Author: Timothy

I am a Christian, a husband, father, and friend, with the calling of an itinerant pastor. I also serve special needs kids in the public schools.

Backyard Bliss

I do miss the backyard from our home in Terrell. It was far from perfect, but it was ours and we loved spending time there, especially with friends and family, next to a fire in the pit.

In fact, looking back on it now, it was the imperfection of the yard itself that made it so lovable. The grass, wasn’t really grass. The fence, was so old that it had a green hue to it, and was painted an ugly tan on the outside of it, to hide its true age. Every time I dug or planted anything anywhere, I came across broken glass. The squirrels were vicious with my tomatoes. I eventually discovered a poorly made sidewalk from the deck back to the dog house, that I had to break up. Even in my compost pile, I was challenged by the number of pecans that sprouted up. And no, the pecans were never big enough to eat.

Yet, with all those imperfections, it was our yard and I realize how much I miss it. Living in an apartment frees me up from having to cut grass (weeds), but I enjoyed that. It was my patch of dirt to work and tend.

 

Swimming Bottomless Lakes State Park

Taken back in June 2012. The boys and I loved the swimming hole. I’m told this particular hole doesn’t have a bottom until around 95 feet, so they are not quite bottomless.

You can get a better view of the swimming hole by going to my earlier post with pictures taken from above, here.

 

Extra Baseballs

Out on a walk, near the high school behind our apartment complex, I found these two baseballs on the walking track. Some industrious athlete hit them over the left field wall of the ball park there, and decided he didn’t need to shag balls. Their loss, my boys gain.

I put them to use teaching my boys to throw and catch. We haven’t started working on hitting yet, since we don’t have a bat. But as it warms us, and gets closer to baseball season, I think I will get one.

 

Streams of Living Water: Watauga River

This is one of the things I love about Tennessee. They have streams like the one below, that flow year around. In Texas, the only time a stream like the one below has water in it, is after a rain. This was a new discovery on my first trip to Eastern Tennessee as a newlywed. There was a stream just like the one below flowing through some people’s front yard, and I asked if it ever dried up. Heidi told me it ran all year long. “How is that possible?”