What's taking so long??

I know it's been far too long since I updated my blog...I have been horribly neglectful! The reality of my life is that I do not treat it as though it were my own...sooo I am often running VERY short of time. The last couple of years have had us coming and going so fast that it really seems as though we pass by ourselves both ways. We have had to make even more trips back home for funerals of dear loved ones, and to be a help to other loved ones.

In between the trips for sad occasions we have managed to sneak in some joyful times. I was able to take my children to some of the wonderful outdoors activities that I enjoyed so much as a younger me. I took pictures of my boys jumping off the bluffs into the deep water of the strip mines, we camped on the river I used to visit every single day, we visited places that I used to call home, and visited my Daddy's grave. We saw cousins, friends, grandbabies, and the house that we lived in when Troy got saved and the Lord turned our lives completely around. It was cathartic in a strange sort of way to just go and see that those things and places are still there, and I always cry when I have to leave. Seeing those people, places, and things in my rear view mirror has always felt like I was abandoning a large part of myself, my heritage, my family...and it's always hard.

Since my last post was almost a year ago there has again been so much going on in life that I know I can never get it all down here...so you'll have to settle for the reader's digest version. We made 2 trips back home earlier this summer...both to attend funerals of people we loved. I've lost 4 family members so far this year to cancer...3 of them to pancreatic cancer. I've been so out of touch with much of my family for many years and so it shocks me to hear that suddenly they are gone on. So traveling back to say goodbye is hard...and harder than that, but so worth doing.

I'm so keenly aware that my own children aren't really children anymore at all...and the time when they leave the nest to make one of their own is getting closer all the time. I know in my head that they will still be my babies, still love me, still want me to be a part of their lives...but a different part. I'm not sure I'm ready to let them go...in fact I want to drag them backward on the timeline of life and have some more time to just be with them! I have been so blessed with my kids...we have great relationships and they are awesome people that I am terribly proud of. Everytime I go to the Lord in prayer for them my eyes fill with tears of selfish sorrow for all of the days that I won't be right there with them to see the fruit they bear in their own lives...I will instead hear of it by phone or email, or text message. I'm proud of them all, but it sure is bittersweet!

This summer has been an exceptionally grueling one for Taeler and I. We have both been horribly ill since the beginning of July. The doctors so far only say "It has to be Lyme Disease...nothing else makes sense". We are attacking it with every available tool...but progress is slow and at times terribly discouraging. I just hope and pray that Tae doesn't end up with any long term health issues because of this. Until last night we had both been too ill to even want to do much...but the Lord gave each of us a sweet blessing last night and we were up cooking, cleaning, and singing praises to HIM until bed time. Today we are still feeling better, but not as good as last night. It's so hard for me to not pout and have a bad attitude about it, but this still is the day that the Lord has made and I will rejoice in it and be glad.

There are so many things that have been up in the air so to speak for the last year or two and we still have no solid direction or wisdom about those things. We are just resigned to wait on the Lord and be ready for whatever He calls us to. And that's about it for now....

What a roller coaster!

Please forgive the multiple, extended blog absences this year! We have been neck deep in busyness all year long, some of it was terribly painful for our family and some filled with joy. So much has happened that I couldn't begin to tell it all here right now so we will just have to take it "by little and little" until it's all set right here again.

We are all healthy other than the regular "bugs" that go around this time of year. Me and Fred are getting well after having a bout of strep throat, Troy and the boys have all battled colds but all are on the mend. I still can't get over how much these kids have grown up. They still amaze me everyday.

There will be more posts coming soon I promise. I've been busy getting some writing things lined up for me and Fred (who is now an author in her own and is doing quite well!) and she and I have some other work going on right now too... I'll fill y'all in later.

Putting things in order

At least that's been my goal since I came home. We have too.much.stuff! It doesn't really help at all that my sweet Hunk O Honey is a total packrat either. He means well, really he does....this is what I tell myself every time I have to step over a pile of somethingorother that he brought home with high hopes of eventually filling a need and saving a pile of money. It's not totally his fault though....my kids have tons of stuff too. And it's all taking over the house.

So, I've been on a mission lately. It actually started not long before we left to go back home. Everyday I go through more stuff, somedays it's lots of stuff and somedays not a lot, but it's something every day. We have a room cleaned out in the barn and all of the stuff that I deem unnecessary gets to go live in the barn until the day that we either have a huge yard sale or I get tired of it being in the barn and haul it all off to the thrift store. So far Fred's room is completely finished, my storage room is done, the living room is in progress but is nearly finished and I've worked on mine and Hunk's room quite a bit. It's amazing what will accumulate if you let it!

As I worked through a few piles late last night waiting for Hunk to get in from work I thought of how much stuff we accumulate inside of ourselves. The situation with my brothers during the last few days of my mother's passing was not good and I realized that I have accumulated a bunch of stuff during that time. As I sat down on the floor in my room last night I realized that all through life we often gather "stuff" within ourselves. The easy route is to stuff it down deep inside and ignore it, or to pretend it isn't there and put on that fake smile and just keep trudging onward. But just like those piles of stuff that have gathered in my home, the day will come that the stuff takes over and you find yourself buried in a mess that will take some time and serious work to get rid of.

I'm thankful to have the help of the Lord when it comes to sorting "stuff"!! Just a little talk with Jesus......

Fred's Where I'm From Poem

Where I'm From

I am from warm fireplaces,
where love and grief are shared;
from the clothesline out back and the bookshelf in the corner.
I am from mobile homes, old homes, brick and stone houses
with the laughter of children and
the fragrance of the season in the air.
I am from the sweet gum tree
with the rope swing on one side and tire swing on the other.
I am from the rose bush,
whose fragrant blossoms I remember
though gone, long ago.

I am from the Easter get together and hand made quilt,
From Great Grandma's calloused hands and
Grandpa's tomato patch.
I'm from stubborn folks and
hard working family,
And from a smile on a rainy day.

I am from shake it off and try again,
from do unto others as you'd have 'em do for you;
and be serious with God and He'll be serious with you.
I am from the birthday stomp dance.
I'm from the hills of Missouri and
the songs of the Cherokee Indians,
Pork chops with mashed taters and pumpkin pie.
From my mother's broken home and ruined life
that our merciful Saviour rescued her from.
From photo albums and keepsake boxes
stored in bookshelves and bedroom closets.

I am a hodge podge of many things,
rooted in happiness and heartaches.
Family that makes you stronger,
and a GOD too great for words,
Who has given me these roots I cherish.

And so it goes on

Another extremely long blog absence, another time of trial for our family, losses mourned, griefs shared, burdens given to the Lord, and victories received... and another time to reflect on God's goodness and mercy toward us.

I knew the day would come that the phone would ring and it would be the call I didn't want.... the one that would tell me that the time I've dreaded for months had come, and I knew it would catch me unprepared to do what needed to be done. The last part of March one day we were running around the house as we usually do, just sharing our morning together when the phone rang. My younger (but not youngest) brother was on the line and as soon as I heard the words "I need you to listen to me..." I knew what was going on. My brother was calling to let me know that Mom had been admitted to the hospital and that the doctors were NOT optimistic that she would survive even the rest of that day. Needless to say our family made the fastest trip back home that anyone could ever make.

Less than 20 hours after I hung up the phone with my brother I was standing beside Momma's bed telling her how much I love her and how glad I was that we made it to see her. Quietly Momma asked me to please promise to stay with her until her time here was finished, and to help her get some things done that she had been trying to get wrapped up for some time. Of course I told her I was there for as long as she needed me to be, to do whatever she needed me to do. I was there for a little over 5 weeks, doing everything she asked me to do .... exactly as she wanted it to be done.

Momma went home to Jesus on April 23rd. I miss her terribly but I am so thankful that her suffering is over. I saw her family all pull together around her in an amazing display of unity and strength. I saw that the same people I had known all of my life were still only just very. real. people. I learned that sometimes during hard times the people that you think you can trust the most are the people you should be the most wary of. I saw my children live the way their Daddy and I have been teaching and training them to, and boldly, even before disapproving eyes, even when it was the hardest way to do things, even when they had to stand alone to do it, with kindness and gentleness, and in great displays of love for the Saviour. I saw the hand of God over my life in so many miraculous ways through every single day, guiding us, protecting us, providing for us, blessing us, and loving us, richly and unwavering.... how do you put any of those things into words?

We've been home now since the early part of May, but it has taken so long for me to feel like I have my feet firmly back under me again. There are still hard and ugly things that go on all around me, but every day I see the Lord's tender hands of mercy working in my life and I can't help but just be thankful that I have HIM to look to, to trust, to learn from.... and I wonder all over again, how did I EVER live without HIM?

An ounce of prevention, what we drink

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure the old saying goes. Too bad that most of us just don't take that wise advice to heart. Fred has been studying herbal and alternative medicine since she was just getting ready to start high school and it's been interesting to see all that she has learned being put into practice as she grows into a woman who will all too soon be a wife and mother herself. She has been talking on her blog about the different vitamins that our body needs and what they do in/for the body.

There are a lot of myths about our diets, the vitamins and minerals that we need, how to get them and how much is enough. Sure enough the easiest way to get a good dose of prevention for all illnesses is through our diets. It's heartbreaking to see so many people squander their health for the sake of convenience! Cold cereals may have X number of "essential vitamins and minerals", but don't believe for a minute that your body is going to be able to absorb all that the food box says it may contain. Vitamin pills may not necessarily be the answer either since they are often hard on the stomach and difficult for the body to absorb and utilize the nutrients they claim to contain.

Troy and I learned the hard way when we were just starting our family that prepackaged, easily prepared foods are lethal. We both grew up with mothers that worked full time and were single women leading busy lives. Spending all of their time planning and preparing meals was just not a high priority. To them food that was quick, easy to prepare, and as inexpensive as possible was the mission. The tv commercials and packaging on the products they bought at the store all told wonderful stories of how "good for you" the cereals and soups and frozen dinners they bought were. But somehow the generation of people that Troy and I grew up in is full of extremely unhealthy people, with unhealthy eating habits, and less knowledge about what the body requires for health than any generation before us.

We both have struggled horribly with our health, even when we were in our early 20s we both had multiple issues with our digestion and had already been treated for stomach ulcers. Troy still has issues with digestion and has to be careful about what he eats all the time. I struggle with a neurological condition that no one seems to be able to explain how I became afflicted with...but I can't help but wonder how the foods I've eaten may have impacted my body.

We really worked hard when our children were young to give them the freshest possible foods, straight from the farm when possible, in their natural and whole form. We have seen the results of that kind of diet in all of our kids, and now have seen what happens when you get away from that kind of diet for a length of time. Our kids were EXTREMELY healthy children, rarely even catching a cold or viral infection, and NEVER needed antibiotics until within the last couple of years. They are all still very healthy but we have noticed that since we moved away from the places where we had easier (and less expensive)access to farm fresh foods their health has declined just a bit. Where they once never got sick, they now catch the occasional cold or virus, they lack the muscle tone and natural luster to their hair and skin that they once had, their energy levels have dropped dramatically, and they have more difficulty paying attention than they used to.

Knowing what I do know about the food additives, sweeteners, processing practices, and manufacturing of the foods available and how they impact our health I can't just turn a blind eye to the decline in my family's health. My husband and children are relying on me to protect their health through our diets as much as I am able....I have fallen down on the job and am now more determined than ever to correct my mistakes. My husband and I have spent the last 5 years gaining an unhealthy amount of weight and watching our energy levels and ability to focus plummet. We have watched our once robust children become less healthy, less active, and less interested in learning during the same 5 years. Minor changes will not do, we must radically fix what is broken in our food to fix what is broken in our bodies.

A lot of changes have already been made in our home concerning our food, but many many more are in the process of being implemented. Right now one of our biggest areas of concentration is on the amount of sugar we are taking in. It's unbelievable how sugar is hidden in our food, but even more so in our drinks! So for today's post in my sorta kind of series on healthful eating I thought I would put up a bit of information for all of us to put to use.

Here's a great article from the CDC on rethinking your drink! It's amazing to me to realize that a lot of people are drinking as many calories in a day as they are recommended to consume in their total diet! Constantly drinking soda, sweetened tea or other soft drinks like Kool-aid and such, or coffees, or sweetened juices has a terrible effect on our health. Not only is it flooding our bodies with calories in excess of what we need, but it adds fluids to our bodies that require intricate process to clean and puts a strain on our digestive systems, kidneys, and causes us to abstain from drinking enough water to help our bodies process the waste as they should.

Some people would think that it's okay to simply substitute artificial sweeteners, but I'm totally against that. I think if anyone would do enough research about the effects of those chemical ingredients they would quickly see that it is not beneficial to your health to consume those kinds of things, especially not on a regular basis. Those chemicals are toxic in large quantity, so to me that says they can't be good even in small quantities. We should create the habit of not taking in things that are bad for us in any amount. If it isn't beneficial to your health why use it? Why replace the healthy option with something that isn't useful to your body?

I've posted here about food additives before, but it's still great information and worth a second (or third) look. I've also posted about the water cure here before, but again, it's great information.

A great way to start a clean up of your body after a period of time on a bad diet is a fast. A total fast while drinking only water is good, but really hard on people with health issues like hypoglycemia, or extra electrolyte requirements. Sometimes a juice fast is a better option. For some people with certain digestive issues a juice fast is more harmful than helpful, for them you can modify the juice fast into a smoothie fast by making green smoothies instead. That way they get enough fiber and "flora" via the yogurt or kefir to keep their gut healthy. Here's another great article about fasting for health just in case you need more reading.

Making healthful food choices for yourself and your family is a challenge. It's going to take dedication, research, and effort to convince them (and yourself)that not only is it worth it but that it is going to taste better, and make them feel better. Training my children to be good stewards of their money and time was something I was convicted about when they were very young. Now more than ever I'm convicted that I must also train them to be good stewards of their bodies as well.

What's going on?

Too much, as usual. The weather is dreary and cold to boot, which always makes me feel so much less motivated to get everything taken care of....I would much rather be curled up somewhere warm with a good book and hot cup of tea. I'm having sort of a "growly" feeling day... most likely the result of too much stress, bad weather, not enough sleep, and did I say too much stress?

A few weeks ago we found out that my mother has cancer. On a nearly daily basis we've gotten more and more information about her condition as new tests were done and results would come in. She is now in the hospital to undergo even more tests, begin chemo, and hopefully find some way to help the kidney that has failed and the other that is beginning to. I hate it that she is going through this...and that I am so.far.away. Top it off with the fact that neither one of my brothers will speak to me (for reasons unknown to me)so I get to sit here.so.far.away. and wonder what is going on and how Mom is doing with all the tortures treatments and tests until she feels well enough to call me or ask one of her siblings to.

I wish I could be there for her. I wish I could help. I wish she wasn't so alone. I wish I could make cancer go away. I wish I could fix things so that she wasn't suffering in some cold, impersonal, hospital that is so.far.away. I wish I could be 10 years old again and beat some sense into my brothers (who never bothered to tell me they were mad at me or why)!

I'll be trying to take a trip back home as soon as I can make the arrangements (and find the money) but until then all I can do is pray, and pray some more, and pray again, and go back to my room to pray again just in case I forgot something important. Then come in here, blow my nose, take care of the kids, cook for Troy, pet the dogs, check the email...go back down the hall and pray.

We have had a little bit of good news too though. {snicker}Well, maybe not so little after all. Troy and I have our first GRANDSON! He was born January 20 at 6pm. The "little" feller weighed 12lbs 12 oz, and was 24 and 1/2 inches long. He has a head FULL of blonde hair so long it gets in his eyes, which are a gorgeous blue by the way. Believe it or not, he was even born a little over 4 weeks early! The doctors decided it was best to take him a little early by c-section because he was so big. Thank the Lord, he's healthy and strong and a wonderful addition to the family. Those of y'all that have seen my boys and remember when I had Josh will know that our family just tends to have BIG BOYS.

We are keeping busy around the house trying to get ready for spring. It's hard to plan things like the gardens and such right now with so much going on back home and us not knowing when we'll be taking a trip. We did get a start on the strawberry gardens though before the snow/sleet/ice came our way. Hopefully we'll get that finished and get the transplanting done and some more fence work done and at least a portion of the planting begun in time for a decent crop of everything we plant to come in when we need it. After a couple of really bad garden years we are needing to grow EVERYTHING.

Well, I'm off to try and get chores done and run to get feed for the critters. I'll try to update soon.

Never a boring moment

One of these days I will learn to appreciate the times in life when I am actually a little bit bored! Life is piling more on my plate right now than I want to take the time to think about let alone begin to deal with. I have multiple family members facing very serious health crisis (es?) right now and I am very concerned for their well being. It is enough to make a person go a little bit bonkers to be so far away from the people they love and to know that those people are suffering and could use a helping hand and a caring ear....maybe even a shoulder to lean on. Those times that try me to my very core are also the ones that cause me to learn to lean more on my Saviour, so again I have to just trust HIM. Romans 8:28 gets repeated many times a day around here...among many other verses.

It's that time again that the kids and I are working ourselves half silly trying to get ready for the big spring push. The gardens, the bees, the yard, the chickens and rabbits....all require much attention this time of year in order for them to be productive through the spring, summer and fall. Our first try at year round gardening went better than I had expected but not as well as I had hoped either....LOL, like that makes any sense!

I learned a lot about 4 season gardening this past year and hope to do better next year, we did harvest fresh kale for us and the chickens and bunnies all winter and the broccoli that survived the deer are big and ready to form heads very soon so that is an excellent encouragement. All 5 bee hives survived the worst parts of winter and look to be in great shape for spring...that alone is cause for celebration! We are hoping and praying for a bountiful honey harvest this year.

Well, I do hope to put up a bit longer post soon. My time online has been short lately with all that we are trying to accomplish and the phone calls to loved ones back home taking so much of my time so I know I'm behind on all of my blog/email/online activities. I'll do my best to update soon. Right now I'm off to try and get some more work caught up and get ready for church tonight.

Cream of Chicken (or other) Soup

You can make your own mix for cream of chicken or beef soup and store it in mason jars. It can be adapted fairly easily for mushroom and celery as well just sauté the amount of chopped fresh or canned mushrooms, or finely diced celery in a bit of butter in your saucepan before you make the soup from the mix. This is sure to be a money saver and is best for those people who are sensitive to the additives in pre-processed foods or who have food allergies.

How to make a Condensed Cream Soup Mix:
For each batch, you’ll need one quart jar and one pint jar to store. It’ll store on the pantry shelf up to a year.

4 cups instant non-fat dry milk

1 1/2 cups cornstarch

1/2 cup chicken or beef bouillon granules

1/3 cup dry minced onions

2 teaspoons mixed Italian herbs

1 teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon red pepper

¼ teaspoon black pepper

This equals 18 cans of condensed cream of chicken or cream of beef soup! It stores nicely in two jars!
To reconstitute (equal to one 10.5-ounce can of condensed cream soup), combine 1/3 cup mix and 1 1/4 cups water, either using a small saucepan on the stove or a microwave-safe bowl; cook and stir till mixture thickens. You should label the jars and note the directions to reconstitute the mix right on the lid or the label.


Enjoy and keep on saving!

Happy New Year

I know it's not new year's eve or even new year's day, but this is my first post so far this year. We were blessed to spend new year's eve in a wonderful church service at our church listening to some of the best preaching there is. That's one of our family's favorite traditions since moving out here in 2005, the Watch Night service has become something that we look forward to even more than thanksgiving or Christmas. We certainly can't think of a better way to start the new year than with preaching, praying, and praising the Lord!

With all that we've heard in the preaching lately, read in our family Bible reading, and gotten from the Lord in our family prayer meetings we already know that our year will be a very busy one. Thankfully the Lord was gracious to show us where we needed to sharpen our focus, and where we needed to let some things go. Our God is so good to show us those things rather than to allow us to continue going the way that is unprofitable and unhealthy for us!

2009 was a very hectic and hard year for us in so many ways. Our family faced more illness than we've seen in the years since we've lived here (and we have the bills to prove it), we have dealt with serious illnesses in our extended family and twice had to go back home to take care of urgent needs for them. We fell behind on so many things, important things, like schooling our children, our business plans, and several areas of our service to the Lord. We struggled more than we thought we could bear financially but somehow everything always got taken care of. We finished the year feeling totally exhausted, worn out, disheartened and discouraged, but determined to keep our chins up and to continue on weary step after weary step in trying to set it all right again.

I hope that this year just keeps on getting better and better. I know that correcting those things that are wrong in our lives is difficult and unpleasant sometimes but I also know that the reward in having done it and followed the Lord's leading is too good for words. I'll be posting more, but for now it has to be short. I hope everyone has a wonderful year!

Fred is blogging again

Among the zillion other things we have going on around here, our sweet little Fred is blogging again. She lost all of her sign in info for her old blog and didn't want to keep going with it after such an extended absence so she started a new one at Clay in the Hands of the Potter. It's good to see her online again, and now that some things around here have changed maybe we can function in such a way that she'll be able to keep up with it.

We have been busy as usual, but with more focus on things that have been let slide. Weaving together loose ends with schooling for all 3 of the kids and helping them get more focus to their days with our weird schedule has been a priority. Our family also took a couple of days to just get away before our revival meetings started and went hunting together while we were gone. It was a real blessing to spend quiet time together in the woods, but an even bigger one when my sweet Hunk O Honey got his first deer. I'll be processing meat tomorrow!

Sorry for such a short post but I really have tons to do before the meeting tonight. See ya!

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.

I'll never forget

One of my children's favorite part of the day is adding to their "I'll Never Forget" journal. After so many years of fighting with the kids to get them to write it hit me one night at the dinner table as I listened to each of them describing their favorite memories that the key to keeping them interested in writing was to have them write about what interested them (duh!). So the next day they each got new notebooks to decorate any way they chose and the command that at least three times per week they were required to write at least a page describing a memory or event that they hope to never forget. None of them ever forget to do that assignment either.

Those journals have become cherished parts of their lives now and many times after they've made a new entry they come bounding into whatever room I'm in to share with me the wonderful (sometimes only to them) memory they just wrote about. I'm so thankful that even in times that I thought our family was in a horrible way for one reason or another my children have found treasured memories and wish never to forget them. Those things that I feared had deeply scarred them or ruined their childhood are often things that were integral parts of one of their favorite memories.

Sometimes in the evenings as we all sit around the table reading or writing or working on whatever project we are desperate to finish we start sharing some of these memories and the conversations that develop in those times are precious to me. I often just sit back and listen as each recollection triggers so many others and it's music to my ears to hear the kids bounce back and forth in a volley that only our family can understand and share. Growing up I thought I would never have that special sense of belonging and "knowing" that comes from being a member of such a close family as what Troy and I have been blessed to have, but it is one of the things I am most thankful to God for allowing me to experience.

As I woke up this morning I lie there in my bed thanking the Lord for the day HE's given me and the time to share it with my family when the tears just started rolling down my face and I had to get down on the floor and just spend time there cuddling up in the arms of grace that have me folded in so securely. I came so close to not having that at all... within minutes of throwing it away so selfishly and foolishly. I'm so thankful that God in HIS perfect wisdom showed me mercy during that time when I truly didn't deserve it at all.

So today, before I forget, I want to remind myself to never forget just how far the LORD has brought this family. To never forget how close I came to losing it all, and that no matter how badly I may want to place the blame 100% on someone else that I have to bear my own part as well. I have prayed and prayed over the last several years that the kids will never forget where the LORD brought us from either, and how pitifully desperate we were, and to remember how blinded we all were to the real cause of our problems at that time. I want to remind myself to never stop being thankful for the grace that has been poured so freely into my life... grace that I never deserved or could earn but that was given to me by my Saviour.

I'll never forget.... who I was before HE found me, what I was and where I was going before HE saved me, and how HE set me free from all that I was a slave to, and where HE is taking me when my time here is over.

I did it again!

I've gone way too long without a post, but y'all should be used to me by now I suppose. It almost feels like I've been chasing myself around the country. I made two trips to Missouri and back, and one to South Carolina... and when I say "to Missouri" I should say to and all over Missouri since it's never to one location but several that are scattered fairly long distances apart. We logged over 5000 miles in less than 5 weeks... not a personal record but it sure has been a long time since I traveled. It was fun but tiring and kind of expensive considering we usually don't even eat out let alone go somewhere out of state.

I do have new travel tips though.... never ever ever ride through the mountains with an inner ear infection and a driver who is really in a hurry and determined not to be late! Dizziness, met nausea about 10 minutes into that 7 hour drive.... and have you ever tried to read a map in that condition? I'm surprised we didn't end up in Georgia. And after 4 years of not taking any really long trips with the kids I've come to some realizations that just can't be denied. 1)Suddenly there just isn't enough room in the truck for all of us, these kids are HUGE! and 2)Those same "kids" who are suddenly MUCH bigger also have MUCH bigger smells. After sitting in traffic for 2 and a half hours in Nashville I nearly considered trying to make a trade with a young couple in a minivan for their screaming two year old!

Since so much has gone on y'all just have to take the catching up version for now and I'll try (really) to get some pics posted soon... like the ones of the kids riding the cow at the dairy farm, Caleb milking cows, and Troy and his sister and dad playing bluegrass gospel songs at the dinner table. Somehow I never seem to remember that I have a camera until I get home and wish I had taken pictures of all the really good stuff.

Missouri-
Caleb and I went first for nearly two weeks and came back home tired and missing our own beds. Our entire family turned around one week later and went back to Missouri for two weeks. My sweet Hunk O Honey just happened to get a forced week off work (without pay..grrr) so we took a second week of his vacation time and went back home to visit.

We visited my Honey's dad who we hadn't seen in about ten years, went back to our old home town and reminisced and thanked the Lord that HE had seen fit to get us out of there when HE did. We had hoped to go do some extra things like visit the Pony Express museum and the Science center in St. Louis along with Meramec Caverns and the little river towns and old route 66 towns where Troy and I grew up. We also wanted to go see some of the rest of my family but it didn't happen this time. We had a great time visiting with friends and family and hope to get another chance to go visit all of the people and places that we didn't have the time for this trip.

Home-
The garden is already FULL!! I've got 30 cabbage plants, 27 broccoli plants, snow peas, english peas, strawberries (with blooms), spinach and lettuce already producing, basil, potatoes,onions, and pole beans planted. It sounds good but... this .... is.....a.... DISASTER! I want to plant MORE FOOD. The seed catalogs are screaming at me, and with the turn of each page me and Fred run to the window and scan the yard frantically for places to put in gardens. I have corn seed... very special corn seed that I MUST PLANT. and limas, and more beans, and carrots, and there has to be a place for the tomatoes and peppers to live!!!!!!! Maybe we'll cut down some more trees and who needs grass... I don't eat grass and I hate to mow so maybe my entire yard should just be growing FOOD. I'll be okay, really.... I just need more garden!

The kids are trying to get back into the swing of schooling, but it's garden time and that's about all we can think about once the sun rises. Troy says I should just switch on over to our "summer schedule" which means get up early and garden, school during the afternoons and evenings and chores before bed. Sounds great except the whole part where I'M OUT OF GARDEN SPACE.

I'm behind on everything.... again. (except the garden) I need to start Caleb's quilt that he asked me to make for his birthday. Spring cleaning is a definite need around here! Plus Jared has been patiently waiting since last fall for me to get the furniture rearranged so we can bring his piano home from the home of nice couple who gifted it to him in answer to prayer. (that one is not entirely my fault, I'm not allowed to rewire things and it requires that the phone line get moved) How is it that every drawer, closet, cabinet, and storage space somehow between September and March gets stuffed to bursting point with mostly useless JUNK?? My Hunk O Honey likes to accumulate anything he can carry items that he might find a use for in the future and that accounts for a lot of it... but seriously, where does the rest of it come from? I swear that anything we don't use on a regular basis somehow multiplies and then mutates and then the mutated items multiply and so on and so on until every single millimeter of space is consumed with totally useless JUNK. Maybe I should just have a really really HUGE bonfire! I wonder if I can even find the matches?

The kids have been accumulating junk gently used items from our home in hopes of having a yard sale, they are trying to raise money for more chicks and new beekeeping gear since they have outgrown all that we had for them and to make new salves and soaps and stuff to restock their business. Needless to say the kids yard sale collection is trying to take over around here. Every day I nearly kill myself falling carefully step around the various piles, boxes, and bags of items. I'm glad that the kids are so interested in earning money but I'm liable to break something.... at what age do we get more breakable??am I there yet?

Besides the trips to Missouri I have been fighting a horrible ear infection that just isn't even considering leaving me alone. Even while we were gone to Missouri my ears got so bad and I was so sick that for 4 days I just laid on the floor at Troy's dad's holding my ears.... Troy decided that I had to go to the doctor and get MORE antibiotics though. I HATE antibiotics....seriously, but have now had two rounds of injections and four rounds of oral antibiotics in increasingly stronger varieties along with two injections (i really hate those, i suddenly feel like a little kid all over again every time) of steroids to help with the swelling in my ears. The last visit to the doc resulted in words like "tubes" and "tonsilectomy" and "specialist" so for now I'm just dealing with it and praying praying praying praying.

Well, that's all the time I have now. The piles of stuff are scheming and plotting a hostile takeover of the livingroom as I type. The kids are claiming to be finished with their schoolwork but there is a mysterious tone in the end of their sentence that tells me they only mean it if I do. The mess in the kitchen is multiplying while I sit here but somehow it still hasn't produced the new pots and pans that I need no matter how long I wait. The dogs are giving me "the look"... the one that says "is your seat attached to that seat or am I gonna get my biscut?".... so off I go to tend the things in my life that despite my rants and ramblings I truly do love.

Y'all have a good day!