A FOGGY SCHOOL DAY MORNING

Such cool and foggy mornings used to come a couple weeks before school started. These days school starts a couple weeks early so now the fog is on time. It was in the 50's here last night - little wonder the tomatoes are shy about ripening.

It's nearly time for Wayne's garden to start waning, though there may yet be a canner or two of green beans and tomatoes before vegetables vanish into autumn air. If the birds don't knock them all to the ground, it will be the fruit trees' turn for attention. Craig is up there in Indiana dreaming of apple butter, no doubt. It could happen. While making the apple butter, I'm holding out for fresh granny smith apples - which are rarely found in stores anymore. 

So here we are counting beans and tomatoes and apples before they hatch and before the morrow. We could be counting blessings - surely that is so. But we are remembering James 4:15 as well - it is the Lord's will that controls the earth, its seasons and its harvest. And it is His will that controls tomorrows, if such there be. My job is to leave all within His will and use His blessings - both time and harvest - in His service, to His glory.

Don't be shy about service...the Lord surely wasn't!

SUMMER RAIN AND AUTUMN AIR

It's August - summertime, right? Dry and hot, right? Not so much this year.

We're kinda floating through a quiet rainy day. The rain clouds come in patches - patches that are big enough to cover all of Teelside before they sift along slowly. No need to water the peppers or tomatoes after all. Summer rains mean the farmer will delay trying out the new water line he ran from the spring to the garden. But it's buried and hooked to the outdoor faucet; ready for a dry garden season when it comes.

As for autumn air, Amma temperatures have been amazingly cool for this time of year - especially at night. I think the insects are confused, too. They are stirring up boisterous September serenades. All. Night. Long. I love it! Cool air, windows and doors open and no air conditioning motor to mask the music.

[Somehow, these early autumn sounds remind me of visiting Shock, WV, as a child... Nice memory, that.]

Times and Seasons. The Lord established. The Lord controls. Praise the Lord!

"To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:" Ecclesiastes 3:1

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11

"Daniel answered and said: "Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, For wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding." Daniel 2:20-21