Nature Paths - Life's Paths Show Us The Way

The Promise Of A New Day

Where Does The Path

Lead us?

     I usually search for the easy path, the tangle of brush, weeds, usually deters me of taking a shortcut when I am exploring my 27 acres of land here.  I keep to the path, walk swiftly along, peering into the brush, gazing around the big tree, wondering what is back there.
     I know there lots of deer in there but they are most likely laying down blending in with natures beauty.  Safe from the human eyes that hunt and kill her mate, her little ones that grew up. The hunting season is not so long ago when the men in orange marched across the fields, walked the very path I am on, searching for the big buck that will fill their freezers for the year ahead.
      The deer come out in the evening and once in a while we see them crossing over the hill behind the house or safely walking through the woods down by our babbling brook after the two weeks of the loud guns, the frightful race across the fields away from the men in orange.....have stopped.

This very path I walk, day after day, also lead those beautiful fawns with their mothers down to our creek to nourish their thirsty day.  Its an easy path, deer usually take a path if it is available.  If not they make their own.

     I often relate my everyday life as a path I take.  Some times I have no choice to what happens along that path.  Hardships fill in my otherwise sunny days of an easy path of smiles and joy.  It's like getting tangled up in the wild raspberry patch in our many wild areas on our property.  I reach in to feast on the beautiful tasty fruit but catch my sleeve on the thorns and my very favorite shirt it damaged.
     Watching my late teenage grankids making bad choices, ripping a whole in their tender vulnerable hearts, learning the hard way, making them choose a different path.  A path they were taught by adults was the only way for peaceful living, but as a teen(  he,she)  thinks the other path in life is more fun, more exciting.
     Oh........I remember so many dumb things I use to do at their age.

A plack that reminds me ..............

My rock garden path going up hill.  Steep but a shortcut through
the big garden if I want to get the hose quick up on the top to water
the garden or get a sprinkling can of water for transplanting a plant.

 My gardens often brings my mind to contemplate the wisdom of life.  While working elbow deep in weeds, pulling them out because I neglected to get to it sooner, I think how I get off the track in life.  Spend time and energy on worldly nonsense and pay for it later by facing what should have been done sooner.  Oh my, life is a climb so hard at first. but with practice it gets better.  At 70 yrs. I have learnt many a lesson that could have been prevented, but as with the picture above, our Great Creator can fix anything, recreating our selves into His image that he planed for us in His providence of life.

One path of ours runs along side of our babbling brook down in our woods.
  It is such a peaceful place to take a break in a busy day, refreshing my
mind with it's steady rhythm of song  splashing over the boulders in its path.
The songs of the chickadee join in and the Blue Jay will add his notes as
if he was the cymbals to accent a peace of the music.  Oh!!  how blessed
I am....  it is like Psalm in God's Word the Bible.  Today we (Dick and I),
read {Psalm 136)  "To Him who by Wisdom made the heavens,
For His mercy endures forever.  To Him who laid out the earth
above the waters, For His mercy endures forever;"
The Psalm goes on with many verses that
sing to our hearts in rhythm Our Creators
 glory and love for His Mercy Endures forever!
    

     Life can be devastating as in nature.  In the blizzard of December here, having the terrible flue epidemic, that all  United States is going through, I was drove to the hospital because my lungs closed up.  We did make it through in my sons suburban four wheel drive and he also brought us back after I was released the same night to go home in the same blizzard.  Oh my that was scary!  

Day after blizzard of Dec. 2012

     With the results of the blizzard we were left with huge drifts and the deer had a hard time getting to their natural food supply out in the back part of our land. The picture below shows the damage of three pyramid cedar trees done by some deer.  One evening at dusk, I counted twenty-two deer going through our woods. I knew they were in my gardens since the blizzard because they ate off all my ornamental grasses.  That I did not mind but wondering if the cedar will come back next spring.  Dick had sprayed them with Deer Off but it did not faze the hungry bellys of the deer.   As with life, there are risks we take, one of them was building out here in the middle of nowhere.....I figure Nature was here before we came so we are really intruding on their territory.  We have learnt to share our space with the good and the bad...
  

Three Cedar Trees ate off by the hungry deer.  Now the snow has
melted and they are back out in the wild areas again.  The drifts were
too high for them to travel very far.

So what do us Wisconsin people do while a blizzard rages through our area for a day?

Kate enjoying a good novel by Lori Copeland.  She is a Christian author
I discovered last month but not nearly as good as Lauraine Snelling
but a quick read to fill the day,

Dick too, chose to read.   It is not often we feel this luxurious.  Horses were all tucked warmly in the barn with plenty of water and hay, Chickens fed and also spending the day in coop with the good food and drinking water so our day was our own.

After the blizzard and chores were done the next two days were inside too.  I spent it working to conquer my Viking  Sapphire sewing machine, computer run stitches.  It sat on my sewing table dominating my life because I am not the best computer Savoy person.  I had given up trying to use all those beautiful stitches it held in secret.  But as I kept at it, slowly the sewing machine gave up its key of knowledge and we became partners.

The four corners are almost done with the orange.  Next is the dark red
and last will be the light petal in the center of the red.  There will be strips of
orange and dark red framing it out when that is done.  

With persistence life's challenges can be overcome.  With God's Blessings it can be Joyful.  Certainly was for me when I finely got that sewing machine to work smoothly for me!!  One day of practice, after I had figured out the computers steps and setups. Then another day to slowly applique the corners on.  It won't take long now to applique the pieces onto the red in the center and add the light petals on top. 

As Psalm 136:23 "Who remembered us in our lowly state, For His mercy endures forever."

Blessings to you all in your struggles and your challenges

let me know how your January is going.  Is your country having winter?

"May His mercy endure forever" 

Love to you all

Kate

Picture found on face book

"Earthly discomfort is a glad swap for
Heavenly peace.  Jesus said, "In this
World you will have trouble, but be
brave!  I have defeated the world."
from John 16:33