I love this photo taken by our daughter Faith. First, I think the photo itself showcases her photography gifting. Second, I enjoy the walks we take in the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, also called Pine Creek Gorge, where she took this photo. And finally, I love it because I love the whitetail deer!
If asked my favorite sport, I’d say, “Spotting deer.” As evening falls at the cabin, most of us start changing clothes and getting flashlights and cameras ready for one of the most fun parts of our day. In the higher mountains, cooler air from a rolled-down window brings a chill not there during the day, so shorts and T-shirts are exchanged for jeans and sweatshirts. In my childhood and part of our daughters’, we would need heavy coats and gloves to keep warm enough. Global warming, I suppose. Smaller children get pajamas so they can transition to bed easier once we get back.
Discussions come next about who rides in whose car. Young people prefer to ride together so they can chat; older people prefer the luxury of space to sit in comfort. And the rest, well, they get shoved in here and there. Then we pick where to start for drivers to know the route for the caravan. Do we begin on “Alan’s Road,” so dubbed after my Uncle Alan bought his own camp on it? Or take a chance at seeing a bear near Lyman Lake before it got dark?
Last, arguments break out if there are any youth along about whose turn it is to use the spotlight. This coveted position gives the one spotting the best view of the deer or bear or porcupine or, if certain people are along, a yeti (for those who believe in that story or to scare those who don’t).
My excitement equals that of the youngest spotters as we turn onto the first dirt road. 
Watching the spotlight or the headlights, depending on our seat in the car, we wait for glimpses of shining eyes in the spotlight or some critter crossing the road in front of us. I never lose the delight of a doe’s warm eyes if close enough to see them or of the white spots dotting the tiny fawns. I never tire of using the binoculars to see if the deer sports antlers to excite the hunters in the car. And I never forget the count … um, was that fifty-two or fifty-three … oh well, maybe I do.
God blessed us with an amazing world full of animals to watch and care for and love. To me, the sight of deer frolicking in a meadow or stretching their graceful necks to reach the apples on the tree will never fail to bring a smile and fill my day with an extra measure of joy.
*** Did you ever go spotting deer? Tell us about your times or about another “deer” story you have in mind. Click on the words beside the date of this post. Scroll down to the box with the heading, “Leave a reply.” Thank you for sharing!
*** If you leave a comment, check back for my reply to it. I always respond to comments!
*** Next week, in honor of back-to-school, I’ll share a story from our homeschool days!
bends in the road from Galeton, PA, toward camp never lessens. I inch forward on the seat, straining against the seatbelt, picturing the final turn. There it is! The farm where the owner lives and the barn where he used to milk his cows in days gone by. (I would watch the owner’s kids bring the cows from the pasture, across the creek, and down the lane to the barn, only to repeat it the next morning in reverse.) The lane, tucked between the two buildings, never changes, except from rutted and dusty in the hottest months to rutted and muddy from recent rain showers.
heaven—even if it’s only for a week.
Thunder echoed through the hollow, rattling the loose window pane in the cabin door. The afternoon’s thunderstorm had grown into a wailing, angry force, and with the darkness, it seemed to be trying to fight its way inside the cabin. Rain pounded the roof, wind howled and whipped the walls and windows. Lightning bolts streaked across the night sky, leaving eerie periods of illumination.
the earlier part of the day, change to something from a movie about whitewater rafting. Huge crashes, one after another, sounded like dynamite exploding, first up the hollow a ways, then closer, in front of the cabin in which we sat listening, shivering, wondering if the building would blow apart any second.
yesterday, nor of the years I’d spent wading its waters. During the night, what we mistook for thunder was huge boulders tossed by rising waters. Rocks, as large as monster truck tires, had been tossed like leaves across the water and deposited in another section of the creek hundreds of feet downstream. The power necessary to uproot these boulders from where they’d sat for who knows how long and tumble them like children’s building blocks to a new resting place, seemed unimaginable. We’d heard it, we saw the aftermath, but we couldn’t take it in. 
I fell in love with cross-stitch the first time I made a sample kit at a party. I figured this would be like many sales party where you gather with friends to hear about some products and spend money you don’t have through a sense of obligation to the hostess. And the best part comes when they break out the yummy treats at the end!
next 40 years. I gobbled up every pattern, bought scads of embroidery floss, completed kits and pictures for gift-giving. Then I infected my mother-in-law with the bug, and she cross-stitched larger projects than I liked tackling, such one with three angels she made for me because of our three daughters.
hing, using a piece of the waste canvas which can then be pulled out of the finished design thread by thread. I cross-stitched on tote bags, nylon wallets, clothing, a bowling towel, and more. I even created my own line of cross-stitched ties, mostly forest animals, which my husband loved showing off at work, including a deer which we had to turn into Rudolph for Christmastime.
thought of what wonderful words they should type next. Then came the well-known sound of the backspace bar as sentences were written … re-written … deleted … changed … written the same way as the first time … and then deleted again. Finally, one of them would grab a jar of peanut butter which was never too far away, and they’d scoop out a spoonful to eat as they thought. Somehow, the magic never failed and soon they would be back to typing away.
Now, as the Montrose Christian Writers Conference draws closer, I am spending more and more time in front of my computer trying to write furiously. But with extra writing comes extra writer’s block, and I will be forever grateful that my mom and sister instilled me with the great peanut butter secret. Dipping a spoon into a jar of creamy goodness (crunchy peanut butter is an abomination) always starts my creative juices flowing again. I like to think the stickiness is pulling the block away, leaving a fresh path of thought in its wake. As I’ve said before and I’ll say again: “Writing Peanut Butter to the rescue!”
This week’s story word begins with a capital letter: July. Most people in PA think summer, Independence Day, swimming, picnics, and vacations. I could stories about those, some funny (one vacation in Potter County when I slept in a bed with my aunt, woke during the night, whacked her with my stuffed horse, then lay down and went to sleep), some exciting (the 4th of July fireworks display in Galeton, PA, where we sat right under the place they exploded and had embers cascading over us), some scary (the year 1995 when I went into premature labor around eight weeks into the pregnancy and was put on immediate bedrest for the duration … all went well in the end, daughter #3 only three weeks early).
everything Christmas since I shoved off the covers Christmas morning, anxious for Mom and Dad to call us to come down to check what filled our stockings. Fun traditions from my childhood Christmases spilled over into our daughters’ lives, including a few new ones. I’ll share about those in detail over December blog posts (I know, teaser!).
One hot day, our daughter, Faith, brought me a delightful surprise—a Christmas-in-July gift! She’d stopped at our local florist for a bouquet of red, green, and white flowers. The owner searched for a tiny Christmas notecard and a plastic Christmas tree pick to add to the festive holiday ensemble. Faith had also picked up a new notebook and a two-pack of pretty designer pens for me to use on a special writing project. And she topped it off with a cold bottle of Starbucks’ vanilla Frappuccino.
When I think of words which entice memories from all five senses, pickles come early on the list. I see mounded dirt covered with green vines, tiny hands moving the leaves to peek at midget cucumbers growing. I feel prickly skins as I scrubbed them prior to slicing and dicing for canning. I smell pervasive odors of onions and vinegar as we mixed them with the pickling 
spices. And taste … ah, those canned bread and butter pickles, a bit sweet, a bit tart. My senses reel with the memories.
At the roller rink where I spent my teen years, they offered live organ music to skate by. I can still hear lilting melodies perfect for free-spirited wheeling around the floor. Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” melted into “Rockin’ Robin” from the 1950s. We “shook, rattled, and rolled” with Bill Haley’s hit, then slowed for a couples’ skate to Bobby Darin’s “Dream Lover.” 
Today, another pickle brings me much joy, and since it IS Christmas-in-July time, let’s talk about it! Early in our daughters’ childhood, we found a unique ornament—a blown-glass pickle with a story. Always drawn to things with stories, we read how the pickle tradition started in Germany. Parents hid the ornament in the Christmas tree after the children fell asleep. Christmas morning found the kiddos scrambling to be the first to find the pickle, for the one who did received an extra gift! We bought that pickle and continue to hang it today, granting the find-ee a special gift (usually something to share with everyone—a box of Pop Tarts or cocoa).
pumpkin (not the jack-o-lantern kind, but the let’s-bake-a-pie kind) and turned it into a goose! She stood it up, painted eyes on the small head-end, painted the stem-beak black, and added a felt scarf around its neck. I smiled at her ingenuity and creative spirit. Set by our Ben Franklin stove with a few gourds tucked around his “feet,” he made quite a fetching fall display.
Several memories surface, one flying straight to the front of the flock. Remember when prizes for finding the “special” eggs at a community Easter egg hunt included livestock? And not goldfish in plastic bags. Chicks, ducklings, and bunnies topped the list … even colored chicks! (Which I hope they have outlawed now!)
legaciesletloose 