No Deja Vu All Over Again

Since my last update I managed to get close to the grapes AND the beehive again. But this time "I" was completely successful. I tip-toed around those lil' Kamikaze bees and didn't get spied by any of their sleepy little sentries. I knew they were there...super! (It took several days for all those (10) bites to disappear...well they haven't really all gone yet...but they're well on their way into my history book.) I cut and pulled some small tree-sized saplings out of the vines and then, like a bandit, made off with em. Ha, ha, ha, ha, haaa, ha. But yup, those little bee guys got their message through to me crystal clear.

So far the grapes are doing just fine. They're green and plumping right now, but they'll soon be turning a translucent purple. I'm watering them every other day. Yesterday I cut and placed (draped) some of the necessary woven metal chicken wire over the vines for about 20 feet. It makes for a marvelous "deer helmet." I'll need more of that stuff, so in the meantime I've temporarily stretched some nylon bird mesh where I didn't have enough of the chicken wire to cover the entire length.

If you've been following my Wood Talkin' blog you've got a picture of the fun work I get to do with furniture. Of course I learned how to do it and then started working at it while I was bulldozing my way through seminary (back in the mid-70's...the era of gas rationing with long lines at the pump, a "Peanut Farmer President," and one of the first big declines in the outer space industry, i.e., NASA). Anyhow, this past two weeks have been slow for shop work and my counseling practice has not picked up the slack as it's been doing recently. So I'm doing some marketing-type things on both fronts to stimulate an "uptick" in the general situation for the immediate future. As we all know oh so well, the economy is really s-l-0-w.

I've got an "inner" space problem at the shop, one for which I've got to devote some exploring efforts and hopefully come up with some kind of a creative solution. As the winter approaches the challenge working inside there gets complicated by the brrrr cold outside there: it tries to get in the shop! Many of the chemicals and stains I use in the shop don't cure in the "cold" at 50 degrees the way they do when the shop temp is in the 80's. So, everything slows down...often by 48-72 hours! Then, too, there are challenges for me when it comes to doing any spraying. A dedicated spray booth would be nice, but the issue again is space.

I've thought of adding to the floor space. I really like that idea, but it would introduce some interesting complications of another sort. Wow, don't you wish everybody in the world had similar problems! Starvation, ruling despots, poverty, economic insolvency, cancer, HIV...a list that could go on and on and on and...it would all be "GONE!" because everyone would be dealing with the issues of some inner space situation. Ha. Not.

B-b-but I'm working with some new directions in my counseling related business, too. Only God knows where any of it--or the inner space issue for that matter--will actually go or take me, or us. Again, the words of the Psalmist are in my thoughts, "The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord God directs his steps (16:9). There's absolutely no doubt about that.

Dick