What Color is Happy?

What color is happy?

I think it's yellow -  as in sun shine,

 smiley faces,

 black-eyed susans,

in a neighbors yard

 sunflowers.

at the senior citizen flower show

daiseys,

in my flower bed

and canola fields

planted along North Dakota Hwy.2.

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy

 and to do good while they live

(Ecclesiates 3:12)

I pray your days are filled with yellow!



Quigley Match

The really fun part of the Quigley Rifle Match - was the folks in costume. 

Everything we have involved ourselves in has it's own rules for appropriate attire.

Car shows - denim jacket with sequined 66 Chevy on the back - to match the car.

Motorcycles - leather jacket with fringe and gloves with fringe.

Cowboy stuff - suede jacket with fringe, big hat, and tall boots

Walk to Emmaus Retreat - rainbow striped jacket from Guatemala

Walking with Jesus - robe of righteousness (Isaiah 61:10)

OK.

Here's a few folks dressed up at the Quigley.

I love hats!

Wonder how this one worked in the wind

She wore it all weekend.

Calvary?

Love the Feather!

Great shade on a hot day.

This must be the saloon girl and the piano player.

She reminds me a little of Reba McEntire.

This is April, her dad was one of the creators of the match.

These darling girls, shot in the match!

She's wearing a shoulder pad under her prairie dress

to soften the gun's kick.

Shopping the vendor line.

This wasn't grandpa's first dress-up party.

This grandma shot too.

Wait, there's another piano player.

This red head wearing matching dress and hat

won the youth division.

My kind of boots - fringe - on another youth shooter!

This sharpshooter has a great ruffled shirt.

This amazing man has made all 20 matches in a wheelchair.

(He also made the North Dakota buffalo rifle -

I guess there's a little rivalry there.)

And this gal -

was properly dressed for who she is and what she does -

sells the handmade items of African women and sends the money back to them.

Her name is pronounced "ooh muh"

and she is from Cameroon.

Her sweet greeting when I walked up to her tent was,

"Hello, Love."

You know it - I bought....

So next year,

me and my Roy

will have raided our Texas closets

and will be there in all our wild west glory

But I think I'll skip the corset and the hoop skirt!

Buckets and Bucket Lists

It all started when the buffalo hunter's granddaughter let him hold the gun that killed the white buffalo.  The sacred buffalo was killed 136 years ago just 15 miles from our Texas home.  From that day, had the bug - it was on his bucket list before we knew about bucket lists.  He had to have one of those guns - a Sharps - a really long heavy gun that shoots a big bullet.    Then the sharps started showing up in movies like True Grit and Dances with Wolves and Toombstone and Quigley Down Under (which we have watched more times that I can count).



 In the movie, Matthew Quigley answers a hired gun advertisement in Austrailia and of course brings his big gun.  Now Quigley, Tom Selleck, can shoot the thing and hit a bucket 900 yards away (I think that's half a mile) not just once but everytime.  He was incredible.  And "Crazy Cora" was his mostly unwelcome sidekick. She called him "Roy".
 
My wannabe buffalo hunter found his sharps rifle at a gun show in Texas before he made it to the C. Sharps Arms Company in Big Timber Montana, where the gun is made.

Now, fast forward to last weekend, when we went to the Quigley Rifle Match in Forsyth, Montana. 

We brought the gun, lots of bullets, and all the movie lines we could remember. 

The rifle match was started by a couple of ranchers who came up with the idea for the Quigley match after they watched the movie.  The ranch owner of the ranch where the match was held, had moved to Montana as a 17 year old when his dad bought the ranch in 1940.  He says it was still open range - land without fences.  Wow.

And get this, he moved there from Sweetwater, Texas!
  Small world!

Here's me, Cora, practicing with the spotting scope
 before we headed for the firing line.

And there's Roy in Montana high skies totin' his 20 pound gun.

His first station was the buffalo

And here's the target, magnified to the max

He says it was so far away that is just looked like a black blob, not a buffalo

He had practiced with the gun only a few times,
 but still hit the target 3 out of 8 times. 

 Way to go Roy!

The 6th target station he shot, was in 40 mph wind,

 standing without a rest, shooting a target that was shaped like a bucket.

But not this bucket!

It's just a table decoration.

It was beautiful country and there must be a lot of lead in those hills. 

 There's the target far, far away!

There were 635 shooters at the match-

Quigleys, Coras, and Kids.

And here's the one that got away

What did you say, Roy?

One more thing on your bucket list?

A real buffalo?

Are you crazy?

My Herb Garden

Today was as perfect a day in North Dakota that a Texas country gal could ever wish for.  The temperature was 75, the breeze was only as occasional puff, and the blue clear sky (as Forrest Gump would say) couldn't have been better.

For all the trucks with bad exhausts, the hundreds of gas flares at the oil wells, and the influx of people, the sky is still cleaner than Texas.  By the way - North Dakota's population is 642,200.  Texas has six cities that exceed that number and yellow and gray skies over even much smaller bergs.

We've had almost daily rain for three weeks, so weed pulling and hoeing was easy today.

As I worked on the herb garden (parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme - actually it's parsley, mint, cilantro, and dill) their combined essence sent a wonderful happy smell to my nose.  Then I smelled them every time I walked by.  The herb garden is just outside the kitchen door as it should be - so it's just a step and a snip away.  I'm absolutely positive that all Mexican food must have cilantro and lots of it.  But chives are my new love and work in lots of dishes.

It all smells soooo good.

My herbs remind me of you.

"In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse."

The Message (emphasis mine)

(2 Corinthians 2:15-16)

My herb garden is like so many of you who are the fragrance of Christ. We smell you when we pass by, when we get close to you, and when we get involved in the garden of your life.

Thank you for being such an exquisite fragrance, a sweet scent,

 an aroma redolent with life!

Sowing and Reaping

Helene suggested that at least some of the plants in the flower beds

 might be 50 years old,

planted by Mrs. Prather.

There's always the possibility that Mrs. Olson

and Mrs. Presnall

also made contributions



to the already lovely flowerbeds.

So, Mrs. Prather sowed, watered and reaped a beautiful garden

Mrs. Olson watered and reaped what Mrs. Prather sowed.



Then Mrs. Presnall watered and reaped what Mrs. Prather and Mrs. Olson sowed.

Then I come along and water and reap

what Mrs. Prather

and Mrs. Olson

and Mrs. Presnall

have all sown.





" the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true"

(John 4:37

red because Jesus said it)

It's like the things we sow into our children,

watered by grandparents and teachers,

and then enjoyed by others whose lives they touch.

Of course, Jesus was probably talking about deep spiritual things,

but I sure have been reaping beauty

thanks to some ladies that certainly didn't

plant or water with me in mind.