Habakkuk’s Penny

While handling a Bible someone gifted Desiree, I noticed a rather conspicuous gap between the pages in one spot. Upon opening the Bible there, I found a shiny new penny.

Strange.

Why there? A random act? Sheer chance? Or might some design be in effect?

The coin marked the beginning of Habakkuk, a minor prophet. I was unfamiliar with the book and had to do some studying.

Habakkuk is a remarkably honest little book. The prophet looks at a world drowning in violence, corruption, and injustice and asks God the question believers have been asking for thousands of years: "Why don't You do something?" God's answer is unsettling. Habakkuk learns that faith is not built on having firm answers. Sometimes it must carry true believers through hard answers and anguish. By the end of the book, nothing around Habakkuk has changed. Trouble is still coming. Yet his outlook has been transformed. He chooses to rejoice in God, even if the crops fail, the livestock disappear, and every earthly reason for optimism evaporates.

This is not far removed from the story of Job, but it is more distressing in one respect. Habakkuk receives no earthly restoration like the rewards bestowed upon Job for his faith through strife. Instead, he is left to trust God without seeing the outcome he might have hoped for.

I am afraid I would require a firm answer about the need for suffering and, thus, Habakkuk's penny is lost on me.

Habakkuk’s Penny

—Mitchell Hegman

The Maiden Step

Yesterday, I drove up to the cabin and completed the concrete slab project by stripping the forms and backfilling the edges with soil. The finish on the concrete is lovely. Desiree did a great job on the surface, and there are no rock pockets along the sides.

As much as I like rocks, they are not useful when they form air pockets within concrete.

Before driving back home, I misted the slab with water to encourage a slow curing process, which produces stronger concrete. Although the sacks of premix say you can walk on the pour after 24 hours, I have yet to take a single step on it. Maybe Des can take the "maiden step" the next time we go to the cabin.

The Slab After Stripping the Forms

Backfilled Slab

—Mitchell Hegman

The Big Pour

A couple of weeks ago, Desiree and I set the forms for a concrete pad at the lower entry door to the cabin. Yesterday, we poured and finished the concrete.

Poured-in-place concrete projects are backbreaking. In this case, using 50, 60, and 80-pound sacks of premix, we fed a portable mixer to produce 18 batches of concrete, which we then bucketed and shoveled into place. The pour itself required almost four hours. Finishing the concrete and cleaning up the far-flung construction mess took another two hours.

We also learned something: Desiree is a pretty good concrete finisher. Good to know for future projects.

Before the First Batch

Des Working the First Two Pours

Me Feeding the Mixer

Finished Slab

—Mitchell Hegman

The Ghost of the Woods

People sometimes call the elk the ghost of the woods, and it is difficult to imagine a more fitting nickname. Elk weigh several hundred pounds, yet they can slip through a forest soundlessly. They may appear in the half-light of dawn or prance from a bank of morning fog as if materializing from another world. Then, just as suddenly, a dozen might vanish without notice. A few silent strides into the timber, and creatures taller than most horses simply dissolve among the trees and shadows. Tawny hides blend with the colors of bark and dried grass, while their keen noses and sharp ears detect us long before we can detect them.

Elk have certainly lived up to their moniker at my cabin. I have owned the property for 26 years this month and have never personally spotted an elk there. I have seen them near my place. I have found their tracks and pellets. But the elk have eluded me entirely.

Yesterday, in a new twist, when I cleared my game camera photographs, I found a dozen images of elk near my cabin. Some were captured in darkness. Others appeared in broad daylight, caught in a single image before melting back into the woods.

Elk in the Dark

Elk in the Daylight

—Mitchell Hegman

Easier

My life would be easier if I could use more of my own options for spelling and grammar.

—Mitchell Hegman

Happy 250th Birthday, America!

Happy 250^th Birthday, America. It seems like just yesterday I was celebrating your 200^th.

—Mitchell Hegman

The Prodigal Chipmunk

Yesterday, I live-trapped two more chipmunks in our never-ending scheme to reduce the looting of Desiree's flowers and exotic (at least to our prairie) vegetables planted around our house. I noticed the second caught critter ping-ponging around inside the trap at midday.

"Jeez," I said when I picked up the trap, "you need to chill before you have a mini chipmunk heart attack. I am just going to drive you down the road and let you go."

After picking up the trap, I headed back into the house as a shortcut to the garage. "Tell you what," I said to the trapped critter, "I'll turn you into the prodigal chipmunk and give you a big adventure."

With that said, I gave it a quick tour of the dining room and kitchen, explaining things. "We call that a table. Those are chairs. Check out the LED lights. Nice, right?" When we got to my laptop, I hovered the trap near the screen. "That's a computer. You're not likely to see one of those again."

A few minutes later, we found ourselves over a mile down the road, where I released the prodigal chipmunk into a knot of tall sagebrush. "Just consider this," I said as the chipmunk vanished into the tangles. "The latest theories suggest we may all be nothing more than minor players in a grand simulation."

The Prodigal Chipmunk

—Mitchell Hegman