Our Family Nursery
Snow Storm
Tobin had to get out his tractor on Saturday to clear the driveway so he could get out of the drive way to make it to work Saturday night.
He put chains on the car and left early to make the drive. We live in an area that can be somewhat treacherous with the winter weather. The interstate on the other side of the
With more snow forecasted and highway’s being closed down we both pretty well knew that after getting to work he probably would come home till things settled down. This morning we woke to even more snow. Here was what it looked like out my basement door when I opened it up…
Those are steps that lead up and out of the basement and into our woodshed! When Jacob got up he shoveled it all and a path to the wood shed so we could make sure we could get wood in. Here is what it looked like after he shoveled…
Tobin chose not to come home which is a good thing. No point taking on more risk than he has to. He was also the only mechanic that made it in for the night shift and the day shift! So it was a good thing he was there. He did mange to get some sleep and went to a nearby restaurant to eat and give me a call. So now the real question we both have.. will he be able to get home tomorrow? The snow is still falling and 1/4 an inch of freezing rain is expected in the city.
Here are a few more pics of our place in the snow. The pond has completely frozen over…
This is looking from our wood shed into the back yard..
That is the back tail light of 
…
Anyway in the mean time we are dealing with the elements on the homestead, keeping the fire going and the wood supply coming in, checking on goats and changing their water as it freezes through the day, and praying we don’t loose power. But even if we do we will do fine, I am sure. I am prepared with flashlights, LED lights, propane stove, and a battery and inverter to help run a few things.
This afternoon
Well that is all from my cold and snowy homestead!! Hope you are keeping warm and safe during these winter storms.. 
Wednesday on the Homestead
I played around with the idea of making lasagna for dinner. It is one of Tobin’s most favorite dinners and he has been working 6 to 7 days a week lately so I figured he would enjoy it. But then I looked in my fridge and saw leftover pot roast and leftover cranberry chicken and leftover rice.. so the lasagna will wait until tomorrow night (and Tobin will appreciate it then too!
) and tonight will be stir fry with my leftovers. As I type right now I have 6 loaves of bread rising in my oven and Isaac is mopping the kitchen floor. When he is done I will start working on my dinner preps. The weather is crisp and cold out! Last night was in the teens and with the wind chill it was down in the single digits.. pretty cold for these parts. The snow that fell never amounted to much on Sunday and yesterday the sun came out in time for me to snap these pictures…
Tomorrow they are predicting more snow. So Emily and Leanne headed into town this morning to do some Christmas shopping. Emily has a couple weeks off from her nanny job and is taking a break from studying. Her next test to study for is pre-calculus and she is not ready to tackle that one until after the holidays. I posted a congrats to Emily blog post the other day for finishing her first and second year of college in less than 8 months and someone asked me what degree she earned. She has not earned her degree yet, she has finished to the half way point now and is working towards a bachelors degree in accounting. She should be done sometime next fall if she stays on track.
As soon as my son has had time to recover I am looking forward to asking what homemade food he would like to eat when he gets home.. anything mom makes he might be craving? I will find out! And Emily wants to ask what kind of homemade goodies he wants so she and her sisters can do some baking for him! Looks like he will be getting lots of special attention while he is home. 
Now it looks like my clean kitchen floor is about dry so I am off to make dinner and finish baking my bread. Have a great evening on your homesteads!
He is back in the USA!!!
Some updates and notes
Seems winter has hit hard for most the country. Here, it's running typical rainfall...lots of rainfall.The news this morning was practically screaming about the inhumanity of this years' winter season hitting as it has been.
Am I the only one who realizes what 'winter' really is for most folks in the US? Granted, it's rough in most of the Northern states right now, and they haven't had anything of a serious winter in many years, but this is winter...it's what winter means. Some years you have great amounts of snow, and some years you have that and deep frigid cold temps. This is the year for both it seems. Old timers down here are saying the same thing...ice storm in 1987 did some serious damage to the lifestyle around here. Same thing again, 14 days without power and phones for those who had them here on the mountain, in 1994. It's simply due to strike hard again soon.
I'm just goofy I suppose. I miss that. I miss the waist-deep snow drifts having to be shoveled just to get to the barn to do morning chores. I miss the cold temps, the bone-numbing temps even, where I felt that much more blessed to be heading back from the barn and into the warmth of the house, all cozy with the woodburner going, a kettle steaming all day for cups of tea and hot cocoa.
Winter is winter. It's not out of the ordinary, harsh or otherwise. The weather of the past handful of years is what's out of the ordinary. Lack of snowfall amounts, a distinct lack of typical cold temps. I am sad at the numbers of people caught unprepared for this year's winter hit, but it's even more sad that the cities themselves didn't prepare for what they have always dealt with. I don't understand not being prepared, I guess. It's something that just makes sense to me to do, on at least some basic level. Not even so much for the potential variance in weather anymore, but for the events of the past year with the financial world. Unless you live under a rock, this has all been coming on for some time, and the signs were there to prepare to some degree. Individuals I can see not thinking ahead as much, they usually don't, but the city government I would have thought would have had some better plans in place for at least a winter that is normal and typical for their regions.
Dewey doesn't miss any of it at all. He spent most of his life working outside in that bone-numbing weather, plowing parking lots and such, getting power back up and running for folks, etc. He doesn't miss one single flake of it. I'd trade the breath-taking heat of the southern summer in a heartbeat :o)
Our wood cookstove is ready to go. I'm still no carpenter, so it sits waiting on Dewey to get home next week for a visit. If he feels up to it. He's been battling illness there same as we have here. Finally talked him into getting to a doctor. Good thing -- he has bronchial pneumonia. Not into his lungs or bloodstream, thankfully, but still bad enough. And his blood pressure is outrageously high. Could be in part due to the illness, but still...not a good range on that at all. So, maybe we won't deal with the wood cookstove at all next week and it will wait again. Maybe I will hone those carpentry skills :o)
Question: With a cookstove...it has a couple of dampers already on the stove, do I still need one for the stovepipe itself? I haven't gotten one yet...I have everything else we need, but the cement board and will get it this week in town. It's been such a mess here with the rain lately.
Time to rework the schooling routine again. My sewing machine is set up full time in the living room/dining room to allow easier access to teaching and such, but also to allow me the ability to get some very much needed sewing done. Still, we are lagging in schooling and it needs to be looked at differently. No one is completing tasks without my holding their hand and that's getting rather old. I could understand it with the youngers, but my olders have no need for a babysitter with schooling. They are more than capable -- it's not a matter or can't, but a matter of won't with them lately.
Worst part is, we deal with this periodically. It's hardly a first-time thing with us. So, back to rigid and strict routine again I guess. I've allowed too much freedom and play with the schedule and routine lately and as usual, its come back to bite me. Ugh, why do I do this? I know what will be sown when I reap, and still I reap away thinking maybe, just maybe, this time it will be different. Never is. And I write the same set of words in my blog. Might as well just cut and paste this paragraph or two here...I'll be needing it again later on down the road.
Goodness...to live and learn without repeating history so much!
Here is some reading I've been doing. I need reminders like this every so often. I truly believe that teaching The Law is strongly needed in far more churches these days. Too many "Christians" are being spoon-fed a religion that doesn't include anything remotely close to the Truths of The Law. They are just receiving the soft 'Grace' teachings, and even those are watered down to the point of a slew of disoriented and distorted Christians walking through life believing they are on the right track 'just because'...just because they go to church; just because they have labeled themselves Baptist, or Methodist, or what-have-you; just because they have picked up a Bible a time or two. People don't spend any time in studying for themselves anymore. They take the word of a preacher as gospel and the Bible hits the shelf until next church day.
I certainly don't have all the answers. I know enough to know I won't ever have them. I just know what I know and believe what I believe based on what I've studied ad what I've been led to through Preachers, The Bible itself and prayer. I'm not trying to be your Bible -- and I don't expect you to be mine. I just like to study things out for myself and not put my trust in men who are made the same as I am...flesh and full of mistakes.
What Christian Leaders Said About the Law
Was Martin Luther, the great faith reformer, against the Law? Not at all, in fact he said, "The first duty of the Gospel preacher is to declare God's Law and show the nature of sin, because it will act as a schoolmaster and bring him to everlasting life which is in Jesus Christ." John Wesley said, "Before I preach love, mercy and grace, I must preach sin, Law and judgment." Wesley later advised a friend, "Preach 90 percent Law and 10 percent grace." Charles Spurgeon, who is known as the "Prince of Preachers," said, "They will never accept grace until they tremble before a just and holy Law." Charles Finney who is labeled as having a 80 percent success rate in his ministry said, "Evermore the Law must prepare the way for the Gospel; to overlook this in instructing souls is almost certain to result in false hope, the introduction of a false standard of Christian experience, and to fill the church with false converts." John Wycliffe, the "Morning Star of the Reformation" said , "The highest service to which a man may attain on earth is to preach the Law of God." D.L. Moody, who is credited with having over one million disciples for the Lord, put it in perspective when he said, "God being a perfect God, had to give a perfect Law, and the Law was given not to save men, but to measure them."
If we were to ask the Apostle Paul why the Law was given and if it had any effect on the world today, the Scriptural Text gives us his answers. We would expect to receive the same answer he gave to the Romans "that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God" [Romans 3:19]. The most significant tribute to God's Law comes from the Saviour when He said, whosoever does and teaches the Law will be great in the Kingdom of Heaven [Matthew 5:19]. The sad truth is that since the turn of the century, various new ideas have been substituted for the teaching of God's Law and standard in Christendom to the extent that Mr. Finney's above three areas of warning concerning the Law have been self-fulfilling.
The Nine-fold Purpose of the Law
Even in the New Testament and apart from being the guideline of God's covenant people Israel, the Law has at least a nine-fold purpose to all people. This is not to say that all the Law applies to all people, for much of it was a direct covenant to Israel alone. Note the detail of some of the universal aspects of God's Law:
First - To teach the believer how to serve, worship and please God [Psalm 19:7-9; Acts 18:13,14].
Second - To instruct the believer how to treat his fellow man and have healthy relationships with him [Leviticus 19:18; Galatians 5:14; Galatians 6:2].
Third - To teach believers how to be happy and prosper here on earth by manifesting the power and authority of God's reign in their lives [Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:1-3; Luke 12:32].
Fourth - The Law was given, not to save, but too measure man's deeds both toward God and his fellow man, straightening out all matters contrary to sound doctrine [I Timothy 1:8-10; II Timothy 2:5; 1 Corinthians 6:1-12; I Corinthians 3:13; Romans 2:12; Revelation 20:12, 13].
Fifth - The Law is a schoolmaster showing that we are guilty and then leading us to Christ our Messianic justification [Galatians 3:21-24; Romans 3:19].
Sixth - The Law gives us both the knowledge and depth of our sin [Romans 3:20; Romans 4:15; Romans 7:7, 8; Luke 20:47 - greater ****ation].
Seventh -The Law reveals the good, holy, just, and Perfect nature of God and serves as the visible standard for God's will [Romans 2:17, and please God [Psalm 19:7-9; Acts 18:13, 18; Romans 7:12; II Peter 1:4].
Eighth - The Law is to be established or accomplished by our faith, therefore, it is called the Law of faith [Romans 3:27; Romans 3:31].
Ninth - The same Law today is written on our hearts, and through God's Spirit we can delight and serve the Law of God [Romans 7:6-25].
Survivng Another Depression...a quiz
Several folks were doing this, so I hopped on just now and tested our homestead here. There are a couple of things I think we need to work on, but overall, we are in pretty good shape really. I wouldn't have expected to rate this well, really.You Are 85% Likely to Survive Another Great Depression |
 You have been saving for a rainy day... or a rainy few years. While most people may not have as grim of an outlook as you, they're also not as prepared as you. If society collapses, you'll have plenty of food and resources for you and your loved ones. And plenty of ammo for anyone who wants to steal from your stockpile! |
Could You Survive Another Great Depression?
- How much credit card debt do you have?
- Are you employed?
- Do you have an emergency fund?
- Do you own a home?
- Do you know how to build a fire?
- Do you have any silver or gold?
- How much non perishable food do you have?
- How much do you rely on prepackaged foods?
- Do you grow your own food?
- Can you get around to shops and work by bike, public transportation, or walking?
- How much of your salary do you spend each week?
- Can you easily go without extras like cable tv and restaurant meals?
- How is your health?
- Do you own a weapon?
- What describes the area you live in?
- What sort of climate do you live in?
- Do you trust and know your neighbors?
- Do you know how to use tools and fix things?
- Compared to most people, how much stuff do you have?
- Are you good at entertaining yourself if the electricity is out?
Updates from the Homestead
(guess he deiced to make sure I was very well stocked.. no heading out into the snow and cold at 4am for him! 
) Now it is time to move onto my Christmas menu. 
Then we both had the idea that you could probably do two layers.. just put wax paper and maybe another layer of saran wrap and pour the second batch on top.. that way the recipients has more than one type of fudge to enjoy. Yea for Emily!!
. Once again I just have to say how satisfied we are with College Plus! and I recommend them to anyone looking for a cost and time effective way to earn a degree… all from home. Tuesday Happenings on my Homestead
The Bible is ONE Book...not two
THE BIBLE IS ONE BOOKThe Bible is not a composite of two books nor sixty-six books with
conflicting concepts and teaching.
It is, rather, one book recording the acts of
God under two primary covenants (Old and New Testaments).
Doctrinally there is no conflict between the two. They are altogether compatible and in mutual
agreement.
We believe literally that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
The themes in the Old and New Testaments are the same: God’s holiness,
righteousness and mercy; and man’s alienation and estrangement from God
through disobedience.
It might surprise you to know that the Jewish people do not rely on works for salvation—they know the only way to salvation is through the Messiah.
The basic significance of the New Testament is uniquely a Jewish one: the fulfillment of the messianic hope. The New Testament writers, with perhaps the exception of Luke, are all Jews.
The early Apostles and followers of Jesus are also Jewish. There is nothing in the New Testament that is non-Jewish or anti-Jewish.
Quite the contrary, Jesus’ entire message taught that:
Only the merciful were to receive mercy, only the forgiving could expect forgiveness and that love would be the sign of His true disciples.
Send A Soldier a Card...free :o)
I won't get into a discussion of whether or not anyone agrees with the military in general, the war in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever they are pushing it these days. I am simply passing along some information for those interested.XEROX IS DOING SOMETHING COOL
If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq . You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to a member of the armed services.
How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! It is FREE and it only takes a second. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these?
Whether you are for or against the war, our soldiers over there need to know we are behind them. This takes just 10 seconds and it's a wonderful way to say thank you.
Please take the time and please take the time to pass it on for others to do. We can never say enough thank you's.
Thanks for taking to time to support our military!
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