A little bit of country

Well, I'm back at my keyboard, only a week later than I had planned to make my next post. I had to laugh when I read Emily's blog for last tuesday, "I'M SICK!" You would think I could at least have dragged myself over to my office to write "DITTO!". Next time I am that sick I will just call Emily to post - hope you're feeling better, hon!

Thanks, Lorlee, for your last post. I just love how your kids get to grow up with a little bit of country. It's a lucky kid, in my opinion, that gets to enjoy learning to hunt and fish, especially if you're a girl. In my county upbringing, I didn't actually get to hunt with my brothers but it had a way of rubbing off on me anyway. Like I used to tiptoe down into the cellar to go after some goodies from the freezer. (My mother, to this day, never runs out of goodies in her freezer!) And I was always so glad that there was a good strong light in that deep, chest freezer because one had to carefully scrutinize the contents of each baggie before bringing it up for dessert. You see, my brothers hunted pocket gophers for bounty and they had to chop off the front feet and bring them into the county authorities to collect 25 cents per foot. So naturally it was the logical thing to keep them in a baggie in the freezer until they had a sufficient minimum - right next to the brownies!

So imagine the nostalgia that Dave and I sensed when Brenna decides she would love to raise alpacas when we move to our new farm - which someday will be a real hobby farm. Unlike the sort of corporate farm that we now live on, where nearly every square foot is dedicated to growing product. So this past weekend we took her over to the alpaca show at the fairgrounds. Country livestock pens, cowboy hats, spinning wheels and that lovely barn smell. We ended up watching some of the show animals being paraded around the ring on this great, green sod, fertilizing it every so often here and there. Suddenly, Dave sees a little sign on the fence and his country eyes light up. "Free sod, U haul, at the end of the show!" So on Easter morning when the kids wake up, yawn and ask innocently, "so what are we doing special for Easter?", Dad gets this evil grin on his face. Yep, by 3:30 Easter afternoon there's a line of very muddy Van Essens in the rain filling a HUGE trailer full of rolls of alpaca defiled sod. It gave a whole new meaning to the term, Easter grass.

Actually, somehow it was a refreshing way to spend part of our Easter Day. I don't have anything against pretty Easter dresses, fuzzy bunny decorations and egg hunts - but come on, in the rain and the mud, how fun can that be? And what do they really have to do with Christ's suffering on our behalf?

For me the Easter service is the very best part of the day by far, and Sunday was one of the best we've ever had in my opinion. We really have a great church family and to see it growing with new members and baptisms, the kids singing and such a great sermon was just wonderful. There was no rain on my heart's Easter parade, hope the same is true of you.

So tonight when Dave opens up the local paper, he announces to me from the headline, "Scio mare turns 40". (I am not making this up!) I call back to him from the kitchen, "do we know the Scio mayor?" "Why would they put his age in the paper anyway, don't they know that's discrimination?" Now that's a country headline.