Range Round Up Recipie

Veal Scallopini?   

OK, OK, already. Put those big brown eyes AWAY there Clyde.

Well, I no longer live on the farm, but I have friends and family who are farmers so I still know my way around a barn, and a kitchen.

This Week's Home on the Range  Recipe  

click to enlarge the photos, you know this by now :-)

Cowboy Spaghetti

I had a kitchen of odds and ends, and a crowd to feed. There was one bottle of jarred sauce, that wouldn't go far. Let's get into the staples. Here we go. Three kinds of pepper, applewood smoked salt, green chilies, olives, roasted garlic, sausage and ground venison in the freezer, diced tomatoes, a splash of Merlot, wild honey, and some savory seasoning, simmered for a couple of hours while rustlers and outlaws were taken care of (OK,the husband, UPS guy, and a telemarketer), then three cheeses added, including smoked white cheddar. (Ok, and I threw a few olives in there, just because we like them).



Go ahead and try it, or as Hedley Lamarr said in Blazing Saddles: Go do that voodoo that you do so well!

This is life on the Range.  It's food freshly made, it's loved ones on the deck and a big grill.  It's not the exciting life that you'd see on TV, it's not a life of luxurious abandon and decadent spending. It's the smell of grass, fresh vegetables, and sweat. It's the sound of the wind through the garden, of a bird's crow, of laughter. It's the discarding of weighty thoughts about the world beyond your fence line as you grow and tend, the simple gathering of that which you need to sustain yourself and your family, gathering that which nourishes your life.

Life on the Range is more than a place. It's more than a house, a photo, a  moment or a word, it's the redemptive power of self sufficiency that no one can take from you. You can't buy it at the grocery store or get it in a stimulus check. It's something you learn, by toil and tears, and it's worth every bit of the effort. You sleep deep and freely, the barn in hushed quiet, the gun at your ready, in case the predators forget their place.

A day on the Range, and one richly blessed.

Falling Up

As kids it seems we tumbled to the ground on a regular basis, the knees on our jeans mended with these iron-on patches that never quite matched the denim. Such repairs weren't a sign that our parents were thrifty and wouldn't buy us new pants, it was an unspoken badge of courage that we could wear out our pants faster than our Mom could take us to the store. Score one for the team!

We grow up and seem determined never to fall again. But we do

I was walking along, heading back to the truck from a farm field where we'd all been scouting out a spot to put up a  deer blind for bow season. I don't hunt for sport. I hunt for food, the venison making many a nourishing meal for us in the winter.

We were moving pretty quickly and I was rambling on about something or other and the last thing I remember seeing was a crack of the yellow sky and I went down. I hit the ground, inhaling the scent of Tinks and dirt, the sky falling away."Are you OK?" from Og, leaning over me in concern. I'd managed to catch my foot on a piece of corn infrastructure and went down, face first, not even time to put my arms out. Think farmland mammogram.


"No problem", I said as I got back up, not wanting to let on that it was all I could do not to cry. I laughed and brushed the dirt off my nose and continued on as if I'd meant to do that.

What else do you do? Falling is never easy. Sometimes you have to practice. Like learning to ride a bike.The wobbly start on training wheels, then finally free form freedom, and the inevitable resultant crash.

When I was in my 20's falling got a little more serious. I liked to head up tall mountains on my time off. Understand now, I played no part in any overly difficult assents, anything requiring any serious mountaineering skill. Technical hikes at best. I did my excursions with a ragtag bunch of hikers and outdoors people rounded up from the local airport where I flight instructed. We were young, and we were fearless still, for some reason drawn to each other and drawn upward. The treks were amateur, but we looked on them as daringly anarchistic ripostes to the militaristic expeditions we'd all read about. Fueled with youth and trusting the God that hopefully looks after children and idiots, we simply roped ourselves together and headed uphill.

In some sense, all things wish to ascend, evolution to a higher form, people of God, towards a higher spirit. Ancient civilizations honored the high places because they sensed they were the homes of the Gods. For us, it was just an awareness of a promise, of something we couldn't explain, a chance if just for a few hours to be above all the decisions we were facing, poised on the edge of adulthood. So we hiked and if we found a steep face of rock in our way to the next trail, we climbed, and in rising up to the home of the ancient spirits, there was more than a metaphor; there was a means of discovery.

It was on of these climbs that we met an older gentleman, an ordained minister, one who shared his faith more by deed than by the spoken word and who joined us for a day or two. Frank believed that all things came from grace. But grace comes from hard work as well as trust, and trust is learned on the mountains. One morning at 8,000 feet on the side of Mt. Rainier he produced a Bible and a small flask of whiskey. Cutting off a chuck of week-old bread with a vintage hunting knife he conducted the most moving Mass I ever expect to attend. He left behind the knife and a memory of what articulate grace in the face of stone-hard reality really means, an important picture for a group of young adults.

We all went our separate ways after that trip, though we still talked regularly. But as we got older it seemed we bragged more of successes and shared less the stories of failed adventure. Was it because we were just loathed to admit it, or was it we were trying less, settling down into quiet suburban lives of mowing the lawn every week and doing what made others happy, not what made us happy. If we mentioned climbing or going up and hanging upsidedown in an airplane, G forces be damned, the spouses would say, no, that's dangerous, stay home and cut the lawn. So we did, we mowed, we carpooled and we gave up on those days when the distance between security and death was only a measure of feet.

I was no different, ending up on a small farm, married. I'd watch the cattle be born, and then we'd feed them, watching them live their lives in tame oppression, never roaming far. Sometimes after a strong storm, a whole section of fence would go down. but the cattle would stay in, content to be where it was familiar and food was plentiful. We'd watch them grow fatter and softer and tamer until one day it came time to cull. And we'd judge and point and with a dispassionate nod of the head, some of them would head off in the truck, never to return.


There are many good things about that life. There was steadiness to it, living each day on an even flat plane of daily chores. But there was something to be said for those repeated motions that reminded us of what our fathers toiled for. Nature was the biggest unknown. There were years we cut hay between squalls. There were floods and drought, illness and blood. There were days of cold desolation, miles from the nearest convenience, and other days where Cardinals flew around me, hovering in the air about my shoulders like a colorful sweater as I worked in the garden

But my life now has more balance. I've shed the cattle but not the love of the farm or the land, for a subdivision life lost it's appeal pretty quickly. I still occasionally get to rappel in somewhere where I can bring home knee scrapes that would make the neighbor kids proud. I have fields when I need them, and friends who are never hesitant to pick up a firearm and head out with me for the adventure that will always live in us.


Sometimes you will fall. But don't let it stop you. Dust yourself off and climb up that mountain and wake to dawn scented with promise, the stars immortal in the sky. What is ahead is unknown, you can treat it with fear, dreading that feeling as the ground falls away, the tiny rocks clammering down like the first throw of dirt on a pine box. Or you can treat it as a perceived feast, like a wafer on the tongue. A leap of faith for all you believe in, a willful jump into a place free of time and regret, where all the names and the faces of those you love surround you, as below you, the wild things that call to you, run on ahead of soundless guns.


It's your choice. Stay in the safety of the jeep or get out and wrestle the giant Anaconda. There are no guarantees. Just as in climbing, the negligible distance between your hand and the wall may be inches. Those are inches that seem like miles as your eyes look at the chasm and sense the impending slide down into despair or death if you give up. But there are other sorts of distances, other sorts of helplessness that lead to worse things than death.


I'm not sure why I thought of all of these things. Perhaps its the work of the last few weeks. Perhaps it was the thought of the placid cattle wandering off to their own doom, as I lined myself up with other bovines to board a plane to see my 99-year-old Dad before Christmas.  I don't always know when I will return, and always, if I will return. I have many answers about how life ends, but my own will be a mystery. When I last view that yellow sliver of sky, I expect it to be a complete surprise.

In the meantime, I'll listen and I learn, following the compass of the heart's hard turning, and the brain's slow learning, what paths to take and why. And I'll watch out for that ninja corn.

It's a Geeky Christmas

It's hard to believe but this is the 9th Christmas Partner in Grime and I have had as a couple.  The first was memorable.  I had a tumble on ice while walking Barkley and tore my meniscus.  After two days on Partner's recliner with frozen peas on my knee while he cooked for me he drove Barkley and me all the way back to Indy and stayed with me for the surgery to remove what they could (it was NOT fixable). 

Being whacked out on pain pills I probably wasn't much of a Christmas date, but he stayed with me til I could get around by myself to physical therapy.  At that point I thought, OK, he's a keeper.  Two years later we were married.

As much as we can both travel for work we always spend Christmas together.  Each post of the day brings me back fun memories, as we make more.

Typically there is something for me from "Santa" that's made in his workshop that also serves as our walk out basement. Santa, in turn, gets homemade biscuits and bacon gravy.

Inside of this antique phone Partner installed a walkie talkie.  When I dial any number on the dial, HIS walkie talkie in his shop will chirp letting him know I'm calling.  Then I can press the button on the receiver and talk to him.  It also charges with a USB.  This will work much better in letting him know I need help with something in the house than the usual method called "I can't find my phone, I'll just call his name until he hears me. . .

We both get stockings. . .

Mine is a tactical one.  This year, among its contents, was a flashlight and a tactical spork   SCORE.

There is the usual candy for us both (I think Santa gets kickbacks from my periodontist)

And maybe a little journal or two.

Captains Log Day 43 - Vacuumed more dog hair

Captains Log Day 52 - Still more Dog Hair

And general silliness.

Everyone needs another thumb drive.

Or a Darth Vadar magnet (caution choking hazard)

Of course, there are the yearly slippers and PJ's and a bottle of my husband's favorite Bourbon but the rest of the wrapped gifts were things we both wanted. 

I asked for a purse with lots of pockets inside filled with cash.

Partner came through.  It is handmade, a custom order with tons of pockets inside and out as well as a light to find stuff.  From bestsellerleather at Etsy. 
https://www.etsy.com/shop/BestSellerLeather

 And it had bags of cash

One can never have too many T-shirts.

Tools.

Books.

Or steak knives.

I believe in having enough bath products for the zombie apocalypse.

As well as provisions for a proper tea. (from "Brits" store in Lawrance Kansas. Vic MD introduced me to them years ago - awesome customer service)

And from my inlaws - some winter clothing and a game for summer.   I can only imagine what's going to happen when we play this with two Labrador Retrievers around. :-)

All in all, before I sign off - I have to say it was a wonderful Christmas.  Merry Christmas to all my friends and family.

A Range Recipe for Christmas Eve

I've thoroughly enjoyed the Patrick O'Brian nautical historical series, starting with Master and Commander and continuing on. Some of you may remember this from one of my later favorites - The Hundred Days.

"I am very sorry for the pandemonium, Stephen, he said, at last, as they sat down to their breakfast, brought in by a now silent, timid Killick. "All this mad rushing up and down, bellowing like Gadarene swine". The breakfast itself was adequate with quantifies of fresh eggs, sausages, bacon, a noble pork pie, rolls and toast, cream for their coffee, but there was little to be said for it as a fleshly indulgence since every other bite was interrupted by a message from one ship or another, often delivered by midshipmen, washed, brushed and extremely nervous, presenting their captains compliments.

I've been on the go all year it seems  Travel back and forth to Dad's as his house was cleared out and sold after he went into assisted living as well as professional obligations.  It's been good when I could get home for a handcrafted meal, a chat with a friend on the phone and a decent night's sleep.  So it didn't take much more than a mention of this breakfast repast in the book to get me thinking about creating something of the pastry/meat variety.

Meat pies are part of almost every culture.  In the US, outside of the "pot pie" they are not really popular in U.S. cuisine, with the exception of the Natchitoches meat pie which is one of the official state foods of Louisiana.  The Cornish Pasty, found in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. where mining is still a good industry has its origins in another land.   In Latin American empanadas may be pies or sometimes pastries, baked or fried and are popular in the Southwest U.S. as well. Steak and kidney pie and pork pies are seen in both England.

In Australia and New Zealand, the meat pie is a common convenience food found in gas stations and convenience stores.  

But for this holiday, something Canadian in origin and my personal favorite.  From Quebec. Tourtiere is typically made and served on Chrismas Eve (though it's tasty ANY part of the winter) the recipe passed down from generation to generation. I'm proudly American but I also have family from Montreal. I'm a sucker for most Canadian Cuisine as well as the Halifax Donier, and will not turn down a fresh beavertail with my coffee if offered.   

But this is a dish worth making when you have the time.  It's delicious in any culture, and "mmmm" sounds pretty much the same wherever you are. No, this isn't a typical tourtiere, but my own adaption.  The recipes vary from family to family and city to cities, many with all pork, some, from Quebec city, with more game meats. There is good-natured rivalry for who has the best recipe that exceeds any seen at a Hockey game.  This may not be the best, but it is my favorite. 

• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 lb ground pork, beef, and veal
• 1-1/2 cups beef stock
• 2 T. bacon fat
• 3 onions chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup finely chopped celery
• a generous handful of chopped fresh mushrooms

• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp dried summer savory
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• tiny pinch of red pepper flakes
• 2 teaspoons of cognac
• a pinch of maple sugar
• 1 cup chopped fresh bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

• Pastry for double-crust pie 
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp water
• a pinch of maple sugar (optional)

Cook meat in a heavy pan of French oven over medium heat in oil, breaking up with a spoon until it is no longer bright pink in center.  Do not brown, as it will cook further in stock.  Drain off the fat and set meat aside but do not rinse the meat.  In a couple of tablespoons of bacon fat, cook onions until starting to soften, add in celery and dried spices, stir over medium for a couple of minutes, adding the mushrooms at the last minute. Then add the meat back in with the stock, cooking on low to medium-low for 40 minutes until you have about 2 Tablespoons of liquid remaining.  Remove from heat, add cognac, and stir in bread crumbs and fresh parsley. Cover and put in the fridge for at least a day (trust me, it gets better as it sits).  Make a double-crust pie, making the bottom crust about 1/8 inch thickness.  Place in pan, spoon in filling, smoothing the top and top with remaining pastry pressing edges together and sealing.  Combine egg, maple sugar water and brush over top, making small steam vents in the top with a small knife.  Bake at 375  for 45-50 minutes until golden brown.  Leftovers are as good cold as they are hot and make a great lunch.

Easy perfect pie crust. (from the folks at Moody's Butcher Shop)  Makes 3 crusts, two for a pie, one for a quiche.

• 3 cups of flour
• 1 cup of rendered lard (if you've not tried, get thee to a butcher shop)
• 1 egg
• 1 Tablespoon of vinegar
• 5 Tablespoons of water
• 1 teaspoon of salt

Cut the flour and lard together. Beat egg in a cup and add the vinegar, water, and salt. Add to the flour mixture. May need a little more water to make a nice ball. Roll it out. Makes about 3 crusts. Bake at 350 degrees until done.

Outdoors 9-1-1

This last week I had a chance to get a long walk out in the woods in a rural area near a friend's home. I took a light coat in case of rain, as it's been unusually cold and wet, and of course, a trusty .45 in a Blackhawk holster. This is my "outdoors hiking, moving, fall and winter holster". It's not as sleek as many other holsters I own, but in the clothing I wear outdoors it works and works very well for what I need it for. This particular holster is unique in that there's a locking mechanism that keeps the gun in place during other than just strolling movement, as well as acts in preventing someone else from grabbing it. Yet with a little practice, it is as easy as pie for you to draw.

Cabela's says "Thumb breaks can slow your draw and get in the way when you re-holster. But you won't experience those drawbacks with Blackhawk's patented SERPA Technology™. It engages the trigger guard as you holster your firearm and secures it until you release using the normal drawing motion with your trigger finger alongside the holster. No snaps or straps to get in the way. The textured Carbon Fiber model can be worn on a belt or used as a paddle holster."

I've had mine four years and it works without a hitch and has held up very well. The one thing I noted when I first put this on was how SECURE it was. I could pole dance with this thing and it wouldn't budge.

It's home to a .220 and draws with the finger indexed where it is supposed to be, off the trigger. Unlocks easily, re-holsters easily and locks with no insertion force. This is a holster that's NOT going to make it easy for someone to take this gun away from me.

The drawbacks? The paddle attachment that comes with it really grips my jeans when I'm carrying. That's wonderful from a retention aspect, but at the end of the long day, sometimes it's a bear to get off. The belt slot attachment works better with belts up to one and 3/4 inches (when you remove the two spacers). I would recommend practice with it as well, quick-firing capability is there, but it's something you should practice with, as it might be different than what you are used to.

But it is my favorite holster for being outdoors with a vest or jacket on to conceal the bulk that's more than some holsters. I've spent a lot of time in the backcountry. All of it alone. I've camped, but not in a "National Park", because frankly, until recently, as a lone female, I wasn't going in one unarmed. If you're in the outdoors and you have an encounter with a criminal or an aggressive animal, there is no 9-11 box where you can call the police. And just like in the suburbs, 9-11 isn't going to do you a lot of good if you're staring down the face of a knife in the hands of some thug and the police are not going to be there in the next 10 minutes.

There were four bear attacks in parks last year that I know of. Small risk when you consider the millions of visitors. But think again. Bears aren't the biggest danger. The last year I could find statistics on violent crime in the parks from was 2006. For some reason, they haven't posted them where they are easy to find since then. In 2006, there were 116,588 reported offenses, including 11 killings, 35 rapes or attempted rapes, 61 robberies, 16 kidnappings and 261 aggravated assaults.

Crime and violence are working their way into our rural areas and our parks. The days of mellow nights under the stars with perhaps your only fear, that of cow tippers or Yogi the Bear stealing your picnic basket, are over. Urban problems are creeping ever outward, with alcohol or drugs being part of most violent incidents. Hideaway methamphetamine labs and marijuana fields in rural areas and forests are one reason, society degrading as unemployment skyrockets is another.

When the "guns in national parts" debate was ongoing the detractors said that guns would "ruin the outdoor experience". I don't know about you, but some whacko defending his meth lab intent on raping and killing me would certainly ruin MY park experience.

I don't fear the local four-legged predators, the most common around here being coyotes. I fear the two-legged animals. So I carry when I'm outdoors. Like the coyotes who share my land, I am alone even when I'm in my pack, dispossessed except for those times I am in the outdoors, for it is only the outdoors that feeds and nourishes me. I haunt the shadows of the wilderness that my own race continues to destroy. Yet, like the small field rabbits that are the coyote's prey, I just want to go about my way, unmolested, free to travel in sunlight or darkness without fear.
Some say we are safer out here in the country, in these small towns of America. Despite the country setting, and red white and blue speckled mailboxes, there is no truly safe place anymore, especially for a woman. Though there are certainly more crimes where more people live or where the law-abiding are disarmed, the heart of evil roams equally at will through asphalt and country roads. Predators are among us, watching from a line at the corner market, waiting in the darkness of a rural parking lot or that untraveled, unbeaten path. Waiting for that sign, that manner, that tells them that you are un-toothed and un-fanged, a soft and vulnerable target.

Our primordial past is closer than we realize. Watching us. So I carry something large, and black as night, in a holster that holds up to its job. Because not every creature in the woods is some furry gentle creature seeking sustenance at my door in the night.

Ghosts of Trains

Ghosts of Trains

From the mist there comes a train
a vision of noise and steam.
Vital glory not tempered by time
headed East for suns first gleam.
Bridging a gap of deep drowned past
moving onto mournful plain.
Abandoned dream and memory washed clean by wind and rain.

The whistle sings the sad goodbye
of lovers that have strayed.
A song of melancholy rails
for prices we have paid.
What is it of a train that draws beneath this heedless sky?
Escape or fire, strength, desire
I could not tell you why. But I find it hard to turn away
with unremitting breath
Machinery fueled by fires might
inhaling life from death
Too late to catch but not to dream
its lure for me won't wane.
For gathered now inside of me

the ghosts of trains remain.

Brigid 

Waiting for Christmas

Sometimes waiting for something is the best part.

Christmas was like that as a child, the build-up to the big day, shaking the presents under the tree, many which had been rigged with marbles or rocks inside to throw us off. Mom would make a couple of different types of cookies every few days, something new to taste and try with a plate set aside with a sample of everything to eat after the Christmas meal.

It's not just Christmas - there are many events in our lives we anxiously await. The birth of a baby, a holiday, a wedding, awaited with great longing, then suddenly over, vanished as if an illusion.

But Christmas Eve, as children, was the best.  We weren't allowed to open any gifts until Christmas morning.  We'd be up before the marked light of dawn, seeing the unwrapped gifts that Santa had left for us on the mantle around the fireplace, Mom and Dad trailing down the hall stifling yawns.

I spent Christmas Eve and day some years back with neighbors who let the kids open the gifts on Christmas Eve.  They didn't go to church so Christmas Day was simply watching sports while the kids played non stop video games.  I appreciated the invite but it felt no more like Christmas than the 4th of July.

No, waiting for the morning was anticipated glory.  I'd sleep in a little trundle bed next to my brothers, trying to stay awake to hear Santa. Mom would come in and lay the sunset-colored afghan she had crocheted on top of me for warmth.  Outside, the big, fat 1960's Christmas lights would shine through a window, curtains swept aside so we could see.   Overhead, an aircraft went on its way, solitary and swift like a shooting star.  We'd speak in low tones, as if in church, as outside the door, our wiener dog Pepper's toenails click-clacked on the hardwood floor as she patrolled her domain.

We would always fall asleep too soon, and wake before the sun rose with that flaming stare of quiet curiosity.

But Christmas isn't the only thing we look forward to.  It may be graduating from college.  It may be retirement.  I think of those people that have a countdown calendar to the day they can walk out the door.  Some come back to the workplace by to say hello as if tethered to that place they spent so many, many years. Some we never see again, that place nothing more than a coat they have now flung off in warmer lands.

You think what you wait for will take forever to get here.  Then, when it is behind you, those days seemed as they raced past, brilliant and quick, nothing more than a flash of light in the distance, the nights as short as fragmented dreams. Too soon, what you waited for is a memory, never to be reclaimed but in thought.

Dad does not wish to celebrate Christmas as anything more than the quiet communion in his home with the minister in celebration of Christ's birth. By his choice, there has not been a tree for a traditional Christmas celebration since my Mom died over 30 years ago. The aluminum tree and color wheel were packed away, never to be seen again though my husband found one of our own at a hard sale before we were married. In the years before Dad remarried, there was neither light nor breath in that house for my Dad and he just wanted Christmas to be over with, once my brother and I were out of the house.

When Dad did remarry, to a widow who had herself lost a beloved spouse- they usually spent Christmas at his sister in law's condo in San Diego - enjoying the warmth.  Dad did not wish to spend Christmas day in a house in which my Mom's laughter had gone silent.   I understood, spending Christmas with friends, later volunteering for extra flight duty so those with children could have the day off.  I understand it even more after losing my brother.

Today, I look up at the flash of light, here in the fading light.  It is is an airplane, the tiny blink of its passing no different than the ones we viewed as children. I know too well, the feeling of that crew, anxious to get to their destination, hoping they won't have weather or a mechanical issue that precludes their making it home in time for Christmas.  I know the sense of relief of the last flight of the night, launching into a sky, that like man, in one embrace can assume and appease, even as it cannot forgive.

Many a night I flew on Christmas Eve, eliciting a chuckle from the crew chief when he glanced up at the Cockpit and saw my Santa hat as we prepared to depart.  We were only anxious as to the day and time until we were aloft, then like seaman have probably felt since time began, we settled down, finding the true Peace of God and Earth somewhere over 35,000 feet, finding the storms and turbulence, not as some heavenly punishment for our selfishness in wanting to be home but rather a gentle rebuke to curb an impatient heart.

At altitude, we'd talk about Christmas past and the hope for Christmas future, perhaps one with a family, our voices quiet, no louder than expelled breath, as the miles ticked under us.  Those in the back of the airplane were subdued, anxious to get home, looking down on cities that twinkled like Christmas lights, clouds bunched over some of them, like warm flannel blankets. Some nights the wind would be so strong aloft we felt like we'd stopped, going forward not with will or strategy but simply that grooved habit to endure,

The recorded weather data that we'd confirm receipt of, instead of Delta and Echo and other letters of the phonetic alphabet were Dancer and Prancer and such.  On more than one Christmas Eve, my copilot would confirm Information "Santa" received and we'd made our final descent, not to a city where loved ones awaited, but simply a hotel room with all the ambiance of a dental lab, it's emptiness bringing that quick sharp sting that I could taste in my mouth as I opened the door.

There, I would sleep like a soldier in the field without shelter but for stiff, cotton sheets, waiting to wake up to the fight and the firing.

Tonight I look up and outside. There will be no Christmas light at home, too many commitments of work and family to get them up this year. But there will be a 1960's aluminum tree with an antique color wheel, found at a garage sale, repaired and set up by my husband.  There will be the click-clack of Abby's toenails on the hardwood floors as she patrols her domain. In the kitchen, there will be cookies and a pot of tea set to boil  And on the shelf, there will be found a framed picture of a little auburn-haired boy and girl sitting in their Dad's lap, Christmas decorations in the background, as he reads them a story.

It was a story of a baby, one not born of passion or pleasure but one born so that more than a Mother's suffering in his birth would be eased until the end of days.  It was a story of forgiveness we often can't receive from man, but that is His promise in eternity.

This Christmas season, I'm grateful for the anticipation of days.  Christmas will too soon be here and gone. Those that I spent the Christmas of my youth with are gone, but for Dad, his own days drawing to a close. What is left now may just be a fleeting illusion, but illusions, like memory, are as true as flesh, bone, and blood.

Rather than wish that Christmas was here, I'm going to wish it would wait, that I can savor this time of quiet peace, the smell of warmth, the laughter of my husband, and the hearkening of a family of angels who calm this impatient heart with a touch as soft as a caress.

 - L.B. Johnson