place else to go. Not able to change and adapt to the changes happening in this world. So much of it is caused by mans careless use of our resources. Pollution in the air, water, soil that seeps into everything else. Trees to have been suffering from new types of insects that burrow into them and the trees die.
   The out break of fires across the country areas that are rarely plagued with such fire hazards. The forests areas are able to regrow what was lost. Fires opens the seedlings from the trees to take root and start growing new life to replace the ones lost. We plant seedlings to help this regrowth.
   There are good sides and bad sides to every thing. In this I want to see something good come from this tragedy. The animals need help. Nature shows open eyes to the plight of the animals and the dangers facing them. They also show there is more that people can do to help change what is happening.
   Change is needed now. I just hope we can do something more than just speak of the tragedy and not do anything else. What happens to the animals will one day happen to us as well. We share this world with a vast assortment of life. Much of it intelligent in it's own way. We may not be able to speak directly with one another but we can find ways to communicate.
    

SUMMER WALK

    

SUMMER WALK

By 

Anise Cassell 

Summer time to get out to enjoy long walks.  Walks in the cool evening is rewarding. Three dogs joined Mom on her walks. Apollo loved to run in the fields of tall grass and wide-open spaces. There was nothing a collie like more to stretch ones long legs in free spirited play with his two best friends.

Cocoa the dash hound grew up with the family’s three children. She was shared much of their lives. Cocoa didn’t like pups. After ten years she was happy the children were grown.  She had only mom and dad to deal with. That was enough.

Hootie the rat terrier is Apollo’s best friend. The pup had taken to her the moment he arrived. Mom took the dogs for walks in the evening after work was done. Some days the walks took them far from home. They walked off the road where the fields stretched for miles.

Hootie’s short legs took her far in seconds.  The only one to catch her was Apollo. His long legs caught her in short leaps. His favorite game is pounce and nip. When Apollo caught Hootie he nipped her on the head. Hootie would growl nip back to find he ran off.

 He would return to do it again. Hootie didn’t like his game.  Let him know it. That didn’t stop Apollo. He pressed the game as long as he could. Cocoa let them know right off she would not put up with this non-sense. She earned her place in this family.

Cocoa went her own way.  Short legs made hunting new smells enjoyable. Her keen sense well suited to hunting. Searching new smells is her favorite part of walks. Cocoa found a new smell. Zeroed in digging to uncover the hidden treasure. Once started there’s no stopping until the source was sniffed out. 

 Tonight Mom watched the sunset of the summer solstice. The birds bedded down songs fading. Cocoa’s furious digging aroused Apollo’s interest. Catching a whiff of the prize joined in. He didn’t intrude on her dig. Her nips made him back off. He would wait to sneak back then jump on the prize to snatch it up fast. Then challenge them to take it from him. They could not.  

 The sunset fades from orange to red cast a long shadow behind the hill. Mom started walking home. Hootie joined in the hunt for the prize. Mom called. The search was intense.  Digging furiously for the prize.

A mother field mouse jumped out with her last baby disappeared into the tall stalks her escape with child certain. The dirt pile gave the mother field mouse the perfect escape route the dogs could not pursue. Apollo's  disappointment didn’t stay with him long. The memory of the hunt would remain with the collie for some time. 

Where to find love?

Reading my devotional today I read two very interesting stories. One was patience and the other was a love story. The story was how two people from Italy separated by an ocean found each other in a church. Then it said, "Where better to find love, hope everyone can find love there." 

That started me thinking when I was writing in my journal. Church, Gods house, IS the only place to find love. God offers us LOVE full and free to ALL WHO ENTER HERE! 

Gods love full and free, given unconditionally to ALL who seek it. Pure love. The purest form of all love ever offer to anyone ever created. God holds nothing back from us once we have accepted his love into our hearts. Once we accept our lives will never be the same again. 

God love is powerful. Because it changes us forever. Opening the door of our hearts God begin to change us. Always for the better. Creating new hearts open to others in need of love. From there it becomes contagious. We start to share love with those around us. It spreads to more people who pass it on to still more. 

The power of love does return to us when we least expect it. Many couples God has brought together. Marriage. The oldest of all customs God began at creation with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. God will bring us together with the "someone we are looking for to share our lives with." 

With God we can know for a certainty that the "right" someone we are looking for will be the right choice for a lifetime of love. What God approves will be the right fit. 

One of the gifts He gives us of the gifts of the spirit is PATIENCE. 

Patience is necessary for us as is love. One of my weaknesses is that I often get to impatient waiting for people to do something, or not doing anything at all. From that comes anger. The opposite of love and patience. When I feel anger over coming me I stop right there and pray. I ask God to take away the anger and give me the patience and understanding I need to work with this person to get this task finished. 

Instantly I feel the anger leaving me and the love returns. Just that fast my temper is quelled and love helps me the rest of the day. I don't like anger dominating my heart for any length of time. Love is the answer I always seek and find whenever I turn to God in prayer. 

Patience doesn't come easily to many people. But when anger threatens to overcome the good feelings then it's time to pray for the love and patience to return. To send the anger and frustrations away. God never fails to answer heart felt desires of any sort. He always send them packing. 

LOVE AND PATIENCE. With God they go hand in hand.  

Faith

AOL Mail - ONE of the most important fruits of the spirit is the one about faith. Hebrews 11:1 is called the faith chapter. Also known as the Hall of Faith. The first verse tells us what Faith means. I love this verse. It's one of my favorites.
"FAITH- Is the substance of things unseen, the hope of things to be done as if they are and will be done."
Galatians 5:23 also tells us faith is one of the fruits of the spirit.
Faith is such a great word. More than that it is a feeling and belief in things to be done. Believing in someone other than our self to do what they will do. Like a promise kept. Faith in friends or other people is also good thing for we need friends in our lives. We can take a great value in friends.
We are all human. We have that uncanny knack of not living up to other people's expectations. Being human that is a fault in us, mortal though we are, full of faults and defects because that is our nature. We have the power to overcome that defect if we choose to.
Animals like dogs look to us for companionship. Their devotion is a good example of faith. The trust they have in us never wavers unless we fail to live up to their needs. Even though they are disappointed in us when we falter for whatever reason. Faith is restored once we live up to the needs they depend on us for.
I like to study the fruits of the spirit. We can learn all we need to know if we search for those things God has set before us. Nothing is ever out of reach with God. Our Heavenly Father never fails to supply our needs in any and all situations. All we need to do is believe in Him and He will do the rest. It all starts by being able to forgive. Accept Jesus free gift of forgiveness and all the rest will fall into place as we continue to search for him with open hearts and minds willing to believe and be faithful to all he has promised.
Faith. The foundation of all that we believe.

Summer days

Summer is the best time for me. Even though it gets very hot most days to the point you can't go outside unless you have air conditioning. To the cooler days when its tolerable to be out there for as long as you like. But we can't always pick and choose the days as we would want them.
What I like about summer is all the things we can do when we are outside. So many activities to keep us on our toes. The grass is a very pleasant mat of turf that you can walk or run on it in bare feet. When I was younger I spent all summer barefooted. The sidewalks always reminded me why I needed shoes.
   Yesterday was a very pleasant surprise. I had heard on the news earlier that there would be a spectacular sky show in the afternoon. Venus crossing the suns path like an eclipse as it passes across the sun. Its dangerous to look directly at the sun but I watched its effects upon the world around me.
 The shadow it cast was not very dim, like a cloud passing the sun. It was very different. The shadow it cast was not like a cloud at all, not anything like the moon during an eclipse. The shadow was much lighter than the moons shadow and not as brief as a cloud either. The duration of it seemed to begin like a charging bull in a pen, running as fast as it could yet taking its time just so we can enjoy it in what little time it had.
The world itself was never more alive at that time. Everything seemed to linger coming out of its hiding place to take a gander at what was happening before it disappeared again. A hawk sat on a power line for the longest time. As I was driving by it sat like a king watching over the world below. Could he have felt like a king at that moment?
A master of all it surveyed resting high where nothing could reach him. Hawks have remarkable eyesight. Like eagles they can see a field mouse run across the grass from that high vantage point. Well honed hunting skills enable a hawk to swoop down and snatch it up in its powerful talons and carry it off to its nest far away. To feed its young still growing in its nest.
The most wonderful part of this world is all the wildlife that is so abundant. The animals we share our world with live very different lives from us. The open fields, forests, wetlands, even the ice regions at the ends of the world and the deserts are all dwelling places for these wonderful creatures.
Weather we want to accept it or not we do learn so much from nature and all its wonder. The lessons of life are the hardest things for us to learn. Lessons of life and the cruelest lessons of death we see first hand in the wild. Seeing how life began we have also learned and watched with careful study.
Nature gives us a peace we are hard pressed to find in the city. Finding time to get away from the hustle and bussel of daily life we come to the wilds and relax in the tranquility of nature. Listening to summer rains is very relaxing. The gentleness of the falling rain quiets a troubled soul. God created a beautiful world for all people to co-habitat with nature. We were given the charge of watching over it and caring for the animals and other life in it. A great honor for us if only we learned just how much that really means.

Repeal the Medical Device Tax, Protect American Jobs, Innovation, and Quali

Repeal the Medical Device Tax, Protect American Jobs, Innovation, and Quali

Welcome Spring

Spring is an exciting time. All around us the world is reviving itself with new growth. Last week I sat outside to watch the sunset. It was amazing. Just sitting out there as the sun went behind the hill the clouds so fluffy and lite made images that only an observing imaginative mind could see. To me the clouds looked like a race of dogs chasing one another in a pack across the sky. The images were dachshunds in a wiener dog race. It was so cute. The fading light gave them a bland gray with black trim appearance. I didn't count how many I could pick out. But that didn't matter. Seeing images in the clouds is good exercise for a creative mind.
 All around me I took notice of only a few birds that returned. The trees barren of leaves showed the empty nests waiting for the residences to return. High in the branches they looked so empty. The birds took roost in the highest branches of those trees without any signs of nests. So perhaps they were males staking out the ground for the new mating season to return. The song of the evening is so cherry even when they begin to settle in for the night.
   Since the twentieth has come and gone The trees have really begun to make changes. The warm temps have brought up the sap in the trees and the lite green of the early buds opening up for the new emergence of leaves to fill the trees is noticeable.  The flowers are emerging to. The tulips are often the first of the spring flowers to emerge from the ground. Blossoms are full in many fruit trees. White of cherry trees, purple of plum trees. With all the brown of the winter sleep still very much in sight the first signs of springs colors sure look good now.
    Passing a field along the highway near the river I saw the whooping cranes feeding. There numbers fill much of the field as they are sunning themselves in the warmth of the day. Bigger predatory birds have made appearances also near rivers. They look so graceful in flight. Their huge wingspans are so beautiful when they catch the thermals of warm air holding them high in the sky for long periods. I saw an eagle make big wide circles in the distance once. It was so graceful in the pattern it was making. By the way it was gliding it looked very happy with itself up there taking in all that wind and air that was holding it up for long periods of time. I don;t think it finds these winds so accommodating that often. But it does it really makes the most of it.
    Nature in spring is simply amazing. The rebirth all around us transforming the ground is quite exhilarating. It never happens overnight. Always slow, well prepared and very beautiful.  There is so much to see in the world that is truly beautiful. And its all free. Just to go outside and watch it from time to time. Take notice with an observers eye of the things in the world that are being revived for another year. A new season that will hold us in it's embrace all through the summer. No matter what the weather brings the earth itself is preparing itself with rebirth.
    The Earth. What a beautiful world we have been given to live in and to enjoy. We are very lucky people to be so endowed with such wonders of life all around us.
   
     WOW!  I JUST LOVE IT!  

Leap Day

 Once every four years we get an extra day to the year. Until this year leap day was nothing more than just another day. This year it means something more. This year this day bought me an extra day I needed to get taxes paid on my house. Last night we had a very bad storm. For the first  time Nebraska had tornado's making they're way across the state.
We could hear the wind rattling the trees outside fiercely. Most of the night rain plummeted the house. News reports said we were in not just a tornado watch but a Blizzard advisory, and a wind advisory. Living in the country on gravel roads that washout at the first rain drops I feared I would not meet the dead line.
Thankfully I did.
As we often think of the coming of March, "It comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." Last official day of February the 28th, the storm would have made that saying come true. Leap day held it off by one day. Tomorrow appears to be nice weather. Some places the jury is still out on that one.
  Today did have a one piece of bad news. My favorite Monkee Davy Jones died this morning.
The Monkee's were my Mother's alternative to the Beetles. She didn't like the Beetles and would not allow their music to be played in the house. That didn't bother me any. I was never a Beetle fan.
 In my teeny bopper days I had my juvenile crushes. I think most young girls did. Davy was always my favorite singer. I just loved his Daydream Believer and Pleasant Valley Sunday. The radio played them at lease three to four times each hour.
Walking with my little transistor radio I could hear it practically the same time every day and know what time it was. Hits always got special treatment. Each time I heard them I had to sing along with Davy. No matter where I was I had to sing with him. He was so much fun to sing with. I learned to dance from American Band stand.
Oh such were the days when times were simpler and we appreciated the things that we had more. Families were closer then to. Leap day though I had a friend who had a birthday on this day. She told me she could only have a birthday only once in four years. By that reckoning she said she was three years old. Whoa, that's a stopper for thought.
Leap Day. 
It's more than just another day added on every four years. This year it means a lot more to me.