Old Time Tonic

It's about this time every year that I'm reminded of a ritual that took place virtually every year when I was growing up. Although the winter blahs weren't nearly as bad, perhaps due to the mild weather so far, as in some years, they are here none the less. Going almost anywhere from where I have always lived means going down hill. One choice is a recently upgraded and widened road and the other, except for paving, is not much different than it was as far back as I can remember. It is along that less traveled road that the beginning of the ritual begins. The road basically follows a stream valley and winds back a forth crossing the stream at least four times in a mile and a half. Several places along that road grows a short, bushy tree we call Spice Wood or Spice Bush and that is what we need to get started on chasing the winter blahs off.

Spice Wood is best identified in early spring when the buds are just opening. At first glance you might think you're seeing forsythia. But the yellow freshly formed leaves soon leave no doubt that you were seeing Spice Wood and it was now a bit late to use it for the tonic that I and many generations before me have come to give ourselves assurance that although we may have to endure another snow or two or three, spring is on the way and the daylight hours are undeniably longer than they were just a short while ago. I stopped today and cut off a small branch filled with those delightful almost spherical buds just as we have been doing for so long and fetched it home to brew up the magical Spice Wood tea.

Boiling the twigs fills the house with a special aroma not quite like any other. Somehow your senses tell you that this is helping even before it gets put in a cup with a bit of milk and sugar and then warms you all over as almost nothing else can. As these things tend to happen, today I created a new variation on the traditional Spice Wood tea. Having just cut up a pineapple, the core sat on the counter and said, "Don't throw me away. Put me in the pot with the Spice Wood." How could I refuse? I'm now on the outside of my first cup of 2016 Spice Wood / Pineapple spring tonic. But I suspect it is not the last.

Just as with all good things, Spice Wood connects me with the past while encouraging me into the future. Knowing what has come before us is essential, keeping that which was good and taking it with us being thankful to the Creator who has provided it all is what I encourage my good readers to do. If you can find some Spice Wood, brew up a tonic that connects you to past and present and future.

Warmth Provided

Sometimes the things you want to do take a back seat to the things that get in the way. Writing this blog and sharing my various musing with those who would take the time to read it is something I really enjoy. And yet, it's been months since I last took the time to put something up here. It would be easy enough to say I've been busy with more important stuff. However, the truth is that if I had limited my dallying around on Facebook, I could have had a good many more posts. So, call it a resolution if you will. I plan to be a bit more disciplined about this small part of life in the coming year.

The subject of much of this blog is wood; trees and the things that can be made from this amazing God-given miracle. Today was a pretty relaxing one and the intermittent sunshine invited me to the woods. A dead White Oak tree had caught my attention a couple days ago and, just as with my writing, my firewood gathering was a bit behind as well. A couple hours of cutting, hauling and splitting (about all this old body is up to anymore) and the wood pile looks a bit healthier. What a blessing to be able to go out the back door and harvest what has been provided.

The tree I cut was one of hundreds in the area that succumbed to a combination of Gypsymoth defoliation and seasons of drought. The first invasion of Gypsymoths was back in the '70's in this area and the sickening feeling that our forest would be destroyed was overpowering. As it turns out, most trees were not killed and the ones that were had a culling affect that made for better growth in the survivors, not unlike what happens in the animal world with a balance of prey and predator. This kind of observation is what has been a faith builder for me. I no longer fear what may happen to me or the trees. There is a plan for both and it would appear that the two are intended to blend together. The comfort derived from my stack of firewood pales in comparison to the warmth that overcomes me when I acknowledge how much Our Creator cares for me and you.

So, Happy New Year to all and may the blessings that attend the faithful be with you in the coming days. Be grateful for the provision that has been guaranteed. Hopefully the next post will be more timely.

Reunited

I'll be heading to a reunion soon. So will my wife and my son, in fact he is already attending. Interestingly, we will be in three different places. In the normal routine we would all be heading to the same get together. But this year things are different. My son is in the Dominican Republic on a mission trip sponsored by Foundation for Peace. It is however a reunion in that he was there last year as well and helped begin construction of a church in a fairly remote village. The folks he met then will once more be grateful for the folks who choose to leave a lifestyle beyond anything they can imagine in order to help them. He will be doing a good deal more sweating than either Jennifer or I in our single day excursions.

Jennifer will be going to have lunch and reconnect with some of the hockey players she coached some forty years ago. She is looking forward to reconnecting with these girls who are now middle aged  women and some of whom she has not seen since they played on the team she coached. In this case also part of this planned luncheon is the result of people appreciating the time someone dedicated to teaching life lessons through teamwork. As it turns out the luncheon is a conflict with the family reunion I will be attending the same day.

So I get to represent our clan by myself this year. Our family reunion is a bit confusing in that almost everyone there is somehow connected by our less than common surname. That name has been around for a long time as names in this country go and figuring out how we're all related is part of the fun. It will be a fun day of catching up on what folks have been doing and, of course, eating more than one should on any given day. Carrying on in the tradition my dad started, I try to make some item to be raffled off to build the treasury for future reunions. This year it's a pretty simple bench that grew out of a small slab of cedar that my dad figured might make something some day. So with thoughts of him and all the others who have completed this side of the journey, I'll be off to see all the others fulfilling that need to reconnect.

Thanking Dad

When I was in my teens, my father worked as a woodwork installation foreman for a couple different woodworking shops. His job was to hire carpenters and supervise installation of merchandise displays and such in stores, banks or other commercial buildings. The work generally kept him on the road and that meant seeing him, for the most part, on weekends. Knowing he would be home for a couple days, generally meant being ready to help with all the projects that accumulated and needed attention before Dad had to head back to wherever it was that the current job was going on. Looking back, I'm amazed at the energy that schedule required. One summer, we built a house for my grandparents. Pretty much, sunup to sundown, Saturday and Sunday and maybe a little bit on Friday night we built a house. It never occurred to me that maybe Dad would have preferred to have a "regular" job so weekends wouldn't be so intense.

Only when I graduated from college did the situation change. Dad stopped working on jobs that required being away most of the time. It was about that time when I began to question, "Why in the world did he choose to 'abandon' Mom and me and then try to cram all the stuff he missed into a couple days each week?" Silly, immature, self-centered me; it was all because he wanted to be sure that I got the education he had been " asured" he as incapable of achieving. His motives had to do with making more money; but only because he wanted to give me something he felt he had been denied. That explained why this man who was pretty critical of anything I ever did was so much less upset than I expected him to be when I nearly flunked out. When I needed it most, he encouraged me and had faith in me and assured me that things would work out.

There is a beautiful analogy here. We all have a Father who watches us grow and encourages us even though we are unsure of what we are doing. Some who may read this may not have had an earthly father like mine who wanted more than anything else to help them along. I ask all who might read this to take heart. Even though you may toy with thoughts of being abandoned, your Father in Heaven has you right where He wants you. Just as Dad had great plans for me so God has plans for you. He would not have brought you into existence were that not the case. Get to know Him better and become who He designed you to be. There are no adequate words to thank someone who loves you so much. I am so blessed and can simply say, "Thanks Dad and Dad."

Mighty Mouse Encounter

Sorry I have been so lax in putting some nonsense up for your reading pleasure in a while. Our church is without a pastor at this time and I have found myself a bit busier than usual. I will try to get a little more regular with posts. Maybe that is the new alliteration, "Post or Perish".

As reported before, our material for the wood shop comes mostly from local trees that we mill ourselves and, as with all wood working, I look forward to firing up the sawmill for the season each year, grateful for the fact that I don't have to do that part of the process during the freezing part of year. I was so delighted to find that the engine on the mill was as anxious to get going as I was and started right up. The engine drives the blade and keeps the battery charged. But the rest of the operation is either electrical or hydraulic powered.

The mill head moved along nicely and when the hydraulics were being tried out, just as suspected, things were moving along much too smoothly. Although the motor that drives the hydraulic pump was working the stuff that is supposed to move when the control levers are moved sat disgustingly still. Adding hydraulic oil didn't make much difference. It was then that I saw oil running out of places where it isn't supposed to. It was obvious that a hydraulic hose had broken and oil was going where it had no business going.

It turns out that a mouse, or maybe several, had taken up residence in the main hollow tube that constitutes the mail frame of the mill and serves as the conduit for the first twelve feet of all the hydraulic hoses. Why a mouse would see fit to chew on hydraulic hoses is beyond me. But chew he (she, they) did. Chewing through the outer rubber part is bad enough. But one hose was nearly severed meaning that the little bugger ate through the steel part as well; must have had carbide teeth.  In any event, repairs have been made and although we're starting a little later than usual, we'll be turning trees into two by fours once more.

Chips Off The Old Blockhead

As anyone who has followed my attempts here on Out of the Woodwork knows, I try to keep a positive attitude about life in general. Understand, it's not a matter of overlooking the bad stuff that seems to happen. It is instead being appreciative for what is and making an attempt to improve things where that is possible. One of the ways we can do that is to check now and again to see if, because of the way we live, anything is better than it might have otherwise been. Having been blessed with two sons, I get a chance to check out pretty regularly what they are up to and wonder what my influence may have brought about. This is tricky stuff. Much of what the boys, if 40 plus year olds are considered boys, have become has not so much to do with me as to the decisions they have made. Never the less, they watched me for clues and there's the genetics thing that may have had some influence.

When I consider all the potential places where my sons could have gotten off track and gone in directions that I would call undesirable, I feel doubly blessed. We're not talking about perfection here. Perfection is in another realm. As I consider how things have turned out, it seems obvious that somewhere, some how being appreciative for what they have and being unselfish with it has steered much of their decision making. So, just like Dad, they recognize that things don't always go the way you think they should. But along with that comes the realization that embracing life is too important to concentrate on the negative stuff. Something that has been helpful to me in this matter of positiveness and that I would hope the good folks who might be reading this would find helpful is this piece of truth from the greatest truth teller ever. In the Book of John, Jesus tells us,"In this world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, for I have overcome this world." So friends, be of good cheer. The bad stuff will always be in the world, but we've been promised something beyond and better than this world.

Where Are They Now?

When someone dabbles in woodwork and makes stuff for as long as I have, some of those projects get some mileage on them. I know that some cutting boards I made and some wooden eggs are half way around the world. Cutting boards are a favorite hostess gift and it seems that a practical thing like that is generally appreciated. My wife asked for wooden eggs to hand out to folks on a mission trip to Kenya. Here again the egg, a symbol for life, made from something that was once alive was appreciated and they got distributed far and wide. There is great satisfaction in knowing something you have done has positively affected another and the distance some of these little projects traveled makes it even more interesting. How what we do affects other folks should be of utmost concern for all of us and now and again I get a story that would indicate that, at least occasionally, I have been helpful. One of those stories came along in the last twenty-four hours.

I love Facebook. I probably spend too much time scrolling along checking on the things my friends find worthy of posting. But the connections that have been made with folks I might never have heard from again is my favorite part. Last night as I logged on there was a message from someone whose name I didn't recognize. I didn't recognize the name because she was a former student and, as might be expected, now has a different last name. What she had to say nearly brought me to tears, "You were, hands down, my all time favorite teacher." She added, "I still use the dining table I made in your class." Turns out that after graduation, her life was filled with tribulation. But she discovered that positive thinking can turn lemons into lemon ice cream. I know, I know that's not how the saying goes. She discovered a way to make good choices and now is in the business of helping others put the pieces back together. You might enjoy her web site.

When all is said and done, all we have is our interaction with other people. We never can be quite sure if what we do for another is helpful. Sometimes a lot of years pass before we hear if our attempts were appreciated. Although when I had Cindy in class all those years ago my Christian faith was shaky to say the least, there was still a stirring that reminded me, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It's a good idea and other that loving His Father more than anything else, it's the only thing Christ asks of us.