Friday, November 28, 2008
Once again, the best intentions...
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crowded out by the busy-ness of life. The cookie of the week thing kinda fell by the wayside. Oh we've been baking, thats for sure, but I never seem to have enough time to blog about things. We're milking our sweet Zella twice a day and getting around 4 gallons a day. We had dropped back to only 2 gallons a day when we got alfalfa because I thought with good quality hay she wouldn't need nearly as much grain. Not true! She still needs that 15-17 lbs of grain a day for milk production and as soon as we increased the grain again we started getting a lot more milk too. We're making cheese several times a week and earlier this week we made the best homemade pizzas with fresh homemade mozzarella cheese. It was wonderful! Our goat, Mia, keeps getting rounder and rounder. I do believe she is pregnant, but I have no real way of knowing how far along she is since she and Maverick are together all the time. I think I was told that they typically start forming an udder about a month or so before they kid, so I will just have to keep an eye on that with her and see if I can tell. Its so important to keep baby goats warm, so if she kids in the cold winter we will need to bring the kid or kids in the house for warmth and bottle feed them. Daddy has been hard at work on most weekends putting up firewood for the winter. We have a lot of good hardwood for the fireplace and it is doing a great job keeping the main area of the house warm. Hopefully we wont seek skyrocketing gas bills for our heat this winter. We're putting ash, leaves and other things in the garden area and getting ready to rototill that all into the ground to compost for the winter. I have learned many things from my dad over the years, but his attention to his garden spot is one I need to learn more about. He always has the prettiest and most productive garden. Come spring I really hope to put in a nice strawberry patch. If ya'll know of a tried and true variety of strawberries that produce a nice big berry, I would love to know what it is :) I am off to brave the stores after Thanksgiving in hopes of finding some warm clothes for my girls, and I promise to try to write more about our days now that the colder days keep me inside more. |
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Cookie of the week
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I decided to make one different type of cookie each week from now until Christmas just to try some new recipes. I never got around to posting last weeks cookie, so here is this weeks and I'll post last weeks tomorrow. I doubled the recipe and did not make the 3" cookies, so I got a good 6 dozen cookies from the double batch. Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip CookiesThese truly chewy chocolate chip cookies are delicious served warm from the oven or cooled. To ensure a chewy texture, leave the cookies on the cookie sheet to cool. You can substitute white, milk chocolate, or peanut butter chips for the semi- or bittersweet chips called for in the recipe. In addition to chips, you can flavor the dough with one cup of nuts, raisins, or shredded coconut. Makes 1 1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies
1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside. 2. Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips. 3. form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves ninety degrees and, with jagged surfaces exposed, join halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth dough’s uneven surface. Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined 20-by-14-inch lipless cookie sheets, about nine dough balls per sheet. Smaller cookie sheets can be used, but fewer cookies can be baked at one time and baking time may need to be adjusted. (Dough can be refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 1 month—shaped or not.) 4. Bake, reversing cookie sheets’ positions halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes (start checking at 13 minutes). (Frozen dough requires an extra 1 to 2 minutes baking time.) Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve or store in airtight container. | ||||||||||||||||||||
Monday, September 29, 2008
So many things to update on...
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I cant believe its been a whole month since I updated! We have a new cow and a new calf and three new rabbits. We're trying to sell three rabbits also and 7 bunnies. The new cow is a Jersey and WOW is she a producer!!! 3 gallons a day and my kids are in heaven! They drink it like its going out of style. We're making butter and looking forward to making cheese as soon as the drinking slows down. She's a real keeper and her name is Zella. We also have a calf to help with milking her out, though she wont let it nurse so I dont know how this will work out, but anyway, its an Angus cross heifer and we'll either raise her for beef or sell her once shes a bit bigger. Anyway, I've got a cow to milk before the sun goes down, so I'll have to finish updating this blog later. |
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The first day of school...
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So far things are going great... lol. Take your victories where you can. The kids absolutely loved Apologia science ... we're doing Botany this year. They dont enjoy english, most of them, but they all got it done and in less time than I had alloted for each subject, so our 'free time' this afternoon was longer than we'd expected. That was very nice! On the animal front, we have 7 baby bunnies again... they're about 12 days old. We have three kittens, left from 5, which we are bottle feeding and losing the first two has been really hard. Summer, the calf, is doing well and looks really brown, more than Autumn did when we got her, so Im wondering if she'll be a dark brown instead of black. Though I dont think her daddy or her mama carry that gene... we'll see, eventually. We've been so busy canning fruits for the winter that I really haven't had much time to do anything on my blog and the website needs to be updated in the worst way. Maybe I can do that one day this week. |
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Learning to live life with an abundant heart!
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The children and I started reading this wonderful book today! I am so happy I bought it and look forward to tomorrows short chapter. They're only two pages long most of them, but packed with nuggets of gold. Here are a few quotes from the book "Created for work" by Bob Schultz "A society of people with empty hearts gives only what is required, and that grudgingly. They even cheat one another by giving less than what is required..... Rather than giving out of the abundance of their hearts, they try to fill their empty hearts with what they take from others, hoarding what they have gathered" "A society of people with full and abundant hearts gives the way Jesus commands, "Give and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure that you mete withal it shall be measured to you again" Luke 6:38" "Learn to put abundance into what you do" I think the children got it, in their heads, but havent got it in their hearts yet. Praying I can be more of an example of this to them, and that they'll learn what it means to give from an abundant heart and not begrudgingly. |
Saturday, August 2, 2008
She's here!
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At least we think its a she ;) We'll know better in a day or so I think.. but we havent been able to get close enough to really check her over. here are a few pictures.. of what we 'think' is DGF Summer Blessing   |
Saturday, August 2, 2008
So patience is a virtue...right?
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Well, yes, I know it is... sometimes we have to be patient even when we don't want to be, usually we do. I have felt for two wks now that it would just be any day and that cow would just give us a calf already. The calf is not here yet, but the reason Im up at 4:45 am is because I got up for the 3:30 check of the cow and I just know its going to be soon.. She's definitely in labor and showing all the signs. Just waiting for it to be "calf time" I really hope she has the calf before my kids wake up so they can all go out and see the new little thing in the back pasture. They will all be so excited! If its a heifer calf, her name will be Summer Blessing (mom Spring, older heifer born in October ...Autumn) if its a bull calf his name will be Ribeye and he will have an unfortunate run in with a banding contraption very soon.  I've done a horrible job of keeping this blog updated... but I'll try to catch ya'll up on things here real quick like. Hubby was gone for 18 days on a business trip. Not something he normally does and it was incredibly hard to deal with.... well, we had no major problems, we just missed him a lot while he was gone. I didnt post about it on here much because I wanted to be safe. No reason to advertise that you're home alone with 8 kids for 18 days. My mom did come and stay for a while and that was fun, as it always is... Even if we dont do much at all, its just fun having her around. Its so nice to have a 'normal' mom. I hear friends talk about the strange things their moms do as they get older and then there are those obnoxious and pushy type moms. My mom just hangs out with us and does what we're doing and enjoys the grandkids. Its so relaxing. I do wish there was a way to convince them to move to Kansas with us, but I know its not likely to happen. Anyway, we were a little busy while the hubs was gone since we had all the yard and animal stuff to do. Then when he got home, our older 5 kids went to horse camp for a week. That was hard too! WOW, you just don't realize how much they do around here. Nobody to do the dishes, help with laundry ( I got it all washed and dried but nothing got folded all week) and then of course there were animal chores for the goats, pigs, cows, chickens, rabbits and dogs. The younger three can help a lot with rabbits and chickens, but they dont know the routine with the cows, pigs or goats, so that was my job. Everyone is home now and its so nice! I ordered the last of the things I needed for school last week and most of it is here already. We're not planning to start until the 26th. Hubs is on vacation the weekend right before that, including Monday, so we'll start on Tuesday. We're using Teaching Textbooks, Drive thru history, apologia science, horizons math, sequential spelling, Rod and Staff english and Explode the code. I'll have one 8/9th grader, three 7th graders, two 2nd graders, one in Kindergarten and one who will do preschool stuff along with us because he's big (or thinks he is) TOO. My goal is to get the house under control between now and then so that we can operate more efficiently. Its going to be a tall order to get it all done this year and requires more of my time than last year when the older four all did SOS on the computers, but I do think we'll all enjoy learning together more. Im going out now to check on the cow again. Its been an hour and a half so maybe she's doing something exciting now? Im trying so hard to be patient but Im going to be exhausted tomorrow....er... uh.. I mean later today! |
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
We're on calf watch
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Here at Darby Gates Farms... we're on calf watch! We had no clue that out sweet sweet cow Spring was even bred back, thus my constant references to needing to get her bred, looking at AI and all of that. WELLL... I went out to see her on Saturday and wow was her udder ever getting big (its bigger still today) and then watching her, she seemed rather jiggly in the rear parts.... so I took pictures in true net junkie style and went to my friends in the know on matters such as this. The unanimous opinion... You're going to have a calf in a week or so! yesterday she was more full than before and today a bit more, and today we have... TMI.... mucus! Funny thing, she was only with the bull for less than a month after she had Autumn, so the odds of her being bred were slim, though there was a chance. I guess God knew just what was up with her. and funny that we dried her off before getting her bred and that seemed to be just nearly the right amount of time before she was/is due to calve again!!! and we had no idea! SO... calf watch begins. July 23rd, .... 6:38 am slight bit of mucus, Spring laying in the trees behind the shop, but got up to come eat sweet feed, so she was doing good. Todays my birthday, it'd be a fine gift to have a nice little heifer calf born today! yes it would! I'll update as I see changes, and will be checking on her through the day. |
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
What an interesting quote...
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I'll confess, I have no idea who the person is who said this... but I saw it online yesterday and it keeps ringing in my head. Im going to assume that this person lived in the past, because you rarely hear anyone challenge peoples 'comfort zone' like this anymore... where are the good OLD preachers? "People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith; we cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. -- D. A. Carson" what do you think? I'd have to agree with most of it... maybe all of it. but the compromise/tolerance really rings true to me. I am so tired of left wing liberals telling us we need to be more tolerant and yet they shut down Christians with their "don't judge" comments. WHY do we have to tolerate their sin, but they don't have to tolerate our faith? Just my deep thoughts today.... I have lots more to post, but will have to wait for a later day to do it. Today is my Kelly girls birthday, so we've got plans ;) |
Friday, June 27, 2008
Whats in your sponge???
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I read this today and thought it was so good I'd pass it along... it sure makes you stop and think! WHAT'S IN YOUR SPONGE? There are 5 sponges laying on your kitchen counter top. Each member of your family has been cleaning up different areas of your home, but all the sponges look the same. You are curious as to what was cleaned in your home, but you can't tell by looking...they all look the same....so what do you do? You squeeze each sponge to see what comes out. As you squeeze the first sponge, you see that cola comes out, and so you decide that someone cleaned the kitchen with that one. Upon squeezing the second sponge, you find tub and tile cleaner - that one was used to clean the bathroom. Next, is the third sponge, you find motor oil -- hubby was cleaning the garage! In the fourth sponge, baby powder puffs out when it is squeezed -- yep, the baby's nursery was done with that one! And finally, in the last one, is floor wax -- that was the one you used on the hall floor! As you lay the last one down, you look again at their similarity - and they all look the same ......until they're squeezed. Christians are the same way. As life squeezes us, different things come out - anger from one, a need for revenge from another, tears from one, remorse from yet another - also greed, untruth, lust - and yes, from some, pours forth the love of Christ. Just like the sponge, we can only squeeze out what is put in - stay in the Word daily, and be in continuous prayer, so that when life puts the squeeze on you (and it WILL), Jesus, and Jesus ALONE will shine forth from you! Have a blessed, squeaky clean day! |
Friday, June 27, 2008
Attempt 1285... maybe this time
Okay.. .just once more, Im going to try to lose some weight. This is my lifelong struggle, to lose weight, to be thinner, to like myself just a little more and feel better about who I am. Im not obsessing about food. I am using some supplements and things to try to aid myself on this journey, and I am going to try to get to 10,000 steps a day on my pedometer. right now Im only averaging around 5000, but I have made it to 12,000 before in a day, so I know its possible :) |
Friday, June 20, 2008
Its been such a long time
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Its been a really long time since I updated my blog. I should catch ya'll up on whats going on around here. Lets see, I think I can sum it up in one word... RAIN! blech! TOO MUCH rain! Anyway, we've already had triple our monthly average rainfall and passed our yearly rain fall by June. We wade out each day to check the garden. Yesterday I picked beans (yellow and green), carrots and onions. We are about to retill a portion of the garden that will be planted with pumpkins and Spaghetti squash. We have watermelons the size of half dollars growing in the melon patch...lots of them! YUM We wade out each day to feed animals. We never did get that Jersey I was hoping for, but God knows my desire and He'll provide at just the right time. We have Spring, the mama cow, Autumn, her calf, Josie and Harley the big ole pigs, Bella and Simba, the LGD's, bunches of chickens, Mia the dairy goat and her boyfriend Rue Paul, Two lop eared bunnies and two dutch bunnies and now.... 10 dutch bunny kits! They are 12 days old now and so incredibly cute! We're picking blackberries as they're ready, but they dont seem to be all ripening at the same time, so each day the kids eat four or five of them.. we'll never get to USE them at this rate, but the kids do love them so. I have a basement that has flooded more than a couple of times and will need to be really cleaned out, but I have NO motivation to take on such a project right now. I should say, it hasnt actually gotten to much of our 'stuff' its just been wet and we have boxes that have not been unpacked in 6mths time that really need to be sorted through and a garage sale held. Its nearly fair time and we've hardly done anything to get ready for the fair, I dont know how thats going to come together and Im really frustrated with it all. The children have horse camp later in July, I'll have 5 kids gone at one time, just me and the three littles home for the entire week! I'll leave you with a bunny picture as I get off her to get something done around the house before we run our afternoon errands...  |
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Wow, I havent updated in a long time
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So much happening, and yet, so little really. We've been busy with gardens, animals and life. But we're about to get busier still. We now have two goats. Mia, our Oh-so-sweet Nigerian Dwarf goat that we milk for a mere cup of milk a day, but we're freezing it to use for cheese later..LOL and (heavy sigh) a free Pygmy goat that we got from someone on freecycle. and should NOT have. She's nice, not wild or anything, friendly enough, but she does NOT like Mia and because she has horns, she headbutts everything :( including Mia. She is going to a new home with a friend of ours who needs a goat for brush clearing. Her name is Betty boop, but we've just called her BB, cos I cant bear to call a goat Betty. We seem to have lost a few chicken recently, no idea how, but we had 24 chicks and last night we could only count 21 out there. We did see a few really big birds circling in the air day before yesterday, wondering if chicken hawks have been visiting us :( Now, on to the FUN updates :) We've already eaten some romaine lettuce from the garden, and everything else is up, including the watermelon and cantaloupe. Todays project is weeding in the garden. If we hit it as a team, we can get it done quickly, the key is making sure the children understand which are weeds and which are plants. AND..... We're getting a very pregnant Jersey cow to add to our family. She doesnt have a name yet, so we're thinking on that, but she is due within the next month, and we'll have a birth and a calf around here! And then, LOTS of milk! probably 4-5 gallons a day. Cheese, butter, yogurt, and all the milk the kids want to drink! I'll be sure to post pictures after she's home with us. We have bunnies too, they were suppose to be bred and expecting, but we never saw any babies so we rebred them and we'll check in a few days for 'marbles' in the mama bunny and see if we're expecting yet. I guess thats about it right now. I need to do some baking, and we're anxiously awaiting our wheat order from Walton feed. |
Monday, April 21, 2008
Cinnamon rolls
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I had a request :) for my cinnamon roll recipe so I'll post it here. I have made this recipe for around 10 yrs now. Its from a State Fair of Oklahoma cookbook and the recipe is called "Madge's magnificent cinnamon rolls". I've made them for county fairs in Kansas and bread baking competitions. I've made the dough, rolled it out, put the filling in and put it in a bread pan to make cinnamon bread too. That is yummy with a cream cheese frosting type spread on it. :D The dough recipe is: 1/2 cup warm water 2 pkgs yeast or a bit more than a tablespoon (one pkg is 2 1/4 tsp) 1 1/2 cups warm milk 1/2 cup shortening (I use crisco butter flavor) 2 eggs 2 tsp salt 1/2 cup sugar 7 cups of flour or until dough cleans the sides of the mixer bowl. I dont measure things exactly, and I kinda just dump it all in, though im sure there is some reason why the recipe says to put the yeast and water in first and then add the other ingredients.. :D anyway, it works for me. Let dough rise once, then punch down, roll out and spread with a stick of butter, cinnamon and about 2/3 cup brown sugar. You can add nuts if you like them. some of my family likes nuts, some dont, so I sometimes put nuts down half and not on the other. Roll up dough and cut into 1" slices and lay in greased pan. Let rise, then bake at 350* for 35 minutes or so, or until golden brown. While rolls are baking I make a glaze with 1/2 bag powdered sugar (maybe 2 cups or 3?) lemon juice and enough milk to make a drizzle-able type glaze. While the rolls are still warm from the oven I drizzle on the glaze so it runs down into the swirls and makes them yummy and gooey!  I've won ribbons from contests and many many accolades from dh's coworkers over the years. When he worked in taxes, during tax season, on Saturday work days, I often made these for him to take to work....til it almost got to be expected that I would. LOL the recipe makes around 2 dozen, though you can make them really really big if you like and just make a dozen, or you can make them much smaller and make three dozen for a potluck bkfast type thing. |
Friday, April 18, 2008
Jam and bread for ....
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I've been so busy this week I haven't even taken time to blog about any of it. I don't even really remember the first part of the week after the blur of the last couple of days. Wednesdays are always busy here. The children have classes at church from 3:30-5 and then then teens have class in the evening. While the younger kids were at Cubby Bears, Honeybees, and All Stars, I went to Wal-mart... ALONE!!! Oh sweet joy! I was going to get foil pans for making cinnamon rolls that I needed to bake the following day for dh to take to work. While I was there I noticed they had strawberries for $4.88 for 4 lbs! thats cheap in these parts, so I bought 16 lbs of strawberries, some sugar and some pectin and new lids for my canning jars. I'd never made Strawberry jam before, though I have made Kiwi jelly and apple sauce before.... so, Wednesday night I made 15 pints of jam. I'm still not sure why I did that??? Just an impulse thing, but we're all so glad I did. In fact, dh took 12 to work with him and only brought home 3 of them. So yesterday I bought more strawberries and made more! Thursdays baking was 5 loaves of wheat bread (that flopped), 5 loaves of white bread, 4 loaves of french bread, two dozen cinnamon rolls... and then I was out of flour. I got more flour last night, then today I made 5 loaves of wheat bread that turned out great and 4 dozen more cinnamon rolls. We do have a couple of loaves of bread left, but tonight I used some french bread to make french toast and it was a huge hit! A great way to use up leftover homemade bread that doesnt keep soft and usable as long as the preservative filled store bought stuff. I am kinda tired right now, of baking, but my kids are really bummed that they had to smell cinnamon rolls cooking for two days now and didnt get any to eat, so I might make more for my family tomorrow. For now Im off to Wal-mart to buy some pull ups for my sweet 4 yr old who peed in MY bed last night! I wasnt going to buy anymore, but I decided that my dislike for wet feet (he slept at the foot of my bed) outweighs my dislike for buying pullups. I will say this, I am sooo loving all the counter space in my new kitchen! Room to spread out, bake and cook and can and .... without feeling too crowded.. VERY NICE! |
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Of rain and cows and bread...
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I am sitting in this chair in my feeble attempt to avoid the inevitable. I need to go out to milk the cow, but, its muddy out there. VERY muddy! I could never do justice explaining just how muddy it is, so I'll post a picture in a bit. Suffice it to say, dh told me 'no ducks, we dont have a pond' Well, NOW we do :D so should I run out and buy some ducks before the pond goes away? They're on SALE this week at Orshelns! Everybody loves a sale, right? So, back to this cow thing. I put off going out to put up the calf last night because... well... because procrastinating is one of my specialties! It was raining, I had to pick the kids up from youth, the excuse list is long, but in the end, I was out there at 8:30 last night, in the dark and rain trying to wade through puddles in 'croc' type shoes with holes in them looking for that calf that didnt come with her mama when I called. I could see her eyes reflecting in the flashlight beam, and it looked like she might have gotten in behind the fence that is there to protect our blackberry bushes... SIGH. So, I trudged off through the pasture in crocs, looking ahead to the calf and down at the ground alternately because the only thing worse than a puddle in crocs is a PILE in crocs. definitely!  Finally she started coming towards me, and in nothing flat she was RUNNING in my direction. EEEK! Shes just a baby, but she's big and she'd hurt me if she ran into me. She stopped about 5 ft short. So, we turned to go to the stall to pen her up and with every squishy step I can hear them following me. Pretty soon, Spring started to do a bit of a side step thing that made me a wee bit nervous. I was afraid I was going to be kicked or trampled. I thankfully had taken a bamboo stick out with me for protection from the oogieman, so I gave her a light smack on the rear end and she settled back down. Near as I can tell, the cows just really do NOT like a flashlight in the pitch black of night. I will definitely be sure to put the baby up before dark from now on.So, back in to the warm house I came, and found a towel to dry off. I caught a few giggles from kids as I walked in, I must have been a silly soaking wet sight. Sleep was restless as I had a 4 yr old who laid sideways on my bed and put his feet in my neck of all places! and then we were joined by the 3 yr old also. I got up early to start on baking. We posted, or rather dh did, the things that I like to make and do a fairly decent job at, on our webpage (link in the right hand column) and I had orders this week for wheat bread, french bread, cinnamon pecan rolls and fresh eggs. I have 5 loaves of wheat bread in the oven rising, dough for four loaves of french bread in a bowl for the first rise and Im going out now to milk the cow, right after I hit 'post'. When I return to the house, I'll strain the milk, form the french bread loaves, start on cinnamon roll dough and then take the wheat bread out of the oven. I have my work cut out for me today :) I'll be back to post pictures later. Have a great day ya'll! |
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
10 things I say every day..
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I saw this on another blog, sorry, Im not good about posting links :P but here are the ten things I say every day: (in no particular order) 1. I love you 2. Get off the counter 3. Would someone please switch out the laundry 4. no, you may not play on the computer right now 5. No you cant have any candy 5b. NO YOU CANT have any candy. 6. Is your schoolwork done? 6b. is your school work done? 6c. is your school work done? 7. Kelly, did you check on the chicks? 8. stop aggravating your sister/brother! 9. HELLO????!!!!!! 10. Goodnight, I love you too! |
Monday, April 7, 2008
The morning milk report
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Just checking in real quick to post the morning milk report for Monday, April 7th. Yesterdays milk poured in to the gallon jar, and todays milk filling the smaller jar....bottom picture is two days worth of milk. Hoping to continue to up production as I milk her out more often :D   |
Sunday, April 6, 2008
WOW.. what a busy weekend!
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We got so much done this weekend. I am very tired and sore, but this mornings milking was a FULL jar!!! it took us all week last week to fill that jar, I used it all yesterday in some pudding I made, and this morning I filled it to the top again! HAPPY HAPPY DAY!!!! Today was a busy day, I got up early, everyone else still sleeping, and milked the cow... came back in, fed kids breakfast, cleaned up, the guys were going to go fishing, so they got poles ready. We went to the lake nearby, a small, hidden lake that not everyone knows about..... I dropped the kids off with my dad and dh and my mom and I went to Orshlens for a salt lick for the cow, some fish hooks, seeds and some sevin powder for the flies on Springs back. Went by the lake to take hooks, but they werent fishing anymore, so we all came home. Planted Cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, dill, beets, lettuce, more onions, more potatoes and 9 tomato plants (4 celebrity, 2 better boy, 3 big boy) still need to plant shallots, garlic, blue potatoes, corn, beans, okra, spinach, cucumbers, watermelon and cantaloupe... my big garden.. 30x50 ft is full now, and sugar peas are sprouting, so we tilled up another bed next to it, 15x50 for corn, beans, potatoes, okra, spinach and then dh is going to make me one more that is about 8x 45, for watermelon and cantaloupe and pumpkins. They found wild sand plum growing at the lake and pulled some up. No shovel needed... LONG tap roots, the root is half as long as the tree is tall! and they are blooming already. Dh planted those. yesterday he planted one peach, three pear, three apple and two blueberry bushes.. all from Lowes and all already flowering.... Yesterday I planted a rose bush in the circle drive as a memorial to the baby that would have been due today. I hope that it grows big and beautiful and gives us many sweet flowers! The smaller trees we got from the forestry service are just seedlings, though the lilac, choke cherry and currant are all budded out already and growing. We have much to water and thankfully we have well water for the plants and animals  Our household water bill went down by 5000 gallons for our first full month of the new front load washer!!! and one bottle of laundry soap lasted us more than a month! |
Friday, April 4, 2008
Really struggling today...
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If you've ever read very far back on my blog, you'll see that last August we were quite surprised to learn that we were expecting a new little one. Our surprise and joy turned to sorrow mid month when we found out that it was an ectopic pregnancy and we spent the night in the hospital on our 12 yr old daughters birthday to get a methotrexate shot to dissolve the pregnancy. It was a horribly painful experience and I thought and almost wished, that I was dying at one point. I guess I just really assumed that we'd be blessed again before the due date of that precious little one arrived, but that day is Sunday, and we have no new blessing to announce. My heart is broken...Im sad and confused and feeling a little alone. I muttered at the cow today when she knocked me down because I'd rather be in the house nursing a new baby than out there milking a cow... though please dont get me wrong, I LOVE my cows and I am so grateful to have them! I guess Im just trying to make some sort of sense out of it all in my head and I don't understand what the purpose of that loss was.... I've not seen yet how God will use that event in my life to further His kingdom or to build something in me. Where is the 'good' that is worked out in all things? Anyway, if you've read this far, I do appreciate your prayers... for healing, for comfort and even for a new blessing if God would allow it. Thanks  |