Chiggers, Rigors, and Something Bigger

It's been such a delight to have Crystal back home with us! She helped me with newsletter stuffing and stamping week before last.

 Last Sunday Crystal and Hannah traveled to Winner to help with the music and telling a story to the 30 children there for Sunday School in the absence of Ned and Judy Sherman. (The Shermans had to travel to North Carolina to be with Judy's dad, Derald Hunt, after his fall from a lift, sustaining multiple fractures and brain bleeds.) Then in the afternoon, Crystal and I went to the White River nursing home for the first time to make acquaintance with folk there. 

 

Crystal makes sure I have some food I can eat along with the normal meals everyone else eats. She made these yummy coconut macaroons with raw coconut, egg whites, stevia, and vanilla. I have only one left for tomorrow! 

She and I take walks together each day up to the mail box, including the day the goats decided to follow us.

We thought we had them safely behind the gate by the road, but before long they found a way through the fence (or over it) and were out on the road. Long story short, we never did get all the way up to the mail box.

 We were ready to can our goats! But their goat milk provides for several families, and will start to be a treat to someone new, we just found out this evening--a Lakota lady who says she loves goat milk. She was raised on it. Right now she is struggling with addictions, and if our goat milk can be a comfort and blessing to her--let it be so! I did the milking for a couple days when we arrived home without Danny or Hannah after Rose's wedding.

Purple cone flowers are all over the fields. I believe these are also called echinacea.

 

With the extra rain this year, I hardly dare to go outside except on the driveway because of chiggers, and I think this year the chiggers must even be in the dirt and not just in tall grass! Crystal picked some wild roses for a vase and must have managed not to get too many bites, but I get bit up just from picking lettuce and peas in the garden!

One day, dozens of bites popped out all over me, and it was just agonizing for a few days. New bites appear every day! However, I am not giving up picking food from the garden just because I get bites.

It's just annoying, that's all.  But the fresh salad fixings are worth the discomfort. Maybe. 

Here are some of the beautiful pea blossoms a few weeks ago. Now there are peas. I brought some with  me to Arizona. 

Besides unseen chiggers, there are very visible potato bugs. Hannah and I went out every other day to pick potato bugs off our potatoes. Jonathan sprayed them with some sort of hopefully non-poisonous spray.

Sometimes you'ld like to just give up on having a garden and farmette. But then you discover someone you've been praying for is longing for goat milk, and so you keep milking the ornery goats. And the doctor keeps asking how my diet is, so I keep growing the garden so I can say I'm getting lots of organic salad from my own garden--and sharing with others!

The chiggers and the rigors shouldn't keep us from ministry.

Because something bigger is at stake than our personal comforts.

Cousins and other Post-wedding Photos

I haven't had time till now that I am in Phoenix for a few days again to post other photos that I had uploaded to my blog after Rose's wedding. 

 

Sunday after the wedding, about 40 some relatives and friends had stayed overnight and attended with us Western Colorado Holiness Chapel in Delta, CO. It was Father's Day, and a bunch of the boy cousins (and an extra or two, such as Lyndon, second from right, Bethany's boyfriend) sang a special, a medley they had practiced only that morning.

We took with us two huge foil pans of meatballs, leftover salads, wedding cake, and ice cream as we wanted to help with our share of the carry-in dinner. We sat across from Ward and Naomi French. Here is Crystal and Naomi. They were next door neighbors in Missouri.

 Crystal's boyfriend, Ricky Grubbs, visiting with Frenches and learning more of the history of the Rincon Marquez mission in New Mexico, a mission Ward and his family and a Navajo man by the name of James Hasdale began.

That evening, Jonathan and I wanted to go for a ride where Jonathan had taken the girl cousins before the wedding to gather wildflowers. 

We decided to invite Crystal and Ricky along, and Ward and Naomi, and Jonathan's dad and wife Ruth. It was a delightful ride with beautiful mountain scenery. 

A peaceful lake we passed on the way home. At least two duck families were out in the water. 

The next morning, Monday morning, Crystal, Ricky, Jonathan and I tried to leave about nine o'clock to catch up to Danny and Hannah and many other cousins who  had gone camping together for a couple days. We were to pick up three of my brother Gabriel's children to take to Denver Airport.

We met at the top of McClure Pass where our family had camped a number of years ago in the middle of aspen, daisies, ripe wild raspberries, and falling stars. We revisited those nooks while waiting for the cousins.

Somehow our Tim recognized this truck coming up the pass. It was the truck he usually drives! His boss was in it and stopped for a bit, so some of us could get to meet Tim's boss.  

I

Most of the cousins stayed for another night or two in the Colorado mountains, but Crystal, Ricky, Jonathan and I had to travel on home to take care of animals and get Ricky to the Rapid City airport the next day. 

What a busy, happy time!

Sam Earns Phoenix Award for Outstanding Patient Care

 Recently Sam sent a little message about being presented with a Phoenix award for saving someone's life.

He never does go into much detail, so if his mom wants details, I have to pick up the phone and call him--which  I need to do every once in a while anyway!

Sam wasn't expecting to be awarded for simply doing his duty early one morning several weeks earlier. He was first on site to a call about a man in cardiac arrest. It so happened that the man's driver had stopped and parked to call for help within a short block of the fire station, and Sam, who now lives only a short distance away, was first on scene. The man was actually lifeless.

No heart beat.

No breathing.

Nothing.  

He was dead.

Sam started doing what he had been trained to do as an EMT. He told me later on the phone that he has personally worked on approximately a dozen other people in cardiac arrest but has never succeeded in bringing them back around. 

This time was different. 

When other EMTs arrived to take a turn with the pumping of the man's chest, Sam moved over. He could hear the patient's ribs popping as the EMTs did their best to get that heart beating again.

And they succeeded!

After about 20 minutes, Sam thought, the man was coming to and trying to fight them off! A helicopter was sent for, landing nearby, and the patient was transported to Colorado Springs.

Then several weeks later, after the out-of-state patient had made a full recovery, there was a special ceremony awarding Sam and his fellow EMTs in the Big Sandy Fire Protection District the Phoenix Award "for outstanding patient care on May 5, 2024. The Phoenix Award is presented to an EMT provider who treats a patient in cardiac arrest who has ROSC and a full recovery. Your patient care and dedication is honored and appreciated."

Of course, I the mom, who loves stories and drama, enjoyed every detail of this story, 

just amazed and proud of our son who has trained, volunteered, and worked many hours as a volunteer fireman and EMT

in his community. 

And then he goes and photobombs like 

THIS

behind a couple of cousins

at Black Canyon of the Gunnison after Rose's wedding!!

Cheerful July 4th

 

This has been a busy, happy week.

I had just discovered in the basement a bin of July 4th decor that I didn't even know I had.

 Monday Crystal and Hannah had a blast going through it and decorating our place for July 4th, even if it was almost July 4th already.

How pretty everything looked! The girls worked together, eyeing everything and making sure colors and textures matched or contrasted artistically.  

I love to work with words, but when it comes to colors, art, matching, and so on, I just about throw up my hands. 

My girls are so much better than I am with that.  

They made our place look so pretty! 

Just in time for a huge surprise the evening of July 4th!

Our family went to have supper with some friends, and then came home, quite unsuspecting. I was walking into the kitchen with things in my hands, when I realized strangers were sitting piously on the couch!

It was Rose, Tom, and Tom's sister! They had traveled up and somehow kept it secret all this time!

We ladies had been discussing the possibilities of someone surprising us, but it just didn't seem that it would happen.  Rose had a photo of her bees swarming that day and said that was her July 4th project. (It was, but she rehomed the responsibility to Sam!)

Crystal and Hannah had made several yummy pizzas for supper which we took to supper. 

And Crystal also made this layered dessert, including the glass made special for me with a Swerve brownie recipe made with almond flour, stevia, and all acceptable ingredients for me, including organic whipped cream and blueberries.

Here are the layers showing, while Hannah shreds cheese for pizzas. 

Just little patriotic touches on our table. 

July 4th morning our guys actually got to stay home. They jacked up the wood stove as you can see, and tiled underneath it.  

They also grouted the tile they'd laid this week in the mudroom. I'm grateful for every step taken toward getting our house finished.

Wildflowers grace our table. 

And God's colors graced the sky on the eve of July 4th--when a shower came just before sunset. 

Crystal Gets a Happy Surprise!

When Crystal made the decision to move from Missouri, where she had been supervisor at Mt. Zion Bible School lower learning center for three years, she didn't know that the Lord had a happy surprise for her. 

And it wasn't just the going-away party the church and school community had for her one night--though that was such a pleasant surprise, too! Instead, it was a surprise that happened in early May when more than one person there at Mt. Zion noticed a tall young man sitting at the same table as Crystal one Sunday noon after a revival service. A father of one of Crystal's little students suddenly started putting something together in his head. He knew the young man and his family and thought immediately that maybe--just maybe--Ricky and Crystal might make a good match!

The dad asked Crystal if he could give the young man her phone number. Now Crystal isn't into just randomly giving her phone number to some random young man, even if she did sit across from him at a church dinner and ask him if he was the brother of Joy Grubbs, with whom she attended college at Penn View.  But with a second friend razzing her about it and after a few days of prayer, Crystal allowed for her phone number to be given to this young man who was moving to Grants, New Mexico, to work with his cousin Stephen Archibald at the Rincon Marquez Navajo Mission. Our family has visited that mission at least twice in recent years. 

And if Crystal has ever had a dream, it's about missions.

Then she waited.  And waited. And waited.

Apparently, the dad waited a couple weeks before actually finding a chance to pass Crystal's phone number on. But before long, Ricky was texting. And then calling. 

Crystal would show her dad pictures Ricky was sending to her of his family, because he was back east with his family for a sister's graduation.

And she called an aunt or two (allowing me to listen in with delight) to let them know the happy news that someone special was now in her life! Ricky got a ticket to come spend a couple weeks getting to know Crystal and our family.

 

 He stayed in our RV across the draw at night, and usually went to work with Jonathan and Danny during the day.  

At home in the evening, he buzzed around the kitchen helping to clear and wipe the table, helping Crystal with the dishes more than once, and sharing his playlist of music on his phone as they worked! (That playlist included one of my favorite songs, "If I Can Help Somebody," which won him five stars with me for music preferences.) 

His helping in the kitchen so willingly also won about six stars.

Crystal was delighted that he had a good voice, and Jonathan and I were smiling at each other in the office as we heard him singing out in the kitchen with Crystal joining in softly with alto. He says he likes to sing as he works. Another five stars.

Here is a picture we sent Crystal's siblings, in which he won five stars with Rose (and probably all of them) for going barefoot.  

After several weeks of texting, calling, and now a week and a half of being in our home and family, Ricky was looking for just the right moment to officially ask Crystal to be his girlfriend. Because until they had time to really get to know each other and it was official, they weren't too keen on just blasting the news out.

Well, the perfect moments were hard to come by in a family like ours that was busy getting ready for Rose's wedding and traveling a long way to get there! But Wednesday night on our way to Rose's wedding, our family and Ricky attended service with Aaron and Melissa Johnson at Lakewood Wesleyan Bible Church. They kept us overnight, preparing a lovely snack. 

Crystal and Ricky sat across from each other out on the pretty deck, surrounded by a strawberry plant and a hanging flower basket. And that is when Ricky snatched the one little chance he had to give a card to Crystal. Would she be willing to be his girlfriend?

She was willing! In fact, she was so excited that she came inside to ask Jonathan and me to come out and have it be announced that it was finally official!   

The Johnsons were so excited about this happening in their home that they wanted a picture with the dating couple! 

Jonathan and I got our picture the next day on our way to Crawford, CO, at Hayes Creek Falls! We are still a dating couple, even if we don't have many "dates" as such.

When you see a young couple being sweet with each other, it makes you want to keep being sweet with each other, too!

Hannah, Danny, and Crystal were sweet with each other--at least long enough for a picture!!! :) Naw, they get along pretty well most of the time. 

Ready for Rose's wedding 

A certain sibling photo-bombing.