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Farming Family

Saturday, April 16, 2016

~New Farm Additions~

Meet White Henry...
 He is a 6+ week old Holstein steer

When I saw him, I immediately thought he looked like a "Henry".
  Me: "Big Boy, what color is he?" Big Boy : "White!" Me: "Good job, he is white. What do you want to name him?" Big Boy: "White!" Me : Yes, he is white, but what is his name?" Big Boy : "WHITE!" 
    So there you have it. White Henry. He is so cute and he loves his head scratched. :)
Here are the six girls Darlin picked up for us at Tractor Supply....
 Lord willing we will have 30 Blue Laced Red Wyandottes in a week or two! The 5 old hens I have now started laying again a couple weeks ago. We get about 2-3 eggs from them per day. They are a mix of Dorkings, BLRW, GLW and a Black Jersey Giant. All but one of them are 6+ years old. We use a lot of eggs, so I will be glad when the girls start laying! It is much easier to monitor the health of a backyard flock for illness than tens of thousands of birds in a factory house. I want to be able to make cookies with the boys without going all "freak-out Mama" on them if they lick their fingers or a spoon. Our birds free range, eating a delicious diet of grasses, bugs, worms, seeds, fallen fruit and of course chicken feed. So far they are very healthy, happy chickens and they are entertaining to watch sauntering around the barnyard.

Darlin is building our Bar-Top Beehive! I have been taking pictures and will do a post on it soon. Everyone should study honey bees, they are amazing! If you spent some time learning about bees and watching them work, I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible to believe this was all a "big bang".  Truly amazing!
Have an awesome day!

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Chicks and Trees and Bees, Oh, My!

Darlin picked up a half dozen of Red Star Sex Link chicks when he was out and about yesterday. I went through the pictures on our camera and downloaded a lot of them in order to have room to tape the boys' reactions when Darlin brought the chicks home. He pulled into the drive way, I picked up the camera and just as I pressed ''record'', it flashed the caption ''battery exhausted" and that was that. I was bummed. I could even think of anything I could take batteries from just long enough to record the moment. Oh, well. Some memories we just have to treasure in our hearts, but I had hoped to share with you all too. Moments like these are when it is good to have my memory book/journal. It's the sketch book I bought a few years ago to capture moments like these and the unsung beauty of everyday life. I kept two of them when I was a teenager and my siblings were really young. The stuff they said as little ones and toddlers is so funny, yet would hardly be but a faint echo in the past had it not been captured on paper.
     I was recently talking with a dear friend about baby books. I disclosed that I felt guilty because I had not kept up with them, and could not remember things like how much a loaf of bread cost and what the headlines in the local paper were when they were born. I have decided to make my own baby books, without complete teeth charts (I know when they got their first teeth, come on, a little grace here! Lol) Darlin suggested a binder so I can move pages around and such. Brilliant. Now I just need a cook, nanny and maid for two weeks while I work on them! Ha, ha. There just never seems to be enough time in a day. Not to mention that by the time I dig out my scrapbooking stuff, clear the table and get set up, nap time is half gone!      While I do think it is important, the interruptions are more important (usually). For example, about a week ago I had Little Boy settled in the play pen with a bottle and some toys and Big Boy up at the table with me to color while I wrote a page in my memory book. I pasted a few magazine clippings on and a couple stickers to decorate it, wrote the date and then the phone rang. The caller was a lonely, elderly relative who'd lost their soulmate years ago. They go days sometimes without seeing a soul. This was the third day in a row that they had called. And they almost always talk for an hour or more. About ten minutes into the conversation Big Boy was all done coloring and had moved on to emptying the cupboards and Little Boy was verbalizing his readiness to join him. Was that some valiant sacrifice on my part? Hardly. My attitude was way off. I was being selfish and impatient. Do I remember what I was going to write about that day? No. In fact, the book is sitting on the shelf with the old date on the blank page. But does that person remember how it felt to have someone to talk to? Most likely. To my shame I never seem to grasp these concepts in the moment, but only afterwards. Anyway, what a rant I hadn't planned on giving!

So, we have chicks, and we hopefully will be getting some Blue Laced Red Wyandotte chicks in a week. We planted our peach and apple trees yesterday, between our Crab apple and Wolf River trees. Our berries should get here early May. We just may be getting some honey bees too! Darlin has been looking at plans to build a Top-Bar bee hive! He knows a guy that will be selling bees through next week. I'm so excited, I've wanted honey bees for 16 years! Lord willing, we will get some.

  Have a splendid day, friends! And why not try hanging your laundry out to dry on these sunny days? You'll save electricity (or propane) and your laundry will smell amazing! Not to mention there is something therapeutic about hanging laundry in the sunshine while the Spring birds are singing everywhere!

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Brothers

Big Boy likes hitching a ride on Little Boys walker. 
The two of them go tooling all over the kitchen! Little Boy thought I was going to pick him up, hence the look I'm getting while taking their picture!
 Ahwah.
 Kisses from big brother!
 Moon Sand : 8 cups of flour, 1 cup baby oil. The second time I made it I used 1-1/2 cups oil, we think that worked better. Darlin' found the recipe on Facebook. Big Boy LOVES it.
 He loves playing trucks.

 And water colors.

 My little spaghetti lover!
 He would eat spaghetti at ever meal if I'd give it to him!
Playing cards last night after supper. 
Have a good day y'all!

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Oh My! And Cherry Pie

I made my first cherry pie, yum! Don't think I'll win any "beautiful crust" contests though, lol. 

 We found out that Little Boy will have to have routine MRI's until he is 18 to watch that the tumor which caused the hydrocephalus doesn't change. We were told that was highly unlikely, and even so would be easily and totally treatable. Praise God!
 Gorgeous sunrise one recent morning.
 The little robins are so fast, it is hard to get a good picture of them. It is so nice to hear song birds again!
 My pansies are growing beat-jingles! I have to thin them though.
 Onions that Darlin' planted are coming up too!

 Apparently pansies make an ideal landing pad for flying crayon rockets, who knew?
Enjoying the sunshine while it lasts, gonna snow and rain for the next three days! *Yuck!*

Friday, March 11, 2016

~Bloggers Beware P.S.~

My photos are your photos. If you would like to use pictures on my blog you may freely and safely do so with out fear of this ridiculous sue-scandal bologna. Have a good day and blog safe!

~Bloggers Beware!~

I felt it my duty to pass along this shocking and important message to all of you, IF YOU HAVE A BLOG, PLEASE, PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO, IT IS VITAL!!!!: 


Thursday, March 10, 2016

~4 Wonderful Years~




Four years ago today, I married my best friend. In a way the years seem to fly by, on the other hand, it feels like we've always been together. We've been through miscarriages, job loss, 91 day NICU stay, tough financial times, hydrocephalus with Little Boy, livestock tragedies, and more.
  But there has been the good stuff too...the joys of raising our two little boys, the smiles, giggles, funny antics, the awe they have for the ''common things'' that make us ''grown ups'' slow down and remember what it was like to be little and care free.

Darlin' is a man of which I am not deserving, truly. He is patient, loving, honest, kind and funny. He is faithful and he is always there when things are hard to handle. He loves his boys and loves to play with them and make them laugh. He is helpful to me at home. The most attractive thing about him, I honestly have to say is his love for our LORD. He is a man after God's own heart. It is important to him to be in the Word every day. He has spent countless hours working to "hide the Word in his heart" through memorization and reflection. He takes being his family's spiritual leader seriously, reading the Word and edifying books to us at supper. Praying with us and for us. Studies theology, listens to my questions and shows me where to find the answers. He is always learning and seeking to please God in all aspects of his life.
  I love him so much, he is my true love.

I love this song.

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Thought Of The Day

~Take a minute to contemplate the Holiness of God. He is so holy, He cannot even look at sin ("You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do You idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous then he?" Habakkuk 1:13) He cannot look at it. And here we are, sinning every day. It is amazing that, through Christ, we, retched creatures, may "...come boldly to the throne of grace..." (Hebrews 4:16) Just the fact that we have the privilege to even utter a word to the most Holy God... Wow.~

~Pansies!~

My pansies are popping up! I left my camera at my mother-in-love's, so pictures will have to wait. :(
     I was beginning to wonder if they ever would germinate.

Big Boy has been playing in a rice box lately. He loves it! I colored the rice and set it up with his construction trucks while he was asleep. When he got up I said "I have a surprise for you!" So now he calls it his ''prize box" instead of rice box, ha, ha!

Little Boy has been busy rolling around, running all over the kitchen in his walker and being silly. He had been such a good eater, (sometimes eating more than Big Boy!) But now has gotten into this picky kind of stage. Only, he really isn't picky about what type of food, but rather who feeds it to him. Sad to say, but I think this might be the death of the ''mushy food" era, where we spoon him apples and bananas, blueberries and pears, etc. He would much prefer to eat finger-foods now. He isn't quite 11 months old, and he is already independent! -EXCEPT- He will let nothing get into the way of eating spaghetti! It is his favorite food! He would let me feed it to him all day long! So I guess I could blend some veggies and such into the sauce to "sneak them in" and make sure he is getting enough. He is so cute, I can never shovel it in fast enough, he seems to just sit there with his mouth gaped open all through supper!

Hope to get my camera back soon to take some new pictures for you!
   

Saturday, March 5, 2016

~Just A Little Talk~

"If The power of God cannot be seen in your life leading you to greater and greater holiness, then maybe there is no power of God in your life."
~Paul Washer


"Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." 
Philippians 1:6 

God always finishes what He starts, the question is then, not will He finish, but did He start?


"The horizontal validates the vertical." ~Anon.
In other words, your life and relationships on Earth are evidence of your relationship with Christ, whether that evidence proves you are truly Christian or not. That does not mean that if you are Christian that you do not sin. Sadly, Christians do still sin. The difference is that when you do, it deeply effects you, like a knife in the heart and you ask forgiveness and continue to grow more and more Christ-like. None of us will be perfect this side of Heaven, but we are to strive to be and to continue to grow. Not so that we may say "Oh look, I'm better than this or that person." Certainly not! But that the name of our God might be glorified and honored.
  "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." 2 Corinthians 5:17 

Have a good Saturday!

   

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

It's More Than That

Modern evangelical Christianity has essentially watered down what it means to be Christian into a little prayer that "only takes five minutes of your time". Is this really it? Is that all it is about? A prayer, and now you have your ticket to Heaven because you profess the name of Christ? So you've had an experience, felt the emotional high of "coming to Christ", but what about your every day life? Do you habitually lie? What about your attitude? Are you impatient and berate and holler at loved ones or the guy that cut you off in traffic? What happens when you are in town when the whole world seems to be there, you have to park way across the parking lot, shuffle your cranky, screaming kids through the store as fast as you can, only to get back to the car, buckle your kids in and realize- that little, .50 cent bottle of paint rolling around in the bottom of the cart didn't go through the check out? No one has a clue you didn't pay for it.......

The hard question: Are you really a new creature???

  I'd like to share a video with you about examining the "sinner's prayer" against what Scripture says. This is the truth, and it may scare you-and that might not be a bad thing if it does, depending on what you do with the information. I truly hope that you watch it all the way through.
 Here is Paul Washer: