MY YOUNG MEN

Last Friday, 15-year-old Benjamin replaced the pump on my washing machine, thus ending a 2-and-a-half-week Red Alert at our house. THANK YOU, BENJAMIN!!!

This afternoon, I sat at the kitchen counter checking email. Sniff, sniff,... Smoke! I looked out the window - a plume of white wafted across the front yard. Well, where there's smoke, there's fire, right? A little concerned, I headed outside to locate the source of the smoke. Turns out, the two highschool boys had kindled a fire under the big black, cast-iron cauldron. They were boiling up a thick mash of walnut hulls so they could dye steel traps. With trapping season over and this winter's furs sold, Ben pulled all his traps last weekend. Today, he's getting them ready to be stored away in the trapping shed until next fall and the start of another season.

Leaving a batch of traps to simmer, the two firemen joined me for a walk next door to Grammy's where we visited and caught up on community news. As we sauntered home, Splash!, the 17-year-old jumped with both feet into an ankle-deep mud puddle. Suddenly, both boys were grabbing mud clods, laughing and pelting each other as they ran up the driveway and back to the bubbling, smoking cauldron.

Home again, I thought maybe I'd have just enough time to whip out a blog post before time to start dinner. I poured a cup of coffee, cranked up the computer,and twiddled my fingers on the keyboard, waiting for inspiration.

BAM!! I bolted out the door and ran to the end of the porch. "What was that?!" Well, the guys were taking advantage of the sunny afternoon to practice firing the black powder pistol while they waited for the traps to finish "cooking."

And now, smelling of smoke and splattered with mud, my two young men are stoking the grill, getting ready to cook deer steaks for tonight's dinner.

Sometimes in this great symphony of life, all the notes settle together into one deep, grand, soul-satisfying chord.....times just like today.