Bawk, Bawk, Bawka-razzi!!

Bekah doesn’t want any pictures taken… what a celebrity.

The Ides of August – The bees are restless…

This might be normal activity for your hives – for mine – they are typically quite a bit more subdued than this.

3 or 4 in and out at a time, quickly followed by 3 or 4 more… just continuously. This… not so much.

Interesting – and I’m taking it as a sign of good health as the population climbs.

Victory.

It’s done – all the hardscapes are in, the leftover material is moved, and I’m one tired dude.

Shannon and I have our anniversary coming up – and I did this as her anniversary present. That’s part of the reason why I’ve been busting it to get it in before then, the final piece of that anniversary present is the wad of cash to go down and buy all the primary plants. I ended up finishing a little early, but I’m pretty pleased with it – and so thankful that I have a wife who would rather get something like this than Jewelry…

Sunset After a Hard Days Work

Red Chairs, Red Skies, and a cold Corona? Ok. I’m sold.

So Close…

… but I ran out of compost.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

We got the top compost layer added to the center beds, topped up the gravel in the paths another inch or two to come partway up the rocks that line the pathways, to hopefully hold them in place a bit, then added about 4-6 inches of compost to the beds raised beds, 3-4 inches on the outsides. We made a large rock garden under the Little Free Library out front… We are close.

…very, very close.

In fact – once it’s all in – the final step is handing Shannon a wad of cash and sending her the nursery.

… should I be scared?

Color

I marvel at what a little color can do.

Primaries, secondaries, accents – whether they’re bold and bright or faded and reserved –  it’s all about the contrast. So when we began to near completion of the front yard project hardscape, we just had to have an accent. I also wanted it to be functional, “read: I needed a place to plant my cheeks at the end of a long day”.

Enter the new Adirondack Chairs. Picked up two of the three they had left at Home Depot the other night – got them assembled and put into place – but it was just kind of blah.

It needed something more.

It needed color. So I got busy today and made a beautiful accent piece for the front garden.

I’m very happy with it, and I’m excited to see how they’ll accent and contrast the remainder of what we’re putting together as we put in the flora over the next few months.

… but for now, back at it – there’s still hours in the day.

Cheers!

Our little scratch addicts…

It always makes me chuckle a little when I throw out the chicken’s scratch, and how they practically dive onto the ground and peck up as much as they can cram in their beaks. Kind of a “Mine, Mine, Mine! Get away! Mine!” It’s like chicken crack. 

I guess that makes me a scratch dealer… well, the first one’s always free.

Look at them looking at me like, where’s some more? Where’s the rest?! They’re always comin’ back for dat Heisenberg.

 

The Important Things in Life

It is interesting to me how the loss of someone close to you causes a person to become deeply reflective of their own life… to an extent, it causes a person to go back over their lives and their priorities with a fine toothed comb.

A friend of our family just lost her battle with cancer this morning, and as I read the news, tears stinging my eyes… I couldn’t help but think of those who are left behind and the adjustments they will need to make.

I’ve made them myself in the not so distant past. My own father passed in December of 2008, and I remember the late night phone call one evening when I was having trouble with my car in order to get help to diagnose the problem and letting it ring 2 or 3 times before I realized, ‘Wait. Dad’s Gone.’, the feeling of emptiness in the garage back home, the things left unsaid, or worse yet – the things that WERE said that can’t be taken back.

Death is the great equalizer, and in these difficult times, we as humans become extremely reflective. We run through things in our heads, we replay our lives, and we relive those memories, both good and bad, and when we come out the other side, we have a new focus, and often renewed priorities.

… because let’s be honest – when you examine your life and the stark reality that you are still alive while someone else dear to you is not –  each passing minute becomes suddenly more precious – every day becomes a gift.

So doesn’t it beg the question of how we spend that time? Or at the very least, is the time that we’re spending enriching our life in some way? Are we “redeeming the time” as it discusses in Ephesians 5?

As I’ve meditated on this today, I’ve come to the unfortunate conclusion that no – I am not. My priorities are all mixed up. I find myself focusing on the unimportant, and neglecting the most important – and I think if you truly take a step back and look at the world around us, perhaps even your own life… I am not alone.

We’re more focused on what’s on television than we are with what went on during our child’s school day, we’re more focused on getting to the next level of Candy Crush Saga than we are on connecting/reconnecting with friends, we quickly heat up a meal so that we can get to the gym, or to the office, or to a meeting, rather than sit down and have a meal with our husband, or our wife and our children… we’re MORE CONNECTED THAN EVER on Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, text, phone… yet in a strange twist of irony, we are more disconnected inter-personally than ever before. (Yes… I recognize the irony of me making this statement on a blog… so thbbbpppttt.) Our kids are screaming watch me, watch me, and we have ‘more important‘ things to do.

We only get one turn on the merry go round.

So what is truly important in life? I made a short list today as I worked reflecting and meditating, and here’s mine in order of importance. Yours may be different, but this is mine…

1) Faith
2) Spouse
3) Family
4) Work
5) Friends
6) Recreation
7) Self
8) Everything else.

Facebook – doesn’t even rank, Television – doesn’t even rank, Keeping up with the Kardashians??? How about giving up on the Kardashians… because Kim and Kanye’s baby, or getting to level 50 on Farmville, or what so and so is doing on Facebook doesn’t mean anything anymore when you’re on your death bed praying for a little more time with your loved ones.

Hezekiah was granted additional years after prayer and supplication, and I truly believe my friend Stefanie was too… but the merry go round ultimately stops for us all. Some get a longer ride than others, but it’s not the length of the ride that’s important…

… it’s how you’ve spent your time.

I came across a poem a while back. The author escapes me, but the message is unforgettable. The gist of it was that the date at the beginning of your tombstone isn’t important, nor is the date at the end, it’s the dash that is in between that matters.

How did you live your dash?

It’s easy to sit back and analyze, meditate, and reprioritize – but I was in this same place when my dad died in 2008… making it stick and making it last is tough.

Changing your life, changing habits, changing routines is tough.

I come home from work, I check Facebook. I check my email. I check cnn.com, I check the statesmanjournal.com, I check wordpress.com, I check wimp.com, I check wins.failblog.org, failbooking.org, giantitp.com, I read about things that interest me, woodcarving, fishing, gardening, guns, news… and before I know it, hours have gone by.

Everything I’ve just listed goes in the ‘not important category‘. It’s really not important… At. All. Helping Shannon around the house – important. Getting projects completed? Important. Playing a game with my kids – CRUCIAL.

Mankind has let ourselves become so distracted in life – willingly let these corporations, apps, shows, movies, celebrities into our lives… and the only people who can put a stop to them is us. This is part of why we started this homestead process – it was a direct challenge to the flow of the world around us – rather than go downstream with the rest of the world, we decided to head upstream. Do something different – go against the flow, but fighting against the current allows us to be swept downstream little bit little with the flow.

Time for a course correct.

Here’s what I’m going to do, and I’m going to challenge you to join me in the month of August. Give it 30 days.

1. Make a list of your life priorities in order of importance.
2. At the start of each day – put your number one priority first.
3. Do not go on to the second thing until SOMETHING has been done on the first.
4. Then move on to the second, and the third, IN ORDER.

So – for example: using my list – taking care of things that Shannon needs building our relationship, cannot be done until I have checked off taking care of my relationship with God. Prayer, or study or SOMETHING to connect with Him needs to be done before I move on to my spouse. Then comes Shannon – I don’t put work before her, She comes next – so maybe it’s helping with the dishes, or just taking time to sit and talk, or finishing a project that she needs done. Then the kids – work doesn’t come before them either. Kids first. It doesn’t have to take 3 hours, just something to let them know how much I love them. Then work, then friends, then self – then all the other distractions (if there’s still time in the day)

I think this will help prioritize, and invigorate ones life and relationships, because when it all comes down to it, life is like every Arnold Schwartzenegger movie – it’s all about relationships.

I don’t know about you – but when someone asks me how I lived my dash, I want to be able to reply with a smile on my face…

“I lived it well man… lived. it. well.”