by Julie Williams

Snow-
bound

It was 1970 and the wind wrapped three feet of wet snow around our home, barn and kennel. Snowbound! Hooray, no school! Sledding and building snowmen occupied part of our day and Grandma D., queen of our kitchen, started a triple batch of chocolate chip cookies. She had all of the ingredients except vanilla--oh dear.

Our house stood near the woods on a hill above Stubbs Bay, and around the shoreline to the east was a little country store, a white clapboard lake house with wooden steps to the front door--an antiquated reminder of another era.

“Are you open this afternoon”, I asked over the phone?

“One more hour”, the old store keeper replied. “Better hurry."

I could turn this into a real adventure. With memories of television shows like Sergeant Preston and King of the Yukon, I ran to the barn. Before long, I climbed into the saddle, and Bita and I headed down the hill, hot vapor from his nostrils pluming around his head.

My little bay gelding, a half-Arabian, was ready for whatever came. We plunged through chest deep snowdrifts until we found the road. The silence of the countryside fell around us, hushed except for the alarms of blue jays and the occassional chick-a-dee-dee-dee.

A mile of deep hoof prints trailed behind us and soon I tied my horse to a pine bough and stomped up the wooden steps of the cottage store. The old gent', in white butcher’s apron and black knit cap, nodded as I came through the door. My Sorrel boots squeeked on the bare floor boards as I walked down the aisles. I dug folded dollar bills from my denim pocket and set the last bottle of vanilla on the counter as the clock struck four

Grandma fussed that she’d inconvenienced me that afternoon, but I felt the conquering heroine. What fun to adventure into the wintry world! The cookies were perfect, of course!

Julie Williams (c)2006

by Karan Koelling

Mother’s Promise

When I was a child, my mother told me about a personal experience that happened when she was fourteen years old.

She related that she’d been hospitalized for six weeks with a recurrence of rheumatic fever. One day she overheard the doctor inform her father that there was no hope for her recovery.

Later, in the quiet of that hospital room, mother began praying earnestly. She promised God that if He would allow her to live, she would live her life in service to Him.

In time Mom recovered. Although her lungs and heart were damaged, she was able to lead a fairly normal life. She never forgot the promise she’d made in that hospital room. Her faith was a vital part of everyday life.

My earliest memories are of riding in the saddle in front of mother as we rode old Bing after the milk cows. Mom sang hymns as we loped along the cow trail, and soon I was joining in on the refrains.

Every morning after farm chores and a hot breakfast, our family remained at the kitchen table for a time of Bible reading and prayer. This was our spiritual nourishment for the day.

Later, during my adulthood, it was always comforting to know that at 7:30 each morning my parents were praying for God’s “watchful care over Karan and her family.”

Mom’s faith shaped a life of loving service to others. She kept her promise, and I’m forever grateful.

Karan Koelling (c) Feb. 2006 first published in MAMMA SAID, 2006

by Karan Koelling

Change!

Winds of change are a blowin'.
Gentle breezes caress and refresh,
Ushering in
A new family member,
Retirement adventures,
A stronger marriage bond.
Change!

Winds of change are a blowin'
Howling gales,
Propelling one into life's storms,
Inflicting hurt and grief
In the midst of
A broken relationship,
A life-threatening illness,
A loved one's death,
Change!

Winds of change are a blowin'
Through the years,
Etching furrows on aging skin,
Eroding the body, but not the spirit.
Choose to let go;
These winds will carry you
To loftier heights of
Wisdom,
Faith,
And courage.
Change!

by Karan Koelling

Master Mechanic

The Bible refers to Jesus as "The Good Shepherd" and "The Light of the World".
Sometimes when I'm feeling broken and full of sin, I think of Him as a "Master Mechanic".

O Lord, Master Mechanic, help! I need a tune-up and repairs. Examine my heart and see what's wrong.

You say that the fuel line is clogged? Pride, anxiety, and doubt have been lurking there? No wonder your loving spirit hasn't been flowing freely through me.

New generator? OK, Lord. Replace the old self-centered motivations and self-sufficiency with Your Power Source.

I need shock absorbers---the strong abiding faith that cushions when the traveling becomes bumpy.

A new distributor? I'm sorry. I've not always distributed love to those I meet on the road. It's easy to love one's family and close friends...but You call me to reach out to the stranger and to love and forgive the one who misunderstands or annoys me. Please, Lord, help me distribute Your love freely.

I also need new tires. The tread on my patience has been wearing awfully thin. We've had some dangerous "blow-outs" when the children were with me.

Lord, thank you for sending your Son to redeem lives. Forgive the sins I've
confessed to you. Cleanse and renew me, I pray. Amen

by Julie Williams

It was 1934, and the warm blush of red maples was just beginning to reflect on the quiet waters of Boulder Lake when my grandparents put a down payment on a small resort in Wisconsin’s North Woods. SYD DOOLITTLE'S RESORT OF THE WOODS was born and cabins were added to accommodate fifty guests. Through Rosabel’s superb cooking, and Syd’s professional fishing guide services for anglers, they received national acclaim as a vacation destination. Grandpa spent each winter hand writing personal letters to their guests, personally inviting them back to share in the prospective summer's events. North Woods memories fill my early years until their retirement in 1958.

After Grandpa passed away, Grandma spent the school seasons with us, and taught my sisters and I her baking skills. Home Economics was still a required course for high school girls in the 1960’s, and I wasn’t pleased with the prospects of taking this class. After all, Grandma was a professional cook and had been teaching me for years. I was paired up in Home Ec’ with an extrovert brunette from the yearbook committee. During class instruction, I was constantly turning to her and contradicting the teacher's instructions with, “But, Grandma’ says…”. I did manage to pass that class, despite my great attitude.

One of the yearbook projects was the pairing up of each graduate with a personal motto. When the class yearbook finally arrived, sure enough, under my picture were the words: “My Grandma Says…” <>Grandma’s influence shaped many of my cooking and life skills. Through disappointments and frustrations, whether in the kitchen or elsewhere, I eventually come back to her words, so firmly and quietly spoken----“Attitude is everything, dear”.

Those words still ring true in my heart today. Attitude IS [still] everything. Thank you, Grandma Doolittle.

by Karan Koelling

The Friendship Egg

It began with a chicken egg and a six-year-old girl’s curiosity. I was that young Kansas farm girl.

One March day in 1947 after gathering the eggs, my mother and I took them to the cool storm cellar. There we cleaned them and placed them in the large cardboard egg carton. As I held a fresh egg in my hand, I began wondering, “Where will this egg go?” “Who will eat it?”

In an effort to answer those questions, Mother helped me print a message on the egg: “Write to Karan Sue Ferguson, Age 6, Longford, Kansas.” We slipped that egg into the cardboard carton, and later my father loaded the carton of eggs in his pick-up truck and hauled it to the Longford Produce to sell.

Months passed. One hot day in June, I walked to the mailbox to get our mail. Standing on tiptoe to reach inside the mailbox, I pulled out a long envelope with a whole row of air mail stamps parading across the top; it was addressed to me! My bare feet raced over the hot rocky driveway, as I took the letter to Mother. It was post marked, “Valparaiso, Chile”, and it came from a cook on board a ship carrying refugees to new homes following World War II. The cook, William Lukesh, had discovered my egg while he was cooking breakfast for the ship’s passengers. He saved the egg shell and took it to his cabin, where he later wrote the letter to me. William and his wife, Marie, lived in New York City. He had seen other eggs with girls’ names on them, but he had never answered them, because he was a married man. However, this egg was from a six-year-old farm girl in Kansas, and he did not want to disappoint her.

William asked if he could send me picture post cards from some of the places where his ship docked. My parents thought that was a wonderful idea, so we purchased a scrapbook and entitled it, “The Egg and I”.

Soon the colorful post cards began arriving. Before they were placed in the scrapbook, I took them to school where Miss Jackie, my second grade teacher, tacked them on our classroom bulletin board. At school we studied a world map to locate the places from which the post cards originated. Although my new friend was not really my relative, I addressed him as “Uncle Bill” when I answered his post cards.

In November, 1947, Uncle Bill sent me the first of twelve dolls. That first one came from his home in New York City. How exciting it was for me to receive those packages of dolls from faraway places: Italy; Peru; Trinidad; Ceylon; Argentina; Germany; and Panama. All were beautiful in their native dress!
The biggest thrill came in July, 1948, when Uncle Bill and Aunt Marie took a Greyhound bus tour across the United States. They left the bus tour when they arrived at Abilene, Kansas. There they boarded a passenger train and rode twenty five miles to the small town of Longford. I remember receiving the telephone call from Uncle Bill, saying “We are at the train depot in Longford.” It didn’t take us long to drive the three miles to Longford and get them. They spent three days on the farm with us. We offered to take them sightseeing, but they insisted that they wanted to stay on the farm. Uncle Bill enjoyed watching the cows being milked and helping to shock oats.

On Sunday during their visit we ate dinner at Grandma’s house in Longford, and Miss Jackie joined us for dinner, along with my Uncle Don, Aunt Frances, and cousin, Donna.

On the third day we took our special guests to Abilene, where we showed them Dwight D. Eisenhower’s boyhood home. I remember feeling sad, as my friends from New York City boarded the bus. Before departing, Uncle Bill handed me an envelope containing a ten dollar bill. He encouraged me to continue piano lessons and to keep up the good grades in school.

Sadly, over the years, we lost contact with our New York friends. A kind and generous man on a distant ship brought a wonderful adventure to a young farm girl, and she has never forgotten his friendship.

by Linda S. Cone

The Homecoming


He entered.
She noticed.
He waited.
She wondered.
He looked.
She smiled.
He asked.
She answered.
He led.
She followed.

He kissed.
She quivered.
He rose.
She reached.
He poised.
She placed.
He pressed.
She parted.
He sank.
She surrounded.

They shuddered.
They dissolved.
They were home.

Home was the essence of love,
One heart residing within another.

Linda S Cone
7-10-2008
Excerpt from “I Hope You Dance”

by Julie Williams

I strolled up the hill.

The rasping call of crows
Cut through November’s crying wind,
An owl swept into the old cottonwood,
Talons reaching for a gnarled branch.
My heart yearned for spring again,
Not the cold of winter

Slipping into late autumn.
Julie Williams
(c) 2008

_____________________________

Some people are pure extract, and others are imitation flavoring.
Julie Williams © 2005

____________________________________________________________________

Winter’s Twilight

In that silken hour of twilight
Betwixt silent night and yawning day
The prairie hills and midnight sky
Met upon horizon’s bower.
The moon bent low
With streaming hair
To lay her lips
Upon the hills below;
Then reaching outward
Through the heavens,
She flung her diamonds
Across the fields of snow.

Julie Williams (c) 2006

_______________________________________

Exercise #2334 Create something in 50 words or
less, using these six seed words. (from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/writerspark/ )

Tinker
Diner
Nestle
Rumble
Floss
Signal


“You’ll tinker with dinner, but not at the diner”,
He said with a rumble and roar.
“You’ll wrestle, not nestle, with pillows in bed
And leave me no room but the floor.
Your signal is clear, I should floss, then get lost!
Well, FINE!” and he stomped out the door.

Julie Williams (c)

________________________________________________________

Time Enough

Laura patted the dough’s floured surface and turned it into her grandmother’s bread bowl . She laid waxed paper across its worn antique rim and laid a warm damp towel over the top. Laura glanced at the clock on the far kitchen wall. Just a few minutes she thought to herself, a few minutes before the school bus rumbles down the road.

The screen door slammed behind her. She walked through the backyard, past a patchwork quilt flapping on the clothes line, and towards the meadow. Laura slid carefully between the strands of barbed wire and jogged toward her favorite place. Kicking off soft brown leather boots, she wiggled her toes in the cool grass and gazed out across the sweep of grassland.

Meadowlarks and black birds trilled and warbled; a pheasant squawked in the distance. Cedar Creek, swollen from the rain, spread into sparkling sapphire pools. A breeze sent the water licking against emerald grass that rolled over the hills to met the sky. It had been only eight years since marrying Thomas, but Laura had come to think of this as her land, her prairie. It was where she belonged –- home.

Julie Williams (c) 2008

_________________________________________________________________

Boulder Lake

Come to the rest
Where boughs bend and sway
Come to the water
Where the deer come to play

And drink in the call
Of the haunting loon’s lake
Then watch the sun rise
When from darkness it breaks.

Carry on wings
Of Easterly breeze
The warm healing sun
That cleans and brings ease.

Dip ‘neath the surface
With purified hand,
Let the water run through
Like hourglass sand.

Clothe your strong feet
With sandals so bright
Shod in the glory
Of Love’s blinding light;

They’ll carry you forth
Into new territories
Discover the secrets
And retell the stories.

Beyond the sight’s place
Where horizons are lost,
You’ll journey the pathways
Casting off all the dross;

And ‘ere the road ends
Where the world passes sight
You’ll run in the laughter
‘round the last bend
taking to wing to lift off in flight!

Julie Williams (c) 1994

~

by Julie Williams

Death came softly. It’s not like we weren’t expecting it, but sitting on the edge of his bed, I’d watched Stan’s life slip away, one slow breath at a time. I looked at his wonderful face, full of faint lines etched from years of laughter and love, and thought of the last joke we’d shared, the last time he smiled and said, “I love you, Starshine”. Now he looked asleep---not gone. He might open his eyes any moment, smile at me one more time.

The sense of him, the who-and-what he was, didn’t feel gone. How could he be gone? I held his gentle hand between mine, and slowly traced figure eights across the knuckles and thought of the strength and caring in his hands. Stan could put his whole heart into even the briefest touch. I couldn’t let go. I just couldn’t! Tears broke past the edges of my soul, threatening to sweep me past this last moment of sharing with him. I gulped in a couple of deep breaths and held on tighter to his cooling hand. Just a few more minutes, please! I’m not ready yet.

I could feel the chill of winter slipping in as the last weak rays of the January sun fled into the woods. Dusk and a sense of aloneness overtook the room. I could almost hear his voice, quiet and warm in my ear. “It’s time to go, dear. It’ll be okay. Remember, I won’t be far.” But I wondered, as warm tears filled my eyes, if feeling him, hearing him, believing in that—-if it might last. I hoped so. I didn’t want that belief, that sense of him, to ever really stop. Julie Williams (c) 2005 Published by Grief Digest

by Julie Williams

D & D First Lady

Oh sweet mare, with coat of black silk
That shines like night and gives back the light;
You’ve left me---gone as swiftly as you came.
Our ride across the prairie’s green,
O’er hills and meadow trails
Was all we had before you said good-bye.
Run free and wild through heaven’s stars and
Join the herds that run in verdant valleys
‘Neath Heaven’s craggy snow topped peaks.
Plunge your nostrils deep in ice-cold streams
That chuckle down the mountain slopes and
Nip the azure blooms that nod and dance
‘Neath heaven’s golden sun.
I’ve still much to learn while I am here
So I’ll wipe away my tears and let you go,
But keep one ear cocked my way.
One day I’ll cross that rainbow bridge myself
And I’d like it so, if you’d meet me there.

Julie Williams ©2007 (Published 2008 in: The Morgan Horse Magazine)

by Julie Williams

Loving is the glowing key
Unlocking every door
Bringing us true laughter
And lightening every chore.

Coursing through our lifetimes
Are golden points of Light,
Memories that gild our living
To show us life’s all right!

Julie Williams (c) 1993