The fourth issue of Relief Journal is out and with it a new website. Great work!

Some people don’t know anything about manhood. Thanks to Tony Woodlief for setting them straight.

A real man, on the other hand, protects and provides for his family, and partners with his wife to train up his children in the way they should go. He isn’t necessarily gabby, but his children know in their souls that he loves them. He is patient and kind. He lays down his life for his family every day.

I’ll agree with that. Fatherhood is hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Up in these parts, w’re such slaves to mindless tradition that, year after year, we all rake our leaves in the fall. No imagination.

This year I did it in a big way. I took out the whole tree.

Yes, it’s gone. Today dawned rainy, with scattered thunderstorms, and I thought, “Blast it. The tree guy’ll never take my tree down in weather like this. Somebody could get gaussed by lightning.”

But he called me at work in the morning and told me he’d have it out by noon.

Mark you, this is the low bidder. Lower by about $300 than anybody else I talked to. But he got in there and hustled, and the tree was gone before the clouds cleared. (And yes, he is licensed and insured.)

It’s good to have the Sword of Damocles retracted from my place of residence, believe me. Still, I’ll miss the old tree. For a long time I thought it was an ash. This pleased me, because the ash tree is central to Norse mythology. In the Norse system, the universe itself was a great ash tree, and like mine it was a little sick, with things gnawing at it, requiring care and nutrition.

However, it turns out to have been some odd kind of elm (it never matched any of the pictures I found in tree identification web sites, which is what confused me).

That makes the loss easier to bear. The increased air conditioning costs, due to reduced shade, will hit me in the summer.

I read Brad Thor’s Blowback over the weekend. I don’t think it rates a long review. Enough to say that I like the politics (the president seems to be a fictionalized version of George W. Bush, and his political nemesis is a very nasty female Democratic senator with presidential aspirations, whose initials are H.R.C.). It was fast-moving, like a Roger Moore James Bond movie, and about as substantive. The characters had all the depth of Murine eye drops.

Not bad for recreational reading, when you’re waiting for a plane or something, but I’d prefer conservative fiction with a little more substance.

I’ll be gone for a week starting tomorrow. I’ll check in from Minot and Høstfest if I get a chance. Pictures when I get back, perhaps, so you can share the aesthetic delights of Norwegian-sweater-and-cowboy-hat couture.

Your prayers worked. I found a guy who’ll take the tree down pretty inexpensively, and he plans to do it on Monday.

Thank you.

Tree update: I know how you’ve all been checking this space hourly for my removal situation, so I bow to public pressure and announce that I’ve changed my mind. Or made a decision. Or something.

I’m going to give up on the plan to get the tree removed in a week and a half by a guy who’ll do it cheap, and I’m going to get a professional to do it now.

Because the more I look at the thing, and see how thin the split trunk is, and how many branches are balancing on that trunk, I know I won’t sleep decently until the whole thing is safely on the ground.

Also because if we were to get a big wind, and the thing went over on my roof, I think the insurance company would stiff me (with good reason), knowing I’d let a dangerous tree stand.

It’ll put me way in hock, but I think it’s the responsible choice.



Here’s a couple links for your weekend enjoyment.



“In the beginning was the Word,” in more than one sense. It seems some scholars now believe that the Hebrews invented vowels. Hat tip: Mirabilis.

And Dennis Ingolfsland at The Recliner Commentaries explains (in case you’ve been to college and lost your ability to reason) some major differences between Christian and Muslim Fundamentalism.

If you care to pray for me, pray that I get a cheap bid, and that I can finish the business in time to still get to Minot.