Yesterday, the children and I loaded up and headed off to visit the community at Randolph. We really had a great time. I didn't find the duck I was hoping to, but we made some new friends and I planned out my farm needs for the coming garden harvest season.
They are already harvesting strawberries, onions and English peas down there. We came home with 2 gallons of the 'strawberry-ish' strawberries I've had since moving down here! YUM. Not enough to mess with jam with this crowd, and trying to freeze them for jam-making later on would just be futile here. So, we cleaned them and sprinkled with a tiny bit of sugar to bring out the juices and made a great strawberry shortcake for dessert. I'm lucky there were even enough left for dessert with all the fingers coming in and out of the bowl while I prepped everything!
We stopped by the couple of farms we had visited last year with Debi and the boys. I was surprised they remembered me, but I suppose 2 large vans of visitors is something of an oddity to them, even with the number of folks who come and go through there.
Susie and I chatted for nearly and hour. She showed Johanna her cookstove and Johanna talked with her daughter about the bread they were baking that day. The men had come back from a field with some wheat in their wagon...I can't imagine fresh fresh wheat like that. Grinding fresh is great, but fresh from the field to boot? YUM.
After visiting with her, we headed across the road to Jacob's. His wife makes baskets...oh the money I could spend in her shop! I did buy a couple of small ones...a slightly round one for egg gathering, and a long shallow one for breads and rolls. I kept eyeing that wonderfully large laundry basket...you could easily fill the largest line with clothes from merely one basketful. It's large enough for David and Emily to play in and be hidden even! We chatted for a good hour or more there as well.
I need to get Dewey over there so he can talk with Jacob about their 'well house' set up. I guess you'd call it that...they have a bulk milk tank basically, housed in a block building. Jacob's use a gas generator to bring the water from a well into the tank every other month or so. I don't know if he has a cistern set up anywhere, but Susie has. Her back porch is block and slab and is actually their cistern. They have 4" PVC running from the roofline gutters, down every corner of the house, meeting up with a system of horizontal PVC running below the downstairs windows. It's all angled toward the back of the house, to that 'under porch' cistern they have. They use a windmill to pump from there into their bulk tank house, right behind the main house. It was very neat -- and it stays cold enough to keep a thin icy film on the block wall inside the bulk tank 'room' so that is their refrigeration. I'd love to turn this brick workshop into a water house like that...already plenty of room for a bulk tank set up in there.
How long would the water 'keep' in something like that do you think? It would be some sort of a gravity system for use...I know this group of Amish are Old Order, Horse & Buggy...no electricity out there.
Anyway, I made some arrangements to get back weekly or at least every other week, to collect some garden goodies. As we aren't getting a garden in here, I have to gather the produce somewhere. They should be getting more English peas in soon, and the beets will be coming in a few weeks now as well. Jacob said they could write me to let me know when things look to be ready, so I could save on a trip or two, and his wife said they could always can some things up for me if I couldn't make it that week. I don't mind making the trip and doing my own canning, but what a blessing that they would consider helping by canning for me!
I came home with a copy of The Budget, and a copy of Die Botschaft as well. Now all I need is to find the address for Plain Interests and we are all set! Jacob is the scribe for both newspapers...he's under Randolph MS. Well, he isn't hard to find...there are only 2 communities in Mississippi that write to the papers!
Sounds like everybody had a grand time..I know our trip to PA I didn't want to come back.. I just love the budget and Die Botschaft..I've sent you a private message..
Blessings Sister Brenda
~Always Planning for Whatever May Come... Mrs Survival site
~Sewing and baking, of course
~write letters
~Pasta made, dried and stored away
~barn repairs, on-going
~bush hogging & timber clean-up, on-going
~clean & organize workshed
~DECLUTTER ONE ROOM WEEKLY!!
~build a new mailbox post
~monthly quilt blocks
No indulgences of self will can be trivial, no denial unprofitable; Heaven or Hell depends on this alone. A parent who studies to subdue it in his child works together with God in the renewing and saving of their soul. The parent who indulges it does the devil's work, makes religion impractical, salvation unattainable, and does all that in him lies to damn his child, soul and body, forever.
Susanna Wesley
At Our School Desks
We are a Christian family desiring to raise our children with the primary focus of Training their Hearts!
I have no greater joy, than to hear my children walk in truth... III John 1:4
Train up the child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it... Proverbs 22:6
Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!... Deuteronomy 5:29
Our mission in life is not to go to some far-off foreign land, but to work at home and in our churches and home communities. Our goal should not be to leave behind riches and possessions, farms and homes for our children, but a priceless heritage they will cherish enough to work fervently to pass along to their children. It has been done for generations and with God's help it can still be done. In teaching our children, we are striving toward a deep understanding of who they are In Christ. I am . . . a child of God, a gift to my parents and my country. I'm a person of great value because God made me. I can . . . do all things through Christ who strengthens me. God has made me able to do everything required of me. I ought . . . to do my duty to obey God, to submit to my parents and everyone in authority over me, to be of service to others, and to keep myself healthy with proper food and rest so my body is ready to serve. I will . . . resolve to keep a watch over my thoughts and choose what's right even if it's not what I want.
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