For over 20 years I’d had a nice little doable raspberry patch on the farm. It was ever-bearing and in turn, produced raspberries early summer and again in the fall, until a heavy frost put them to sleep for the winter.

Running errands around Shawano, I noticed a little light had popped up on my car’s dashboard. I was gun-shy, as just a few weeks earlier another little light had appeared — that one much more serious than this one.

This light was one I could decipher easily. A tire was low. Reasoning with myself, I figured I could probably make it home and have my husband pump it up with our air compressor.

Anguish flooded my heart as my brain registered what I saw. There, on the road just past our driveway, lay my sweet kitty, Fred. Lifeless.

My husband and I were on our four-wheeler, and immediately I felt the need to get Fred off the road.

“Let’s go back and get a guinea sack,” my husband suggested quietly.

Beloveds within my immediate family dynamic — and, to be honest, everyone who knows me even casually — understand that I am severely directionally challenged.

When my husband and I first married, we weren’t golfers. One day, a good buddy of his asked him if he’d like to golf a round. My husband got hooked and dragged me along with him in his quest to conquer the links.

Ending up buying our own set of clubs, we’d golf with friends and family or on our own, just for fun. With anything, practice makes perfect, but even if one practices, a golf game will seldom be perfected.

Wanting to bless our daughter and son-in-law with a cooler full of frozen homegrown meat — pork, beef and venison, as well as various cheeses — we opted to drive down to Texas, spending a long weekend with them.

Praying many days in advance for good weather and good health, we called forth angels in the name of Jesus to assist for safe travels. We packed up, gassed up and headed out before dawn one Thursday in April.