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14 08, 2019

Today – Elisabeth Elliot

By judythemorgan|2019-08-06T16:34:14-05:00August 14th, 2019|Wednesday Quote, Wednesday Words of Wisdom, Weekly Quote|1 Comment

About the graphic

Background from Pexels free stock images. Image created by Martin Péchy

About the quote

Elisabeth Elliot went home to glory in 2015. You can read about her amazing life here

She left behind a wealth of devotional material where she shared her godly wisdom and insight. One of her publications was a daily flip calendar titled Keep a Quiet Heart. I believe the flip calendar is out of publication now.I bought mine in 1997. My cherished copy sits on my kitchen window sill where I can read her thought for each day.

That’s where I found this quote. It’s just a true today as when she wrote it.

12 08, 2019

Summer Dog Days and Back-to-school Time

By judythemorgan|2020-07-06T09:12:39-05:00August 12th, 2019|Make Me Think Monday|0 Comments

It’s August. It’s hot, it’s humid in Texas. There doesn’t seem to be any relief from this year’s record setting summer heat. We’re having realio, trulio dog days of summer.

Photo by Lisa Fotios from Pexels

The term comes from the Egyptians who believed the Dog Star Sirius added heat to the sun and produced a long stretch of sultry weather during the forty days beginning July 3 and ending August 11.

Those of us who live in Texas know that dog days can (and do) begin well before July 3 and extend long after August 11 no matter how bright Dog Star Sirius shines. And, like our dogs, in this extreme heat, all we want to do is nothing but lounge around.

This year triple digit heat warnings of dog days are competing with all the excitement of back-to-school preparations.

Tax-free shopping days add to the frenzy for school clothing and supplies. Even though it’s been years since I’ve taught, I find myself caught in the eagerness and stocking up on pens and pads and folders.

Teachers are braving the temperatures and getting ready for the new school year. Not just public schoolteachers but also all those moms and dads who undertake to homeschool. To all of you, thank you.

Soon, let us hope, these dog days will be a memory. Fall will bring cooler weather and colorful leaves, pumpkins, and holiday bazaars.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready!

9 08, 2019

Space

By judythemorgan|2019-08-03T15:19:16-05:00August 9th, 2019|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|1 Comment

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

After the recent hatching was complete, we have 6 chicks and 2 ducks. We have kept them all in a tub in what was Rachel’s room and is now Brian’s project room. They seem quite content most of the time.

The ducklings are really messy and like to play in the water. Based on the actions of our grown ducks out back I can safely assume they will not outgrow this trait. I recently put them in a wire cage outside in the shade while I cleaned their tub. They seemed to enjoy the grass. We hope to move them outside to a small pen in the chicken yard this weekend.I was thinking about all this morning. They started out in an incubator and then moved into a slightly larger brooder tub. As they grow, the tub becomes crowded. Then it will be time for them to go into a small pen and finally be incorporated into the big chicken yard. I was pondering whether or not the little chicks are ready to be in such a big chicken yard.

I was reminded of our children. They started in the house and as they grew it became crowded. Then they moved on to various locations. One is still in town but in a different house, one is in a town about an hour away, and the oldest is married, in a town 3 hours away and traveling all over the country.

I sometimes ponder whether or not they are ready to be out in the big world. I do enjoy the added space in the house.

7 08, 2019

Writing Our Story – Helen Mirren

By judythemorgan|2019-08-04T15:11:43-05:00August 7th, 2019|Wednesday Quote, Weekly Quote|4 Comments

About the graphic

This is an original and my graphics are free goodies for you

About the quote

Helen Mirren is a gifted actresses, who won an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006). There’s such truth in her words. Life is all about choices and the choices we make determine where our story will go.

5 08, 2019

THE Chair

By judythemorgan|2019-08-04T14:15:16-05:00August 5th, 2019|A Writer's Life, Writer's Life|2 Comments

This little chair came to live with us in May 1990 after my mother-in-law passed away. We’d given it to her when she started having trouble sleeping in a bed.

She loved the small size because it fit her small sized body and shape. And, the lever made it easy to recline.

We enjoy it for all the same reasons.

After my husband retired, the chair became his chair. He’s not tall, 5’ 9” so the size worked perfect.

We’ve now had the chair nearly thirty years. With each relocation, the chief determinant for a new home was “where will THE chair fit?”

The main living area had to be sized so that the chair aligned with the television for all baseball and football game viewing. Usually placement was easy.

With our move from Texas to Colorado, the house had only one location for the television and the chair. It came off the truck, the movers set it in place, and there it stayed until we returned to Texas.

Our new Texas house was a different story. The new living room had four windows, a fireplace banked by built-in bookcases, and our piano that needed an inside wall. Positioning THE chair across from the television meant blocking the opening into the dining room.

Not a serious problem, but I felt sure there was another solution.

That’s when my interior designer cousin came to help.

Studying the unique room, she nodded her head toward THE chair and innocently asked, “Can we move that?”

The answer, of course, as long as the tv sits across from it.

She laughed. “I see.”

It took a bit, but together we finally figured out another arrangement for the remaining furniture, so the room didn’t look like an overcrowded showroom.

And, I’m sure you’ve guessed, THE chair remained exactly where it was.

2 08, 2019

Time on Her Own

By judythemorgan|2019-08-01T10:27:25-05:00August 2nd, 2019|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|1 Comment

A Blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

One of the Buff Orpington hens started losing feathers on her back thanks to an overzealous rooster. One morning I discovered her in a nest box with a gash on her back.

Having watched Rachel many times, I donned gloves and treated the hen with Blu-Kote – a germ-killing fungicidal wound dressing. True to its name, it is a dark blue liquid that stains whatever it touches, hence the gloves. I thought I was being smart. The hen, however, shook her head in disagreement and flung blue everywhere.

At least the wound was covered.

A few days later, she wandered into an empty run, and I closed the gate and got her food and water. The isolation did wonders for her and before long her feathers all grew back. She even started laying eggs again!She got out of her pen and I figured she was ready to be with the others. However, a few days later I found her back in the nest box with missing feathers. I returned her to the isolation pen. She was not quite ready to join society.

As summer comes to an end and the start of school/work looms ever near, I can say I may have to agree with her. I’m not quite ready…

1 08, 2019

LUCKY ME

By judythemorgan|2019-08-01T11:06:01-05:00August 1st, 2019|Guest blogger|3 Comments

A Blog by Guest Blogger – Jody Gilmore Payne

I’m from a long line of readers and storytellers. I can’t remember a time my parents and grandparents didn’t have an open book nearby. I realize now the value of the legacy and thank them for the memories.

~I have ignored Papa’s frowning and eloped with a Browning.

~I have fought beside Travis in the Alamo.

~I have discussed cabbages and kings with a walrus.

~I have crossed a vast desert with an Englishman in Arab robes.

~I have dined with a fat king and wept for his queen.

~I have grown older and wiser on Washington Square.

~I have excavated a site for antiquities of ancient cultures and dug a despot from a hole in the same ground.

~I have journeyed through a wardrobe into a land of eternal winter.

~I have advised presidents and a man who would be king.

~I have been horrified to watch Othello give his trust to Iago.

~I have permitted murderers to go free on the Oriental Express.

~I have disagreed with a Medici when he claimed the end justifies the means and then listened with horror as our leaders now quote him.

~I have learned about relativity from a genius and taught him how to tie his shoes.

~I have knit my way through the French Revolution and sought justice for my people.

~My beauty was celebrated, but I was cast aside when I couldn’t give a French dictator a child.

~I have sailed the seven seas on a schooner and navigated across a continent on a sea of grass.

~I have followed an ideal and founded the best government known to man.

~I have hiked the Inca Trail to watch the sunrise over Machu Picchu.

~I have drawn lines in the Nazca desert so long ago no one will remember their origin.

~I have built great pyramids in the Valley of the Kings and left a Sphinx to guard them.

~I have descended a mountain carrying stones etched with the sacred words of God.

~I have slain a giant with five smooth stones and changed history.

~I have set giant stones in a circle to explain the miracle of the heavens.

~I have caught words as they slid from the pooka’s mouth and meditated on power.

~I have listened to the caged bird sing and soared above the Grand Tetons with the proudest of all birds, the American eagle.

~I have been betrayed by a man and his church and worn an A on my breast.

~I have roamed the dark forest with werewolves and fled from vampires.

~I have thrilled to my first kiss many times.

~I have crossed the Delaware with brave men to follow the most virtuous of leaders.

~I have fought a war with my brothers and watched Atlanta burn.

~I have composed ballads with a poet and dreamed of returning to Mandalay.

~I have partaken of a moveable feast and baked blackbirds in a pie.

~I have watched in horror as barns burned through the night in Mississippi and found peace at dawn on Walden’s Pond.

~I have flown through space and walked on the moon.

~I have ridden a thoroughbred in the Derby and cried for the fate of a warhorse.

~I have bowed before a lowly donkey carrying a virgin with an unborn God.

Lucky me, I can read.

Jody Gilmore Payne is an author, a blogger, a horsewoman, an animal lover, and now a transplanted Texan …

I’ve always believed in the inescapable order of fate, but I can’t think of one good reason I wasn’t born right here in Texas. Oh the time I wasted wandering around looking for home!

Well, I’m here now and embrace it with open heart and welcoming arms.   

If my writing takes on a decidedly southern cadence, it’s understandable. I write about what I see and what I believe to be good and true.

You can visit Jody on Facebook or her website or her blog

31 07, 2019

Being Still Quote – E’yen A. Gardner

By judythemorgan|2019-07-30T07:14:55-05:00July 31st, 2019|#wordlesswednesday, Wednesday Words of Wisdom, Weekly Quote|1 Comment

About the Graphic

The image is a photo by Edie Melson used with special thanks for offering her beautifully paired memes for all to share.

The photo and the quote from E’yen A. Gardner are a perfect match. Staring into slow rippling water whether a pond or creek or lake or ocean can relax our minds and body and give a sense of peace.

29 07, 2019

Our Nighttime Guest

By judythemorgan|2019-07-28T16:13:40-05:00July 29th, 2019|A Writer's Life|2 Comments

We have a nighttime thief around our house. We rarely see the culprit. We do see the evidence.

It’s not the first time said nocturnal guest has stripped my potted plants.

The pots originally sat on the front porch, too easily accessible. The nibbles at first were small. A few leaves here and there disappeared unnoticed. Then one day all the leaves were gone.

I hastily moved the plants around to the fenced back porch. Secure, I thought though I knew deer can leap a fence flatfooted in a heartbeat. I counted on the human scents discouraging them.

I nursed the plants back to full foliage with Miracle Grow and loving thoughts. This summer they were looking lovely. The ivy full of new leaves.

I potted red impatients to add color for our Fourth of July cookout. The plants bloomed profusely.

Then the impatient blooms started to disappear. The ivy flourished until yesterday when I discovered the nibbled-down-to-the-dirt pot. No sign of the foliage.

Not only had our nighttime guest consumed the ivy and impatients, he or she had nearly destroyed the Christmas cactus I bought our first Christmas back in Texas.

As you can see by the new growth, the cactus is trying to recover.

My butterfly plants at the back of the yard suffered the same fate. They’d bloomed profusely drawing beautiful monarchs. Then one morning they were all gone. Leafless bare stems waved in the breeze.

I sprinkled anti-deer pellets in that flowerbed. It helped a bit, but the poor plants barely recovered only to be destroyed again in this latest attack.

Our neighbors warned us that having plants with the deer population we have was impossible. Now I believe them.

I’ve given up. The deer have won.

I’m not going to subject my poor plants to the torture. I’m sticking to the plants that seem to survive these nighttime attacks. The deer ignore the Four O’clock, the Texas Star Hibiscus, Citronella, Rosemary, Lemon Grass, Geraniums and Zinnias.

It makes me sad that I must give up the flowing ivy and cheerful impatients I love, but I’ve accepted defeat. I’ll enjoy the blooms in the yards of those who don’t have hungry nighttime guests.

26 07, 2019

Lost and Found

By judythemorgan|2019-07-23T08:04:43-05:00July 26th, 2019|Friday on the Miller Farm, Miller Farm Friday|1 Comment

A blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara

One of the chicks I brought home from school disappeared last week. I looked everywhere and didn’t find nary a feather. I was concerned mostly because I was afraid the kids at school would ask about the chicks and I would have to confess to losing one.

The other morning Max was very intently looking at the pen where the chicks had been staying with the rooster. He started growling and I figured there must be something there.

I hesitantly entered the coop fearful that I would encounter a snake. I saw a bunch of white feathers under the coop and realized they were attached to a bird.

I carefully lifted the coop, thinking the bird was surely dead. I was wrong. The poor chick wiggled out from under the coop and stumbled over to the water.

I was pleasantly surprised. I kept an eye on it and made sure there was plenty of water and food. It seems to be none the worse for the experience.

I’m glad Max was insistent. He gets credit for saving a chicken. He only needs to rescue 6 more to replace all the chickens Bella has caught over the years.

And now I can honestly report that all the chicks are doing well.