The Robin Family Is Irritated with Me. I Interrupt Their Dinners All the Time

The Robin, by Norma Boeckler

I really irritated the Robin family on Saturday. I am quite sure Mr. and Mrs. Robin work the rose garden together. Males are sparring for territory at this time, so robins cooperating must be nesting together.

I was constantly moving around in the front yard, hating to disturb them. They scurried away each time, not afraid but cautious in getting out of the way.

They know an earthworm supermarket when they see one. The rosebed has remained untouched for several years, heavily mulched, and watered when necessary. I scattered three shipments of red wigglers over the rose gardens to make sure the plants had the best soil available: tunneled, mixed, manured, and aerated.

When I added logs as a rustic fence, the robins gained a good place to look for their meals without touching the ground. Earthworms respond to noise or vibration, so a perch is valuable for birds pouncing on prey. Birds also use logs as safe places to preen their feathers.

The tenacity of the robins is impressive. Once I caught one with a beak full of leaves for the nest. He was not giving up that prize as he dodged my apparent path.

The funniest was the robin who hid behind a rose bush when I came outside to inspect the flowers. He peeked at my from behind the bush, looking like a child playing hide and seek.

I will be setting up flat pans to gather water for drinking and bathing in the front yard. The mainstay is the pan holding the air conditioner's condensate. Flat clay pans for under flower pots are good for placing under soaker hoses to capture water and remain fairly clean.

The best bird food is NO POISONS. Every poison knocks down all the creatures, often making it especially safe for the pests to return. A toxin-free yard allows all the creatures to reach their maximum density and feed each other.

Now Being Proof-Read - Catholic Lutheran Protestant: A Doctrinal Comparison of Three Christian Confessions

After Catholic Lutheran Protestant is done, Liberalism, Its Cause and Cure will be edited and switched over to Amazon-Create Space-Kindle.

Entering Production - THY STRONG WORD: The Efficacy of the Word in the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions

This book was first published and shunned in 2000. However, the laity took hold of it and saw the doctrine of the Word as consistent with the Scriptures and the Book of Concord. Although Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant has sold far more copies, Thy Strong Word has disrupted the facile lying of the UOJ Stormtroopers who would rather hide in the tall grass than come out and fight.

If I can find the 2000 edition with Hebrew and Greek, I will post that as a PDF only.

At the request of many, I had the book edited to exclude Hebrew and Greek in 2011. That has been available as a hardcover on Lulu.

Now I have had the 2011 version proof-read for typos, and the book will be prepared for Amazon-Create Space-Kindle editions. Kindle is very useful for

1. Searching, 
2. Copying and pasting 
3. With the citation automatically given with the quotation.

Norma Boeckler is working on some graphics for the interior - and the tentative covers are above and below. This will be a paperback (no options at Create Space) and a larger font is planned.

The next book conversion is Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant.

In Sure and Certain Hope of a Long-Lasting Rainstorm, I Planted the Roses

Saturday brought the delivery of bare root roses from Edmunds'. The weather map looked ominous or optimistic, depending on one's point of view. I expected some rain on Saturday, maybe a big storm and definite rain on Sunday. The system developed but little rain fell until Monday morning. Some rain is still dripping off the eaves, where I have four barrels and one little trash can stationed. More is on the way.

The effect of rain and snow is unquestioned. God's Word does not speak of water having these results, but rain and snow. As one farmer said, "Water keeps my crops alive. Rain makes them grow and produce."

Like the rain and snow, God's Word

1. Never returns void.
2. Always accomplishes God's purpose, and 
3. Always prospers His will.

A rainstorm has a powerful and unique influence on all life because it also brings down dissolved nitrogen compounds that are the basis for all life, the building block of proteins. Nitrogen in the air is useless for plants, but the vast supplies in the atmosphere are rendered useful by lightning. The lightning and thunder people often fear is the basis for their lawns and gardens greening up. I am sure statistics exist for how many tons of fertilizer fall from the sky during a rainstorm. One only has to look at a straw colored lawn turn green in August to realize its value.

In the soil, this fertilizer-rain wakes up all the microbes and miniature creatures. Although gardeners give due credit to the earthworms hatching and wiggling to life in the rain, the larger creatures really depend on the microbes. Bacteria travel on water and suspend life in drought. Protozoa and earthworms need bacterial and moisture, so everything is jumping and jiving at once.

All life depends on this water, and the increase of all living things (biomass) holds that water and the nutritious elements in the soil at the root zone. Last fall we made a pyramid of maple leaves under the crepe myrtle bush. Whenever more raking involved those leaves, which interlock and stay in place, the pile was supplemented. Now the leaves are all gone from under the bush, some doubtless blown away, but most of them turned into soil food by springtails, mites, and earthworms.

The root hairs of the roses - and all plants - barter for nutrition from the fungi, which grow fast in the rain. The plants offer the carbon the fungi cannot make for themselves. The fungi provide water and nutrition for the plants in exchange for the carbon credits, as demanded by the plants. All soil life engages in this Vanity Fair of swapping one thing for another, sometimes by barter, often by ingestion.

The bare root roses move from dormancy, truly asleep, to growing on its own, red-green leaves popping out of the stems and soon buds beginning to form. Then they are no longer wobbly in the soil but rooted and grounded.

I enjoy digging in the roses. More people should engage in gardening and see how God's Creation is designed, engineered to take care of itself (in a manner of speaking). All the creatures of the soil work together without a local supervisor and yet they thrive because of divine management, which we take for granted. The ancients begged their idols to give them fertility, because crops meant life or death for them. We trust smelly bags of NPK and forget the origin and the supervisor of this vast wealth in Creation.

When the LCMS Swallows the WELS Hairball - Unexpected Results Will Follow

The Shepherds of Israel are well fed.

Ezekiel 34 And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,

2 Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?

3 Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock.

4 The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.

5 And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered.

6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.

7 Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord;

8 As I live, saith the Lord God, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock;

9 Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord;

10 Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.

11 For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.

12 As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

13 And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.

14 I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.

15 I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the LordGod.

16 I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.

17 And as for you, O my flock, thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats.

18 Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?

19 And as for my flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet; and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet.

20 Therefore thus saith the Lord God unto them; Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle.

21 Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad;

22 Therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle.

23 And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.

24 And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it.

25 And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.

26 And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.

27 And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them.

28 And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.

29 And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.

30 Thus shall they know that I the Lord their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord God.

31 And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God.

Through Jeske and Kelm, ministerial conferences with ELCA female leaders
have been established - without a murmur from Harrison or Schroeder.

The LCMS, WELS, and Little Sect on the Prairie have made a series of moves designed to facilitate the re-establishment of the Synodical Conference. Working with ELCA is no issue since that has been going on for decades.

One outcome will be the closing of schools, which would have happened anyway. But official cooperation will make those closings easier to accomplish. The synod leaders will simply say, "We cannot keep supporting so many. The money is not there." There are surplus colleges, seminaries, and parochial schools. 

When this fact is officially denied, we will consider that confirmed as fact.

WELS may find that numbers of clergy will leave their sect for some fresh air and better living conditions in the LCMS. That will dumb down WELS even more, if that is even possible. 

Inter-Synod businesses have been established for some time. Cornerstone - the money-raising business is WELS-LCMS. Cornerstone violates the ethical statement of the professional fund-raisers, by working for a commission. 

Cornerstone Stewardship Ministry was founded by and run by LCMS and WELS Church Growthers. Their tribute to WELS' Ron Roth is simply hilarious.

Ron Roth - In Honorarium

We give thanks to Ron Roth and his many years of service to the church at large and more specifically to our special ministry. Ron gained entrance to heaven on January 3, 2011, where he met Jesus face to face. Now, he sings praises of thanks to Jesus all the time! Cornerstone wishes to acknowledge Ron’s contributions to our many and varied stewardship material. His writings on grace-based stewardship continue to live on after his death and benefit God’s people in many ways. We are so grateful for Ron’s friendship, time and special partnership with our team. To God be the glory!

Time of Grace overlaps with Cornerstone money-raising and includes WELS-ELCA-ELS-LCMS. Through Time of Grace and Thrivent, Jeske is at the helm of WELS, ELS, and LCMS.