Creatures Great and Small

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Animals are, I believe, a wonderful gift from God. Created to beautify Creation, to be companions, to provide various necessities of life, and for us as humans to steward well and to enjoy. And God is glorified. Genesis 1 recounts God’s forming of the earth and filling of the earth with creatures:

²⁴And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. ²⁵And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

And it was good. Good. Good. When a good and wonderful God calls something good, it must be good. Of course, the earth now is fallen and corrupt, but God’s fingerprints are still all over His Creation. His love and creativity and glory are still wonderfully evident. Imagine what earth must have been like in perfection, before sin and death and decay! How beautiful it must have been.

When I am just sitting stroking Kashka or laughing at Luna’s antics, my little heart just wells with mirth – That God would pour so much uniqueness and loveliness and humor and fun and personality into these insignificant little creatures just amazes me. They each have their habits, their quirks. They have their ways of asking for and receiving and giving affection.

Time and again, when the cats are being darling or strange or comical or affectionate, I find myself asking out loud to whomever happens to be within earshot, “How could I ever think this little creature is the result of evolution? How could I think anything other than that God created and loves this little creature?”

Kashka likes to sit at the window and squeak her paw on the glass, the charming cat version of fingernails on a blackboard. She does that to ask to come inside. Or she jumps up on the windowsill of the Miner’s Cabin and looks at me with her big green eyes. She has a white patch of fur on her belly, and will roll over on her back to have the white patch rubbed. She can’t meow properly, but breathily chirps. She is delicate, graceful, and a pretty capable hunter.

Luna, on the other hand, is big, beautiful, clumsy, and talks to himself while hunting. Doesn’t catch a thing, as far as we can tell. He has a huge voice and a huge personality. He likes to stretch and walk at the same time, and looks really goofy while doing it. He knocks stuff over, rolls on the floor like a dog, and runs chaotically around the yard. I think he got dropped on his head while a kitten. Or God just gave him an extra dose of personality. Something like that.

Anna’s beautiful cats, such simple and ordinary creatures, are daily humorous or tender reminders that God cares deeply about His Creation, even the tiny and seemingly unremarkable. He didn’t forget to infuse evidence of His glory and creative power into even the tiniest of creatures. They were created by God, so they must be remarkable. Humanity was the crowning glory of the Creation, but I can’t help but believe that God enjoyed the process of creating all of His many creatures, from the smallest and least significant to the pinnacle of His Creation, from creatures great, to creatures small. The Lord God made them all.

Muddy Boots, Fresh Soul

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

When the temperatures soar into the 50s and 60s in February, the only thing I want is to be outside! On Wednesday, after getting some mundane duties done in the morning and running an errand to Mt. Rushmore, Sarah and I took off for Big Falls, the site of some old mining operations from the early part of last century. Battle Creek roars through a deep ravine, and pours over a falls into a deep pool some twenty feet below. In the hot summer months, it is a popular swimming destination, but I think I prefer it in the off season.

The sun, which had shone so brightly in the morning, was obscured by cloud-cover, but it was still a beautiful day, balmy, fresh, and quiet. The road to Big Falls is forest service access, which means not a lot of road maintenance, particularly this time of year. But the old orange Jeep can take just about anything, including the mud from the snowmelt, and the washed-out places.

The hike down from the trailhead is short, steep, and beautiful. The creek was frozen thickly over in places, but the clear, clean mountain water still rushed and chuckled over the rocks and under the ice. The last quarter mile follows Battle Creek, so we poked around on the sandbars looking for garnets, picking up odd rocks and chunks of quartz, snapped some pictures, scrambled around on boulders, enjoying the damp and the balmy winter air. And the quiet. We stayed on the upstream side of the Falls and ate a little picnic of apples. We tossed the apple cores into the stream and watched them eddy around until they were caught in the current and shot over the edge into the pool below. In the middle of a busy week, how pleasant it was to simply sit and enjoy the beauty in the depth of the Hills!

On our way back out, almost to the top, we dawdled in a clearing at the edge of the canyon, and caught a glimpse of something a half mile down the canyon and across. I grabbed my camera and my 300mm lens and sure enough, there was a mountain goat standing on the edge of a precipice. He was barely distinguishable in the picture, in the right upper quadrant of the photo, but clearly a mountain goat.

We took a few pictures of the far away goat before realizing that directly across the canyon from us, there were two more! One of them just lay there, looking calmly at us, unbothered. I wonder how long he had been keeping an eye on us. I don’t see mountain goats very often – Sometimes they can be seen around Mt. Rushmore, and I’ve seen them while hiking Harney Peak, but this is the first time I’d seen them by Big Falls.

After soaking up the freshness of February, the peace of the wilderness, the cool damp of the Battle Creek air, we headed home reluctantly. We were a little muddy, a little leg sore, and a lot refreshed. It was one of those days when I was even more thankful than usual for where I live, this beautiful place I’ve always loved.

Findings | Lovely lady

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

We spent the morning working on the Miner’s Cabin, and as I was taking a few things down to the crawlspace of our log cabin, I nearly ran into this spider’s web! She was building her web in the corner of the crawlspace door, near the light switch (so I almost put my hand right into her web), and the web stretched to the middle of the door (so I almost put my head right into her web). Definitely startled me.

Once I got her on a stick and called the family out to see our first black widow, Sarah grabbed her camera and snapped a few pictures of her. What an amazing creature – Black as ebony, with the startling red hourglass on her abdomen, just like in the science books.

We might just need to fumigate the crawlspace after this.

Such a Gentlehorse

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Remington is such a gentlehorse.

He really is a charmer.

A Cat’s Life

Posted on December 24, 2015 by Laura Lindblom under Uncategorized

Kashka’s favorite spot is still under the Christmas tree. The sun has been streaming brightly through that window all morning, and she has been basking in it since she came inside.