Dexter Iowa Community Site

Consider this quote from Abe Lincoln

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

I spent entirely too much time this weekend trying to get motivated to do something. I've got a hundred little projects that need to get done, and yet I can't seem to get to any of them. A stop by visit by the youngest brother ended in a days worth of cutting trees down and hauling away brush. I've got this grudge against Locust and Mulberry trees and have started my own personal crusade to eradicate them from the farm.

What I failed to remember in all of the work over the weekend is just how much brush ends up on the burn pile when you are clearing up things. At one point my brother looked and asked if I really wanted to cut them down as even though as much as I hate them, they still make somewhat of a windbreak against the northwest wind. I assured him to keep cutting. So in the course of an afternoon we had cleared half of them out of the ditch and along with some excellent help moved off the debris to the burn pile out back and even had some campfire wood to stack and let cure.

I'm feeling it today, mostly in my back and shoulders. I tried to blame it on scooping chicken and noodles on Saturday, but there is no mistaking the pain I'm feeling as I sit at my desk at work on a Monday morning.

I did take a little time on Sunday to sit and marvel at the colors of the leaves. It's fall and cold weather is coming. What a wonderful picture of the beauty of the world one can find driving along a gravel road anywhere in our area. The light yellows and reds of the leaves are very vivid this year. Which, more likely than not, has to do with the weather we have had more than anything else. It's been good for the trees and the apples and the heating bills.

I also spent some time Sunday digging through stacks of papers that I had hidden away upstairs in a box. Now let's be perfectly honest here. I've got more than a few boxes of papers stuck around the house in various spots. It's a collection of notes and newspapers and photos. Mostly things history related and when I get on a search I start digging and can't seem to stop. Before I know it the search for an answer to one question (this particular one, who was Wm. Robinson and what did he do? His home was grand and was later remodeled for use as the hospital in Dexter) led to more things, more questions and a search through another box of stuff.

Someday I should probably try to find somewhere better than an old cardboard box to put things in. I wonder if there is something that has drawers...like the file cabinet that sits empty behind a stack of boxes in the spare room upstairs. I know, I know...but that's a job for another weekend.

See you next week...remember, we're all in this together.