There’s an inn, stable, sheep…

It is a little crowded at times, and the people and animals fall over quite often. But it has all the essentials…

Such as the stars in the sky, with one really big one…

Mary and a baby in a manger.

Of course you have to have some wise men.

This nativity scene is what my childhood memories are made of…

May you all be blessed by the birth of this child king.

Whether you have a nativity scene like the one from my childhood … or a cork one, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas season.

Blessings,

Betty

Blessings,

Betty

I would go for the artistic color combinations, but My Honey insists that there are other ways to do this job.

So, out comes the yellow pads, which of course My Honey feels are essential to ANY planning project. Irrigation planning, grab a yellow pad. House planning, grab the yellow pad. Planning leading up to vacation (Come on do farmers ever take a vacation?), grab the yellow pad. Anyway here he is with his “yellow pads”. 

Cliff puts so much more time and figuring into the whole process. I am still not quite sure why. But he does come up with interesting strings of beads.

Boy this really does look like fun! Cliff is attracting attention from the children. It looks like preschool days of stringing colored beads by pattern.

Fun, but some of the children and I just decorated gingerbread cookies instead.

Now Cliff is attracting attention from the children’s friends. That is one facet of friends coming out to visit friends out in the country. First there always seems to be “something” to help with before the recreation time.

Here are some of the children and their friends out at one of the circle systems. That’s where all of the pretty beads belong. Which brings us to the topic of the drought. Yes, the High Plains where we live is having a drought, the worst in about a hundred years. If it goes much longer, it will break the one record one back in the early 1900′s. You can see the green crop on the horizon, but we have had to use our irrigation water from the Oglala aquifer under the ground in order to achieve even that much green. Usually we strike a nice balance between rain and irrigation, but not this year.

Back to the children, they are out stringing the beads on the circle system to achieve the watering levels that the crop needs.

All the guys out there are really working. The little girls just ran down the road to help because it was bed time. That’s one way to get to stay up a little later.

Then all the guys went out to scare deer out of the vineyard. Did I say anything about recreation time? I must have been mistaken. We usually don’t have any problem with animals eating on the vineyard plants, but this year we are. Water is so scares that the wildlife is coming closer to people just trying to find water.

It is hard to remember what rain is like around here. At least we have a few plants flowering around here.

Maybe there is hope somewhere in all this dryness, looking at those little buds. We’re hanging on, trusting God that he has a plan and a purpose.

Blessings,

Betty