???????

I put question marks for the title because I'm not sure what I will write about today.  Maybe I will figure out a title for it before I am finished and this will be changed, but I don't know right now.  Anyway, I do want to keep in touch with everyone, so here goes.

We have received a few orders for our gourmet jellies and artisan breads since the second Arrey Outdoor Bonanza, which I will in the future refer to as AOB.  I hope our sales continue to pick up.  If they do, we will invest in a slightly bigger water-bath canner.  I know some people love using a pressure canner, but I have always been terrified of them, and this late in life, I'm not going to try to use one now.  
We are offering selections of about 10 flavors of jelly and 10 varieties of breads.  So far, the breads are the big sellers, but we will continue offering the jellies for a little longer.  This was one of our tables at the second AOB.

Janice has been trying to improve the rec room, which has not had anything done to it in a very long time.  One camper, named Guy has been doing a lot of work on the electrical and plumbing in the kitchen area.  Janice wanted to rip out and replace the cupboards, so Guy set out to do that task........but quickly found out just how heavy said cupboards really were.  Jim has been helping him out for much of the last week now.  I haven't been over to see what they have done, but I think, if I understand what Jim said, they built a kind of platform to raise the cupboards up a little, and now have them in place.  There is a very heavy, and very old double sink that they hope to salvage, so today Jim is over there again, trying to steam clean the sinks, inside and out.  What he has accomplished is nothing short of amazing!!!!!

The sink on the right shows just how bad they were.  On the left is the first one he cleaned.  He of course cleaned both, so they look almost like new now.  I'm so proud of him for the good things he does for people.

Along with all of this, he also was trying to help his friend Ron, who left a few days ago to head back to Tex-Arkana.  While he was here, Ron was living in a truck camper.  He towed a truck behind on a trailer for use to get around while he was here.  As I understand it, truck campers CAN be taken off the back of the truck and supported on "stands" so the same truck could be used for local transportation.  Therefore, I don't exactly understand why he needed the second truck. While he was here, Ron bought a Honda Gold wing three wheel motorcycle (trike) with a tiny cargo trailer behind it.  On the right is a picture of the trike.
At first he wasn't sure how he would get the trike and trailer back home.  Problem solved,  he bought another trailer to put the trike and its trailer onto.  

Jim helped him to get the used trailer fixed so it could make the trip.  

He also helped Ron get #2 truck onto #1 trailer, and the trike and little trailer onto #2 trailer and get everything hooked up together for the trip east to Tex-Arkana.  


Our friends  Sherrie and Willie were supposed to be here until about June 3rd, but he said he got homesick and just wanted to go back to Coldfax, Louisiana as soon as he could.  They decided to pack up and leave on May 3rd, so they stopped digging for gold on the previous Saturday, and on Monday they started packing up.  Willie had sold his travel trailer to Billy (a guy who works here for Janice) and since they were all packed up, they left in their truck on Wednesday at 2:30 pm.  Sherrie kept in touch by text messages to let me know how far they had gotten.  The whole trip was 1036 miles, which would have been 4 or 5 travel days, with rest days in between for us.  They did over 800 miles before they stopped to catch a few hours of sleep, and made it to their home in under 24 hours!!!!!  We just could not do that.  No way, no how. 

It's not a good picture of her, but this is my friend Sherrie, and to the right is a picture of Willie.


I really do enjoy going to church here in TorC.  Pastor Dudley Bristow is quite a guy.  He is a wonderful Pastor and he can take a joke when members of the church poke fun at him.  I don't have an example of that right now, but I just wanted to say that he is very inspiring and also comforting.  A few weeks ago I asked to speak to him after church to ask a question about something someone said to me.  He lead me into a quieter area and he talked to me as much as I needed him to do, so I could feel confident in his answers to me.  I don't know if he reads my blogs, but if he does, I hope he knows how much I appreciated his time that morning.

The church bulletin always has good things to read in it too.  A few weeks ago one of the messages in the bulletin was "The Golden Rule is old,but it's as good as ever.  It hasn't been used often enough to wear it out."  I really liked that because we just can't use the Golden Rule TOO often.  I can't imagine anyone ever saying someone had done "unto others as he would like others to do unto him" too much.  We may never know the good a simple act of kindness can do for another person.  But in our hearts we will always know if we treat others in ways we would not want them to have treated us.  I would like to share another short writing that was in the bulletin the same day.  Again, I don't know who said it first, but I think it is worth repeating.

"If you planted HOPE today in any hopeless heart............
If someone's burden was lighter because you did your part.....
If you caused a laugh that chased someone's tears away........
If tonight your name is named when someone kneels to pray....
Then your day was well-spent."

Just food for thought folks.  Everyone you meet has their own problems, worries, pains, and concerns.  We should never be the one who makes that person's burden more than they can bear.  We should always be willing and able to spare a smile, a hug, a kind word.  As I said before, we may never know what good our actions did for another person.  We shouldn't be doing kindness expecting any kind of reward or even thanks for what we have done.  We should be kind to others because we know it's the right thing to do.  There is an awful lot of unkindness out in the world, and people need people to be kind whenever possible.  We can hope that others will want to be kind to us, and to others too.  Often acts of kindness are "paid forward."  

Last week Pastor Dudley was talking about angels.  It was very interesting, and at times confusing because I had many wrong ideas about who angels really are. I really thought angels were people who have died that want to help and comfort us.  The Bible says that angels are spiritual beings that God created to serve Him.  Christians who have died are much higher up than angels are.  Jesus said He would prepare a place for us in Heaven.  I also worried about babies and children who might have died before they could accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.  It was very comforting to know that when little children die they are  immediately taken to heaven.  When I was younger someone said to me that elderly people spend more time reading the Bible because they are "cramming for their final exam."  I guess we are there now!!!  After all, another person told me that BIBLE means:
Basic
Instructions
Before 
Leaving
Earth.

Anyway, have a wonderful day, and weekend, and life.  Please be kinder to others and pray they will pass it along.  Remember that Jesus loves you and that is the greatest gift you could ever have.