Grandson Nathan goes Skydiving

Nathan & I (witness only) went skydiving yesterday in Fayetteville, NC. For his 19th birthday his parents purchased him 2 minutes in a skydiving simulator. He now wants to do the real thing. I won,t be there to record it!

Katy's Encounter with Jungle Living

Last month we visited our grand-daughter Katy at the "Jungle Aviation and Radio Service" (JAARS) complex in Waxaw, NC. She was spending a week in the Jungle Jump Off camp there. The camp gives people a taste of life on the jungle mission field. Check out the link below.

http://www.jaars.org/jungle_jumpoff/index.shtml

The building of the Shop 2003

The Dwarf Project

I got a call from a friend at my church the other day with a strange request. A mutual friend of ours wanted to honor her recently deceased daughter who had written a short story as a teenager about playing in the woods when she was a child. The story told of a small door in a very old tree that was probably the entrance of a dwarf home. Some folks from the church had already built this wonderful flower garden for the mother and I was asked to make the dwarf door in an existing tree.

I made the door assembly from some old treated pine I had and carved the natural grain of the wood to give it an old raised look and then stained it with some dark walnut.

The path was made using just sand mix and embedding scale sized pieces of field stone that I cut. The path was laid in dry and a misting sprinkler system took care of the rest.

The original story of the dwarfs appears below.

The Tree Community and the Inhospitality of Dwarf's

There were numerous trees in the forest that I was sure must have souls. They had personalities and they spoke with different tones of voice when the wind wandered through their leaves. Some were clearly female, others obviously royalty. Because of them, I never felt alone in the woods. Two of the most important members of the tree community were named Adam and Eve. They stood in our backyard, several hundred-year-old oak trees. Eve was strong and stately, but with a graceful femininity to her that made her queenliness evident. The most true queens never have to state their royal position- it’s written in their form and stance. Adam stood protectively and proudly next to her. More rugged, with thick roots that my bare feet knew by heart. In between Adam and Eve stood my tree house and our hammock. I always felt that Eve was somewhat emotionally detached from a part of her trunk that I found particularly mysterious and exciting. At the beginning of Eve’s roots, nestled what appeared to be a short door. It was etched and knotted into the wood, the perfect size and shape to be the front door for a family of dwarfs. I had no doubt that that was exactly what it was- a magical door. I assumed that the dwarfs carried a natural distrust of me, being a young human. I also knew, however, that my youth worked in my favor. Dwarfs would clearly never open a door for an adult human, but perhaps under the right circumstances, they would open the door for a child. I was sure that if they met me, we could talk; they would see how kind and accepting I was of dwarf culture. And we could be friends. Often, upon passing the door, I would stop to knock, sometimes lightly, sometimes with a heavy hand or with various rhythms. I wasn’t sure if there was any particular knocking protocol in the dwarf world. Was one kind of knocking offensive, or would they refuse to open if I knocked in an un-dwarfly manner? No one ever answered. One day, however, it occurred to me that perhaps there was a spy hole in the door, too small for me to see. If I hid behind the tree and reached around to knock, perhaps I could trick them into opening the door, because they would be unable to see that it was the human child. This, unfortunately, did not work either. Eventually I resigned myself to their cleverness and in hospitality. I want to be fair to the dwarfs and assume that they’ve offered their share of hospitality to others in the past. I remain unconvinced, however, of their openness to other cultures, particularly the human culture. I assume that they were forever relieved, after that, to be free of their obnoxious human neighbor. That was the last time that I knocked. There were so many trees in the community that I grew to know and love. So many important personalities, that it’s difficult to narrow down which ones I should introduce you to. There was the long row of pine trees that had been planted by settlers in the early years of the country. These trees towered several stories above our house. One of their best gifts was the soft pine needles they shed; easy to run on, comfortable to rest on. Such a gift made it clear that these trees were friends. Their shade made up the bulk of my domain. They were the sentinels to the village of which I was indisputably queen. With flowers and pine needles in my hair, I would often practice running through the woods without making a sound. Enemies were always a minor threat, and one must be well-trained and prepared. Something innate told me that enemies were an obvious part of any story. It didn’t take long for me to figure out who mine probably were. The coyotes were an enemy I could live with. I heard them howling in the cornfields and the forest at night. It was the sound, rather than the sight of them, that made me fear. One could often hear them fighting amongst themselves or note the screams of a rabbit as they ended its life out in the darkness. At the same time, I knew my own power. My parents had told me that the coyotes feared me as well. We lived side by side in the woods, mostly respecting, and at times, fearing one another. They ruled the night and I ruled the day. The more serious enemy was the land surveyor. Throughout my childhood, talk floated around about the eventual “development” of my kingdom into a subdivision. It seemed wrong to me that anyone would feel that they had ownership and a right to a magic forest. It was all the proof I needed to support something I already felt I knew. This is that, a certain amount of wisdom is lost when many humans become adults. As a child, I knew that youth was short and that various kinds of knowledge would only be clear during that time. It was my job to glean as much of that childhood wisdom as possible, and attempt to preserve it for my adulthood. One bit of knowledge that I held tight to was the belief in the magical world as existing parallel to the natural world. I wasn't sure how it worked, but the most exciting adventures had to do with trying to discover how the two worlds interacted. One of the most important days in this adventure happened the day that I found the skeleton key. I don’t remember where I found it. Maybe it was in an old jewelry box of my mom’s, in a yard sale, or a box of keepsakes in my grandparent’s basement. I knew that skeleton keys were closer to the supernatural world than my parent’s car keys. As soon as I saw this one, though, I was sure that it was important. It had an elfish quality to its construction. Part of the handle had been broken at one point, making it seem as though it held the secrets of several adventures already. My suspicion was that, if I found a gate in the forest to use this key on, the magic that lay at the surface of my kingdom would be unlocked. I spent that afternoon looking for my gate. I didn’t have to look long; something told me that I would find the appropriate gate for my key at the center of the forest, and that something was right. There, on a raised piece of circular ground, stood two, thin, young guardian trees. Because they were young, I assumed they were also fairly innocent trees. And because innocence was one of the best guardians of the supernatural, it was clearly the gate to my magical world. I inserted the key in a knot of wood, appropriately positioned at chest height on the right tree. This done, I stepped through the gate, solemnly, savoring the importance of the moment. My adventures, the tree community, and the secrets I overheard, whispered by gossipy squirrels. These could be shared only with the utmost care. The neighbor girls, Sarah and Miranda, were my confidantes. They shared in my royalty. They were my sisters in the magic world. Although their sisterhood was of utmost importance to me, I always held a fear in my chest that they would break the magic, either by eventual disbelief or inappropriate sharing of forest secrets with the kids at school. One day, my fear came true. We were sitting on the bus, my newly found magic key tucked in my pocket. I fingered it gently, content. It’s hard not to share good news though and my friends had, as yet, not seen the key and what it could do. Pulling it out of my pocket, I began to show it quietly to Sarah and Miranda. To my satisfaction, they shared in the excitement of it. Their voices carried to our classmate Erin, however. As much as I’d always wanted Erin to like me, I knew that she had no reverence for keys or magic kingdoms. Laughing at me, she snatched the key out my hand, demanding to know what it was all about. The unexpected flash of anger in my eyes immediately signaled to Erin the importance of the key. She taunted me, playfully, and held onto the key, enjoying a break in the boredom of our ride to school. I held back my tears and bit down the anger. Perhaps there were other skeleton keys in the world that would work at the gate. But how, in the Midwest and all of Iowa, would I ever find one that had so clearly been made by elves?

The key was used numerous times, as a beginning and closing ritual to my afternoon play. One red- letter day, however, highlighted the important responsibility it was to be the guardian of such a key. I had unlocked the gate and stepped through as usual. Clothed in invisible robes of queenly magicalness, I played hard all afternoon. Hearing my mom calling me home to dinner, however, I raced home, with the key jogging about, forgotten, in my pocket. The days were getting shorter. This meant that I wasn’t able to play outside after dinner anymore. I complacently played inside that evening, washed up for bed, and crawled under the covers at the usual hour. Lying there, however, I was unable to sleep. Something wasn’t right. I played through the day in my mind, searching for some clue as to what felt off. My small body suddenly tensed. I’d forgotten to lock the magic back up. Magic within its natural bounds is one thing. But who knew what kind of havoc would result if it was left to carelessly leak into the natural world through the unlocked gate? It was possible that I was over-reacting. Maybe nothing would happen. But magical worlds are a power to be respected. The idea that, left unattended in my human world, this careless leak of magic could unravel the universe while I slept, seemed terrifyingly possible. I lay tensely in bed, weighing the possibilities. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. The burden of responsibility lay on my shoulders. Slipping out of bed and quietly out of the house, I raced to the woods in my pajamas. Clutching the key, I hurried through the dark. Branches caught in my hair, and the cool fall air filled my lungs. I had never run through the woods at night before. It was exhilarating! Reaching the gate, everything still appeared as it should. Nothing rent the sky; nothing appeared to have been inadvertently charmed, cursed, or transformed. I quickly locked the gate, securing the two worlds. Breathing a sigh of relief I walked triumphantly back to the house. No one else can know how well I slept that night except those who have also had the experience of once saving the world. It’s the deepest sleep of happiness one can know. To say that it was an evil tree would oversimplify the complexity of its character.

Written by Emily Rudolph

Abby's Adventure

Our granddaughter Abby Metty is a photo journalism student at UNC. She, a group of her peers, and her professor have gone to Thailand to chronicle the results and consequences of the sunami in that region. Follow her adventures at the blog list at the left side of this page. Most interesting.

Jon Metty's Baptism

My wife and I traveled to Boone, NC to witness our oldest grandson's baptism on Sunday June 29, 2008. It was carried out in a very cold stream on the farm of one of the members of Jon's church. Pastor Matt McDill presiding. Jon is planning on going to Haiti in August of this year to minister at an orphanage there.