Crazy Weather

This has to be one of the craziest weather patterns in recent history. Trees are leafing out, flowers are blooming, and it is snowing hard at the moment and has been for hours here at Poverty Flats USA. The temp is supposed to drop into the low 20's tonight.
I have been here in this big house all day alone thinking about this. I am trying to see a clear way to blame the weather on the US government. They seem to have a hand in just about everything else.
I just read a clip on the Internet News that asks if maybe Obama is getting OVERexposed. What does this mean?? I know I for one am certainly sick of seeing his face everytime I turn my computer on or pick up a newspaper. Don't know for sure what's better, not seen or not heard.
O.K., so much for the rambling. I have the whole place to myself today and am enjoying the peace and quiet so much. Just myself, the two dogs, Mitzi and Max , and the horses. Hurricane Hailey and Kelsey are visiting their mother this weekend. It's great having them around all the time, but the alone time once in a great while is good too.
I have been able to get some new items listed for sale on ebay today, and order some new pieces of equiptment for the mobile kitchen. We are adding more outside lighting and sign work. It should be finished in another week. If it ever stops raining/snowing long enough we will get photos taken and post them for you to see.
And speaking of the mobile kitchen, things are progressing well in preparation of the season opener festival in Webb City MO April 24-26. This 3 day festival will be in downtown Webb City which is a neighboring town to Joplin MO in the far Southwest corner of Missouri. More on that a little later.
May God bless you all....
Via Con Dios
DM - Pit Master
Texas BBQ & Beans

Waterlogged

We made it through the night with hardly any rain, then about 8 am this morning it came a cloudburst.I think that's what they call it around here. Down in South Texas we always called it a frog strangler. Whatever you choose to call it, it was a lot of rain in a short period of time. But all has passed to the east, and we ended the day with beautiful sunshine.
Springtime continues to come in spite of our doubts. The Dogwood and Redbud trees are blooming profusely down in the woods.My apricot and plum trees are beginning to bud out now too. Last summer, Granny and I transplanted some peonies from Bill at Countryview Woodcrafts' yard to our home about 300 miles south. Granny didn't think they would live but yesturday, I was out at the flower garden and 5 of them were up about 6 " high. Hurricane Hailey was with me, and I said,without thinking, "I sure wish Granny could see this." Without missing a beat, Hailey said, "But PaPa, Granny IS watching and she CAN see !!". Well, that about turned the tears on all over again for sure. God bless the faith and innocence of a child.
Well, it is getting closer to our BBQ season. We have our fisrt festival scheduled for the 24th - 26th of April. It's time to start stocking the mobile kitchen and making necessary repairs to the equiptment. It's sure going to be hard to stay focused without Granny, but like Hurricane Hailey says, she'll be watching to make sure I'm doing it right.
We will be adding a couple of new items this year too. We always start very early in the mornings because it takes a while to build a good fire in the smoker, and get the BBQ ready. There is always hungry people that time of morning, so we will begin serving hot biscuits and gravy. I know, there goes the diet, but what a way to go.
If I keep thinking this way, I'll be eating breakfast before I go to bed tonight.
With that, it's time I stop. May God bless you richly....

Via Con Dios
DM

It's Springtime !!

Finally, after a long and eventful winter, Spring has sprung. This is, and always has been my favorite time of the year. Everything in the world outside is coming back to life after a long winter of dormancy. My trees are beginning to leaf out, the grass is greening, flowers are blooming and almost everything in my world is comming back to life, almost everything. Some things just take a little longer.

Granny shared my love of Springtime and all it has to give to humanity. We would always look at the seed catalogs together and plan what new things we would add to the flower and vegtable gardens. Hurricane Hailey, Kelsey and I will continue to tend the flower gardens, and I'm sure we will plant some things in the vegtable gardens. They both seem to have inherited Granny's enthusiasm for gardening. I try to maintain a positive attitude about things for their sake as much as possible. But, there is a huge vacant spot in the garden of my soul that just cannot be filled.
My comfort and sanity comes from the promise of that Springtime that is yet to come, for God's promise of resurrection and renewal of life is as certain as the sun that is rising in the eastern sky over Poverty Flats this beautiful Spring morning. If you have not done so yet, please, step outside and take a look. Smell the fresh air. It is full of Springtime and life. God has given it as a gift to humanity so please don't waste it.
From us at Poverty Flats USA.... Via Con Dios
DM

Full House

We have a full house this week. My daughter Angie and her husband David came to visit for the week. They are from down around Galveston TX. They brought with them one of my granddaughters, Katie, who is 16, and also one of my great-granddaughters, Abagail who is 4. We have so many little girls around here it's hard to keep track of them all.
Hurricane Hailey celebrated her 6th birthday Sunday. We had a big party for her and now she thinks she is such a big girl. She received a lot of presents and had a great time with all the other little girls around.
Hailey and Kelsy are doing really well most of the time, but they both still miss their Granny very much. As do we all.
All my Texas bunch will be heading home Friday, and I will be going to Arkansas. I am going down to visit Linda for a couple of days and to attend a horse training seminar near her home. It will be a chance to get away for a couple of days and rest, both physically and emotionally. At least that is the plan.
Have a great rest of the week.
Via Con Dios
DM

Friday the 13th

Well folks, my calendar says it's Friday the 13th which I guess is supposed to be a bad luck day. I personally have never believed in luck. Oh, maybe just a little, way back in my younger days when I enjoyed a good game of poker or blackjack. Or maybe at the racetrack, because I sure do like to watch those ponies run. But even that is not necessarily luck.There are professional gamblers who rely much on skill and knowledge of the game. Guess that's why I never won much. And the horses that race ? There's a lot of factors that come into being in such a race, but I think luck is not what determines the outcome. I used to think luck played a major role in fishing until I started watching some of the fishing tournaments on TV. Even those seem to be more about having the right combination of skill and equiptment. And sometimes the fastest boat.
Luck ? I would rather think some things are just going to happen regardless, while other things are determined by our actions. Sometimes, no matter how badly we want something to happen, it just doesn't. This is just the way of life and all the Friday the 13ths in history is not going to change that.
One thing I do believe in passionately is faith. I believe that faith changes all things, according to Scripture. I believe that with faith, we truly can move mountains. I don't mean the kind of faith that when we pray, we afterwards say "I sure hope God answers my prayer". I mean the kind of faith that when we pray, we begin immediately to thank Him for the answer, because we believe His Word that says "What-so-ever you ask in My Name, BELIEVING, that shall you recieve".
Luck ? no, I have some Irish blood somewhere in my family tree, but I don't put much stock in shamrocks and leprechauns. I believe in faith, and hands on the plow handles. Full speed ahead.
God Bless all, and have a really great Friday the 13th.

Via Con Dios
DM

Two months

I am beginning this post today with emotions running rampant. One moment I am sitting here looking at the calendar realizing that Granny has been gone for two months today.The tears blur my vision until it's hard to see the keyboard. My loss and pain is no less than it was the day she left us.Sometimes, I think I don't want to go on alone. It would be so easy to accomplish this, if I could be so selfish as to think only of myself.
But,....as I go through my daily devotion time of pray and scripture reading, my emotions are high and hopeful. I was reading Dr.Charles Stanley's devotional commentary this morning and he was teaching from Genesis 37. He spoke of the life of Joseph with all his trials and hardships.God had made him a promise early in his life that he would be blessed beyond measure. But for now, he had been sold into slavery by his brothers,falsely imprisoned for a crime of which he was innocent and things could not look worse for him. And yet, through all this, he never lost sight of or forgot the promise God had made to him. In the end, God not only gave him his freedom, but did in fact, make him ruler of his people.
God has likewise made promises to us today. He has promised eternal life to any and all who will accept it. Granny accepted it long ago and is now with Him. I too believe it, and know beyond a doubt that in His time, by His schedule, I too will be there with Granny.
As I said earlier in this post, it would be so easy to bring it all to a halt now, and end the emotional pain. But the remaining time alloted to me will be decided by God Himself. After looking back at the many years of my life that have already flown by, it is comforting to know that any remaining time will be but the blink of an eye. As the apostle Paul said in the NT, "I long to be gone from this life and be with the Lord, but for now, there is work to be done." This is but a paraphrase, but close enough. If you are reading this and believe in God's promise, may He bless you richly as He did Joseph. On the other hand, if you don't believe, may I said to you, it has no bearing what-so-ever on the reality of it. God said it, that settles it,whether you belive or not. But why gamble with your eternal destination when the promises of God are so freely given ??
Hurriane Hailey just woke up and is as usual, ready to conquer the world. After her usual bowl of strawberry cereal of course. And this is one of the main reasons I will continue.
May you have a great day, in spite of the world around you.

Via Con Dios
DM

Weather Still A Roller Coaster

What a weather ride it has been this past week !! When I last posted, my property was covered with ice and snow. Then later in the week, Four days later to be exact, we tied the all time record high temp for March 5th with a high of 82 degrees. Now, tonight we have strong T- storms in the forcast. And if that isn't enough, by Wednesday of this week the high is supposted to be only 42. Anyone remember the old TV ads for Parkay margarine "Somebody tried to fool Mother Nature"?? Well, SOMEBODY needs to leave old Mother Nature alone !!

I'm sitting here banging away on the keyboard thinking I have about an hour more before I need to call it a day, and the lady on the late news on channel 12 just reminded me that I need to turn my clock ahead 1 hr tonight. Who ever came up with this asinine idea of moving the clock back and forth thinking they were saving time MUST have been a Democrat. Why not ? They have messed up everything else in our country.

Well, enough of that. This started out to be a light-hearted, friendly post and I need to stay away from politics. Hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend.

Via Con
DM

Warming back up

The weekend snow that sneaked up on us is pretty much history now. I like to think that I have grown spiritually over the years to the point that I don't hate anything. But I've heard that for everything there is an exception. And the exception here is that I HATE COLD SNOWY WINTER WEATHER. Seriously, I guess I don't really hate it, I just don't like it all that much. I was born and raised in the Deep South and we just didn't see much winter. Then, as I grew a little older, I moved north for some crazy reason that has long been lost to obscurity. I remember hearing people talking about how much they hated winter and I would think," I don't understand why they feel that way, all that pretty white stuff coming down." Then by the end of my first winter up north, I was right in there bad-mouthing the weather just like everyone else.
In the 41 years I spent as a long haul trucker, I have seen winter weather as bad as it gets. One winter in Iowa, I was caught in a blizzard where the temp was - 32. Folks, that's 32 BELOW 0 !! And I have been across Donner Pass when the snow drifts were higher than the top for my 13' 6" high trailer.
No thank you folks, if you are one of those people who just LOVE winter and snow, you can have it. I'll just take the warm southern breezes anytime.
Well I've rambled until it's time for work .
Via Con Dios
DM

Wow, What A Change !!!!!!

In the last post, I wrote about Springtime, and how near it is. And then, two days later, it was back to cold snowy winter weather. It snowed most of the day yesturday, and when I went out to feed the horses this morning the temp was 10 degrees. When I got out of church a little while ago it was still only 23. This crazy weather has been doing this for about 6 or 8 weeks now. It will warm up during the week, then get cold and nasty on the weekend. The weatherman is predicting a warmup into the 70's by Thursday of this week. It will probably be snowing again by Saturday.

Talk about time going by fast, I just learned that next Sunday, we set our clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time. I always like it when the days are longer. There is just so much to do around Poverty Flats, it's like getting more hours in our day. I don't need a lot of nighttime because I don't really sleep that much.

Anyway, in spite of the temporary set back, Spring is just around the corner. I will be planting onions, carrots, radishes, and sweet peas in a couple more weeks. Besides all that, Hurricane Hailey and Kelsey want to go fishing and I think they won't have any problem talking Papa into going. I'm never sure which is stronger, the urge to plant, or the urge to fish. But this much I do know, a lot of good fishing days have been ruined by work. Besides all that, a good friend of mine who passed away a few years ago used to tell me that if you could put a dollars worth of food on the table it was as good as a dollar earned. And a plate of catfish on the table sounds good to me.

Well sorry I don't have any political wisdom or religious insight to leave with you in closing this post so I'll just say "May God bless you richly, and keep your eyes on the government."
Via Con Dios DM