Offerin' Thanks

Hey there, Lord, I reckon by now
That you know it's me again.
I always wind up here somehow
Beggin' forgiveness for my sin.

And I'll be back, I'm sure, sometime
Needin' all the mercy I can get,
But somethin' else is on my mind,
That I ain't got around to yet.

You see, I want to thank you, Lord
For savin' a cowboy like me.
Not only from what Hell will afford,
Or from a lost eternity.

I'm also thankful, lookin' back,
For your great Heavenly vision
That kept on a'holdin' me back
From makin some bad decisions.

And I thank you for the ladder
That you would ease down in the pit
That I'd dug myself, and entered,
Without any way out of it.

Thank you for the unanswered prayers;
For the times when I had no clue,
When you looked down from your throne upstairs
Sayin' "I know what's best for you."

You know my own thoughts and theories
Get me in trouble all the time.
I'm grateful for the Book, you see,
That separates your thoughts from mine.

And for all the awful wrong that I've done;
In tears, I remember those days,
Thank you for the blood of your Son,
That has washed those sins away.

My strokes are fewer than my crimes
'Cause of mercy received it's true.
So, Lord, I just felt that it's time
That this saddle bum said "Thank You".

So, for every day I've sat a horse,
For every golden mornin sun,
For every time you changed my course
When I was at a fool dead run.

For the hard times in this ole life
That drove me to my knees,
For the saintly patience of my wife,
The kids, and all my family.

For ev'ry glorius western sky
Painted around the setting sun
For every bird you taught to fly,
Oh Lord... for all that you have done,

Please except this old cowboys words.
I say in all humility,
Thank You for hearing me, Dear Lord,
...And for all that you've done for me.

KL Dennie 2018

Struggle On

He placed the last shovel of dirt on the mound,

Smoothed and patted it with his hand.

Then nodded his head, uttering no sound,

As his tears fell on the hot dry sand.

He looked up to the heavens on high,

"Lord I know you must have your reasons,

But I will ever have a thousand 'Why's ?',

No amount of time will end the grievin.' "

'I'll miss her smile, or her little pout.

And the way she loved our children.

But, now our plans still need carryin' out

So we'll press on if your a'willin'."

He looked to the wagon, and rising sun,

And into the tear stained little faces.

"Come girls, lets say goodbye to your Mum.

Put your flowers here in their places."

After a long last sorrowful look,

They started on. Not a word was spoken.

The horses, wagon, and weather were good.

It was their pioneer hearts that were broken.

K.L. Dennie 2018

A Woodshed Surprise

Anyone who has dropped a massive dead oak tree, removed the branches, sawed the limbs and trunk into firewood lengths, cleaned up the debris, and then loaded the wood into a trailer, and hauled it 35 miles, knows just how much work that really is. And yet, that's what friends did for me.

It's no secret to those who know me that 45 years of construction has left me with some shoulders that are a little aggravated. Shoulders that too often were used in place of a backhoe, and knees that had many times the proper weight put upon them year after year. The daily pain is a constant reminder of how I should've bought or rented more equipment earlier in my life. Everyone who has spent his life in the construction trade knows the feeling all too well. I'm no invalid for sure, but I have a couple of more minor surgeries left ahead of me I'm afraid.

So... to have a surprise trailer load of -ready to go in the fireplace and shop wood stove- firewood delivered to my wood shed is, well, amazing. One fella knew what I needed, and the rest pitched in. The tree needed to come down, sure, but perfectly cut and loaded on a trailer and delivered to my house? My goodness.

And if I tried to pay 'em? Well, my shoulder injuries would seem small compared to what I'd get from them. Friends.
Tracy Lawrence had a country hit called "You find out who your friends are." These fellows wish to remain anonymous because that's how they roll, but they know who they are. AND they also know that there is an open invitation to share a cup of coffee or hot chocolate in front of a crackling fire on any cold winters eve.

There's nothin to warm a mans heart more than watchin the orange flames perform a spirit dance up the logs of a fireplace fire. I love watching the embers rising like glowing fairies in a dizzy ghostly ascension up the chimney. On a night when Ole Man Winter is making his presence known with a soulful howling wind, and the window sill is piled high with blowing snow, there's a peace from the flickering light on the hearth that wraps you like a old wool blanket. I love my fireplace.

Thoreau said " A man who heats with wood is twice warmed". The cutting, splitting, and stacking of the wood warms you as well as the heat of the glowing fire. I haven't had to cut this wood, and there is very little splitting to do. But, with my hands wrapped around my coffee cup, twice warmed I'll be. While I am hypnotized by the flames, I'll feel the warmth of burning oak... and the appreciation for a group of guys I'm fortunate to call friends.

A Moist Sunday Morn

It is the sound of gently rolling thunder that awakens me on this, The Lords Day. It announces the presence of the needed rains. The gentle steady rhythm of drops on the metal roof of the porch is a welcomed sound. The cadence of the  water drops tells me that a gentle rain has finally come to us. So many of our days of moisture have come in short and heavy downpours. This rain is slow,  continuous, and life-giving.

The leaves of the ancient trees catch the first drops, as the wetness cascades in a leaf hopping dance, little by little, down to the parched earth below. The flowers and grasses respond by bowing their heads in gratitude, and cupping their leaves so that every sustaining drop is put to use. Each colored petal and leaf is washed of the dry dust that has cloaked it. They bow under the weight of the drops, and then raise again fresh and renewed.

 Tiny rivers of water make their way down the bark of the trees, and the occasional breeze causes a shower to fall on fauna and flora below. All life feels the relief from the heat and dryness of this hot summer.

The birds in the trees shake their feathers and stretch their wings and sing a note or two, while the falling rain offers the background music to it all. The occasional thunder offers a drum roll to complete the tympanic portion of natures symphony this morn.

As I stand on the porch and watch the gardens come alive in the wetness, I too feel renewed. It will be a wet trip to church this morn. We will welcome it. The umbrella will keep us dry...and smiling.
The Lord has refreshed the earth around us this day. Now, we will enter His house... and find refreshing  for the Soul as well.


K.L. Dennie 2018

A Soldiers Future

 

 

To Kam,

There is one thing that all members of the military hold in common in their careers...sacrifice. And one sacrifice common to all soldiers, sailors, and airmen, in all branches of our nations forces, is separation.

Sometime,often many times, in the military experience, deployment takes one hundreds, thousands, even ten thousand miles or more from home. It could be training, a new duty station, or war, but the hard task of leaving family behind to serve your country is a sacrifice common to all who wear the uniform.Tomorrow your sacrifice, your journey, begins.

When you go wheels up tomorrow and leave that air strip behind, you'll be leaving other things behind as well. High school days, football glory days, your friends, the ones you love, and the ones who love you. You're off to new adventures and the ones you love, by necessity, will all be here.

The high school days are gone, but your friends and family will wait for you to return. Your loved ones will watch you from the ground as you soar off to a new life of regimen and service to your country. You will feel it. We will feel it.There will be a few tears.

There will be tears of sadness because you'll be missed these next seven months.There will be tears because a new era of manhood has begun; it seems only yesterday you wore an old Army helmet like a little bobble-head, and hid in the flower beds in search of the "enemy"...your brothers.There will be tears of joy because you are in the midst of doing what you've wanted to do since you were five years old... become a soldier.

There will be also be eyes that are moist with pride. Pride in your dedication to your country, pride in your sense of honor, pride in the soldier that you are...and the soldier you will become.

I know that you, however, are also anxious and "gung ho" to move forward and to "be all you can be". It's a mixed bag of joy and sorrow interwoven...feelings that will all eventually gel into honor and pride when you've completed your duties.

You'll return home more self assured, self reliant, self disciplined, and self aware, than you are even now. The thing about separation is that it makes you draw from within. Aside from all you will learn and accomplish in your larger military experience, you'll learn an awful lot about yourself, about who you are as a man.This perhaps is the best education of all, for it will last you all of your life.

I have no great words of wisdom to impart to you, Kam, other than that I've been where you are now, and I'm somehow a better man for the experience. Just remember the mantra, "For God and Country", and never forget that God comes first in that mantra. Hold Him in your heart. You never lose when you let God choose.

I love you, grandson...and I could not be more proud.

Grandad. June 4, 2018

 

 

Memorial Day Thoughts

My thoughts over the Memorial Day weekend were on freedom. I know that this is hardly a bolt from the blue, given that Memorial Day is all about remembering those who have paid the supreme sacrifice for the preservation of our country and its ideals. But, as I traveled across the Midwest this past Saturday and Sunday, enjoying the view from the car, I was struck again by the beauty of our country. As the miles rolled by, I felt again a clear understanding of the enormous breadth of our nation. And, as my son-in-law Mike expressed, "we must be thankful that we live in a country where we are free to just get in a vehicle and go." Anywhere.

As my oldest grandson Kirkland, my son-in-law, and I were driving to near the West Virginia line, my wife, daughter and two other grandsons were driving to Missouri. My car load was bound for a wild hog hunt in southeast Ohio, my wife’s vehicle was heading for St. Louis to the Zoo and Science museum. It struck me that, here was my family going in two different directions, traveling hundreds of miles across our great nation, never hindered by armed guards at check points, travel documents, or visas. We just put the keys in the ignition, pointed the car in right direction, and drove. We crossed one state line after another with ease and freedom. And we enjoyed the scenic view along the way.

The scene changed constantly as the ribbon of blacktop passed quickly under us. We witnessed the growing green fields of corn and beans. The amber fields of ripening wheat.The rivers and creeks were blue and green, and fishermen and boaters alike were out in force. The flat plains  eventually rose to become rolling hills. Set against a clear blue sky, the varying green peaks of southeastern hills put a crick in our necks as we stretched to see the tops.

Horses and cattle grazed in pastures that were wrapped in white or black wooden fences. We passed through quaint villages of old brick buildings and painted clapboard houses, with folks sitting on their porches. We saw cityscapes with high rises pointed skyward, looking for all the world like a steel and glass Stonehenge. From major metropolitan areas to tiny towns lost in another age and time, we rode through the heartland and admired the great diversity of our country.

Both carloads of us kept abreast of the others travel by an exchange of texts, pictures and phone calls that reached out over three states. I received pictures of my wife Patty, daughter Melissa, and grandsons Kameron and Karter as they explored the zoo, took in the museum, and ate at various restaurants through their two day travel. I sent pictures of rolling livestock-grazed hillsides, a covered bridge, the hunting lodge, and of course the 450 pound wild hog that Kirkland harvested with his bow. My daughter, Jennifer, and her family crossed their home state of Kentucky for a little road trip. We were all states apart travelling freely, speaking to each other freely, and loving the family time adventures. All because we were free to enjoy it, as law abiding citizens of the United States of America.

We enjoyed our holiday weekend, on separate trips together. As a Desert Storm veteran, I understood that the time we were enjoying had come at a cost, and that brothers and sisters in the military continue to this day to safeguard our liberties. I loved seeing our flag flying at every turn. From cemeteries and village street corners, to grand residences and humble country shacks, many folks displayed the red, white and blue with pride and patriotism.

As we made our way back to the Chicken Ranch, lines from our national musical heritage kept playing in my mind, “Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain..” and from our National Anthem “Oh say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave, o’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”

What a place this America is. What a people we Americans are.

 What a grand and wonderful right we possess. This right that we oft take for granted, enjoy all our days, and will fight to the death to maintain.  How wonderful... this thing we call FREEDOM.

Mike and Kirkland Chappell. The day before Kirkland harvested a 450 pound wild hog with his bow. A fun Memorial Day trip for us all.

A SENSE OF SPRING

                        K D Chicken Ranch

It felt a bit like Spring today

But not upon my skin

The air was cold, the sky was gray

And my jacket was too thin

The new calves were sitting tight

Against their mothers backs

 Pools of water reflected light

 In the cattle's frozen tracks

It was not a bright warm sun

Nor  new buds upon the trees

(Though those can't come soon enough

For an old cowboy like me)

No, it must have been the sound

Of the Redbirds' "pretty" call

The Robins coming back around

After leaving us last Fall
 

Could've been the shoots of green
Of  Daphodils on the rise
Or thousands of honking geese
Flying north across the skies

Yes, I felt it in my bones
Sure as a man can feel a thing
At the ranch, Winter's come and gone
And I  sense the birth of Spring

K.L. Dennie 2010



Keep It Simple Cowboy

K D Chicken Ranch

This old world keeps us hoppin like a frog on asphalt. People scurrying off to work to get more money to pay the bills, and then to buy more things that, of course, requires more money, generates more bills and…well, you get it. And  all at the speed of sound. Many of us spend our lives running after material things in the misguided belief that material, finite things can supply true happiness. For instance, our car has to make a statement, our trucks too. Has to be new and  impressive, even though a new vehicle is just about the worst investment a man can make. It depreciates in value the instant our name goes on the title.

The house we live in has to have “success” written all over it. Whatever ‘Success” is. Used to be a person could buy a house and be reasonably certain to make a profit, even if you sold it after one year. Not the case any more. The real estate crash changed all that.

 Some folks have found themselves buying beautiful houses, thinking they would be beautiful homes. Only to find that, well, fine houses are only fine homes if fine people live in them. Good families can make fine homes out of any old house.

Sometimes, I think God must look down and see a world full of people lookin like ants at a picnic. Hurriedly coming and going, running into each other just long enough to say “Hi”, carrying more weight than we need to, from daylight to dark, and just to gather up all we can in this life. And then we’re too exhausted or frustrated to enjoy our gains much of the time anyway. Oh, I’ve been there and done that, but one day I said whoa, drew up the reigns, and wondered ...why? It may have started me thinking when I went to a nursing home one day many years ago. Patty and I visit a nearby nursing home often to check on some old friends, and to help get one of them to church. It is there that I am often struck by what life can wind up being for some of us.

“See that man there? That’s Mr. so and so, he was a bank president for years. Over there is Mrs. somebody, she owned a chain of hardware stores. That man there owned 6000 acres and was a political big shot”. The nursing homes are full of rich people, successful people, once powerful people, and poor people, who all together stare at old black and white reruns or out the window, and wait for the highlight of their day... the next meal. All their material possessions in this life have come down to their favorite chair, and maybe a television set. And memories, for those who can member. Once they were separated as the 'haves and have nots'. Today they were all the same. A shell of a person with nothing but their memories for companionship. It was a lesson in what matters to me.

I want good memories. Our life is, after all, the sum of the memories we've made. And I want to be remembered fondly, for good things, not for my material acquisitions or any place in society that I may have attained.

Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t provide for ourselves and others in the best way that we can. It is our duty and responsibility to do so. We must work to keep food on the table and provide for ourselves. But, where is the line that separates necessity from vanity? When does good enough finally become good enough? For some of us, I'm afraid, good enough doesn’t come until all that glittered gold has cost us all that really mattered.

 I appreciate a photo my daughter gave me. It is a picture of an old man and a small child fishin on a dock. The caption reads, "Your grandchildren will not remember you by the material things you gave them, but by the memory that you cherished them”. Amen. Love, kindness, compassion, those things stay behind after we've long gone. Simple things are lasting things. Spiritual things are eternal things. I want to dwell more on lasting and eternal things.

At the feed store one recent morning, I found a mixture of folks standing around the counter, eating popcorn, and drinkin coffee. Big hats, ball caps and Carhart hoods. Farmers, ranchers and hired hands.  When I walked in the door, the snow blew in behind me. As I closed the door and dusted off my cowboy hat, one of my friends’ ranch bosses asked ,“ Did you bring this snow with you cowboy?” “Nah, if I had that kind of power I’d a brought 2 more feet and dumped it behind your truck, Buck” I answered. Everyone chuckled and we talked about snows past, present, and predicted.

The girl behind the counter finally asked if I needed the usual supplies and named them. I answered yes. One of the men good naturedly asked my neighbor what he thought of “borderin up to a chicken rancher”. We all laughed, and I joked with them and the shop clerk that I needed to order rubber boots for my chickens, since the snow was gonna hang on all winter. After that, I said “see ya” and headed out to the storage building to start loading feed. Before I went through the door though, one man looked up from his coffee cup and said of me, "That ‘chicken rancher’ is a good neighbor.” Now, in Midwest rural America, being a good neighbor is a grand way to be remembered. That’s why the State Farm company slogan became such a success. Good neighbors mean something here. Simple statement, powerful meaning.

As I guided my old rusty red pickup through the snow to the feed barrels, I thought about the simple things. I tightened my bandanna around my neck, and appreciated its warmth against the 25 degree chill. Pushed my Stetson down on my head a little tighter, and unloaded the bags of feed. I looked over the fences at the multi- colored hens against the white snow, and enjoyed the picture of contentment it presented. Hershey, my dog, placed his big ole head on my leg for a rub. I patted him on the head and he scurried off to run in the snow. As I finished my chores, I felt a cup of coffee coming, and a piece of homemade pecan pie.

I stood for a minute and looked at the snow on the trees. I marveled once again at Gods ability to paint such glorious pictures as that of the Blue Jays and Cardinals against the green and white of the snowy pines. I thought of the owl outside our window at night that often hoots me to sleep, and the sound of the coyotes as they sing through their hunting. I thought of the music of the wind in the cedars, that I hear from my back porch. The smell of cookin in the kitchen when I come through the back door. The dance of flames over split logs, and the feel of warmth as I stand with my back to the fireplace. Sweet memories to add to my mental store house, there to draw from when I need them. Simple pleasures all.

As I climbed back into the truck, it appealed to me that simple things, all poured into a tin cup and mixed together, add up to a powerful drink of happiness. ‘Keep it simple cowboy”, I often think to myself.
It’s gonna be my mission this next new year to be less carnal and material minded. To dwell on the eternal things, on lasting things. I don’t want to be consumed by the rat race or caught up in the dizzy unending spiral of great material gain. No, I want take pleasure in simple things, and be a simple man.
I’d like to leave a head stone behind someday that says “ He was a good neighbor.” Yes, that's it. Plain and simple.

Night Camp

The mesquite fire crackles and pops

And smoke rises in the air

Along the brush, a rabbit hops.

Over the mountains, the sun sets fair.

I stir the beans in the old iron pot

And give the biscuits a lid.

I then turn up my tin coffee cup

And take a good long sip.

The mules are hobbled, horses are tied

And blankets are spread around.

Tomorrow brings a new days’ ride

But tonight we camp on the ground.

A calming sound sings from the creek,

As it's bubbling its way south.

It nearly lulls me off to sleep

 As I brush the crumbs from my mouth.

I fold my hands behind my head

And relax in the embers glow.

Then pop the dust from my hat,

And tip it over my nose.

KL Dennie