The harvest is near

Here are a few of my plants. As you can see I am not going to get a huge harvest but something is better then nothing. This is my green pepper plant and now the peppers are about the size of golf balls. You can kind of see a tiny one at the intersection of the window.
The green beans did terrible this summer but this guy went to town all of a sudden.
These are onions dad planted after all my peas died.
So far I only have two zucchini and you know I would love to have 22.
You can see I have one almost red tomato and another on the vine. I also have a great mint plant below that dad gave me. Actually there are 5 different kinds of mint down there.

Keep up the fight

Happy Birthday

That's right folks, A Cage of Words is one year old today. In order to celebrate we made a cake. Stop by the headquarters and we will cut you a piece.

What a year it has been. When we look back over the past year there have been so many blessings that have come our way here at A Cage of Words, it is hard to express the joy we have on this day.

First of all I would like to thank you all for your loyal readership. If it was not for you the reader we would not be here. You helped decide so many important things over the last year. For example what scooter colour would be best and what length of beard Andy should have. We also realize that in these tough economic times you are looking for the best way to spend your entertainment time and we appreciate you choosing us.

Let us not forget that today is also the feast day of St. James. It is from this saint that Andrew James Miller got 1/3 of his name.

You may also notice the new look. We like to keep things fresh around here and though a new coat of paint on the old walls would look nice. We hope you enjoy it.

Thank you for sharing with us this special day. We want to leave you with something special so we are going to re-posting the link to the book, The Prophet by kahlil Gibran. Remember it is from this book that this blog in named.

Keep up the fight

Breakfast in Bed

This week was a bit of a unique one at camp. We ran two short sessions in one week. The first group of campers came from Sunday-Tuesday and the second group came Wednesday-Friday. It was a fun week with 86% of campers coming for their first time.

Since we had no campers Tuesday night, we had some fun staff events. First on the list was pizza in Bloomington. Then we came back to camp for an ice cream bar. It was the good stuff, like Ben and Jerry's. To finish the evening we watched some movie (I went home and went to bed).
The best part of the extra time off came when we all got to sleep in on Wednesday. When I woke up it was raining. Not a hard rain, but a nice soft rain that makes you want to stay in bed. It was also cool and I had the windows open so it was perfect day to just stay under the blanket. I decided it would be nice to have breakfast in bed so you can see I went and got my bowl of cereal and enjoyed it before starting the long check-in day.

Keep up the fight

Family and Friends

Well there are so many things to update you on it is hard to know where to start. I suppose the best place to start was with the family visit. It was a great visit. It was so nice to see the family and we got a lot done during the visit. Dad did an excellent job painting an accent wall in my living room. It really brings out a lot of other colours in the room and really makes the room much warmer. Mom also did some wonderful decorating in the apartment for me. The one flower basket on the wall is receiving some odd looks, but the frames, wall art and wine rack are a big hit.

We did manage to visit two wineries while they were here. They went to a third local one without me, but that's ok. They also did some shopping, toured the sock factory, went to Bloomington, hit the outlet mall, watched two sets of fireworks and lost to me in Jenga.

Mom, dad and grandma left last Wednesday and the apartment settled down a few days until my dear friend Ryan came down from Chicago for a weekend visit. His visit was a welcomed distraction from the typical summer weekend and we also enjoyed a few wineries and some shopping. Ryan is also always good for a new recipe or two and he did not disappoint when he cook me some stir fry and rice. The great thing about his dish is that you can add more sauce if you want, but it is not overly sauced to start with.

Other than that there are just a few other minor details to mention. I crashed a giant pontoon boat into a dock... whups. I also hit the 600 mile mark of Andy (the name of my scooter as they now call me Scooter). I got a new polo shirt at Old Navy. I think that about wraps it up.

Keep up the fight.

Horsing Around

Yeah, I went with obvious and bad pun. This is Sweet-N-Low. Really we should call her piggy because she tries to stop on the trail and eat the grass all the time. She was the horse I rode last week on my weekly horse ride. I like to visit the horse barn once a week to say hi, take a ride, help with saddles and grooming or whatever needs done. Last week I learned how to pick a horses huff and how to make sure it is not foundering. I would not say I am an expert my any means, but I think I now know more then the average person.

I am looking forward to hosting mom, dad, Liz and grandma this weekend. Word on the street is that some great games of cards and Jenga are sure to go down as well as some wineries. Stay tuned for an update next week.

Keep up the fight

The Voice in the Wilderness

Today the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the birth of John the Baptist. What an amazing man he was. Just read what his father Zechariah had to say about him at his birth.

"Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who has come to His people and set them free. He has raised up for us a might savior, born of the house of His servant David. Through His holy prophets God promised of old to save us from the hand of our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us, to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant. This was the oath that he swore to our father Abraham: to set us free from the hands of our enemies. Free to worship his without fear, holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life.

And you my child shall be called profit of the most high, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His way. To give His people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God, the Dawn from on high shall break upon us. To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet on the road of peace."

I think most of us know the "locust and wild honey" or the "I am not fit to loosen the straps of his sandals" John, but today we focus on his birth. When I was reflecting on this what came to mind was his name. In the bible the use of a name often marks an event where God changes the person. God changes Abram (father of many) to Abraham (father of great many) and then Abraham laughs at him and God tells him to name his son Issac (laughter). Jacob changed to Israel after wrestling with God. Saul to Paul after being knocked to the ground (by the way the bible never says he was on a horse).

The reason his name struck me was because John was supposed to be called Zechariah after his father, but God worked in Zechariah's heart before John was even born and changed his name. God changed John from the very beginning to give his life a new purpose, a new vocation, to be a voice in the wilderness calling out to prepare the way of the Lord.

From the very beginning John lived his life directing people to Christ. Living a life of humble service always pointing to one who was greater then him. Never stopping to accept praise and glory for himself, but always for God. In the end it was jealousy, lust, corruption and greed that took John's life. What a necessary evil it was to have such a man who lived in the desert and sat amongst Kings to be martyred by the same sins that today also drive us away from Christ.

Keep up the fight

Tits on a Boar

I got the ok from my landlord to paint my apartment. I will be less then helpful in this process, but I know that my mother is great at picking out colours, my father is great at painting, my sister is a pro at opening a cold beer after a long day of hard work and grandma is a wonderfully critical supervisor, so I have no doubt they will do a great job painting when the visit in a few weeks.

In other news, we just got the Internet back at camp. It had been out since last Friday and I am sorry for the disruption it has caused in your lives. I know there are countless (5ish) readers who daily log onto A Cage of Words to get the latest news from Nashville and around the world.

I also had a good meeting with my spiritual director today and he had a good line about prayer I thought I would share with you all. We don't pray to inform God of our needs, we pray to humble ourselves in asking for what we need. Interesting....

Well I am off to go find something for dinner. All the groups are out at cookouts tonight so I dig through leftovers and go home early.

Keep up the fight