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Psalm 91:4~ He will cover you with His pinions (that means feathers), and under His wings you may seek refuge. He is a shield and bulwark (that means defense or protection). The image in this scripture has always been comforting and meaningful to me - a beautiful picture of the loving protection of God over His children. But i've never seen the natural example of it until lately. For the first time, i have gotten to see, up close, the relationship between a hen and her chicks. A couple of times i have been counting chicks to make sure everyone was accounted for, and i would come up short.  Frantically, i would be searching around for the lost chicks, when suddenly, out of nowhere, they would appear unharmed.  Finally, i figured out what was happening. The chicks were taking refuge under their mother's wings.  When i say "under her wings," i don't mean that the chick was sitting on the ground, and the hen was sheltering the chick.  I mean that the chicks we...

I do not want to ever discount the role of a full time mother by pretending that i know what it's like, from my babysitting experiences, to be a mother.  I don't yet know what it means to care for small children, day in and day out, 24/7 for 18 years.  And i have full respect and admiration for those who do. That said. I have come to discover that God had to have been thinking of mothers when He invented the need for napping. Yesterday, God revealed to me that if i will refuse t.v. watching, place child on comfortable sleeping surface, and ignore her for about ten minutes, that the three-year-old will nap almost as long as the one-year-old.  And i am so thankful! I have been blessed, this time around, with two children who will sleep nearly four hours in the afternoon, if i can just keep them going all morning. I'm sure my husband is too because my house is CLEAN.  I can't believe it. Right now, i'm typing to you mid-naptime and post SHOWER.  So awes...

I mentioned puppy pictures yesterday, and today i will show you them. Last week, while babysitting, the little girl was singing her version of a familiar song... "...b. o. n. g. o. b. o n. g. o b. o n. g. o.....was his name-o!" And i thought, "i'm a farmer.  i should have a dog named Bingo!"  And so i do. BINGO We also kept this little darling.  James named her Belle, which in my head i want to spell Bealle, but i think that would be confusing.  She's not quite as photogenically cooperative as Bingo, so i had to go back about a week to get a couple good pictures. BELLE Here's a great mother-daughter pic.  I included this one also so that, if you look very closely, you can see Belle has one blue eye and one brown - an attribute that endeared her to many, including my husband. And of course, that's Jelly.  She looks a little grumpy there, but i think she was just sleepy.   She's still a very happy and wonderful dog. JELLY These are ...

you, the world of people who know about dogs more than i do, probably already discovered this sort of thing, but i was pretty proud of myself, so i thought i'd share. since i raise chickens, i have grown accustomed to reading those dang product labels to figure out the differences between the different feeds.  i have read a LOT of product labels lately.  recently, i was able to apply my extremely limited experience to dog food. as you might imagine, dog food gets expensive around here lately.  up until recently, we had NINE dogs.  you'd be surprised how much those cute little puppies can consume. and we really do want to feed our puppies PUPPY food, but it's so dang much more expensive, that sometimes we just can't handle it, and we buy the cheapest looking morsel we can find.   but then those darling little puppies look you in the eye, and you think you're doing them wrong or something. so yesterday, i went to the store for dog food. again. back to my r...

O.k., here i am.  Writing again. I have decided (for maybe the 42nd time) that it is good for me to write, and i should do it even if i'm tired. And i have been tired.  It has been kind of an emotional roller coaster, so i need to catch you up on the highlights. It has been exHAUSting. I told you that my baby chicks started hatching (thankfully) two days earlier than planned.  I was SO happy about that. So at the beginning of this week, i had in my care:  9 brand new baby chicks, 9 four-week baby chicks, 8 dogs (one adopted last week), 20 full grown hens, and 4 roosters, plus a 1 year-old boy and a three-year-old girl between the hours of 7 and 4. I thought everything was fine.  I seemed to be coping fine. Then, one of the cute little puppies discovered that chickens don't make fun chew toys - two days later another puppy discovered that they do, however, make a great dinner. One day later another puppy discovered the newly hatched make a great s...

Five new baby chicks this morning.  And one good mama chicken. I am very pleased. The other mama hen is hatching her babies right now.  So far we have two and at least one slowly cracking egg. It kills me not to watch every second. God's creation is so amazing!  It's so unbelievable that that egg and that mama made new life.  How can anyone believe it's an accident?

I have been so very busy lately - doing some babysitting for a friend of my husband.  And when not busy - just plain exhausted.  So i haven't written much. But today i have big farm news!  I have had two broody hens sitting on eggs that i thought were due to hatch on Tuesday.  But this afternoon, i got a big surprise.  One of my hens' babies are already hatching.  There are two so far, but i could get a picture of only one.  It's kind of hard to see.  I outlined the tiny baby chick in yellow dots, so if you click on the picture and blow it up, you can kind of see a tiny baby chick under her mama.  I'm so excited!

Some months (i don't remember how long) i became a member of the arbor day foundation, paid my $10 dues, and subsequently expected to receive 10 free "trees" in the mail.  Yesterday, my trees arrived.  I'm very excited. Here's the package i received in the mail.  Or, more correctly, this is what the trees looked like when i pulled them out of the package. Here they are all separated.  Four dogwood s, 3 goldenraintree s, 3 redbud s, and one crapemyrtle . Some of the dogwood trees are fairly small.  Hehe! I promised one of the dogwood trees to a lady at my church.  The others, i planted today.  I might have taken pictures of where i planted them.  But, one, it was raining, and my camera doesn't like water.  Two, when i walked my husband directly up to one of the trees and pointed to it, he said, "where?" and he was serious.  So i don't think a picture would've helped.   So.  I made this fairly inaccurate drawing on pain...

I had to go read my own blog just now so that i could remember what i said last. Chickens and laundry and clowns....got it. So you're dying for news of my Wednesday road trip?  If you are, and i won't be offended if you are not, please refer to this link.   Blog entry about chicken road trip . Here, i want to share something spiritual - but relating to the chicken road trip. On Wednesday morning, i had prepared myself with clean clothes and clean shoes and plenty of gas and extra oil and ... and ... and..., and i went on my way to meet Eva in Cut and Shoot, where we would begin our journey together. Normally on a little trip like that - when i'm alone - i will turn on the radio and sing my little heart out all the way.  I don't get a chance to do that very often, and it's fun, so that was the plan. But as i started down the road, i felt the urge of the Holy Spirit to turn off the radio and just listen to Him.  And after a little more prodding, that's...

Today. Is laundry day. Today is kind of an important laundry day. How can one laundry day be more important than any other laundry day? I'll tell you. Tomorrow, a road trip is planned to go and purchase some full-grown roosters from another chicken-raising type person who lives 2 hours or so away.  But what you might not know about chickens, is that each flock has its own thing going bacteria-and other microscopic being-wise. It's kind of like Mexico.  In Mexico, the people drink the water and don't end up deathly ill, right?  But if you, as an American, go to Mexico, everyone and their brother and their cat will tell you, "don't drink the water."  And if you do, you might end up with Montezuma's Revenge or some other delightful word for feeling really bad.  You might also end up with hepatitis.  This is because your body is accustomed to dangerously sterile, bleached water here in the States, while all the little Mexican babies have been drink...

Ah...Friday. It probably seems like i wouldn't notice Fridays so much since i'm home every day of the week - BUT i do. I'm happy it's Friday night for a few reasons.  One is that i'm getting a chance to post on this, my blog. I haven't been writing much this week because i've been evaluating my habits and priorities.  It seems more important that i do the doing than that i write about the doing.  Not to mention that if all you're doing is writing about the doing and not so much doing the doing, then pretty soon you don't have any more doing to be writing about. Meaning, i've been falling behind on keeping things up here around the homestead, and i'm in the midst of giving myself a kick in the pants and putting a fire under my seat and a few other metaphors involving my back side and getting a move on. Another reason i have not been online much lately is that the monitor on my computer has all but completely blacked out, and i cannot...

I can't believe i haven't already shared this recipe with you.  This is THE way to eat eggs.  Seriously.  I know about eating eggs.  And this is IT.  I need a name for it though.  I don't know what to call it.  Let me tell you about it, and we'll go from there. Start, with a nonstick saucepan.  Yes, you read that right.  SAUCE PAN.  NON-STICK.  I know.  Terms i don't usually use.  But for this one thing.....this is the way to go. So you have your small non-stick sauce pan, and you have your well-fitting (is that a word?) lid waiting in the shadows for its moment of glory. First things first.   Butter.  The salted kind.  This is the foundation of your perfect breakfast.  Put some in the pan. Heat over medium heat until the butter is melted. Line the bottom of the pan with sliced mushrooms.  Texas Fresh little white button mushrooms will do in a pinch, and that's what these are.  But if...

 A long time ago, when we moved here, i blogged about my struggle with finding a new home church - after being a member of what i felt was the perfect church - for seven years.  The separation from my distant church family and the search to find a new church were excruciating.  I felt so lonely and really really needed a home church body. Finally, after a lot of prayer and lot of crying and feeling sorry for myself and a lot of skipping church because i didn't feel i belonged anywhere and a lot of God encouraging my heart and a lot of true spiritual friends encouraging me to press through, i made a decision about what church i would commit myself to.  It was so important to me to be a part of a local church and to find a way to contribute.  It was almost a year ago - Easter-ish - that i made that decision. But still, i, the quiet introvert, very slowly eaked my way into a few friendly acquaintanceships in my church.  Not their fault - mine.  But i ...