Bittersweet Farm

Here is another gleaning from an old journal:

Last night I went to sleep before the moon rose. One of my last waking acts was to reach over and get my glasses and look at the stars high in the dome of heaven through the trees. Yesterday I read 200 pages of Pilgrim’s Progress. I would like to finish it later today and read two more books while I am here this week.

Last night I read an essay about expository preaching. It was helpful. I have in me such a love and desire to preach and teach the Scriptures.

We just returned from a trip to Copper Harbor at the very tip of the Keewanaw Peninsula, the northernmost tip of the State of Michigan. It was a good day. We drove to Houghton before we stopped. From there we drove to Eagle River where after posing for a picture at a beautiful falls within my first sight of Lake Superior. As we drove away we noticed a sign for Gitche Gumee Bible Camp. I have always been interested in it but I had never been here before. We stopped to visit and spoke to the director who turned out to be the brother of an old friend from Mt. Vernon, Ohio. His great grandfather fought with the Union Army in the Civil War and he gave me a self-published book of his letters.

A few miles north of Eagle River we stopped at a quaint roadside bakery called the Jam Pot. It was a tidy little shop warm with inviting smells run by a monastery. We had a brief chat with a novitiate who sold us a delicious pound cake the quality all out of proportion to it’s modest size. He seemed like a nice fellow. I asked him to give me the two-paragraph synopsis of what his religious order was all about. I wished I could send him John Piper’s new book on Justification by Faith. We walked back the road to a beautiful waterfall and climbed to the top for some pictures. After coming down I was washing my hands in the water pooled at the base of the falls and Lois tossed some rocks my way in an attempt to splash me. She has a double standard when it comes to things like that. If she does them they are funny. If I do them it is a Jihad.

A few miles up the road we stopped at a quaint old General Store in Eagle Harbor. When we arrived there a fog had come in off the Lake and hung over the harbor. It looked like the Maine coast. The harbor water was gray and cold and still. The harbor was lined with rocks. The village was quaint with well-maintained houses. We climbed an observation deck looking out over Lake Superior and snapped some more pictures near the Eagle Harbor lighthouse. It was cold near the lake. After spending a few minutes climbing rocks in the harbor we continued on our way driving along Brockman Mountain Parkway ending out over Copper Harbor. We descended the winding road into the village.

The Copper Harbor light is quaint out across the mouth of the harbor. The boys spent some time throwing rocks in the water and we started back along a beautiful winding stretch of good road back south along the Keewanaw. We pulled into the cottage at dusk. I am a little smug about my timing. Now I am relaxed in a leather chair plucking on my laptop as evening settles in. The loons are calling again. I have declared the little house a quiet reading and journaling zone. Kyle, Dan, Wes and I are all journaling. Lois and the girls and Chuck have gone to the lodge to do some laundry. (Journal entry from June 17, 2003)

I found this entry in an old journal today:

We are trying to teach Hope to sleep in her own bed. In April she will be five years old so she is used to sleeping with us. The other night we had her stay in her own bed in the girls room where all four girls sleep. She was not happy. She was crying so I went into her room and said; “Why are you crying, Hope?”

I know how she feels. I hate it when I don’t get any attention. (January 29, 2004)