American Loon

Once upon a time, I was content with grabbing my camera and snapping a photo of the birds that came to our feeder. Then, because we live in a fallen world, the Grackles and Starlings showed up and chased all the photogenic birds away. Fine, I thought, we will leave up the nectar feeders and watch the Orioles and Hummingbirds and be content with that. However, the ants showed up in such great numbers, they irritated the Orioles so much that they found less ant plagued feeders in the neighborhood and rarely come now. And I brooded…

I recalled living in a Southern land and having mastery over the skies.

I also recalled getting bit by tiny voracious bugs known as chiggers, as I stood in the grass, piloting my flying machine. I amended my memories of that time, and have relabeled them as bittersweet rather than halcion like.

Not everything is what it once was. While I could stride the land and do many wonderful things back then, I was not at peace, even with all I could do. Little did I know that the good Lord had plans for me, and through the mystery of undeserved grace, (Romans 5:15-17) allowed me to finish remodeling our house and have it be sold the first day on the market, for cash and more than we were asking, and just like that, we ended up back in Minnesota, where we had started, some 19 years ago. Looking back and knowing what I know now, it can only be providence as the way home was smoothed before us.

And then the Lord grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and made it very clear, I was now His. As I said, the mystery of undeserved grace. The last 5 years here have been one of reduction and addition. He took from me the skills of my body, I found out I had ALS about 6 months after we arrived home. He left me the knowledge I had acquired and kept my mind sharp and questing. He added to me a living heart and one that loved His word. I was allowed to learn about charismatic ministries and found them to be a false gospel and a false hope. Our only hope is Christ. (John 4:13-14) He led me to teach bible study and to disciple believers hungry for the word. As of last month, He allowed me to preach in our church when our pastor was on vacation. All of it a mystery to me as to why He pulled me from Hell’s grasp and blessed me with life.

Back to the brooding. I was not displeased with life and how it had turned out. The peace (Romans 5:1) granted to me, completely undeserved, but available to all believers, was a blessing beyond all understanding. Even though I have very little feeling in my feet or hands, and am pretty much housebound, I do not feel disabled. People are taken aback at this, expecting a tale of woe. I am at peace and serving the Lord, what’s to woe about?

I had a thought that I could fly a bit as quite a few people have mentioned to me that they would like to fly a drone too, so maybe this could stir up a conversation that includes the Lord. Since I don’t get out much, I have been amazed as people have been directed to me who need to hear about Jesus or maybe their faith needs a bit of stirring up. I don’t know how it works, but God’s got the details all worked out.

My fingers are a fair bit less responsive than the last time I was flying a drone, but somebody built an app (Litchi) to automate most of what you have to do with flying a drone and taking pictures. And since I have Photoshop, I can do a series of photos and let Photoshop stitch them together. That’s what we have here, from my first flight. Since Photoshop uses an algorithm that dictates how it should stitch photos together, it could care less if you have an odd perspective or shaky fingers or any of that stuff. Thankfully, it also lets you warp images just fine, hence the image you see here is a wee bit bent in areas. Ignore reality and run with it.

You should be able to enlarge the image to see all the details in their warped glory, at least I can on my Mac, I just spread my fingers apart on the touchpad. Your mileage may vary on whatever platform you use.

“There is nothing wrong with your Computer. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now controlling the transmission. We control the horizontal and the vertical.”

We had a chance to spend some time at the Cordes family cabin last month, and sister-in-law Julie with her friend Alicia, came up from Kansas. We had all gathered together to celebrate Julie’s birthday. It is a beautiful place on a nice quiet lake in the woods of Wisconsin. The cabin will sleep about 20 with ease, so the 10 of us had plenty of room.

Got there in the afternoon and by the time all the hugs and handshakes and what not had gone on, it was evening and what happens in this family is the games come out. I am not a game player, but I hung around, whispering clues to my wife and listening to all the laughter.

The next day, after breakfast and a second helping of coffee, most of us headed down to the dock and Patti, Julie and Alicia wanted to take the paddleboards out before the breeze picked up on the lake.

Leighton wandered down to the dock, and the next thing you know, he noticed the dock frame had broken from the paddleboard rack. And he proceeds to get in the water and starts to fix it. My job is not falling off the dock and taking pictures, so I stuck to my job.

It was a beautifully mild June day and not many mosquitoes, so sitting by the fire pit and listening to Julie sing was a treat. That evening we went out to eat and listen to one of the locals sing, who happens to be a retired cardiac doctor and a fanboy of Bob Dylan. Mr Dylan and I are not on speaking terms and probably have been that way since 1969 or so. Everybody had some salad thing to eat, but I stuck to bread and water and called it good.

More games after we got home and they went way late into the night. About 1 am I heard guitars and singing from the basement, where Julie and Alicia were staying and I think it was Bob Dylan stuff to boot. It eventually petered out around 2 am-ish and a guy could sleep.

The next day was damp with sprinkles, and the ladies all went into Hayward for some shopping. Us men decided to drive the backwood roads in search of an Elk or maybe a Bear. We saw neither, but did happen upon 2 separate snapping turtles laying eggs on the side of the road. On the way home we came upon something a bit out of the ordinary. This is Ojibwe country and there is a reservation of theirs very near here. What we drove past was a cemetery of theirs.

Little wooden huts in which their relatives come and put things into these huts of their dead. Cigarettes, candy, jerky, and other things are placed in these huts. We got home about the same time the ladies did and the evening proceeded with more music, games and laughter.

Church Service with family, at the cabin.

The next day was Sunday and after breakfast, we arranged ourselves about the main floor and sang several songs of praise unto our Lord and Savior and I gave the sermon. It was the one written for next Sunday at our church, so it gave me a good chance to practice it with my family. That afternoon, we took the pontoon out and had a great time. Much singing, love and laughter.

We cruised right past a Loon and got sprinkled upon on the way home.

That evening, we went to a fish fry place, Pine Ridge on Sissabagama Lake, which lake, from the air, looks like an old man running, sort of. This is a popular place to eat and it is first come, first served.

We put our name in and ended up waiting outside the restaurant under the covered porch attached to the building. There we sat with another family waiting to eat. It was Alicia and Julie along with myself and my wife on our side. We also had the family that was waiting to eat in our grouping. The rest of us, that would be Randy, Patti, Carol, Ronda and Leighton, were on the other side, and the people entering and leaving the restaurant walked in between us. Alicia turns to Julie and says “I have a rap song I am working on and would like to try it now, and you need to sing the chorus, you know the one…”

And then she points to me and tells me I need to thump my feet to the beat, and I think to myself oh yeah, back home I’m known as Mr. Rhythm. She starts out rapping the tune, I start thumping my beat erratically as it’s the way my people, and Julie starts singing the chorus at the appropriate time. The people sitting next to us, who we do not know, are just smiling and starting to make mouth noises like they’re trying to sing along. Pretty soon we’re thumping the whole porch. People walking past and into the restaurant are smiling and bobbing their heads and it goes on like this for the next 30 minutes, one song after another. Those people sitting next to us, who’d been smiling and singing along with us, were called in to eat and then we were next, and entered the building. It is a large place divided into two sections, with two long tables in our section, we filled 1 table and the party who was sitting next to us singing outside, filled the other table. We place our orders, and it’s basically all you can eat chicken strips, fried fish or broiled fish if you prefer. You get a glass of wine and coleslaw, fry bread and eat as much as you want.

Julie gets up and heads to the ladies room. When she was out of ear shot, Alicia tells everyone in our group to sing Happy Birthday when she comes back to the table. And so we do, and so does the entire other table across the room. It was a great time and I ate too much. More games when we got home and more singing.

The next day was a travel day for our group of Leighton, Ronda, myself and my wife. We were headed back home. Carol, who had ridden up with us, was staying another week and Julie and Alicia were headed to South Dakota to visit Jessica and family, Leighton and Ronda’s daughter. The whole trip we saw 2 snapping turtles and one Loon, no Elk or Bears. We were about 7 miles out from the cabin on State Road 70 and Ronda was whining that she hadn’t seen any Bears. As she was saying this, I observed a Mamma Bear, 2 cubs of this year and a yearling bear with them. Mamma was sniffing a cabin porch, and her little ones were gathered around her. Leighton wheels the car around and Ronda takes a few pictures and I got a video of them. We could then go home satisfied and at peace. A good time was had by all.