ODE TO WILLIE

Church was enlightening this morning,we are still in the book of Romans in verse 4.
Even before I got to church I saw the work of God. Yesterday at the end of market day one of my neighbors who knows I always put the flowers in church on Sunday mornings ask if I wanted what she had left. I said sure and when I went to get them she had 1 bunch of yellow scotch broom, and 2 small bunches of native orange azaleas. I wrapped them in wet paper towels and put them in a vase in the back of the van. On my way home I had to slam on my brakes to avoid an accident and a rack of crates with some groceries in them fell over on the flowers. I got home and cut the bad smashed ones off ,but the rest still looked pretty sad. I put them in a vase and left them sitting outside,thinking maybe the rain would perk them back up.
Well when I looked outside this morning they were beautiful,so I rearranged them and figured these really should be in church this morning. While I was setting them out the preacher came around and said how nice they were and after service several people commented on how lovely the flowers were. I said God must have thought they would look nice also because He sure perked them up overnight. Wish I had a before pic, then you could see what I mean.

Now for some sad news on this Sunday. One of our long time canine friends passed into that big doggie heaven in the sky last night. Old man Willie as you will remember started having problems about a week ago. At first we thought it was his arthritis kicking up as some canine asprin had him feeling better after hubbie had to carry him from the pasture to the porch early one morning. But as the week went on he began to have more problems and we realized it was getting close to his time to depart this world. Willie was probably 16-18 years old, we're not sure how old he was when we got him back in the mid 90's.He has lived a good long life and should have no regrets,except maybe for the people he bit during his later years, they weren't hard bites,just enough to let you know he meant business. I started looking for his replacement well over a year ago and found Annie,who has a disposition a lot like Willies.
This was in the winter of 2008, he loved the snow and cold weather.He also seem to love g-son and attempted to get in his way when he thought he was doing something he might get hurt doing.

Here he is in the spring of 2008 on patrol of #2 son's property before his house was set up. I never saw Willie cross the highway although he spent a lot of time at #2 son's which is close to the road.

In the fall of 2008 g-son's Halloween Tiger costume didn't scare Willie who was still protective even of the tiger!

This was taken this past January ,Willie again on patrol checking out our washed out driveway after a heavy rain.
He didn't venture far from his big cushion on the front porch.

One last pose from Willie was in one of our February snows this past winter.
All in all Willie was a good dog,he was a watchdog who protected his domain very well. As I moved things around on the front porch this afternoon in the absence of his cushion and food bowl,which he was very protective of except in one case.
This is one last memory I'll share.
Several years ago we began to smell the strong odor of a skunk. We finally saw him around the farm and were trying to figure out how to get rid of it. We knew the critter was coming very close to the house because the smell was so strong on the front porch it would gag you.
One night after dark we heard a noise on the front porch and knowing Willie was out there I kind of dreaded opening the door to see what was going on.
As I slowly opened the door,I saw Willie sitting crammed as tight as he could get against the storm door. As I looked in the direction he was looking, there was the skunk,eating out of Willie's highly protected bowl as Willie sat and helplessly watched. That is when I realized he was a lot smarter than I had given him credit for, smart enough to know not to tangle with a skunk.
We started putting up the food bowl and the skunk left on his own thankfully soon after that night.
Rest in Peace Willie!!!!
God is in control of all his creations!
Good Night and God Bless.