My Sunday morning pancake making came with a comic note from any neighbor’s perspective, I am sure. While Dean slept in I made my from-scratch pancakes using an overripe banana left in the fruit bowl. You know the saying, “waste not want not”. While cooking the pancakes, I checked the bird feeder. The song birds and squirrels have managed to empty the feeders in a matter of two days. It didn’t snow overnight, just cold and rainy this February morning. Well, those pesky squirrels are hanging all over the bird feeders and has the big one twisted open. I got our ammo out, the spray bottle of water and open the door to shoot at the squirrels. They hate it, yet will feed on the bird seeds in the rain! Maybe a BB gun would more effective, but may scare the neighbors.
As I spray a stream of water their way, the squirrels scatter. One goes around to the hide on the other side of the house and the other runs towards the street. In the corner of my eye I see a tumbleweed going into the street between our car and the neighbor’s car. That tumbleweed is the bloom I clipped yesterday and added to a red wire basket setting on the front porch. I try not to waste anything, including the dried blooms left on our hydrangea bushes. They make great fill-ins for floral baskets. The wind must have blown it out of the basket. Oh, I smell burnt pancake and run back into the kitchen! Just a little too charred to suit me, but Dean will eat it. Waste not want not, you eat what is served, right?
I bundled myself with a warm robe before going out into the elements to rescue the hydrangea tumbleweed from the wind and rain. The rescue was a success! I shoved it back into the wire basket with a little more force and returned to more pancake making. Dean awakes to the aroma of semi-burnt pancakes and sausage. No, the smoke alarm did not go off to awaken him. As I tell him my morning adventures he selects the YouTube playlist of Gene Autry as well as Sons Of The Pioneers version singing Tumbling Tumbleweeds …
See them tumbling down,
Pledging their love to the ground!
Lonely, but free, I’ll be found,
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds…
We talk of our childhood memories of burnt meals. This morning pancakes came close to the charred pancakes Grandpa and Great-Uncle Lloyd made for the whole family when going to the family farm in Franklin County. Dean recalled similar stories of his childhood.
g have a few secrets they would like no one to know. No one is exempt from the stinky secrets. And if you think you are, then help and support the person who is not perfect rather than casting the stones. If the truth be told, the stories go like this … your married colleague had an emotional affair with the boss, the brother-in-law, the postman … or did it go further? God knows. Or how about the man whose wife caught him having an internet affair on a porn site? Or the real live children and women exploited on the web, many unknowingly, secretly photographed by perverts? Guarantee there is a story behind how these photo subjects got there. One could hear the gossip of that neighbor or co-worker, yet never ask for the truth. The gossip just spreads until the truth is marred. How about the assaults that happen on campus, at work, or even in homes with more threats to follow? Bullying can happen among families as well. What about the unloved wife, what the Bible labels an abomination? Her husband wants to have an “open marriage” despite their marital vows to purity. Or the spouse who cleverly justifies their spending addictions? How about your battle with a spouse’s drinking problem, or yours? Or the woman whose husband refuses to provide for his family, sits at home in depression, poor and pitiful? Or the relative battling with an addiction to prescription pain killers, or the person living with constant pain because they cannot afford a doctor’s care? A secret eating disorder or gambling problem? The stories go on … Don’t have to look far for the faults of your brother, but how about fixing your own? If you still think you are exempt, then pray for the rest of us, please. God, through Jesus and the guidance of the Holy Spirit make us “as pure, as white as snow” in 2016.
vening temperatures, we greet lots of trick-or-treaters while at the fire pit set up in the driveway. Dean and I kept warm while handing out sweet treats. We later retreated inside to excited grandkids with sacks full of candy. 
nd have a job to work at. I am thankful to God, my Creator for His Son, Jesus and the Holy Spirit that guides me
Deanna Greens and Garden Art 
