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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!