Blessings!

   Do you ever find yourself saying, "If it wasn't for me________would never get done!" (fill in the blank)? Be honest now:P I don't do it as often as I once used to but I did find myself doing just that the last week:P

   It was a couple of days of things just being so busy and sometimes feeling like we were taking two steps forward and one step back:P It began with, "What would you all do if I wasn't here to sweep up your mess on the mudroom floor?" It progressed with things like, "How would you folks survive if I wasn't here to close the cupboard doors?" "What will you do when I'm not here anymore to, pick up the dirty towels off the bathroom floor...rinse the dishes before stacking them, clean out the muddy drop in the bathroom sink, replace the soap in the dish etc!?!" Then the last one that got me thinking harder than anything was..."Am I the only one who knows how to replace the toilet paper and actually put it ON the dispenser?":P

   All this to say, I had become a class one nag and self oppointed doitall:P I got to thinking about how much God has done for me because I didn't do it first or do it for myself and blah blah blah. Hearing yourself yet?:P

   I wondered how many times God has said to me "Am I the only one that sees you dragging your feet, not praying enough, worrying too much etc?" What would you do if I wasn't here to help you through your trials, pick you up when you are down, hold you when you are shattered etc etc etc?"

   My answer? I would be lost. Completely and utterly lost. I would be desparate, desolate, alone and forgotten. How much He does for me and how often I take it for granted.

   What would my family do? Perhaps they would be lost, desparate, desolate, alone and forgotten. All or some of each? Who knows. I know one thing for sure. They wouldn't feel my love or know my guidance. Teaching them as I go along, helping them to become not so much independant but reliant on God's provision. They've been given the gift of someone who loves them enough to do these things (even if it comes with a complaint now and then) for and with them.

   I will never be complaint free but I do try to let them know that there are lots of things that I couldn't do without THEM either:) My sweet husband and children will often turn my frown upside down by turning my words around. They will jump on it and say "What would we do if you weren't here to________" or they will do something with a lot of fanfare to make sure I know they are doing it and, with a mischevious little grin, say "What would you do if______":P

   I love my family and I know they love me. Better yet GOD loves my family and I know He loves me!

   So...if it wasn't for you....?

Have a very blessed night!

God be with thee!

Sister Lori

Blessings!

   I was not tagged for this meme either but it sounded interesting so I decided to do it too:) (Like so many others who found it just as interesting):)

  As I understand it you need to mark or bold the books you've read. so here goes:)

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran (interesting and scarey)
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (interesting and misguided)
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair (very political in nature but makes you think)
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Both in Russian and in English)
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler (both volumes with my grandmother)
#75 A Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Émile by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Émile Zola
#104 Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

I did not correct the incomplete titles but those that read them would know anyway:)

That was a walk in history for me:) Some read in school as required reading, some because of curiosity and some because it touched my family in one way or another. (And I adore Ray Bradbury. I met him at a college lecture and who later allowed me to participate in a local radio production from the Theatre in the Round, of Dandelion Wine. He also signed my copy of the script at the time):)

Anyone can be tagged now:)

God be with thee!

Sister Lori

Blessings!

   Well, as promised, I finally compiled my photos together on our butchering day and wanted to post them before I completely forget:)

   These photos are really how it was done from start to practically finished so if you are squeamish, leave now. Otherwise, it's just another day on the farm:)

   The first thing to do is to calm the chicken before placing it in the killing cone. This does several things. It keeps the animal from bruising itself and even breaking bones both before and after it's been butchered.

   As I said before, we had never butchered this way before so I was really interested in trying it. I must say it was a lot less stressful for the people too:) In our old way we would simply swing the bird dizzy then place on a stump and swing the hatchet. This way is much calmer although a little more intensive.

   Once the animal is in the killing cone you have to find the arteries on both sides of the neck and cut carefully, as my friends husband is doing here (my friend is NOT hiding from it, she's calling to the children to bring another one over)The wheelbarrow of wood shavings soaks up the blood and makes for a much cleaner butchering. Once the arteries are cut (not as easy as it looks) with a VERY sharp knife, the animal simply bleeds out with very little movement. There are characteristics that happen throughout that you begin to notice as the butchering has a rythm to it.

   One must hold the animals feet until it stops moving which isn't as dramatic as when you butcher it on the stump. I found it to be much more tolerable and controlled.

   Once the bird is done it is taken to hang on the fence for about 10 minutes or so to finish draining. I was surprised at how little blood there was during the fencing time. The way the butchering is done makes it much cleaner, as I said before.:)Once the bird has hung long enough it is dipped in hot water (140*F) for 45 seconds to loosen the pin feathers and make plucking MUCH easier. You can see me on the right, sitting down (my legs were so tired) and miss Sarah on the left also sitting. Bending over that table to pluck is hard on the back:)(My friends best friend showed up to say hey for a few minutes as she was visiting folks in the area and she's from out of state):)

No one gets out of it...EVERYONE has a job to do:)Miss C taking birds to be put on fenceMiss C, catching up another one.Master W. and Miss M plucking away.Many hands make light work:)

Once the bird is plucked it's places in the bucket to the right in iced water to keep cool until the cleaner is able to get to it.

The gutting area is kept separate from the plucking area to keep it clean and rinsed at all times. From there it's packaged and thrown into the freezer:)

That's it! Easy as...well...plucking a chicken!:)

We will be doing it again soon as we still have another 34 chickens to go! It was a very productive and educational day for me. Next time I will try the butchering part. About the time I finally got the nerve to try it was over (isnt' that the way it always is?):P

All part of living a farmsteading life. The children are taught that food doesn't originate in the store, someone has to raise it, butcher it and package it. These children know it's a blessing to know exactly where the food came from, what it was fed and how it was treated during it's life.

The Lord provided us with such a bounty of resources for our sustenance and for this we are truly thankful:)

We'll be making soap again soon and I"ll post the process here when we are finished:)

God be with thee!

Sister Lori

Blessings!

   Well, Delta hatched out another chick!:P Silly duck:)

Blessings!

   Dog's have puppies

   Cat's have kittens

   Goat's have kids

   And Ducks have...chickens?:P

   Yep you read that right:) Upon entering the barn this morning to check on our duck who has been setting a nest for weeks now and to feed and water our doe and her baby, this was what we found! Actually it was still quite wet and fresh when we got there. This was taking an hour later. All dry, fluffy and now in the house:P

We are still waiting for Delta to finish hatching out her nest. We never noticed a chicken egg under there:P Not too sure but she just might have a couple more under there along with her own eggs so we'll see what the next few days bring:)

This is her 4th nest and so far none of her own eggs has ever hatched. We are hoping that this time it will work. Otherwise we will be absolutely sure that JohhnyB. is sterile. He's the only male on the place for the last several months so this will tell it.

Well, I just wanted to share our joy on our first barnyard born chick:) We are hoping that eventually we will be having our own and no more ordering:)

Have a very blessed day!

God be with thee!

Sister Lori

Blessings!

   This past couple weeks has been so very busy that I'm often surprised that I have time for anything else:P In fact, I woke up this morning with my arms aching something awful. As usual, I never think about the day before (or even several days before) to figure out why. Well, today I know why without even thinking about it...24 chickens! :P

   I have other news on our baby count in the barn but this post isn't about that. This post is about being a chicken plucker:)

   Our dear friends CaraDD and her family were having a mass butchering day yesterday. We had planned on helping beforehand but it didn't look like they would need us. Then things changed a little and her sweet husband phoned and said they could use some extra hands and we excitedly agreed:)

   This wasnt my first time of butchering but it was the first time I'd be involved in HOW the butchering was done. Actually I didn't end up doing ANY of the butchering but I did get to see how it was done and I'm thinking it's a cleaner way of doing it that we've always done it and we'll be doing it with out own (which will be another post entirely:P)

   The whole thing went in an assembly line sort of way. Mrs. D would calm the chicken. As soon as chicken was calm and still she would turn it head down into what they call a killing cone. This cone was made by a friend of theirs to Mr. D's specs. Anyway, then Mr. D would cut the artery on both sides of the neck. Very little thrashing, which means less mess, no broken bones, no bruised meat and very little trauma. It went so smoothly.

   As soon as chicken bleeds out, Mrs. D would then take it out of the cone and hang it on the fence to finish up (hardly any blood at this point) and returns to the pen to grab another chicken to calm. She was our chicken whisperer:)

   Once the chickens had hung long enough (about 10 minutes or so), Mrs. D would measure the temperature of the scalding water and when it was at around 140*F she would dip the chicken in it making sure to douse it completely for approximately 45 seconds. Once the chicken was good and wet she would then lay it on the plucking table where me, Miss Sarah, and another couple (friends of theirs) were waiting. Mrs. D switched around on her jobs as we didn't want to get too backed up on chickens so she would become a plucker too:)

   Once the chickens are scalded the feathers come out really easily. The pin feathers, on the other hand, can be a problem. We noticed that some of them had yellow skin and some had white. Some had more pin feathers than others. And SOME had areas that had no feathers at all...EVER! No follicles for the feathers to grow from. I had never seen that but it made it a little quicker when we came across those:)

   Once the chicken was plucked as clean as it could be, Mrs. D would rinse them real well and place them in a tub of ice water to keep them fresh until the gutter could do his work.

   The gutter happened to be their landlord (these were HIS chickens, we'll be going back to do theirs and ours in the next couple weeks). Anyway, he would gut and clean the chicken and package it with a foodsaver type machine. Industrial rather than the little kitchen table type I have:) And then throw that into the freezer or icebox and on to the next.

   It was quite the production and efficient. It went smoothly and everyone had a hand in it. The smaller children would catch up the chickens and hand them to mom, mom calmed and loaded, dad cut and waited, mom hung and dipped, hands plucked and mom rinsed, landlord cleaned and packaged and so it went. Many hands made light work:)

   Now today...my arms feel like I was weightlifting:P At least I can still itch my nose8^D Miss Mary-Ann hurt her arm and was in a splint so she was the offical photographer which I"ll post after we get them off the camera and onto the computer:)

   Today? We are waiting for two more does to kid and our barn will be filled and our season over:)

   Praying each of you has a safe and blessed Sabbath!

God be with thee!

Sister Lori

Blessings!

   These past couple weeks have been so very busy and it shows no signs of stopping. I give thanks to the Lord for the blessings that He has showered us with throughout this year.

   Another bit of exciting news for us...day before yesterday we had done our normal daily stuffs around here. You know, cleaning pens, rearranging the barn, feeding, checking on our expectant mommies etc.

   That night we did our normal nighttime check and locking up chickens (coon troubles) and making sure everything was...well...normal:P Nothing happening, nothing strange. At around 9pm we hear something out in the barn. I go out and see nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, all the does were laying together and seemed quite annoyed that I had interupted their slumber:P

   We are all in bed when around midnight we hear something again. Louder this time. ALL of us, including brother Craig, (armed in case of predators) head out to see what is going on. At first we see Sparky laying down near the fence. It looked like she had gotten out and couldn't get back into the pen. We figured this was the cause for all the commotion.  As we get closer we see that she is indeed inside the fencing but cuddled up with Twister who is pitching a fit...noisy noisy noisy. Just as we round the corner of the stall, up pop TWO LITTLE HEADS! TWINS!:)

   It seems that Miss Sweet Brandy had done the quiet deed just like Twister had:P The babies were nearly dry which meant she had delivered them sometime soon after we had left them at 9pm:P Silly things...

   Upon closer inspection...they are BOTH BUCKS! Ugh:P So now we have 3 bucklings! Yikes. That is it for our Nubian does this year. I had hoped for at least one doe to hold back. Not this year:( And unless Sparky is pregnant and not just fat, then it's done.

   Now our Nigers are due from the middle to the end of July. Knowing our luck we'll end up with all does from them and we aren't KEEPING any of those:P Well, we'll keep ONE from our Blackberry if she gives us a doe. This is her last breeding as she's 9 years old now. She's our matriarch and a real sweetheart so she'll be kept for a companion when we have more babies and such.

   I have a couple pictures of them but haven't loaded them to the computer yet. I'll post them as soon as I do which will hopefully be tonight:)

   The good Lord has blessed us again and we are truly thankful. Healthy does, lots of fresh milk (well after the colostrum is finished), healthy babies. All is right with our world:)

God be with thee!

Sister Lori

Blesings!

  As our days slowly warm up to normal temperatures for this time of year and we are readying our gardens, cleaning out homes and outbuildings, mowing, weeding, maintaining, preparing for outdoor life, so too is our farm bursting with activity.

   Our choice to farmstead came with it's sacrifices and hard decisions. We spent many many years helping our children to understand and experience the realities of living a life of self provision. We all know that God is our great provider and through Him this is possible. With that comes disappointments, and sorrow. There are also great joys:) It all balances out in the end but getting there strengthens our resolve and our hearts to a clear understanding of being self sufficient.

   As a farmsteader we know, through experience (trial and error and successes) what we need and what we don't. I think the hardest thing is the "dwindling family" syndrome:P It's like going through your kitchen and pulling out VATS to make your family that pot of spaghetti and sauce and realizing that you no longer have 11 people sitting around your table on a daily basis anymore. That vat works for awhile and so you forget until suddenly you only have 6. It's time to downsize:P Your children are cast to the winds in different directions. Some still come home and some don't. Whatever the matrix, you make consessions. Suddenly you trade your vat space in your cupboards for a stock pot. Over time your daily meals become smaller and smaller. Our once bustling family is now 4. We have graduated to saucepans:P Right where we started:P I can now cook our meals in 4 quart saucepans! The dishes take moments. It's fun to have placemats again:P The table actually FITS in the kitchen:P

   Have I gotten rid of those vats? Well...most of them:P I do keep a couple of the big things in our shed. For family and friends so I am not having to make huge meals in our little saucepans:) But mostly they are out of the way and stored. Not nearly as many as I once had but enough to get us through a large meal if needed:)

   Just as we downsize INside our home we also must keep a watchful eye on the OUTside. I'm referring to our animals, of course:P We keep a certain amount of chickens because they are part of our livlihood as well as for our own sustenance. Some are eaten, some provide eggs, and some get broody and help to replenish our little flock:)

   Just as we maintain those numbers so to must we maintain all the others. We raise dairy goats. These are not pets, although they do provide us with companionship and entertainment, their most important job is to provide us with milk. In order to do this they must be bred. As you all know, breeding means....MORE GOATS! Our needs for our family once called for a larger number of goats to provide the needed milk for cheeses, yogurts, kefirs, soaps and of course drinking:) Now that we are a family of 4 our needs have changed and we keep only 2 real milkers. This means that babies, although necessary to get those milkers started, must be sold.

   We cannot keep them just because they are cute. They will consume feed and time and therefore are not beneficial to our farmstead. They become a liability and a drain on our resources. If these animals cannot be sold, they are butchered for meat. It's simply one of those choices that must be made that might not seem very popular and fun (and is often sad) but very necessary to maintain the balance of our farmsteading lifestyle. 

   As you all know, our elderly BARREN dog surprised us with a litter just 6 short weeks ago. Those puppies, though adorable and fun, already have buyers. We cannot keep them! Another sad little moment on the farmstead but a necessary one. Our children know that, it's not just because we are renters here, it's truly because we cannot afford to fill their tummies and still maintain a balance here. When our dog dies then we will consider another, but until then one dog is more than sufficient for our needs. She helps to herd the goats and the chickens and ducks. She gives us warning when someone arrives or something is amiss on the farmstead. She alerts us when the goats are kidding, when coons are after our birds and when company arrives.

   I've been approached on several occasions about having "barn cats". We have ONE cat. She's the greatest mouser we've ever had. Thankfully she CAN'T reproduce:P (and now neither can the dog:P) She keeps the house relatively mouse free. She keeps the mole population down outside, We taught her long ago NOT to kill birds. However, this hasn't stopped her from bringing me live ones! They are never injured, just frightened. A gift:) (good kitty) She keeps the barn mostly rodent free and snakes out of the yard:) We have no need to add to her and don't want to. When she's gone THEN we'll get another but not until.

   Our goats have started freshening (I prefer summer babies) and will continue until middle to end of July. THOSE babies will not stay. With the exception of possibly keeping a single doeling from our elderly Blackberry (she's almost 9). This will be her last freshening and the ONLY pet goat we have ever had. She's also a Nigerian Dwarf and doesn't take up a lot of room OR feed:)

   Our girls raise Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats. The babies are of decent value and the sale of those babies provide their necessary feed for the year. We use their milk in icecreams and lotions and soaps. They are companions for our larger does and as I said about all others...we don't keep the babies because we can't afford to feed them and we have no use for them. We can only use so much milk. After our needs and what we sell, it would got to waste and we cannot abide waste:)

   Having said all this I wanted to share pictures of our additions and surprises. All of which will be leaving us as soon as they are weaned. The goat's are often sold before they are weaned as we will start them on the bottle, disbud and whether the boys (if needed or desired by the buyer).

This is little JimBob. He looks just like his sire Manny. If you remember we lost Manny to bloat on January 31. Although a beautiful boy, we will not and cannot keep him. I could only breed him to one of our does and would have to keep him away from his mother so he can't stay. Notice our Miss Sarah, cuddling one of the puppies.

This is Sweet Brandy. She's the next to freshen. As you can see, it will be any day now. Again, her babies will be sold as we have no use for them here. In the background you can see our little Nigerian Dwarf, Platinum...she's due in July.

This is Sparky. We still aren't sure she's actually pregnant...believe it or not:P She has not had a successful delivery ever so if she does freshen by mid July, she will be sold at auction. We have feed her for almost two years now with no milk since just after we got her. She tends to be very aggressive and has a one track mind. What she wants to do or where she wants to go, there is no stopping her. That makes her a liability and it's no fun trying to strongarm a determined goat.

That wide little beast is our Blackberry:) The picture just doesn't do her justice. She is so huge for her little size:P She has never had less than three kids and has had as many as five! She is our only farmpet:P And little Twinkie just behind her (the white one), is having her first freshening this year. All these babies will be sold except for one doeling from Blackberry. IF she has any does:) (she had quad bucklings one year:P)

This is one of our little puppies. As I said, even though they are just stinkin' cute, they cannot stay. Simply put, we cannot afford to keep animals that do not contribute and we do not keep babies unless it's a replacement. Our son is taking one of the puppies so we'll have visitation rights:) This appeases the girls, our son was thrilled because he's wanted a puppy from our beloved Yoncalla Patch since he was 12 years old:) He and his wife are tickled:) They've already chosen the one they want and the rest are sold.

   It's a hard and sometimes sad decision that must be made here on our little farmstead. But the rewards are so great and the lessons learned help us all to trust our Lord and accept our limitations.

   Farmsteading isn't an easy life, but it's fulfilling in so many ways they far outweigh the trials.

   Praying you all have a wonderful and blessed weekend!

God be with thee!

Sister Lori