Thursday at SHARE one of the boys, the 18/19/20 something kids they call Elders, asked me if I was excited about christmas as the other asked if I was ready for christmas. I gave them my stock answer…as ready as I ever am. Which is to say, not at all since I don’t do christmas. It’s just easier to brush off the inquiry with a false impression than to get into why I don’t believe in or do religion especially with ardent young men who are out doing their ‘good work’ knocking on doors which is part of what they do when they aren’t volunteering at SHARE and in fact were on my street Friday afternoon. I saw them as I was crossing back over from Pam’s house. Apparently they weren’t having much success as they asked me if I knew anyone who would want to hear about Jesus. Since everyone I know is already a believer or they aren’t interested, perfectly happy with whatever alternate beliefs they hold or none at all, I told them "no, no, I really don’t". I can’t imagine there is anybody in this country who doesn’t already have even a rudimentary knowledge of Jesus since it’s so pervasive in our culture and society.
We get new Elders about every couple of months as their church shifts them around to other locations and, it appears to me, are kept a close eye on, I guess to make sure they stay on the straight and narrow of their Mormon teachings. They used to show up in T-shirts and jeans but the last month or so they’ve been showing up in their uniform…black pants, white shirt, and tie. This week was a food delivery day from the regional food bank in Victoria and so it was very busy getting it all sorted and put away and consequently we had a veritable mountain of boxes piled up. When I empty a box, I collapse it immediately, takes 10 seconds, and take it out to the main storage area but I’m about the only one that does that. Just about every week I tell the boys that if they are in-between, sitting around waiting for the next car to pull up for their food or whatever they’ve been asked to do, to collapse the boxes so that I can take them to the container for recycling. Thursday I didn’t. I just went out with my box cutter during a break in food orders, and started in on the pile without saying anything to the boys who were sitting around also not doing anything during the break in food orders. After I’d dealt with a few of the boxes one of the boys came over and started helping and then when we were nearly done the other picked up a box or two. I wonder if next week they will just do it or if I’ll have to remind them again.
The weather is being schizophrenic these days which is usual for this time of year. Wednesday and Thursday were lovely, Friday was overcast, colder, wet and icky. It rained off and on all day. Saturday colder but sunny. I’d been planning to make another foray into the backyard of the vacant house across the street and adjacent to the shop property to pick up more pecans. There are three big trees back there and the ground is solid with them that no one is picking up, in fact I don’t think the people who lived there ever picked them up but I could be wrong about that. Since I knew the weather was going to turn I finally did it Thursday after lunch filling up two of my bigger metal buckets. As soon as the kittens saw me back there they came running up and meowing but no hissing this time. Sorry kids, not feeding time yet. These are the pecans I have picked up from my yard, about 160 pounds, minus the ones I’ve shelled (about 40 pounds giving me 20 pounds of shelled pecans).
These are the ones I’ve picked up from the two neighbors' yards.
I’m having a hard time getting this post finished and published. I’ve been working on it for 3 days now. I write then change my mind and take stuff out, change day names from yesterday to whatever it should be, add stuff in, and then just peter out and walk away. Another cold but clear day though we’re on a warming trend now after last night. And speaking of last night, an update on the socialization of the kittens. The ground was wet from the rain so I didn’t want to sit and offer food in my hands. When I walked around to the back porch they all came running out, running right up to me, no hissing! I squatted down and coaxed them to me and the brown tabby, he’s such a handsome fella, finally came up to me and let me pet him and stroke him and scratch his head and then the gray tabby who is very vocal also let me stroke him quite a bit, all before I got the food out of the shed. This is major! Since Momcat has been fine with petting that just leaves the female who looks like mom who has been the most skittish. Still waiting to hear from SPOT about getting them fixed but they are still working on it, apparently had some other kittens that took precedence but I think they have been dealt with now.
One last picture or two. Atmospheric conditions were just right for contrails the other morning. This plane was streaking across the sky above three other fading contrails, one above the cloud, one at the bottom of the cloud, and one beneath the cloud (the second picture).
Do you sell the pecans? It’s been at least a decade since we’ve had the real deal. (the Katyite)
ReplyDeleteI sell the unshelled pecans I have one more bucket to take to get cracked and then I think I'll be done shelling and will sell all the rest though I will keep a small box full just in case. if you want to make your way out here I'd give you some.
DeleteThis is how perverse I am- I have listened to so many hours of podcasts on Mormonism hosted by ex-Mo's that I WISH some missionaries would come by here so that we could have a little chat about things they probably do not know about their own church who does its best to keep certain details from its members although this is getting harder and harder with the internet available to all ALTHOUGH of course the missionaries are not supposed to be using the internet for anything but the most godly of purposes. In fact, the entire missionary experience is not to get more members into the church but, in fact, to further cement the faith of those ridiculously young "elders." Indoctrination! And of course there are now girl missionaries (I'd say women but they're so young) and they are addressed as "Sister," because you know- they're not male and thus, cannot ever hold the priesthood, yada, yada, yada.
ReplyDeleteI cannot believe all the pecans you've picked up. Damn but you are dedicated and hard-working!
reminds me of the time a couple of them came to my door when I still lived in the city to tell me about the end times. yeah, it happened, I told them, the world those people knew is gone. sort of flummoxed them. thanks for coming as I closed the door.
DeleteI'm just giddy since I haven't had any for three years I want to pick them all up. besides it gets me outdoors and some exercising, if bending over can be called exercise.
Hah! I have to do that, too. Don't get a post out in a timely fashion and have to go change all of the day names. That's pretty cool about the kittens, it would be great if they could become pets. I miss pecans, my grandmother used to send them to me on the years that the tree produced.
ReplyDeleteI hope they do which is why I'm trying to socialize them. if I didn't already have a cat and a dog I'd be tempted to keep the brown tabby with his green eyes.
DeleteI'm glad the kittens are getting a little tamer - I'll bet they'll make good pets. I had to laugh at the "Elders" - there have been MANY times I just watched someone do work without thinking that I should help. I am a slack ass, no doubt about it, but it's not that I'm lazy (although I am) - it's that it's like I'm watching a movie instead of something that I could be participating in.
ReplyDeletewell, I bet it was not something you had been asked to do on several occasions.
DeleteWish I lived close to you, I would help you pick up pcans all day long! I hate to see things going to waste! I would also take a kitten off your hands. Instead I am here, loading the Rv for the trip to my daughter's house for Christmas. Not really looking forward to it, as I am sure I will manage to disappoint her unwittingly. The make-up phone call was me silent while she told me everything I have ever done wrong and I simply apologized. One the one hand I talk too much and no one is interested in what I have to say and on the other hand, I don't speak up. I was confused when I hung up. At least I won't be staying in her house.
ReplyDeleteI wish you did too. I really would like these cats to have good homes if I can get them suitably socialized. hard to do when I only interact with them once a day and then only for about 10 minutes.
Deletesorry to hear about your daughter. sounds like my sister's youngest who during covid (long story about what led up to it) turned her back on her mother who was visiting and told her to leave and then cut off all contact. this daughter had also never been shy about telling my sister all the bad things she had done to the point my sister was on eggshells every time they spoke or were together. the daughter had just in the last year or so started to reach out to her mom and they had several nice visits and then boom, my sister stroked out and her daughter was crushed with regret for how she had treated her mother the last three years.
That's an almighty lot of pecans, the nuts of the gods. Interesting that the powers that be send mormon kids to do time at a food pantry when they could be out proselytizing. It sounds like you have an alarming number of them in your little town and the elders can't get enough placements.
ReplyDeletevolunteer work is also part of their 'training'. I don't know how many kids they have here. there is a Mormon church here and at one point we had four of the showing up at SHARE because they didn't like their other volunteer opportunity as much as they liked SHARE but the church put a stop to that. these kids aren't local. most of them come from out of state, they're here for a couple of months and then get sent elsewhere.
DeleteReligious proselytizers (fanatics) drive me off the deep end. I wish they would keep their own twisted beliefs to themselves and leave the rest of us alone.
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more. I think it's rather disrespectful actually. just like other religious fanatics that either tell you you're going to hell if you don't accept their view or that they will pray for you.
DeleteThese nuts look amazing. Pecans are really expensive here, not native, so sold as delicatessen. Also, what good news about the kittens. I am very tempted to rescue another cat, but the man enjoys the garden full of birds too much these days.
ReplyDeleteWe occasionally have Elders here too. I once was approached by a pair just outside the very impressive cathedral in our city (built in the 11th century) and when I pointed out the cloisters and the various monuments to the two Roman soldiers who according to legend converted to Christianity here and were subsequently persecuted and murdered by their Roman general, the two men just shrugged. They told me that they wanted to bring god's word to Germany. I then indicated that about 500 miles to the east they would find the church where in the 16th century, Luther nailed his famous theses to the door, they told me that they never heard anything about that either. I wished them well but warned them that this country was a lost cause.
I had a pair one time come tell me about Jesus and the end times and I agreed with them wholeheartedly. yeah, it happened, I told them, the world those people know is gone. they didn't quite know how to respond to that as I was closing the door.
DeleteThose are a lot of pecans! You are keeping busy! I have been feeling pretty lazy but will rally this week to get some things done. Thanks for the post!
ReplyDeletePicking up pecans has been an easy time filler and gets me outside when the weather is good. it's also a thinking time. I'm trying to get back in my pre-sister's-sudden-death mode.
DeleteDoes anyone really WANT to hear about Jesus Christ from a Mormon missionary? I feel like that's always going to be a reluctant audience.
ReplyDeleteBravo on the pecans!
I rarely spend more than half an hour on a post. But then, it probably shows!
I'd say the answer to that is 'no'. personally I think knocking on stranger's doors to proselytize is rude and disrespectful.
DeleteGreat to hear kittens are socializing better. Oh, my mouth waters at the thought of pecans. You sure have the bounty there! (Coming from Texas, my mother always had some in a dish with the nut cracker and little picks at this time of year...while living up north in MO!) Mormons are interesting people, and I like the interactions within their families, having befriended several of them myself. I like the homesteading quality of the women who know how to do a lot of needlecraft and canning. I do feel it's very wrong for those boys to proselytize that way, or for anyone to try to change another's belief system. So I steer clear of the "elders." And I sure have heard the horror stories also, and believe a lot of the men were abusive. The good that comes from LDS is their work on genealogy, which I use regularly. It would be nice if we all got along...sigh.
ReplyDeleteI spent a year doing an internship in Salt Lake City, and believe you me, it's interesting living there as a non-Mormon. One thing that was great fun was taking the youth group from the Lutheran church down to the Temple to take the tour. The guides always were willing and eager to answer questions, and one day there was this remarkable exchange.
ReplyDeleteOne of the girls asked the tour guide, "Is it true that women can't be priests?" When he said that was so -- that God had prohibited it -- she asked another question. "Did you say that God can do anything?" The guide agreed. "Well," she said, "what if God changes his mind and says it's ok for women to serve?" When the tour guide said, "He wouldn't do that," my sweet high schooler nailed him with "What gives you the right to decide what God would or wouldn't do?" It was so great.