One Idyllic Day--Glen Eyrie Castle

  Our first month in South Dakota had flown by on eagles' wings--in more than one way.

We watched eagles soaring overhead, and at times felt borne by wings.

It's really all I can explain, because I didn't really have it in me to get through all that we did with cancer, too.

Somehow I made it, and even traveled with the family back down to Colorado for a few days two weeks ago when the rest of the family went over to youth camp at Ranch Haven. Jonathan was to be maintenance guy and one of the mission speakers.

But I just wasn't able to do anymore than crash first at Sam's place, where I  was up late that first night in Colorado, rushing to do a couple loads of laundry and get a long-needed shower before dropping into that comfortable bed at Sam's. 

The next morning Jonathan and I moved on to Carrie's and Rose's cabin where I dropped some of my things. And then to Colorado Springs where Jonathan dropped me at the clinic where I was to get my high dose Vitamin C IV. 

That's where I crashed even further, already so exhausted I was having trouble carrying my bags into the clinic. I hadn't drunk enough and was not having lunch on time, and nurse told me I looked pale,

which caused me to panic. 

Nurse wanted blood tests, so we scheduled the tests for a couple days later, and I somehow managed to get out to Carrie's car. But I called Jonathan who was about to leave town for youth camp. He was going to be gone four days. 

I was in pieces and scared. 

Long story short, since he was scheduled to speak the next morning, he decided to go for that and come back earlier than he had planned. At first he planned to come back the very next day, but by then, I was doing better and wanted him to stay another day.  

I got something to eat, and browsed slowly with Carrie through a pro-life Christian thrift shop, wondering, "Is this the last time I'm going to browse through a thrift shop with my daughter?"

I made myself stop thinking thoughts like that. 

After all, I'd wondered that the last time I'd browsed through a thrift shop with my daughters, and guess what? I was in a thrift shop with Carrie all over again!

Maybe I was just weak and hungry and tired, in the aftermath of a dose of intravenous Vit. C hitting my cancer like fury.

Turns out that was the case. But life is a roller coaster like that right now. 

I just doubt that I'd be out shopping with my daughter after a chemo treatment, had I chosen that route. 

And things got better day by day from there on out--at  least for now.

Two days later, Jonathan returned to the Springs, having been given a gift of money from friends to  "do something special with your wife."

Would I like to spend a night and day at Navigators Glen Eyrie Castle? Jonathan wondered.

(Pictured above from a perch high up on a walk the next day)

With money specially designated, it was an easy yes!

A room wasn't available in the castle itself at first--till Jonathan called back and was told some rooms had been freed up, and we could have a castle room! I just love that old castle.

After supper at Jonathan's dad's place, we returned to the castle upon the tail end of a rain shower.

And guess what I saw when I got out of the truck!

Jonathan asked me to go out on the bridge while he snapped this photo.  

There was even part of a double rainbow!

We stood there in awe as the rainbow soon faded. 

"Just for us!" I breathed, as we stood, arms around each other.

"This morning in service," Jonathan said quietly, "the man in charge had me come up and everyone prayed for healing for you." Tears were in his eyes. "God's presence was there! I think God is going to heal you!"

I thought so, too.

It seemed to us the rainbow had been sent just for us.

Although I often have lived in less than ideal circumstances, (such as now where I am living month after month in an RV and we're having to haul all our water!) there is something inside me that loves class and beauty and things like castles and elegant china dishes. 

The next morning, we had the most delightful breakfast outdoors on the castle veranda.

where a lady came by and said, "You two look so good!"  

So when she disappeared, we stole looks at each other, to see what had looked so good, (I think it must have just been that we must have looked like we loved each other) and even got in a quick kiss!

People do notice if you seem to love each other--sit close, talk to each other, smile, enjoy something together.  And we were enjoying Glen Eyrie and the breakfast and each other immensely. They even had stevia to sweeten the herb tea--and tender beet greens to garnish the sausage patty I chose, along with the scrambled eggs and fried potatoes and melon and tea.

Jonathan enjoyed one or two pastries as well.

After that, I went around admiring and snapping photos of the beautiful yellow columbines, aspen...

ivy trailing up the castle walls, 

 and the blue flowers in the shade.

Jonathan and I sat on a bench near these iris, 

and I thought of how iris was the favorite flower of my Grandma Morgan, and a favorite of my mom's as well.  

Although we had to check out of our room by 11, we were allowed until 5 that evening to stay on the grounds. We meandered through the gardens, noting a hummingbird perching on the top of this light post. 

It whirred around the purple flowers.

Later Jonathan and I went for a couple short hikes on trails above the castle, but we didn't make it very far. I would have been spent. But Jonathan had lived here in this town for around 50 plus years of his life and never hiked some of these trails!

It was one of those idyllic days. I wondered if God was allowing it in between some very rough times, but I tried not to allow the concern about a future storm to ruin the joy of this day. 

Perhaps God was allowing us a foretaste of heaven!

And what if the next few days would actually all be wonderful (as they in fact were?)

Then that evening, we were blessed to have Sam take us out to eat with another young man whom he's been friends with for a while, Robert. Robert loves the Lord and missions, and has an amazing story of grace in his life, beginning clear back as a baby when he was blind because of a detached retina.

Different people prayed for his healing, but one day, after a simple prayer of a simple man,

baby Robert's eyes were healed!

He and Sam like to work together and four-wheel and hike together.   

Almost Stepped on a Rattlesnake!

  Our beautiful Sunday last week was suddenly interrupted by an excited Danny bursting into earshot. 

He had come within a couple feet of a rattlesnake down by the river! As he hunted for ammo, Jonathan grabbed a long-handled cultivator implement with tines.

And all four of us jumped on the four-wheeler and took off across the fields, through the prairie dog town,  through the fence gate, in between hundreds of prickly pear cactus freshly blooming with yellow petals, and down by the river where wild grape vines grew profusely.

We waded through tall grass and the ones ahead of me didn't seem to notice they had just rushed through patches of poison ivy!

But then one can do that if wearing tall rubber boots as Danny was! 

This is the scene I came upon when I arrived a little later and slower than the others.

Danny said the rattlesnake had gone inside its hole. 

We could hear its rattles buzzing!

Danny dug some dirt from the front of the hole, pushed a clod down the other end of the hole so the snake couldn't go out the other end, and got the snake to slither out. 

And he killed it. 

He probably wouldn't have if he had known that somewhere up in Pierre they will pay $1000 for a live rattlesnake so they can milk its venom for anti-venom. But we didn't know it until afterward.

That snake kept twirling and slithering even though it was as dead as a door nail.  

We read that if you put the whole dead skinned snake in a carton, you must put a lid on the carton or it will "crawl" out!

We are learning many new things!

Very exciting things!

Things to keep our Sundays far from boring for teenagers!

 

Jonathan and Danny got online to find out how to skin and cook rattlesnake!

And then while Jonathan took a nap, Danny skinned that snake, rolling the skin on a stick.  

Measuring the rattles 

The skinned snake 

g

Yes, we did eat some of that snake! I even tasted a tiny sliver of it just to say I had tasted rattlesnake!

In Sunday School this morning, (which happens to be Father's Day as I am finishing this post) when I told about the happy father/son fellowship Jonathan and Danny had last Sunday finding, capturing, killing, and cooking a rattlesnake, eyes in Sunday School class lit up. One lady beamed and said, "Rattlesnake is good!"

We're connecting with the dear people here, first over cancer, 

and now over rattlesnake!

Who would have thought that the fellowship over rattlesnake would make a good illustration of the Father/son relationship we can have with God--

a God Who cares, who is interested in our lives, Who listens and speaks, who comes along to help,

who teaches, instructs, and even sups with us!

Might I Give My Life for Obeying--or Get a Life?

 Before moving to South Dakota, I remember wondering if I was going to die up here--

die because my cancer would take me

because

I wouldn't have what I needed.

I wouldn't have the right kind of food or organic produce or resources of whatever kind.

At first it didn't occur to me to stay home in Colorado;

God had called my husband to go, and I was his wife. That meant I followed wherever he went.

That meant even if I died, I was going. 

 I didn't know where we would find what I needed like fresh, organic produce; 

goat milk (we only had one milk goat shortly before moving, and she had dried up; we bought another one just before moving);and many other things. 

I literally thought I might be giving my life to say yes to missions again.

Instead, up to this point, God has been supplying my very special needs over and over.  

And I am still very much alive! 

In fact, this morning I felt better than I have felt in a very long time.

The goat that had dried up miscarried her triplets, but started producing milk--a few quarts a day!

She even comes right up to the door of the travel trailer to be milked--as if her milk is a gift to the lady with cancer and her family.

The hens are laying fresh eggs chock full of vitamins and minerals from fresh South Dakota bugs and greens every single day--laying them all over the place--in their nesting boxes, in the outhouse :)

and in the bag of wood chips in the garage. 

Danny found twenty of them this morning there. 

And when fresh produce is hard to be had, there are bushels of fresh yucca blooms nearby, some only yards from my travel trailer door. They are edible!

The whole plant is edible.

 I took a bunch of them this evening with my fresh veggie plate for the carry-in after service, wondering if there would be any interest at all. One person after another not only asked about the blossoms but actually tried them!

Danny said they tasted like snow peas, one person said they tasted like lettuce, and another one was reminded of grass! I agreed with Danny that the petals tasted like snow peas!

And then on our way back from our walk to the river this afternoon, I discovered wood sorrel-a cancer-killing herb that my  mom has used to cure hers and others' skin cancers. 

It is also edible.

 

You can see its heart-shaped leaves with tiny yellow flowers about to bloom behind the yucca blossoms. It is also called sour grass, something kids like to chew. I pulled some and ate three whole plants, one at a time with time in between. It is very high in oxalic acid, tasting like fresh rhubarb, but it fights cancer. And God provided it.

When I thought I might be giving my life, and was tempted to stamp my little foot and say, "I'm not going! I want to spend my last day with my children," instead, God is giving me a life!

"He who seeks to save his life shall lose it," God said, "but he who loses his life 

for My sake (there is the key, it's for His sake)

the same shall save it."

He also provided beauty galore--something this mom needs as much as good food.  

Can you find the hidden dragonfly?

It was flitting about as I made my way back from checking out the ground nest of a lark sparrow

that Danny had found recently.

Four baby birdlings in there! 

And a brilliant monarch in the bright green grass.

I was in awe this morning with the perfectly idyllic weather and the beauty of nature around us. 

Is it just a gift from God for today?

Is it the calm between the storms?

I don't know. 

I am to talk to my nurse practitioner tomorrow about the results of some tests I had in Colorado.

I don't know how that will turn out, or what the results were. 

But for now, I revel in God's beauty. 

This whole place here in South Dakota just seems like a perfect blend of Jonathan's Colorado and my Pennsylvania.

Only God could wed together so many familiar things that mean so much to both Jonathan and me--

trees and flowers, cactus and yucca, singing birds and insects, big sky and soaring eagles,

green herbs and thriving garden, a river and rattlesnakes!

Rattlesnakes. 

That's the next post!

Colorado Interlude

In the whirlwind of our trip this week to Colorado, including a youth camp and mission speaking engagement, Vitamin C IV and blood tests for me, and other things (while we were banished from our house in SD due to drywallers hanging drywall) we managed to spend an evening with Jonathan's dad and Ruth.

 Their place is beautiful with flowers.

Only the Lord knows how much I miss having flowers, because our goats, chickens, hail or drought seem to destroy so much. Here were yellow iris! 

A whole big snowball bush! 

Clematis out front! 

Inside I discovered the flowers from Ruth's wedding bouquet! 

 Outside our beautiful Rose was pulling rhubarb since Grandpa said it needed to be picked.

 Here she is bringing armloads!

The girls preparing rhubarb for freezing while Danny combs his hair. After days of hard work, he finally got a shower and Rose was going to give him a hair cut before heading to youth camp.

 

Pleasant weather.  

Ruth enjoyed listening to Carrie on the piano. 

Jonathan listening to "This is My Father's World" which Carrie is practicing to play for Father's Day at church. It's her dad's favorite song.