The In-Between Season

You can tell from the picture we are nearing fall. It’s just a couple of weeks away! Hallelujah!

Yet, you cannot judge the morning by the temps alone. Fifty degrees and nine hours later it will be a smoky hot summer day! 41 is our low this morning, and 91 will be our high. Give me the mornings!

Canada has a weather system to the North (a high) blowing to the southwest and pushing heat and smoke from the other side of the Cascade Mountain Range into our Mild Temperate Green and Rainy zone. Whew! That was a mouthful.

The smoke is dense enough to hide Mt Rainier to my east. There are no clouds. Just Smoke. Friday Night Lights did not happen in some communities. The air quality stinks. There is a place in Alaska called “The Valley of 10,000 Smokes,” and I feel like it’s here! Only, it did not come from the result of a volcano. Most of our fires are caused by lightning, and most are on the state’s east side.

All of this will be over by Sunday evening. The weather will change and our high temps next week will be in the low 70s. Fall is just a couple of weeks away!

We are living the consequences of Mother Nature.

We Are Each So Unique

I’m not into hot and humid, nor hot and dry. My idea is that if you can fry an egg on the sidewalk, it matters little how much moisture is in the air. It’s too hot!

Perfection is ice and snow, cold and brisk, mountains and rivers, glaciers and valleys where you don’t see another smokestack. Oh, the bliss of just you and your homestead. Load it up with wildlife, northern lights, and no outside lights to hide the night sky. Oh, to be young again!

Not for a moment can I let you think I’m an isolationist! Far from it.
I love to be around people.
Making new acquaintances like Jim and June at Walmart last night.
We spent 30 minutes in the gardening section getting to know each other.
I’ll drop by their house soon and shout a “hello!”

That’s my unique flavor of connecting with others.. That’s all it is. Let me retreat to my “retreat when all is said and done.” Turn off the noise. Enjoy the pups. Make small talk with my bride. Maybe enjoy a chocolate ice cream float. Bed by 11 p.m. and up around 5-6 a.m. That’s the Life of Riley!

How About You?

Are you so definitive about knowing your place of perfection? Can you tell me how you would like to be and how things are?

In Poor Richard’s Almanac, Benjamin Franklin plays on this thought which is old as the hills.

“There are three Things extremely hard,
Steel, a Diamond, and to know one’s self.“
~Benjamin Franklin

Shakespeare uses the line, “To thy self be true.” If you use it to justify your actions, and those don’t speak of you well, then perhaps getting to know yourself is not trivial.

Only when you know can you make the necessary changes.
Adjustments do not come easy as we stressfully move through life
It’s an ongoing battle to whittle and trim constantly
The parts of your life that are not fruitful nor joyfully accepted by Him.

Solomon says that a gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness found in the tongue will break the spirit. (Proverbs 15:4 ESV)

Self-examination can be fruitful. If honestly done and reported, you can understand yourself so much the better to make a better life.

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.
Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.
(2 Corinthians 13:5 NKJV)

During any trial or special event, getting to know who you are is a worthy expenditure of your time. The better I know who I am, the better I can enjoy the life He has given me to live.