Welcome Home Luke!

Well, you’ll have to indulge me today.

Luke went home to his brothers and his own room last night.

After they were discharged from Baptist Hospital in Nashville yesterday afternoon, they went straight to Vanderbilt Medical Center to have his little heart checked out.

There had been some concern early on that a few things might not be just right.

By the grace of God, answered prayers were obvious as the doctor came in and said something to the effect of “This is a boring scan to look at. Everything is right where it’s supposed to be and everything is perfect.” All of us are overwhelmed at God’s hand in this.

Why are we surprised? Well, I don’t know if “surprised” is the right word. Relieved. Grateful. Truth is, sometimes our prayers don’t get answered the way we want them to be answered. Father knows best.

Anyway, we’re thankful that Luke is ok.

So now there are three Watson boys in the house in Nashville. Here are some pics.

Thanks for your prayers.

Wayne and family




good night now.

Watercolor Pony Ranch Adds New Member!

I was awakened yesterday by a text message from my son, Neal, saying that Lindsay, his wife of 10 years, was all checked into the hospital in Nashville.

January 14th has been the date we've long expected Luke to show up. And so he did!

For a few months now, the doctors have been keeping an eye on Luke's heart. Early on, they detected a few problems. Hundreds of people began to pray. Oh, and one note - Neal and Lindsay weren't sold on the name "Luke" at first but as he was having this little bit of trouble and since "Luke" is a really good doctor name (check New Testament ...oh, about the third book in) they felt like the name was a good choice.

Yesterday, after they induced labor, they were keeping a close eye on his heart rate. As the morning drew to a close and the labor didn't progress as quickly as they all hoped, they performed a C section around 2 PM.

So now the suspense is over and Luke Britton Watson is walking the planet (ok, not yet, but watch out!). He is doing great. Maybe the elevated heart rate was just his excitement of meeting his family, seeing his big brothers, Sam and Gabe.

Wow. Three boys! Neal and Lindsay and all of us are so thankful and happy.

Just wanted to share this with you.

Watercolor Ponies have not only ridden away - they're working their own ranches!

Wayne

Bird Dogs

The dogs can’t wait to hit the ground. They spend the night in the kennel, sleeping in their own, relatively comfortable quarters. In the night, from time to time, you can hear them respond to something outside their fences – a coyote, a rabbit or a raccoon. They get stirred up - they bark - they howl. Their excitement rocks you in the otherwise quiet country nighttime. Somehow though, it’s easy to go back to sleep knowing they’re out there.

In the morning, they’re ready to load up and get to the field. It’s quail season. They spend most of the year waiting for these days.

The first morning was cold and dry. The temperature stretched from 25 degrees in the morning to a high of 70 in the south Texas afternoon. Welcome to January near the Texas / Mexico border.

As I drove south to the hunting camp, I saw lots of trucks pulling nice trailers with license plates from New Jersey and Minnesota. They look forward to the season, too.

We drive along the ranch road until we get to the first spot. Getting the dogs ready takes a minute or two but they can hardly wait. They shake with excitement. My friend, whose place I’m hunting on, acts as host, chef, dog handler and everything else.

He puts the electronic receivers on each of the first two dogs that will start the day in the field. The receivers respond to a transmitter that is kept on the handler’s belt. If the dogs get too far away, the short, harmless, but probably uncomfortable shock gets their attention. Harmless shocks are what happen to somebody or something other than you! Kind of like “minor surgery”. You know, the kind of surgery performed on somebody else.

As the dogs begin to work the field, we follow along driving at a pace of two or three miles per hour. Sometimes, I get out and walk through the thigh-high grass and brambles. The dogs don’t seem to pay any attention to the thorns and the saw grass.

They run back and forth with their noses in the air and on the ground. They jump over any obstacle with ease. It looks like they are smiling.

Every once and a while, my friend will call out “Lil” or “Ben”. The other two dogs in the back of the truck waiting their turn are named “Dot” (a beauty of a pointer with one big brown spot on her left side) and “Girl”. I guess they ran out of names.

When the dogs hear their names called they come back to the path of the truck and resume the focused hunt.

When they find a covey of quail, they freeze. It’s an incredible sight. If they are on birds, they cannot be called off – they will not release at the call of their names. They won’t come off point even if they are shocked by the receiver on their necks.

It’s what they are there to do.

A few years ago, the Vice President was in the news for shooting a friend with a shotgun while quail hunting. The ranch they were on is just across the fence from where we are. And for anybody that’s ever done any bird hunting, you know how easy it is for this to happen.

You walk up behind your dog on point, not knowing if the birds are two feet in front or five. When they flush, it’s an explosion. There might be five birds or twenty but it’s chaos and when it happens, you act fast. You swing the gun into position and fire.

That’s why we’re wearing bright orange hats and vests - to keep from being shot!

I’m pretty sure there are some of you reading this who have a hard time with the whole hunting thing, but if you’ve read this far, stay with me a little longer.

And by the way, we clean and eat everything we shoot. You can’t find any meat in the supermarket to compare with the meal we’ll have tonight.

The more I do this kind of thing, the more I enjoy watching the dogs work. It’s really the highlight for me above anything else – ok maybe the meal is the highlight but I digress.

They’re amazing animals. They don’t point and flush cardinals or sparrows. They hunt quail. Their noses don’t peg on the scent of rabbits or groundhogs. They don’t chase deer. In the course of our time in south Texas, we saw a couple of dozen nice bucks and the dogs gave them the casual glance and the general disregard of a shopper not interested.

They are bird dogs.

I am here to bring pleasure to my Father. To listen to his voice. To respond when He calls my name. To allow for His correction and try to obey His command. I’ve not always done it and I’m sure, like “Dot” and “Ben” and “Lil” and “Girl”, there will be times He might hit the shock collar to get my attention.

My prayer for this year is to do what I’m here to do. To ignore the “sparrows” and anything else that has nothing to do with my purpose. That might seem cold and unfeeling, but honestly, we are a people too easily distracted by the junk. I want to close my eyes to the trivial and pour my heart into the eternal.

Great athletes, great musicians and great bird dogs get to be great by focusing on their gifts and their purpose. They pay little attention what others are doing. They stay on task.

The reward is in the process as well as the accomplishment.

Noise

I spent many of the days during the Christmas season away from my own bed.

A couple of days after Christmas, I drove to Louisiana to spend some time with my Mom and my brother. Christmas with them this year (as it’s become more and more each year) was less about the pressure of gifts – who got what, and the accompanying tension of “Did I get them enough?” “Was it what they wanted? “Do they need that?” “Do they like it?” Honestly, it’s a good feeling and a good progression toward a more authentic celebration of the Child. The fellowship was good and warm and all that is supposed to be with family.

Expectations are high for the season though, aren’t they? And, almost without fail, they aren’t met in full. That’s ok.
Every year that passes reminds me that we don’t live in one of those Norman Rockwell paintings. While lowering expectations in some cases might indicate compromises of undesirable proportions, in others, they just help you accept the way things are in your life, accept the people in your life for who they are and enjoy the innumerable blessings that are all around.

I slept in the “front room” at my mother’s house – the house I grew up in. Three or four feet from the head of the bed, there is a window air-conditioner that makes the greatest noise! This room is where my grandmother stayed when I was a boy. My brother and I occupied the “middle room”. The middle room had its own air-conditioner that, again, roared me to sleep every night of my youth.

When I first took up residence in a place with a whisper quiet central air unit, it took me a while to get used to the stillness and the silence – a silence that allowed every crack and pop from the outside world to startle me and keep me awake.

I’ve slept in thousands of beds in hotels all over the world and one of the first things I take note of when I enter a room is what kind of air-conditioning unit there is in the room. Is it the kind that stays on, fan running all the time, or is it one of those wall units that turn off and on a dozen times a night. Is there a fan in the bathroom that can mask some of the outside noises? Do I have my earplugs??

For those of you that can fall asleep anywhere, anytime I guess this doesn’t make any sense at all. Count your blessings. The rest of us don’t like you.

Many years ago, I discovered “the noise machine”. Now, they’re kind of generic and lots of companies make them. Basically, they produce a wide range of sounds – anything from nature sounds to “white noise” (sort of like the sound of a radio dial tuned to nothing).

I’ve experimented with lots of different settings on my little machine. I’ve tried to sleep to the sounds of waves crashing (too dramatic), gentle seaside sounds (stupid seagulls!), waterfalls (undesirable in that it makes for more trips to the …well, you get the idea).

Through all the trial and error, I always come back to simple “white noise”. This little device that makes a soothing noise makes every hotel sound the same. It masks the outside noises that intrude upon a good night’s sleep. If I find I’ve left home without it, I panic just a little bit.

You have to choose what you’re going to listen to and what you’re going to hear. Shutting out some of the noise might be one good goal this year. At least consider being more selective about what you listen to. The mute button on the television remote is a great accessory. Use it. It’s a noisy world and there are some things that have no welcome place in my ears.

There are news stories I don’t want to watch. There is language that I don’t want to hear. There are pictures of life that, while they might be authentic and real, I don’t want recorded in my mind’s sight.

Filters are good. My prayer for this year is that God will still whisper to me when to listen and when to not listen, when to look and when to turn away or close my eyes, when to speak and when to shut my mouth. I will defer to Him for the things that enter my heart. Like a carnival barker on a midway, the world throws it’s stuff my way. I don’t have to buy it.

God, give us discernment, ears to hear You – Eyes to see You and hearts that are willing to act in noble and good ways for Your sake. Amen.