Hunting Season

I love deer season back home, here it's very different and maddening most of the time. In our county it is legal for people to drive up and down the roads with their trucks and set their hunting dogs loose to run the deer out of the woods so the fat, lazy, rude hunters can sit in their trucks and shoot a deer from the vehicle. 9 times out of 10 they come out of their trucks only long enough to cut the backstrap out of the deer and leave the rest of the carcass lying in a ditch or somewhere else....what a waste.

For us every year this means we have strangers sitting in front of our house or on the side road, sometimes even in our driveway, while their dogs run around scratching up our garden, terrifying our chickens, or growling at my children and dogs. It's not uncommon to wake up to the sound of men who I don't know walking around in my yard talking to their dogs, or calling to them. We also frequently get the pleasure of the hunters parking their trucks in my yard while they sit and talk on their cell phones and we try frantically to shoo their dogs away from our chicken yard. It's a frustrating source of aggravation every year, and every year we get more irritated as these hunters seem to just increase in number, frequency, and rudeness.

In years past we have had ugly confrontation after ugly confrontation with these thug type antler crazed lunatics, but are hoping to avoid that this year. It's bad enough that they want to be so disrespectful of people's homes and yards but we had to draw the line at them screaming at my kids from the window of their trucks. My personal limit was calling "hey baby" to my daughter from the window of the truck. It's enough to make a person just nutty! We've given up on getting any kind of help from the game wardens or sheriff's office so I guess all we can do is ride it out and pray for grace.

So in the spirit of the most insane hunting activity I've ever personally witnessed here's a video about hunting that everyone can enjoy!

Remember?

Remember the trip we took early this year? We went back home to see family. Here we are with Joshua. He is gonna be totally crushed that he's not the tallest one anymore! Jared has probably got at least a full inch on him now. That picture is at my mom's house and I was exhausted and had a terrible ear infection. The kids were so happy to see their big brother and their grandma again.



There are Jared and Caleb and my friend Sam's son Patrick. Patrick was just a kid when I worked for his dad at the dairy farm and in the bakery they had, now he is married and helping to run his dad's farm. He is also building a really nice house and has grown into quite a nice and interesting young man. Jared likes Patrick's truck..... too bad he didn't learn how to drive a manual transmission before he wrecked Patrick's truck. Patrick being the really nice guy he is told Jared not to worry and still took him and Caleb to a basketball game after the day's work was done on the farm.



I don't care where you take Jared, if there is water he will be in it and he doesn't care if it's February and cold outside. At least he wasn't swimming in the waterfall I guess, that's what I did the last time I went down there. You can't see the waterfall, it's far off to the right, and it's one of my favorite places in the world.

I wish I could show you what it looks like in the late spring or early summer!! Missouri is truly one of the most beautiful places...... but this was mud season, you know, the time between winter and spring.... it's hard to look pretty during mud season.


Jared is sitting there patting the cow (who could care less really), notice in the background Caleb is trying to get Patrick to let him fix the motorcycle and go for a ride through the pasture. Sometimes it's hard to see these boys as brothers, they are so totally different.


This is one of Caleb's favorite pictures ever. He is on the right, Troy is in the middle, and Troy's dad is on the left. Troy's dad could barely see in this picture, he had suffered a small stroke a little over a week before Taeler took the picture. We hadn't realized it because our family hadn't been close but Caleb had never met his grandpa until the trip he and I took back home. Those two go together like peanut butter and jelly, you would never guess that they hadn't spent every day together.



Taeler is standing on the right and the pretty girl on the left is her cousin Genevieve. They are almost exactly 9 months apart in age, Taeler is older, and as little kids they were inseparable. They were always together and we all just naturally said Gen-Gen everytime we said Tae-Tae..... yes, we did call them those goofy little kid names too.

Music has always been a really big part of life in Troy's family..... not on the radio, but live in the livingroom. Troy's dad was thrilled to hear the kids sing and play and was just tickled to pieces that they love bluegrass and gospel as much as he does. I was tickled to sit on the sofa and listen to them play some old gospel songs and listen to the memories they have together. Troy's dad is the one on the left toward the back of the picture, Troy is playing the guitar, his sister Kathy is standing beside him, Taeler is in the blue sitting down on the right, and Jared is sitting on the left. This was a Sunday evening after church so the kids were ready to sit and visit and sing for awhile.


Fred makes a cute cow rider..... that poor cow put up with almost all of us taking turns sitting on her. Yes, I did ride the cow, and NO you can't see the picture!



Taeler and Jared don't really care for milking the cows. They both felt much better watching that particular activity. They both remember doing it when they were younger and not liking it much then. They would rather feed the critters or cut wood or clean something than be in the milking parlor. They didn't stay in there long, they went to wash milk bottles instead.



Caleb loves to milk the cows, didn't mind being in the milking parlor at all and thinks that being a dairy farmer like Sam is the best thing in the world. I could totally see him doing that too, it may be one of the few things he is perfectly suited for.

We had the best time on our visit back home. The time flew by and before we knew it we had to leave. This picture is of my sweet friends you have read about here a few times before. The lady on the right is Miss Willie, and I don't know what I would have done as a young Christian without her. The Lord worked it out so that she was my next door neighbor and her husband Fred is a very nice godly man and was a real blessing to have as a neighbor too. We were able to spend some time with them and I hated to leave. Willie is one of the kindest people I have ever met..... when I was just a foul mouthed, very loud and very lost person moving in next door to her she was kind enough to share her faith with me. The friendship that we have nurtured all these years is beyond anything that either one of us have ever been able to put words to, other than to say "Thank you Lord".

This time of year I get a little extra homesick. I miss my family and friends there, I miss the dairy farm, and the way the woods smell when you go out to cut wood before the hard winter months get there. I miss the Saturday gatherings to cook for Sunday afternoon, and the hunter's breakfasts we would get up at 3 am to start getting ready. I miss sending the kids out to do chores and seeing them running around in their mud boots and carhart coats. I miss all the work we would put into preparing for the winter and for the holidays coming up, and how the ladies always threw in together to get it all done. I miss the "countryness" of it all, and the lack of formality about things.

I miss the hills and the rivers, and even mud season (which happens in the fall too). I look forward to the day when no place on this earth will be a place that I miss, and when I will never again have to say goodbye to someone I love.

Sharing Blessings

The last few weeks have been quite the roller coaster around here. I'm still struggling with some health issues but I guess that is to be expected. We are trying to find a doctor that has some understanding of the disorder that I have, so far none that we've talked to or met with seem to (even though they seem to think they do). The terrible headaches are still hanging around, along with the dizziness and fainting and falling easily.

Things like that just going on and on and on tend to be kind of discouraging. Today didn't start off as one of the best days either. I went to bed last night feeling bad and woke up feeling worse. Then we got the mail, and went through the bills, and sat down with the calendar and the checkbook, and by the end of that I was in tears and on the verge of falling into a serious pit of worrying. The medical bills are stacking up, the income just keeps on growing less and less, and I was truly tempted to just sit down today and fret myself to bits over the whole mess.

I ended up just going to my room for awhile and prayed. After a little bit I felt a lot better and went on with the day, it was time to get the kid's afternoon lessons done and I had chores stacked up neck deep waiting for me. We read a portion of the Bible and discuss it the first thing after lunch and Troy goes to work.....so today it was Psalm 34.

1 I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.
3 O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together.
4 I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
5 They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed.
6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
8 O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
9 O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.
10 The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.
11 Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
12 What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?
13 Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
14 Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.
15 The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.
16 The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
17 The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
18 The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.
20 He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken.Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
21 The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.


As I looked at my Bible and read just the first few verses my eyes filled with tears of thanksgiving. I can't count the times that I've turned to the Lord for help or for comfort or for deliverance from one thing or another and HE has NEVER FAILED. I read in this passage of His deliverance from troubles, fear, and affliction....and every time it talks of it here it says "all". ALL.... I don't guess that leaves out any! I'm so thankful that I have God's Holy Word, for the way it feeds my soul, for the way it comforts me when I'm hurting, for the assurance it gives me when I'm afraid, for the peace it gives me in troubled times, and for the joy that bubbles up from deep within my soul in response to it!

By the time we finished reading that Psalm my 3 kids were so excited they were drumming their feet at the table like they were running in place. Fred was just glowing and writing as fast as she could, Jared was making notes in the margins and then his notebook all while grinning ear to ear with tears on his cheeks, and Caleb just held his Bible as close to his chest as he could get it without putting it in his shirt and just glowed in his quiet way. I'm so thankful that it meant something not only to me, but that it moved the kids too.

What a blessing we found today just by being faithful to read the Bible! I wish I were able to describe it more, or better, or to somehow impart to you how it felt to read those sweet Holy words and know that they applied to me. There just isn't a sweeter feeling than knowing that the Creator of the World loves me enough to mean those words for me! I just had to share.......

It's that time again

Well, despite a slightly longer than a month migraine and being behind on several of our summer "get it done" plans it's time to start school. I'm excited about schooling, I always am and so are the kids. We will be using the Tapestry of Grace curriculum for the most part this year. We are starting in their "year 3" because we've covered the periods of history taught in the first two and this is Fred's second to last year in school (yikes!!!). I had intended to start school a couple of weeks ago but like I said, I had a month long migraine. So, we are starting a little later than usual, and a little slower but I think we'll be fine anyway.

I'm hoping to feel well enough to finish getting the garden cleaned up and fertilized so we can get a fall garden in this year. It cuts the grocery bill so much when we have fresh veggies, and we all notice a HUGE difference in the way we feel when we eat more of our own foods vs. going to the grocery store. Probably mainly because we get more veggies that way, and those green smoothies we all got so hooked on had Troy losing weight and feeling the best he's felt in years. The kids bought me some heritage kale seeds to try planting and I'm hoping it does well, but what besides soup and smoothies can I use kale for?? I'll have to do some looking for that one....

We harvested a little bit of purple honey a couple of weeks ago.... well, the kids did the work since I was sick. This time it isn't as purple, it seems to have a bit of the darker late summer amber honey mixed in with it but it has the same extra super sweetness that we got before. I don't think that we got two quarts altogether this year but there's still hope for a small bit to come in. People always ask me what the purple honey tastes like, but it's so hard to describe. The closest I've been able to describe it is like grape soda combined with cotton candy only better and smoother. I always say grape Nehi, but no one around here knows what Nehi soda is.....is Nehi soda only in the midwest???

I don't really have a lot to say, but felt like sitting up without vomiting for the first time in weeks so I thought I'd better pop up a quick post so no one back home gets too awful worried. I hope to stay well and take advantage of the cooler weather and get some things caught up around here! We have big plans for more garden space, and a huge strawberry garden, and herb beds. The chickens and doves need new houses built and we have been trying to figure out what to with Fred's new little chickens since they have to be kept separate from the "mutts". I still have a batch of saurekraut to get canned and put away too.

Well, now that I've caught up here a bit I guess I better go see what I can done before I get to feeling too yucky.

39 and counting

Today is my birthday!!! Usually I dread the day because it always feels like another year that I've failed to accomplish something or another year of one failure after the other in life. This year though I feel victorious in so many different ways. Don't take that to mean that I'm living life on a mountain above problems and heartaches, but the LORD has been so good to me that I just can't see my way to feel anything but blessed beyond anything that words can describe.

I look back over my life and see all the wasted years, all the things and people that I had invested myself in before I was saved and for some time after that were fruitless expenditures of energy that cost me much more than I could pay! It grieves me now to remember the way that I used to mark the passing of the years in my life, to the point of nearly making me physically ill. In so many ways I saw myself as a gift to those around me rather than the other way around and I saw my birthday as a day to celebrate myself..... how horrible of me to have been so vain and selfish as to think that I was worth the attention and effort to celebrate when all I was is something so horrible that it cost my precious LORD his very life! It should never have been all about me, and I pray that I never let anything in my life be like that again.

I'm so thankful that the LORD has allowed me to have 39 years to live and learn and most of all of come to know HIM and to live in HIS family! I am truly blessed beyond anything that I can understand and so thankful for all of the blessings I've been given. I look forward to the day that I see my LORD face to face and can thank HIM for all that I've been given. I'm sure that Heaven is pretty and wonderful, but without knowing that HE is there I'm not so sure I would want to go..... I just want to spend eternity telling of all that HE's done for me and how grateful I truly am!

What we've BEEn up to

I have no idea why blogger always puts my pics up in reverse order (or how to fix it without a headache) so y'all will have to go through this with me in reverse! One of the things our family has been up to during my long blog absence is pictured in the post today. We got a blessing in helping a family get an unwanted colony of honey bees out of the wall of their home. For most beekeepers this can be a pretty good paying job, but I am one of those people who is simply too softhearted to ever be good at business and so this one paid just about what it cost us to do it. This picture is at the end of the first day we worked on the cut out (because you have to cut the swarm out of the home). The guy wearing the orange shirt was the homeowner..... and they didn't want the bees. I think it was around 10:00 and we were all hot, tired and hearing buzzing even after it stopped.


One of the things I like most about our family is that we are an incredible team. My kids are far from perfect, but I sure can't think of very many other kids that I would be willing to do this kind of stuff with. They dig right in and work like adults, with no complaining or slacking when we are working on something. They are also very safety conscious which makes me feel even better about working with them.


That's me and Jessica (not my kid but I'd take her in a second) smoking the bees off of our bee "vacuum" so we can start extracting another hive full from the house. We took a total of 2 very overfilled hives out of the house and split them with Jessica. I was surprised to find very little honey stored in comparison to the number of bees.


We did find enough brood (un-emerged bee babies) to put in each hive so that whichever one didn't get the queen can raise one from an egg. We had to handle the brood comb extra carefully since we really needed those bee babies to survive.


Here's Troy and Caleb not too long after we got started. Most of the siding is down and Caleb is smoking the bees to keep them from attacking Troy. For the most part though these bees are very calm and we only got a few stings between us during the 3 days of work we had to do.


Since the bees were between the exterior and interior walls of the home, and the homeowners did NOT want us to go through the drywall in their den wall and ceiling we had to vacuum the bees out from outside. That is a slow process but we got it done.


Now the kids are excited and hoping to get more swarm calls. I'll take them but hate the thought of having to feed bees all winter.... sugar just ain't getting any cheaper. This late in the year the bees don't really have a lot of time to build up winter stores so you can almost guarantee that this will be a welfare hive for the first year. Not that we aren't glad to have them, this is our second swarm catch this year and we'll take all we can get.

It's been a good bee year for us so far. We started the year out thinking that we may be getting out of the bees soon because we had taken such big losses with very little reward, we only had two hives at the beginning of spring and they were both a little on the shaky side. We now have 5 and all look to be healthy and well populated. We've also gotten at least a little bit of honey this year and even managed to make a little bit of profit from some of it.

So I guess we'll have bees for awhile longer yet (hooray!!!).

Purple Honey, It's for real

This post is a sort of odd post for this blog but I learned something very interesting today. If you google "purple honey" this blog is the number 1 result that isn't shopping or ad related content. This blog gets repeated "hits" every day to an old post of mine about the purple honey that our bees produced. I've also received too many emails in response to that post for me to personally respond to them all. So to answer some of those questions and to clarify a few things I'll respond here... and then for fun my kids and I will see how long it takes this post to climb up the ranks in the google search engine.

Yes, our bees made purple honey. Lots of bees can make purple honey. I have also read the book "The Secret Life of Bees" and the teensy little reference there to purple honey. Most of the time when bees produce purple honey it is in smallish amounts and/or mixed with other types of honey within the same hive. We just happened to have an odd and fairly rare outcome of one hive producing nothing but purple honey one summer. For the record I don't believe for one second that it came from bees "sucking" on or eating the juice from elderberries either since this was well after the elderberries here were completely gone as well as the blueberries, blackberries or any other juicy berry.

From what we understand in having researched this issue and spoken with several professional persons in the field of bees and honey production it has to do with several different issues. The soil plays a part in the color of the honey because of it's influence on the mineral content in the plant pollens and nectars that the bees take in. The types of plants that the bees feed on plays a part in the production of purple honey especially in our area because there is such a wide variety of forage available to the bees that it is particularly difficult to isolate what they would be taking in at any given time. The weather also plays a part in the production of the purple honey because if there is too much rain the bees can't forage and if there isn't enough rain certain plants won't bloom and provide food for the bees.

The bees must have the exact conditions present at the exact right time in the bloom cycle to be able to produce purple honey at all. What a lot of people simply don't understand is that honey isn't the sum total of what bees take in, nor is it the bees primary food. Honey is the total of the bee bread, which is made by the bees from pollen and nectar, that has been semi-digested and regurgitated into a cell of honeycomb, then evaporated to the appropriate water density and capped with a bit of fresh wax to store it. Honey is the bee's food of last resort, they simply store it up for the winter months or when there is any other form of a dearth of forage available.

There are several possibilities of which types of blooms produce purple honey but the main gist of it is that to produce any quantity of purple honey the bees must have several different things bloom in a certain order and must have access to each bloom. For example soybeans, kudzu, cotton... those things bloom in that order. I'm not saying that that those are the things that cause purple honey but to show you how the bees would need to first carry the pollen from the soybeans from the iron and magnesium heavy soil to the hive, then the pollen from the kudzu which blooms after the soybeans are finished, then the cotton which is blooming just toward the end of the kudzu bloom.

All of that having been said, if anyone ever gets the opportunity to taste real purple honey that is raw and not pasturized you are definitely in for a TREAT!! There is no flavor like it in the world and we just loved it and hope that our bees make some more soon. I hope that y'all are at least a little bit more clear on purple honey and that at least some of your questions have been answered.