"He that lives upon hope will die fasting." - Benjamin Franklin

Older brother Scott sent this to me, a pic from a shop in Spokane he drives by often. Truth.

The forecast for Saturday in Grants Pass has changed. The day's high is up to 77 degrees and the low up to 52, with sun and zero chance for precip. Doesn't get any better! That high won't come until 3 p.m. so it's of no concern. Even I should be done by then.

Pam gets home tonight. Her flight lands at 8:50 and she should be at the curb by 9:15.
T'ank you, Fadder!

Yesterday I trimmed Stella's hooves, a job that should be done every three months and that I was embarrassingly late attending to. Her rear hooves were especially bad and I'm not very good at that still-new-to-me task. I'll go back in a week or so and do more, but we were both getting too stressed out.
Today I'll do Sundae's. At about 150 lbs. her cooperation is essential. Alas, her attitude promises problems.
Then AJ and Burrito. At four months old their hooves are still soft and that makes them tricky to trim. But they can't put up an effective fight, either, so I'm hoping their trimming goes better.

I forgot to fill the kindling bucket yesterday so I had to go out at 4 a.m. this morning if I was going to have a fire. And at 57 degrees MoHo needed a fire.
With no moon to light up the sky the view I saw looking straight up was nearly breathtaking. City folk need to see this.

Our church small group decided last night that we won't meet next Tuesday. During the 30 seconds it took them to come to that conclusion I had to ask why they were considering the question. Turns out it's Halloween.
OK, that shows you how into that nonsense holiday I am.
With no children in the house the night on Baker Rd. (very dark, rural, gravel, dead end road), will pass quietly.
And besides, who cares about Halloween when it's the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's posting of his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenburg, Germany?! Now there's an event we should celebrate.

It's just now 6 a.m. and I've been up for a couple of hours. During that time I've had an internal should I write about or shouldn't I write about debate going in my mind. Never one to listen to the voice of reason, especially when it's inside my own head....

Many years ago while serving at one of the wonderful churches we served I was accused of sexual misconduct by a key woman in the church. She made the accusation to the elders who then had the difficult task of looking into her charges against their pastor.
By God's grace her accusations included specific examples that I was able to refute with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Phone records, travel schedules and the like. But the three weeks it took for my innocence to become clear were perhaps the most difficult of my career, the more so because after accusing me to the elders she decided to tell others in the church, many of whom were close enough to her to accept as truth what she said. None of us realized until this was concluded that she had significant but well hidden emotional issues.
Note: I was and am SO thankful for a wife who never wavered in her trust and support!

Because she threatened legal action against the church if any statement was made putting her in a negative light the elders never could publicly exonerate me. Almost everyone at that point knew she'd accused me, but the elders (rightly or wrongly, I don't know) decided to make no statement rather than risk a lawsuit, so the mess just sort of died out. She left the church, as did some of the people who believed her. Eventually we just moved on.

Why do I bring this up here, now?
Charges of sexual misconduct, including the ambiguous "harassment" charge have become a daily headline. Public figures from all arenas are getting tagged with the accusation.
I have NO idea how many of the accused have acted inappropriately and/or how many of the accusers have some reason other than reality for making those charges.
What I do know is that sometimes those charges are false. A rush to judgment can do as much harm to the accused as that ambiguous "harassment" does to the accuser, including ruined careers and broken marriages. Not everyone has a Pam for a wife.

My accuser could/would, and perhaps has posted a #MeToo message to social media. Sadly, I think she probably honestly believes her own version of events, rationalizing away the evidence to the contrary.
As with so many issues du jour it's important to maintain a clear head and reasoned response.