The Hollis Table

Michael comes to visit and eat with us often. He's always smiling, especially when food is involved. Ron grilled steaks and we had salad and baked potatoes.  With sweet iced tea to wash it down, what teenager would not be happy?

Azalea Gardens in Muskogee, Oklahoma

One April morning in Muskogee those azaleas begin to burst open. Everyone has been waiting.

Horse drawn carriages carry the park visitors  around to see the park set on the hills west of town.

Horses are one of the many happy sights.

Ducks and geese are another!

Friends stop to rest on one of the docks that surround the pond.

(Alton, Evan, Julie, Brenna, and Quinton)

One of my favorite azaleas is this wonderful pink variety.

A bride and her maid-of-honor ride in the white carriage.

White azaleas for the bride.

Azaleas are sold at the Festival in April.

This one and the pink favorite above, I bought and have enjoyed in my yard the last few years.

These friends have a tradition of visiting the gardens every spring for a picnic and a hike up the waterfall trail.

These friends have a tradition of enjoying the flowers too.

Don't miss out on the gardens this year. Tulips and dogwood bloom early, and then azaleas, and later the park shows roses. There is a boardwalk around the pond, a gift and flower shop, and a playground. There are picnic tables under shade trees and a baseball field where children fly kites.

The Azalea Gardens are wonderful!

An Uncle Like Alton

Here he is, Uncle Alton, one of the all-time great uncles.

Alton, the fisherman, the lure man!

 He's everybody's favorite.

Alton loves all the babies. Here he rocks Jacob and Emma Irene.

They are all pretty happy when they are with their uncle.

Kyle's favorite in the whole world has always been his uncle Alton!

There is no one greater to run and play rough and tumble with.

 Nobody so cool and totally awesome!

Uncle Alton with Stewart. They look like they could be brothers.

Alton's nephew, Anden, was born on Alton's first birthday. They are like cousins.

Feel the love?

Drawn by Joseph Michie for the My Name is Different Book.

 The letter "t" forms a cross to show Alton's

faith in God. 

The name Alton means strength ( His hand lifts a ton, see?)

Sweet Uncle Alton and sweet little neice, Jessie Lynn.

Alton has 16 neices and nephews now.

Do they love him? Yes, they do!!!

In Unexpected Ways

God meets our needs in unexpected ways.

Jeanette Oke

Don't Fence Me In

This little donkey stood watching me pass and she seemed to be considering how she might escape her pasture. I don't know, maybe she felt safe inside and  only wondered where all of us fools were headed when there was security, sunshine and plenty of green grass.

I love to ride through the country and see the fields and meadows, looking for wildflowers and hawks soaring, and watching the world wake up with spring. I pull my van off routinely to get a better look at something. As exciting as the activity in a big city may be, there are life and events of interest to my heart in the country.

I wish I could have seen these fields before there were so many fences.

Even our farm now has fencing everywhere. Mowing and cleaning up the property exposed fences in all stages of demise. Pieces of old barbed wire have had to be cleared from brush hog and mower blade shafts.  We have discovered wire that tree trunks have grown over and incorporated into their bark. Fences around the barn protected chickens for the Howard family. Cows and horses, and turkeys have resided in pens that kept them safe from coyotes, passing vehicles, and hawk talons. Now our own fences guard our pecan orchard, our fruit tress, Brenna's herd of donkeys and her farm animals, the garden, and our buildings.

In some places, fences had been left standing, but new fences were built close beside them. Brush and trees and briars had grown through and forced apart the wire and posts. Wire has been trampled into the dirt and prairie has grown over it.Gates and new sorts of fencing, like chain link and pipe fences enclose farms now, and yet the barbed wire is still the cheapest and used for cattle pastures.

I try to envision travelers who saw this land when there were few houses, no paved roads, no electric poles or wires, and certainly not much in the way of fencing. How different, how large, how thrilling, how fearful it must have been. When there were no boundaries other than those made naturally by creeks that snaked across the land, by rivers, by the trees that grew along their banks; where the grass grew so tall and unbroken that little children like Laura and her sisters could become lost in it within a few hundred yards of their father.

When I say don't fence me in, I really mean "unfence" me. Is that relly what I want or is fencing what protects me? Is fencing what I need to feel secure and tamed. Doesn't a fence keep others out as much as it holds me in? Like the boundaries we moms set for our children, aren't fences for our ultimate good?

A fence we can see through may have covinced us that there is greener grass on the other side. Yet, there is sweet grass inside too and and open blue sky above. The sky gives us our greatest freedom. And the sky will never be sectioned off by barbed wire.

The Hollis Table

Happy people eat at the Hollis's Table. Every Sunday I'll show you one of the smiles I saw at my dinner table. Here is Zachary Collins keeping his smile tight to cover his missing front teeth. What a cute boy!

Riding Ranger and Whitey

Brenna rode the white horse home to visit us for the summer. She had a great time learning to ride and only fell off once! Mr. Brian Leist, our neighbor to the south, rode Ranger. He supplied the saddle, tack ,and riding instruction. The horse is now grazing in with Lilly and Shasta. The horse is a fifteen-year-old gelding.

Checking out the farm.

Doesn't she look like a Indian girl on a wild stallion in this shot? I mean, except for the blond hair and the pink saddle. Would you look at that sky! And how about the sudden green?

Brenna on Whitey setting out for adventure!

Oklahoma Pastureland

One of my favorite sights in spring is an Oklahoma pasture with grazing cows or horses, many with their calfs and colts beside them. I love the white clouds dancing across an everchanging blue skyscape. Pasture trees seem to turn green overnight. Barbed wire and rose briar fence in dry grasses beginning to show green from underneath. Often a hawk ornaments a fence post or a meadowlark puffs its black and yellow chest at the world and sings to the day from its wire perch.

He sings for sheer joy. Spring has come! He inspires the whole prairie with his song. From the creek banks treefrogs sing too, a chorus that intensifies when there is rain. Life stirs in the grasses. Birds build nests and rabbits give birth inside shallow burrows.

Hawks soar overhead on these afternoons - screeching at the world - a defiant - "I'll get you" sound. Wind sweeps the whole picture, stirring the treetops and drawing the sap out to the waiting buds. The sap will feed the new leaves and make them hardy. Soon the fences will be punctuated with sprays of pink wild roses and honeysuckle.

Soon heat will come as the sun rises and heats the ground with penetrating light. Humid and eighty-five by nine in the morning; breathless and one hundred degrees by noon, the days will live long and ride slow. Lanquishing in the heat, cows will wade into the warm pond water. Dragonflies will zip and buzz like tiny helicopters across the cows broad backs.

Wildflowers and blackberries will bloom and bare fruit there. Clouds will build toward evening and thunderstorms and tornados lurk always near. The everlasting winds weary the earth.

That's summer in Oklahoma. I can feel it coming!

Dear Jesus,

What a beautiful day Easter has always been to me because of you! Dad used to take us to the early sunrise service and then to a lodge in the woods where they served pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast. We sang and prayed and ate at long rustic tables festooned with bouquets of buttery daffodils as the sun slanted through the windows on us.

I remember sunrise service at our home in Texas at the Jesus House. Mama served up platters of pancakes and filled pitchers with fresh icy cold milk. We had bouquets of daffodils there too. Someone played a guitar and we sang about  how we cherish the cross because it was there you died because you loved us so and wanted to bring us the hope of overcoming death.

On the lawn at Grandma June's house in Louisiana, we watched the sun leap into the morning sky and we sang with the brothers and sisters there, "He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today! He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way!"

Oh, do you remember how Jiggs and the men's quartet sang for us on Easter Sunday? They started out slow and low and dreadfully woeful.

"Low in the grave He lay, Jesus, my saviour;
Waiting the coming day, Jesus, my Lord!

(Then with such pomp and power they sang:)

"UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE,
With a mighty triumph o'r His foes!
He arose the victor from the dark domain
And He lives forever with His saints to reign!
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!"

"Death could not keep its prey, Jesus, my saviour;
He rolled the stone away, Jesus, my Lord!"

"UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE,
With a mighty triumph o'r His foes!
He arose the victor from the dark domain;
And He lives forever with His saints to reign!
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!"

I can still hear them. Their deep and marvelous voices thundering in the old stone dome of the First Baptist Church in Manistee, Michigan. It was greater than any theater surround sound system on earth! I am sure that of all the praises you have heard, you must remember those.The sound went right through a person's soul and overpowered him. It made me laugh and cry at the same time!

This morning the sun rose bright and warm on my bedroom window and I watched these tulips open to the light. I thought about you and how good you are to us. I thought what a wonderful day it was when my spirit and heart opened to your light and I knew you were alive!

Thank you, Lord, for coming. Thank you for dying and for living again, for making all things beautiful in your time. And thank you for tulips waving like flags to the spring sky and oh, yes, thank you for songs to sing.

Love you, Elece