Author Archives: Ellen

Weekend Roundup “R”

This weeks prompts

Starts with “R.” 

 A Favorite. 

“R”ed

Starts with “R”.

Rural: A rural ride down a country road reveals a red retail outlet.

A Favorite:

Relaxing and reading recently with this view that I find restful.

“R”ed:

A red barn and farm on a rural road in northeastern Washington.

Parting shot:

A bush in my backyard that I’m calling red.

Linking up with Tom The Backroads Traveller for The Weekend Roundup.

Hello first weekend in November. I’m happy to report my haircut went just fine today. When I went to the register to pay I almost gasped when she said, “that will be $15.00”. In Seattle I pay $60.00. I felt compelled to leave a hefty tip. To be fair, in Seattle I also got a shampoo/conditioning/head massage. The $15.00 was just for the cut and a little curling iron styling. One of the reasons we moved to Colville from the Seattle area was for a lower cost of living. I’m happy to experience this being true.

Quotes of the Week ~ 2

If that didn’t light your fire your wood’s wet.

Source: This was the quote of the day from church on Sunday from the pastor.

“Prayer is the easiest and the hardest of all things; the simplest and the sublimest; the weakest and the most powerful; its results lie outside the range of human possibilities – they are limited only by the omnipotence of God. Few Christians have anything but a vague idea of the power of prayer; fewer still have any experience of that power. The Church seems almost wholly unaware of the power God puts into her hand; this power is rarely, if ever, used – never used to the full measure of honoring God. It is astounding how poor the use, how little the benefits. Prayer is our most formidable weapon, but the one in which we are the least skilled, the most averse to its use. We do everything else for the heathen save the thing God wants us to do; the only thing which does any good – makes all else we do efficient.”

E. M. Bounds
(1835-1913) Methodist minister and devotional writer who served as a pastor in the American South and became a POW during the Civil War.

Source: I read the quote above in the book Between Heaven and Earth compiled by Ken Gire.

John Piper, The Pleasures of God

“Prayer is the walkie talkie on the battlefield of the world. It calls on God for courage (Eph. 6:19). It calls in for troop deployment and target location (Acts 13: 1-3). It calls in for protection and air cover (Matt. 6:13; Luke 21:36). It calls in for fire power to blast open a way for the Word (Col. 4:3). It calls in for the miracle of healing for the wounded soldiers (James 5:16). It calls in for supplies for the forces (Matt. 6:11; Phil. 4:6). And it calls in for needed reinforcements (Matt. 9:38). This is the place of prayer – on the battlefield of the world. It is a wartime walkie talkie for spiritual warfare, not a domestic intercom to increase comforts of the saints. And one of the reasons it malfunctions in the hands of so many Christian soldiers is that they have gone AWOL.”

Source: Between Heaven and Earth: Prayers and Reflections that Celebrate an Intimate God. Copyright 1997 by Ken Gire.

I’m getting a haircut today which is scary because my hairdresser is still in Seattle and here I am in Colville, 6ish hours away. Here’s hoping the gal I let use sheers on my hair today will see my vision and do a good job on my grey locks.

Western Larch

Larches are different from most conifers because they’re deciduous–they lose their needles each fall. In addition, their needles are arranged differently from those of most conifers; on current-year twigs they’re borne singly, but on older twigs they arise in dense clusters from stout, woody pegs that resemble wooden barrels. Only 10 species of larch occur in the world, mostly in cold parts of the northern hemisphere. Only western larch and subalpine larch grow in the Pacific Northwest. Larches are commonly called tamaracks, especially by people whose roots are in eastern North America.

 

Needles are deciduous. They fall from the tree in winter, turning brilliant yellow before they fall.

Needles are about 1″ long and typically grow in dense clusters (20-40) attached to short woody shoots (called spur shoots).

Needles are soft to the touch–never sharp or spiny. Current-year needles are borne singly on slender pegs.

Small, woody cones (1-2″ long).

The photos above were taken on October 30th on a drive Dear and I took out Addy-Gifford Rd. to Bluecreek Rd. The following photos are from 2012 on our son’s property in Chewelah.

I was happy to find that we have Larches on our new piece of property.

We did not have any random trick or treaters coming to our door last night but we did have our Colville family drop in for some treats and our little Miss Addy was sporting goofy smiles for the evening. What a joy to have these drop in visits!

Happy November to all of you!

 

Farewell October…

We took a drive yesterday to a taxidermist in the back country. I’ll be sharing a post about Larch Trees that we saw on those back roads soon.

Today we are wondering if we will have any trick or treaters at our Country Bungalow. Time will tell. We do know that one little girl will stop by with her parents sometime in the evening. Do you get many costumed cuties at your front door?

Tuesdays With Moisi ~ 8

Our Pop’s story continued…

This is our Pop’s story dictated verbally by him a few years ago. I’ll be sharing excerpts every Tuesday. When I add to his story or explain a photo I will Italicize my words. Our Pop’s words will not be italicized. Our mom does not come into Pop’s story until “Tuesdays With Moisi ~ 9” even though I’ve posted photos of her before #9. I have very few photos from our parents’ life in Russia and Persia. At the end of my Tuesday posts I’ll add links to all the other posts.

The photo above is of our mom and some of her friends in Iran. This is well before my pop met my mom. I chose this photo to show how our Russian friends who immigrated to Persia dressed. Our mom is the girl seated on the left.

At this time in history the Shah issued a decree that Iranian women were no longer forced to wear head coverings.  He wanted to Europeanize Iran. This was met with fierce resistance from Muslims to the point of violence. We Europeans began to fear for our lives because we were blamed for the existence of this edict.  The Shah also wanted to scatter us Europeans among his people in order to teach them modern farming methods. We resisted this because we realized if we were to acquiesce, we Russians would be picked off one by one, resulting in our eventual extinction.  We had to cluster in order to effectively defend ourselves. So when a rich Iranian offered us substantial acreage for farming purposes, our community of about twenty families took him up on it. It was an abandoned village with surrounding farm land. Within the first year, however, some of us began to come down with malaria.  It grew to almost plague like proportions among us. Six of our group actually died. We then concluded that this area was not conducive for living, let alone farming, and so eventually we all left.

After this episode our family moved to a village near the Caspian Sea in Iranian territory.  We stayed there about two years and moved to another village. We stayed at this village for two years and moved to a town called Rahmanabad.  In my first year there, I worked as a driver delivering rocks and sand for the construction of roads and bridges. Then for the next three years I became a tenant farmer.  The Shah leased us the land and our payment to him was one-fifth of the harvest.

My Soul, Now Praise Thy Maker ~ Hymn

My Soul, Now Praise Thy Maker

My soul, now praise thy maker!
Let all within me bless His name
Who maketh thee partaker
Of mercies more than thou dar’st claim.
Forget Him not whose meekness
Still bears with all thy sin,
Who healeth all thy weakness,
Renews thy life within.
Whose grace and care are endless
And saved thee thro’ the past;
Who leaves no sufferer friendless,
But rights the wronged at last.

He shows to man His treasure
Of judgment, truth, and righteousness,
His love beyond all measure,
His yearning pity o’er distress,
Nor treats us as we merit,
But lays His anger by.
The humble, contrite spirit
Finds His compassion nigh;
And high as Heav’n above us,
As break from close of day,
So far, since He doth love us,
He puts our sins away.

For as a tender father
Hath pity on his children here,
He in His arms will gather
All who are His in childlike fear.
He knows how frail our powers
Who but from dust are made;
We flourish like the flowers,
And even so we fade;
The wind but o’er them passes,
And all their bloom is o’er—
We wither like the grasses,
Our place knows us no more.

God’s grace alone endureth,
And children’s children yet shall prove
How He with strength assureth
The hearts of all that seek His love.
In Heav’n is fixed His dwelling,
His rule is over all;
Angels, in might excelling,
Bright hosts, before Him fall.
Praise Him who ever reigneth,
All ye who hear His Word,
Nor our poor hymns disdaineth—
My soul, O praise the Lord!

Words: Johann Graumann, 1525

Weekend Roundup “Q”

Starts with “Q.”

A Favorite. 

A “Q”uantity.

Starts with Q: Quail in our back acreage.

A Favorite: I decided to choose a Quote for my favorite since we are on Q.

“Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live.” ~ G.K. Chesterton

If you’d like to see more of my favorite quotes of the week click here.

Photo: Me having joy in my labors with my new riding lawn mower. We have just under 5 acres to keep under control. Adding a new closeup showing my noise protection on my ears!

A “Q”uantity:

How about a quantity of quail? How many do you see?

A parting shot:

I’m calling our new home Our Country Bungalow. I might add to it and call it Our Country Bungalow at Quail Run.

Click over to Tom at Backroads Traveller to see more Weekend Roundup!

Quotes of the Week

This is something new I’ll be posting mostly for myself on Fridays. I come across many great quotes during the week that I don’t want to forget about. I’m going to gather them up and publish them every Friday so I’ll have them to come back to. I will add a link (source) above each quote so I can go back to the full article. I’ll also include one of my favorite photos of the week at the top of the post. This weeks photo was taken in Spokane of the Spokane River from the Clinkerdagger Restaurant on Tuesday. More about that day in another post.

Source

Third, we have the opportunity to stand out in the world by choosing to die to ourselves, to lay our lives down for something greater than ourselves. The New Testament tells us to crucify the self the world tells us to be true to. Nothing is more non-conformist and radical and rebellious than seeking conformity with Christ and the death of your old self. Mark Sayers is right:

To be shaped by grace in a culture of self, the most countercultural act one can commit…is to break its only taboo: to commit self-disobedience. To acknowledge that authority does not lie with us, that we ultimately have no autonomy. To admit that we are broken, that we are rebellious against God and His rule. To admit that Christ is ruler. To abandon our rule and to collapse into His arms of grace. To dig deep roots into His love. We don’t just need resilience; we need gospel resilience.

Source

Because it is so perfect, Scripture endures forever (Ps. 19:9). That’s why Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mark 13:31). It never needs to be updated to accommodate contemporary thinking. It stands forever as authoritative and unyielding. Those who judge it, slander it, or ignore it are in grave peril. Far better to fear God and bow to His revealed will.

Source

Believer, grasp the divine Word with a personal, appropriating faith. Imagine that you hear Jesus say, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.”9 Imagine you see Him walking on the water of your trouble, for He is there, and He is saying, “Do not fear—it is I.” These are sweet words of Christ! May the Holy Spirit make you feel them as if they were spoken to you; forget others for a while—accept the voice of Jesus as addressed to you and say, “Jesus whispers consolation; I cannot refuse it; I will sit under His shadow with great delight.”10

The psalmist wrote, “How blessed [happy] is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers” (Ps. 1:1-3).

Oh Boy, Oh Boy…

Our kids had a reveal party with cupcakes that had a center that would reveal whether we are anticipating a baby girl or baby boy added to our family. Granny Great, Grandpa Great, Granny, Grandfather, Gramps, Baba, Great Uncle and Great Auntie, Uncles and Aunties all gathered to enjoy the reveal together. We held our cupcakes and took a bite together for the great reveal!

So happy and thankful to God that we get to experience a grandson after our dear granddaughter. We are excited for the new life that God is forming and that we get to see come April of 2019!