Rose hip

There is a bush growing at the entrance to Brenda and Chip's driveway. It is full of blossoms in season and loaded with bright red fruit in fall. Long, long ago, rose hip jam was one of my favorites. Asking Chip, he said "we never do anything with it. Not even the birds want it, is it edible?" And it was easy to get permission to harvest.

Not ever having had to do anything with rose hips until the time came to spoon the jam out the jar, I did a quick research on the web and learned that the fruit is best if left on the bush till after the first frost. This information makes it easy to understand that I concentrated more on the Vermonter than on the berries. But as there is today, near mid-October, still no sign of cold nights, I did more research and found that the thing can be pushed by putting the harvested fruit in the freezer over night. And today was the day I went picking. The picture would tell more than words about what I found: Not a single berry was useable any more. Paraphrasing an old German folk song: go pick the rose hip when it is ripe. Don't sit and linger until it is cold.

Searching for the way

Searching for the way

The children’s story today, presented by Doug, was about ‘finding our way'. The ancients used the stars, later came the compass, much later the map, now the GPS. I thought I would add the chronometer and the sextant, but that would go into almost forgotten technology, plus these instruments were used to determine one’s location, rather than finding the way. They are also important, because, even when traveling by a very good map, it is necessary from time to time to stop and determine if one is on the right track. But Doug skipped that part and made an elegant connection to the thought that the Christian’s road map is the bible. Aye!

I had time for these and most of the following thoughts because today I came to church unaided by my usual paraphernalia to hear and in consequence I could only catch a word from Doug here and there. Had he not held up a star, cut out of a sheet of paper, or had he not spread a road map in front of us, or waved a GPS in the air, I would hardly have known what he was talking about. But so it was written that, today, I would get prompts only, and time to let my own thoughts make the connection between the way-markers to Doug’s sermon projected on the screen.

To quote the leading thought: 

7:13 Enter ye in at the straight gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.

7:14 Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

While Doug continued to develop his thoughts, I linked back to the analogy of road-map versus Bible, of the GPS vs the Word. We are quite used to the maps we have in the car no longer being up-to-date with the road-net as it is now. My GPS gets a revised version of its map twice each year. Right now, this instrument is waiting for me to download the fall 2015 version. That’s good, because so many new roads are built to facilitate the flow of traffic between the cities and, at least sometimes, one would get lost while trying to follow an older version.

Likewise the Bible? Since its inception way back in the beginning and later after the addition of the New Testament to the Old, this roadmap of Christianity has gone through untold revisions and re-interpretations. I have often wished to be able to read the original Word. Snooping in history, I was told that the foundation of our current bible was laid by the Council of Nicaea back in the year 325. Then, Constantine was faced with the problem of unifying an untold number of versions, of creeds and confessions of faith and great was this attempt to bring some unity into the haggling masses of those who held power in the many churches sprung from the one that Christ had built on one rock.So, the way this layman sees it, back then we got our road map and it represented the still relatively young memories of Christ’s presence and work on earth. It was the best to be had! One of the problems that must have occurred even then is that the records detailing the original evidence built into this first bible came in many different languages. Translation is a difficult thing. Some words in some languages contain meaning for which another language has no word. Sentences that express the our present thoughts change meaning over time. The exclamation “That’s not what I meant.” underlines the problem of translating thought into the written, or even the spoken word, and even the fleeting validity of content. And then, over time, not only was the one bible subjected to periodic and unified re-interpretation, or, rather re-wording, the unified thought was scattered into a multitude of bibles, all professing to represent The Word. likewise, the one church was shattered into the many by the dissent between thinking men. The other problem was that the ancient records were so many that it was unrealistic to include them all in one book. Who made the choice of what is relevant, and what is not? And on what basis, under what motivation were the choices made?

Road map revisions are due when new roads are opened to traffic. These may be old roads improved - made wider and straighter and easier to travel. There also may be new roads where there were none. Generally, they would lead into an area previously inaccessible. They may continue through a new development to connect on the other side again with other roads already in existence so that you need not to turn back to return to the place where you came from. They may also lead around features in the landscape that present an obstacle to easy traffic flow. Even one of the hymns of today’s selection refers to that: I follow Jesus - no turning back. So, road are built to make travel easier, faster and less dangerous.

Is that the same principle of bible revisions - easier travel, new ways to look at the country, some roads leading off and away from the rough and narrow? In the news these days is the clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue the marriage license to a same sex couple. My Kudos to that clerk. By using her right to free speech, she is now in jail because she does not follow the order of the almighty civil court, who is at odds with many of us on the Christian law regarding homosexuality - and on other social issues as well. A quick research on the web points to Romans 1:26-27 (EMTV) as the  “most important biblical reference for the homosexuality debate”. It would go way beyond my current intentions to follow the thread. Most of us agree that Sodomy is a sin. In the current social trend, the criminal is right and the one a crime has been directed at is wrong. The perpetrator must be protected, the victim is without help. Soon, the crime committed is no longer a crime. So say the worldly courts. But also the church, or I should say some of the churches side with the world view and declare what was sin is no longer sin today. It is expedient to overlook what originally was the forbidden.

Are bible reinterpretations - at least in part - the road map to destruction?

If we allow such reinterpretation, we make ourselves accessories to the sin. Should we take our sons out of Boy Scouts because of the recently introduced admission of homosexuals into the roles of leadership? who would, as a German metaphor wants it, make the buck the gardener? If we refuse to follow the leadership of the church in one instance or more, where does that take the ‘unity' of the church?

While following this line of thoughts, the image on the projection screen changed and proclaimed Romans 12:2:

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Is this my license to rebel? Does Paul not say loud and clear that I should not follow the leadership that leads me against my convictions? If the world changes, may I not stick to what is my belief since my earliest days of awareness?

Again a new way marker on the screen: Galatians 1:4:

Wo gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from the present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: 1:5): To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Who am I to say more, after I recited “Amen”?

Another change on the screen: 2 Corinthians 4:4:

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Another condemnation of those who turn their back on The Word as it was originally handed to us. But what was it, originally? if I interpret what is presented to us as “the bible”, which I believe has suffered many falsifications, do I not risk to fall into error myself? But one passage of the bible has not yet been changed: the Ten Commandments. Measure your actions by these Commandments, I was told a long time ago and not only once, and you do not need the miles of shelves filled with today’s interpretation in the the lawyers’ libraries. But Lord, it is ever so difficult to remember all of this when under fire!

Just in time, Doug projected a new road marker unto the screen: Psalms: 119:105:

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

What do I need man’s interpretation of your word for, o God? is what the bible says not clear? But I cannot do all this alone - send me someone who can guide me, for thy lamp throws shadows unto the path in front of me and I surely will stumble.

And a new guidepost appears: Matthew 16:24:

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Gulp! This takes us back a few hundred years to the orders of followers of Christ who gave up all their worldly good and lived off the goodwill of humanity, proclaiming all their food, and clothing and shelter were gifts of God. But this is so contrary to what I believe in: do honest work for your living; if you produce surplus, share with those who are not blessed with your independence. I am sure I can find support of this belief in your word? So what is my cross? If all mankind were to interpret god’s word the way those monks did, who would there be to work up the sustenance of all our lives?

And Doug forges on: Matthew 7:14:

Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

You made my way so broad and so smooth, I do not know what to say to this. I really don’t! I love what you have done for me, even with those few and far between rough white water stretches in the river of my life. If your example of suffering to reach the gates of heaven is what we must follow, what, and i repeat, what is my cross?

And as time draws on, Doug draws in Luke, 13:24:

Strive to enter at the straight gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

The picture that occurs to me is a gate to an old, old fortified town, of which there are many scattered around Europe and Asia. They have thick high stone walls with guard towers and gates, narrow gates, just wide enough to let a farmer’s cart through on market day. But many roads lead to that one gate, some broad and well maintained, others merely wheel tracks through the fields. But all these gates, in the old days, were guarded and access as well as egress to and from the town could be restricted at the will of the leaders of that community.

The Baptist Church in Wilmington, where Doug also is pastor, there is a member of the congregation who records (sometimes or always?) the sermon. There is a chance that this will be done today. If so, Providence has loaded my plate with all the benefits: the stimulus from Doug’s, sermon in Jacksonville, the time to react to this stimulus, since I was busy looking only, but not hearing, and the recording of the actual sermon which would allow me to listen, after all. I won’t be surprised if there are few if any touching points.

The posting

Very recently there was a posting on FB, presenting a neat demonstration of a piece of garment designed to protect women against violation. The design of this garment is such that it would have little if any bearing on the choice of outer garments, if such were desired by the wearer.

Viewing this posting an incident reported in the papers returned to my mind: a woman in Palm Beach filed suit against a man she claimed had raped her. The judge, being prompted to do so as a result of preliminary hearings, ordered her to come to the trial dressed as she had been at the time in question. Her appearance settled the case in the favor of the rapist.

On a spur of the moment I posted this as a comment to the original post. One of the readers replied:

"That judge was ignorant. You don't blame women and shame them for their clothing. You teach young men to respect women. God calls us to not be stumbling blocks to others even in the way we dress. But NEVER does God say it's okay to rape someone/sexually harass someone because their outfit was "asking for it". That judge you talk about made a horrendous judgement and I pray to God he does not judge like that normally."

The fashionably incessant invocation of God to protect us against the consequences of our mistaken choices and to do good for us is what gets me every time. He, indeed, is the highest authority, and not only does He call us on subjects as this reply contains but he is even more outspoken on morals, and on the mode of behavior necessary to let people live side by side in peace. The teaching of men, requested by this you writer, is up to you, as parents, and up to us, as the society in which we all live, and it is not to be limited to young men but naturally must include young women as well.

To point the way to modern and effective self help, a friend of the one who wrote this reply advised to get a gun and a concealed carry permit.

Yessss, way to go, Tommy. You're da man!

At first, I was tempted to respond and continue this thread, but then decided that FB was not the forum to use for sharing views on life. In the privacy of my Blog, I will step on but a few toes.

Some fifty five years ago a very popular song about an 'Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini' made the scene *. The title was also part of the chorus and there was an injunction in the rhymes: 'don't go near the water so your bikini won't get wet'. Coming up from the islands, I suppose, bikinis had just a little before that time appeared on the northern beaches and created endless controversies and some pleasant visions. When we went to the beaches, the far distant horizon over the sea was seldom in the focus of our eyes. There were always groups of girls strolling up along the shore, without aim, after a while turning around and strolling back, again without aim.

The philosophical meaning of the text should be clear to every thinking man and woman. 

And the trend towards undress continues from beach wear to formal wear and all wear in between. Please get a picture of female celebrities attending gala affairs. To scramble an old metaphor: only the last shreds of modesty remain.

Even men are not unaffected. Just look at the tuxedoes worn with open collar and shirts unbuttened to the navel, perhaps a toupee on the chest. 

Some women are indeed 'asking for it'. They can be seen lingering at street corners or are slowly strolling along side walks close to the curb and they are dressed exactly like our chaste, innocent, young girls who dash about as if they were going somewhere. That's how you can tell one from the other, sometime. Boys don leather chaps, hang toy guns from wide low slung belts and wear broad rimed felt hats drawn deep over their eyes in order to achieve - what? The very image of John Wayne and Jimmy Cassidy? I'm an old timer OK. Today it's spider suits and supermanT's and death masks and light sabers instead of old-fashioned guns. But it is the same, the young want to appear to be what they are not, but, perhaps, secretly or openly admire. Occasionally a boy gets shot in the street because he playfully drew his toy revolvers at the wrong time in front of a man with a real gun. The girls - ?

As for teaching men to respect women - the days of chivalry have vaned under the bright lights of women's lib, which prompts many women to abandon respect to men. Respect is a earned and deserved feeling extended from one person to another, not a constitutional right granted to part of the population only. The God we address so feel speaks of modesty. where is it?

I will not dwell on the presumptuous claim that the judge was ignorant. If ignorance enters the picture at all, it must be sought elsewhere.

* "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini" is a novelty song telling the story of a shy girl wearing a revealing polka-dot bikini at the beach. It was written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss and first released in June 1960 by Brian Hyland with orchestra conducted by John Dixon.)

The Rainbow Touches the Ground

The rainbow touches the ground between the woods and the dam of the pond. At the foot of the rainbow, a pot of gold is buried. Never in my whole life have I seen this so close!

I will hope to post you a picture of this wonder soon.

More on education

This is an excerpt from the conversation between Socrates and his friend Glaucon in 'The Republic" somewhere around 450 BC:
“Then if geometry compels us to view being, it concerns us; if becoming only, it does not concern us?
Yes, that is what we assert.
Yet anybody who has the least acquaintance with geometry will not deny that such a conception of the science is in flat contradiction to the ordinary language of geometricians.
How so?
They have in view practice only, and are always speaking, in a narrow and ridiculous manner, of squaring and extending and applying and the like—they confuse the necessities of geometry with those of daily life; whereas knowledge is the real object of the whole science.
Certainly, he said.”

Regardless of what the context of this quote is within the aim of  "The Republic", it confirms to me that some of us were cheated during the years of our education in public school: the focus of the plan of teaching was 'in view of practice only', meaning that only the rules and theorems of geometry were taught and practiced, while the real implication onto life was not touched. Only those of the students who were blessed with what I would call "special vision" could evolve beyond the words of the teacher and develop a creative vision from this acquired knowledge. Specialization works counter such ability. Fractional knowledge of a subject channels the thinking rather than allowing free flight. And this is the trend of our education. As a result, a 'master of designing counter-clock threads' appears in the line of job seekers among the 'engineers'. I do realize that the amount of knowledge required today in a field at one time as basic as 'engineering' is incredible. But lacking that knowledge makes our young people only marginally productive or even effective in the practice. So, what do we do to counter the trend? We are indeed on the wrong path to retain supremacy among the people on this earth.

Yes, but . . .

When your mind is set free, it might make amazing turns in its flight. Coming from apparently nowhere, the word 'clausulated' popped up. I know the term from its use in the German language and I wanted to know if in English the meaning was the same. So I looked it up on the web. A seemingly endless list of authors was presented with quotes of sentences in which they used the word. The list ranges from Cicero to a modern day treatise on "the philosophy of macro economics". But there was no definition of the term to be found, such as perhaps the Wikipedia should, or could provide. But in the context, I found that the meaning in both languages is the same: yes, that appears to be so, but under a changed set of conditions, it might not be so.
There were many quotes drawn from Philosophical works. Is then the thinking of philosophers so beset by conditions (clauses) that most conclusions must be described as being 'clausulated'?
Once in a senior high class on chemistry, I answered the teacher's question with "if a certain amount of this salt is added to this liquid . . . And the teacher responded with "you say a 'certain' amount is added. If indeed it is certain, state the amount. Else do not declare it to be 'certain'". His certainly was a different way of thinking. In our common way of speaking, the word 'certain' very often means anything but 'certain'.

Peace! or Nothing?

It is so peaceful up here on the mountain it is hard to accnowledge that there is a different world out there, somewhere. The only sound you hear is made by your own blood rushing past your audio nerves. Other than that, there might be the buzz of a bee, the song of a bird, the crunch of grass made by a cow grazing nearby. The only movement that atracts the eye is a bird flying by or the bee you hear changing her seat from one flower to another. The picture in front of you never changes. Could you stand it? You who are from that other world? Your mind must be free of the burden you carry with you from over there. Here you can let it go, if even for a moment.

Doing Things of No Great Import

This is Laurie. Today it is December 8, 2022, and I just found the following email, sent from Opa to Elanore back in 2015. He was living in the house in Whitingham, VT, and regularly capturing deep thoughts here on this blog. This is a rare glimpse into some other types of thoughts, and a small snapshot both of a sweet relationship and a particular fleeting season of life…

From: Richard Sitterding <schwizerbueb@gmail.com>

Date: July 24, 2015 at 5:20:02 PM EDT
To: Elanore Sitterding <schnooey@gmail.com>

Dear Elanore,

It just started to rain and the great time outdoors is at and end for today. It was a phantastic day again: clear, blue sky, temperature in the mid seventies and humidity down in the sixties, just the way it was during several days past. Then the clouds started to move in, dark gray and black, and blotted out the sun little by little and now - why, they are leaking :-). The bad thing is that this forces me to close the sliding door to the deck because rare is the day when rain starts and the wind does not blow the water through the door. Because that happened so often during the past many years, you can see the weathering of the hardwood floors very easily.
So, here I am again. This morning, when I sent my message off to you, I was boiling hot and angry about my iPad having let me down and destroyed my labor on my reply to you in return of the lovely card you sent me some two weeks ago. Lovely does not adequately describe the impression your message made. Receiving a handwritten note from someone you love is an event these days! Usually, letters, even personal ones are typed and even so impersonal as electronic, just as this one. I hope you forgive me, because when it comes to handwriting I always envision the hasty scrawl I produce these days. To me, the picture is not pretty. Maybe I'm a snob. I think the same way about food. Part of the enjoyment of eating comes through the eyes, another part through the nose, the rest through the mouth in form of texture and taste. The only difference in my reaction is that I might forgive a plate its unappetizing looks. It would not drive me to go to fast food in preference of a good morsel that does not look good. But when it comes to writing, the feelings are based on a different footing: food I receive, and I am willing to forgive the preparer for failing to make it look attractive; writing I send to someone and I am not sure if I would be forgiven for a scraggly hand or even bad orthography.
Returning to your note: receiving it was just part of the joy it brought. Seeing that you had produced it yourself increased my pride in my youngest granddaughter. Reading it made my heart swell and it has not yet, after two weeks since receiving this note, returned to its normal size ;-) Thank you! It is so rare these days to receive personal communication. I am about ready to opt out of Facebook, because there, not much is ever of a personal note, and why should I spend time and harbor hope that something better might come just around the corner, if all I receive is a confirmation that my friends read the same newspapers that I read?
It is procrastination that kept me from answering earlier and now the time left before you start on the 'big trip north' is so short that I fear a letter from here will not reach you until you return home again. I could not stand facing you and hearing you say "Opa, did you ever get my card I sent you early in July? You never answered!"
This morning I resolved to write you an answer, but as I said in my earlier message my iPad erased it before I had a chance to proofread it. Thinking this over, I decided it was my own fault. I rested my hand on the upper left hand corner, just as one might hold down the pages of a book one reads, and the distortion of the screen caused by my heavy paw triggered the "erase all" feature, which, without a question, exists somewhere in the innards of an iPad. So, here I am again, all my fingers and palms doing only what is necessary to write or to read on this finicky gismo.
Responding to your questions: the weather up here with the exception for two or three days in June was lovely. Temperature every day below 80 with a humidity somewhere around 60 by midday, and nights low down in the fifties. Sleeping weather for the Angels! I, mortal, gladly partake of what is meant to please those without fault. I just hope that we will not deplete the whole supply of such weather before you completed your visit up here. The thought that you might be confronted by the same conditions as you find down south is inconceivable to me, after these past weeks of pure bliss. Only, I keep thinking that maybe your parents might wish to camp again and then the frequent short rains will definitely not be very welcome.
I had not heard of the book you are reading until you told me about it. Asking around on the Web I find that it is a book not without repute! It's title is based on Ephesians 6:12 so I would expect to find considerable thought in its text. The subject, such as I found synopsis on the Web, is much along the line my own reading happened to run into: prompted by Philip's choice of studies for this coming year, I reached for philosophers, so I will not be totally unfamiliar with the new thoughts, and new way of thinking that our Philip will come back with at the end of this school year. Since my line of education was strictly in the exact sciences, philosophy was left far far away from our road and, I must confess, somewhat snickered at. Today, I feel that we were the ones who deserve the snickering, but I found that philosophers, the true kind that is, are far above such mundane reactions to the facts of life. So, I read first modern philosophers and was disappointed. What fell into my hands was Bertrand Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy" and it almost turned me off from pursuing this line of study. There was nothing but weirdness of subjects and thought, and even contemporaries drawn in by the author did not promise anything better in the genre. Then I reached for an author some hundreds of years earlier: Erasmus of Rotterdam was 'familiar' to me from my high school days when we studied the Humanists. Erasmus spent many years in Basel which made him almost a countryman to us. So, I read "In Praise of Folly" and was a bit better satisfied by the display of relevant thought, relevant to the essence of life, that is. From there, I went backwards again for several hundred years and landed on Plato. I read "Phaedo" and am now into "The Republic". Among other subjects, the discussion between Socrates and his friends centers on the attempt to envision the perfect State. The notion one gets from the problems that must be solved in order to for a perfect society with fault free leadership are the same we have, still unsolved, today and that are said to form the subject of the book you read. Welcome to reality! Clothing it in fiction does not make the real picture brighter.
Other than that? I spend my days doing things of no great import. I do minimal housework and of course there is no escape from the kitchen, unless I want to satisfy my need for food with packets of prepared menus. I don't like them, so I don't have them, except in an emergency now and then. There is a frozen lasagna languishing in my freezer since May. That tells you about the frequency I indulge in such meals. Last week I cooked a goat stew. My favorite supermarket had frozen 'goat chunks' and I cooked a 'Caribbean goat chunk stew'. The meat, with bones, came from Australia. The product was very good and tasty, but there was nothing that had any goaty character, whatever that might be. I think you get that only from the hindquarters of an old buck. The rest of goat meat has no reason to be off taste in any way from beef, or game grown in the fields of our civilization. The game we had so much of in Lynch Station apparently all fed on the corn fields in the neighborhood and sweeter meat you cannot imagine. Anyway, this was last week and this week I dared to cook a batch of 'pan seared octopus' I just finished the last morsel. It is very exciting in taste, but again, there is nothing in the taste that makes you say "this is octopus". Like Kaarin says: it must be like calamari - it's the spices that give the meal its character, the fish itself has no outstanding or exclusive taste. But I'll do that again, sometime. Octopi have become so common on the shelves of supermarkets and I hear that in Los Angeles they are quite the wave. For me, pan seared octopus takes me all the way back to a trip my parents and I made through the Aegean Sea in 1957. We stopped in a small harbor where the great cruise ships cannot go because the water is just a few feet deep, enough for the native fishermen's boats. Ours was a converted mine sweeper from WWII and we were traveling in a small group of about twenty members, all interested in the Greek Antiquity and the geography. On that little island where we landed that day there was nothing for tourists. It was just a convenient stop on our way to another more famed spot. There was not even a restaurant visible in the small cluster of houses around the harbor, nor did we hear anyone talking about there being one. My dad and I went for a walk that evening before dinner on our ship and saw a table in front of an open door and two chairs. We sat down and soon a woman came out of the house and we made her understand we would like to have an aperitif. She spoke nothing but Greek and understand nothing of our German, English, French or Italian. She brought us two glasses and a bottle of Ouzo and shortly after she came with an iron pan with some black crunchy pieces of a delicious taste. It turned out to be octopus and the house was private, and she did not even want money, but we could see that she and her husband were living on what he could get from the sea and she out of the little garden plot behind the house. We put some money under the bottle of Ouzo when we left and the memory of this hospitality to strangers is indelible.
Looking very, very much forward to see all of you up here soon,
Your Opa

The Power, or the Confusion, of Language

The power, or the confusion, of language: With my dinner, I had a glass of beer. After dinner, sitting on the deck, I enjoyed another glass. 

I feel safe with the admission of having had two glasses of beer, much more than having had 'two bottles' of beer which over here to the followers of Sam Adams is the same. A glass is thought to hold eight, twelve ounces at most, while an honest bottle, to the beer lover raised in Europe, holds a liter - approximately a quart to those who dwell on this side of the pond. "Back there" even two bottles would not have raised an eye brow.

A Flock of Turkeys Down on the Pasture

I am watching a flock of turkeys down on the pasture. I wish for a camera to furnish a picture. They are great, big, fat toms, all of them. I imagine them to be half-brothers from this past season. They were ousted by their progenitor who wants to keep control over his flock, which, on last sighting, counted twenty-one members. I could easily pick one of them out from where I am sitting. But then what? What trouble! And I being saddled with some 15 pounds of fresh turkey growing old in the freezer. 

They are there on the edge of the grass area. Look up from the bird box on the tight, just a tad to the left.😂 

I can't wait for the next season. Those boys are going to be no push-overs for the old man.