Thankful

I am pretty thankful to be alive today after all of the crazy things I have tried in 63 years.  Many people didn't make it that far and I keep a list of people I have known who has not made it this far.  I saw that a couple of my students passed while I was gone.   I am even more thankful of what I've gotten to see over a lifetime.

I am sure many people wonder why we travel so much?  I thought LuAnn put it pretty well in her posts on Women In Ag on AgOnline Chimel posted here for me a month or so ago.  We are curious people and enjoy viewing God's Creation and the people we meet between here and there.  We all have a story and we have garnered a lot of good stories about life and living over the years.

The major things we learned on our trip is that the southern plates of Australia and New Zealand have been land a lot longer than North America where we live.  There isn't much history about the ancient peoples who lived there like we have of the Native Americans who lived here in that same period of time.  Neeake or Fred Shaw tells those stories as well as I've ever heard them told.  I just saw on Facebook he has been contributing that History of Ohio at the Cincinnati Museum this weekend.  I feel like I missed a good show.

Farming down under is more like the dry land farming of the US and Canada.  Big seeders and harvesters are common and custom operators are more prevalent.  Grass is also common down under the light brush they have so grazing was more important there than it ever was here.  They don't have the big hardwood forests we had in America.  There are seven sheep per person in New Zealand now, a third what it used to be!  There used to be 23 million cattle in Australia but they slaughtered 8 million head 10 years ago due to drought and low prices.

It pains us to see our country going down the tubes today compared to life down under.  We both see that life there reminds us greatly of our childhood in the states.  There is nothing we can do about it but the next  best or right thing.  Life is good, life is as grand as we make it.

It was great to go Mass last night with God child Katherine.  She is such a beauty.  It was difficult praying while wanting to make eyes with her.  We had a home cooked pork chop dinner after Mass and a little socializing and crawled home to bed once more.  Thank you Tara!

We were amazed at the devastation at Christchurch.  The whole city is under construction.  Our van passed the street we stayed on and there was the steel frame of our hotel.  It was an empty shell.  We saw severe destruction within 100 miles of the city.  The plates were fractured and now mud is the foundation of too many buildings.

It's time to go meet with my Sunday Morning Sunshine group in Hillsboro.  I wonder what wise words of wisdom they will have for me today.

Ed