Thursday, January 11, 2007

There's a Blizzard in my Gizzard...

Two days ago nothing could be seen of Grande Prairie. There was so much blowing snow in the air we couldn't see across the street. Yesterday we dug out the van... the winds had blown all the snow from the west end of my driveway into the east end where the big van is parked, and the drifts were pretty spectacular. They were about half as high as the van, and carved sharply down and under the van when they were about a foot from each wall.

The temperature dropped to the -30C range after the storm, just in time to shovel out the driveway. But where to put it all? It was already up to the top of the fence on the neighbor's side. So I started the van, dug the drift away from it on one side, and with a good deal of forceful driving managed to move it out to the bare patch which the Lord had swept. Then I got an old bi-fold door out of the garage and laid it out on the deep snow on my back lawn, and we used it for a ramp when we sledded all the snow off the driveway. Now my back yard is up to my neck in snow in some places, only up to my waist in others.

The car in the front yard was drifted right over the hood, the minivan was swept clean on all sides. The driven pile of snow beyond the end of the driveway had to be negotiated with speed several times before we felt that we could safely back into the driveway.

And I still feel that blizzard in my gizzard...

Descriptive powers

It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church. Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

He had worked on the box a long time and when he finished it, he had scratched on the lid, MASON TARWATER, WITH GOD, and had climbed into it where it stood on the back porch, and had lain there for some time, nothing showing but his stomach which rose over the top like over-leavened bread. The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O'Connor

This lady's descriptive powers have me rolling on the floor every couple of pages. What a writer!

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

They're at it again...

We have the studio booked for recording the next kids album from Feb.26-Mar.10. It will be called "Fun And Prophets", and will be a look at the prophets in the Bible.

Imagine, if you will, looking out your picture window into the city square. You see there a man with long hair rustled by the wind; he seems to be listening to something. As you look on, he takes a long, sharp sword from the scabbard at his side and begins to cut off his hair. All of it. And he is very careful to catch all this hair and gather up what has fallen to the ground. When he is finished, he pulls a measuring scale from his cloak and carefully measures his hair, dividing it into three equal groups.

He takes one of the neatly gathered piles of hair and begins throwing it up into the wind, where it is blown every which way. Next, he takes a second pile of hair, holding it up in the air with one hand and drawing his sword with the other, then proceeding through the town, waves his sword at the hair like he intends to cut it to pieces...

And you think YOU have strange neighbors... meet Ezekiel.

Fun And Prophets deals in brief with Abraham, Moses, Baalam, Nathan, Micaiah, Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, and many more.