Show And Tell Friday

Kelli hosts a show and tell Friday. Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there's a story behind your special something, that's even better!

My Dad let me borrow 3 boxes of old family pictures. I am going to be scanning them and putting them on CD's for everyone. I have really enjoyed going through them. I found several of me in an outfit that my Mom saved and gave to me. So, that is what I am going to share today. I am 48 years old, so these pictures are REALLY OLD!!! =)

The first picture is of the little jacket and bonnet as they look today. My Mom took great care of everything. If you click on the picture you can see the details of the outfit. I left it large for that purpose. The next two pictures are of me wearing it.

Another George!!

George the third came out of his chrysallis yesterday. I was not sure what was going to happen with him. George the second turned all black and yucky and never emerged. I saw this chrysallis turn black and thought the same thing was going to happen. Then later on yesterday I looked and there was George in the bottom of the jar. I put him outside on my wreath to get some pictures of him. I know you are probably tired of hearing about all the Georges in my life, but it is an awe inspiring miracle to me. I watched this caterpillar who had to be really tiny eat an incredible amount of leaves. You could see the growth in him each day. Then I watch this huge caterpillar attach himself to the top of the jar and hang in a "J". The next part they always do when I am not near (my son thinks they are shy), but they create a small chrysallis that does not look big enough for them to fit in. They go in all green, yellow black and stripey. In just over a week, they emerge looking like the pictures below. That my friends is a miracle that only God could do. That is the same God who hears my prayers and loves me and protects me and cares for me. I who only deserve hell and death. GRACE - getting what I don't deserve. MERCY - Not getting what I do deserve. Thank you Lord!!!!!





The weather is wonderful today. The high is supposed to be 81. It is currently 76 and overcast. I smell autumn in the air. When you smell autumn in the air, 2 things I do not like start to happen as well. One, all those large spiders start moving in for the winter. Yesterday, I went into the bathroom and saw a LARGE, did I mention HUGE spider water skating in the toilet. Well, I helped him body surf to the bottom of the sea. =) He rode that funnel of water really well. The second thing is mice try to move in. We have been using sticky traps with some success in the last year or so. I need to get some more.

Someone shared the following scripture with me. I really loved it and want to print it out.

Deut 28:11-14 "The LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. The LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully, and do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

Meditate on a truth from God today. Chew on a verse. Hide it in your heart. We serve an awesome God!!!!

I Need Your Help

My Mom had a picture hanging in her bathroom. It has hung there for years and is in fact still there. I will inherit in the end, but I would like to find a copy of this picture for now. It is the picture you see below. It is not a really good picture of it though. It is a small child sitting on a chamber pot. The entire picture is in sepia tones, but the chamber pot is a sort of blue. It says "Efforts" at the bottom. If any of you run across one of these that is for sale, PLEASE let me know. I have looked everywhere, even on line. Thanks for any help you give!!!

I Would Still Love to Hear From You!!

I posted recently that I get a lot of blog hits from other countries and I wonder how they find my blog. Well, today I got one from Prince Edward Island!!!! That is a place I only dream of going. My parents went there on their 50th wedding anniversary trip and my friend Sharri went there last year. Hello to you on Prince Edward Island!!

An Evening on the Farm

Michael was out milking the cow. I had finished my evening chores and was sitting out at the picnic table. The dogs and some of the cats came around to hang out as well. The puppy was very energetic and was trying to get someone to play. =) She gets herself into trouble being that way. The yard looks like a puppy romper room. She had gotten a hold of a big ball of twine. The neighbor children did chores for us to earn vacation money. They cleaned out under the shed roof of our barn. They picked up all the twine from feed bags, and hay and made a big ball from it. Well, a large part of that ball of twine is twisted around my front yard. There was the handle from one plastic sand bucket and a small metal bucket that I used as planters laying around. The flowers had been shredded long ago. Now, the buckets are just a toy to carry around. =) Here is a picture of Dixie and Star.



Our neighbors have an ultra light airplane. Whenever he flies right over the house, I don't have my camera out there. One day I will catch a close up of it. Here he is going in for a landing.


I try to lean against something to hold still, but I have a hard time getting a good picture of the moon. It was beautiful. It was not really this dark when I took it, but this is how the picture turned out.


You may remember me having told you about the gray kitten's eye. Its left eyeball is there, but it is blank. There is no pupil or color to it. I took this picture of the kitten. I thought it looked really weird. If you click on it and make it bigger, you can see it a bit better.


I am learning and working on keeping my focus on the Lord. I need to work on my relationship with Him and everything else will fall in place. I love the words to that song... Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. The chorus goes:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in His wonderful face.
And the things of Earth will grow strangely dim.
In the light of His glory and grace.

It is so true. When we can focus on Him, the problems around us are not so big anymore.

I see a whole movement of people trying to walk a different path than what the mainstream church is doing. They are more family oriented, but also more willing to get back to basic Bible truths, instead of what is accceptable today. It is sad to hear all the statistics that say certain things are as rampant in the church as outside the church. The church has lost its saltiness.

We don't fit in anymore. The church does not understand and family and some friends do not understand. However, if the Lord calls us to march a path, may we have the strength (from Him) and the boldness to follow His call.

Count Your Blessings Monday

I am giving us an opportunity every Monday to not only count our blessings, but to share them with others. This is a way that we can encourage one another. Make a post on your blog telling us about your blessing. Please put a link back to this post. You can add the URL of your blog post on Mr. Linky below. Many of our blessings we will have pictures of and we can share those as well. I think that many times we forget that it is a blessing to be able to breath, to get out of bed, to hold a baby... Share your blessings with us.



I don't have a picture this week, but I am so thankful for the blessing of being able to worship God freely. So many of our brothers and sisters around the world are not able to do this. They have to hide and do it or they are in prison for having done it. There is an organization called The Voice Of The Martyr that ministers to them. You can learn about the types of persecution that our brothers and sisters in the Lord are suffering with around the world. We can sing hymns freely in our home, in our car, in a parking lot. We can have people to our homes for a Bible study and not worry about our door being knocked in and being carried off to jail. It is a freedom that may not always be ours. If you notice now, Christians are the only ones that are allowed to be attacked in the media or films. There is no outcry from anyone to stop it. Thank you Lord, for the freedom and blessing to be able to worship You freely and in the open.

Today's Happenings...

Our fellowship met this morning for worship. After the worship time we had a meal together. The family whose house we were at makes really pretty food. They put a lot of time and effort into it. They made these sandwiches called stacks. Each sandwich was made with 3 slices of bread and about 4 types of meat and a slice of cheese. They were cut in half diagonally and a toothpick was inserted into each half to keep them together. They had 2 pretty glass platters with toppings for them like pickles, tomatoes, onions, lettuce. They made little paper flags to go on a toothpick to tell the type of bread that was in each container. It looked festive. =) We all bring food to share. I brought my crock pot tacos.

After the meal, the men were going to have a meeting. The women went down to be life guards as the children swam in one of the ponds. Here are some pictures of the swimmers. The puppy couldn't resist being down by the water where her "girl" was. She is very attached to her owner, who is one of the daughters of the family where we met today.





This next part still cracks me up. I am NOT a girlie girl. I have never been one. I used to be more of a tomboy, but now, I am just a plain old frump. =) I have had several people in my life try to "help" me to look better. One of them reads and comments on my blog often, but I will not name her.... yet. =) Anyway, while we were eating lunch today my friend who you see below blurted out that my bangs were driving her nuts and she was going to cut them. =) She said this one piece on one end bothered her all through church and she prayed that I would put my hand up and move it. I am giggling just remembering. I told her that my bangs were cut by me. They were pretty long, but I do a poor job of cutting them and it takes a couple of weeks after I cut them for them to look half way right. So, when we went to go down by the water, she ran and got her scissors and comb and fixed my bangs for me. She was finally able to relax. =) By the way, she told me to take her picture and put her on my blog!!!!

Showers Of Blessings

Today we went for a long drive. Friends of ours over at Yoder Farm are going to help us get the milk machine we have going. Their oldest son is a whiz at anything mechanical. So, we loaded up all the pieces and parts and headed that way. The pictures below were taken from the car on the way home. I loved this first one. It does not look as much like it here as it did in real life, but all the cows in this field were standing in a line like they were waiting for a ticket or something.


These next 2 pictures are of a swamp that we drive by. It goes up through the middle of the whole county. When they get lots of rain many of the roads in this area are flooded.



These last 2 pictures are the only ones that turned out. I took many more. The clouds were really piling up and getting angry looking.



We were not home long when we got a phone call that a tornado had touched down about 6 miles from our house and was headed our way. Most people find a basement to go to. I got my camera all ready for video. My son and his friend were outside working on his boat and my husband jumped in the car and went up on the hill in the pasture to see if he could see anything coming. =) We did not get a tornado, but we did get more rain for which we are very thankful. We need a good third cutting of hay or we might have to sell animals.

Show And Tell Friday

Kelli hosts a show and tell Friday. Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there's a story behind your special something, that's even better!

Once again, I am going to share some of my son's handiwork. These first 3 pictures are of lucets. A lucet is a two-pronged tool used to produce a square, braided cord. The cord had many uses, from threading through clothes to drawstrings on purses. The size of the thread used determined the size of the cord. We have a friend who makes her children's shoestrings with these cords. Because the cord is square, they don't come untied. He made these and sold them for awhile. They are out of exotic woods. The third one is made out of 3 woods he put together.





This is a trivet he made for me out of oak. It sits on our table and holds a hot casserole dish. He worked really hard to figure out what pattern the would be on the sides. He did not want it just straight. He has a true cabinet maker's eye and is a perfectionist. =)

God Has Blessed My Socks Off Again!!!

I feel so blessed today that I actually shed a few tears about it. I told you of my blessing on Monday of Dear Miss Anna coming over and picking all of my tomatoes and peppers. Due to some personal circumstances (which we shall not go into here) I did not get to them and they were on todays schedule. I talked to Mrs. Wonderful Neighbor (I hear her PUHLEEZE coming) and was telling her my plans. I did not ask for help and I don't think I even whined about it. =) A little while later, she and her family showed up at my door. They brought me fresh blueberry muffins to go with my coffee and they brought knives and a chopper and said they were here to help. I did not even know what to say (which if you know me, that is unusual) =). I was getting out bowls and pans and cutting boards and they all set to work. They hardly let me do anything. They got all my tomatoes cut up and in pans ready for me to run through my Squeezo strainer and they got all my peppers chopped up for me. Even the 2 little ones worked really hard. I am so overwhelmed with gratitude I don't even know what to do. I want to do something for them, but I do know that they have earned many crowns in heaven living by me. I love you guys!!!! (Now, I am crying). Here are some pictures of them at work.

Lord, Let Me Be A Doer Of The Word...

I have been reading in the New Living Translation. It was my Mom's Bible. I am reading in Hebrews. The last verse in Hebrews 5 jumped out at me.

Heb 5:14 Solid food is for those who are mature, who have trained themselves to recognize the difference between right and wrong and then do what is right.

That last part...solid food is for those who are mature... those that do what is right. That can be our plumb line for maturity in the Lord. Are we doers of the Word or hears only. Do we fall down in the same area over and over and over again? I don't want any more baby bottles. I want to be on solid food and be growing in the Lord. I am wanting to learn new things. That is the prayer of my heart.

Here is my lone sunflower this year. It has just decided to bloom. There is some sort of front coming in, so the sky was a weird color. It made a good backdrop for the picture.




Well Michael weeded a big part of the garden. He used the bush hog. =) We want to till it again after it dries out. We will be planting garlic in the fall. The little raised area by the sunflower is the few herbs I have that are living. It was a temporary place to put them.


This last picture is of our turkeys. They are 3 weeks old today. They are ready to go out into the field in a movable pen.


One last thing.... I have been getting people visiting my blog from all around the world. There are several places in Australia, a couple in Canada, a couple in England and then some from South Africa, Mexico, Holland, Israel and more. I am just curious how you find my blog from here in the midwest of the USA!! I would love to hear from some of you.

Raindrops Keep Falling On The Farm.... =)

I know that many areas of the country are having severe flooding. I was looking at pictures on line today. It is horrible. We are in need of rain. So, Praise the Lord He sent some our way. Maybe He diverted it from one of those areas where they are praying for no rain. We have had some good rain though and we are so thankful. Most of the storms today went north of us. However, I all of a sudden realized it had gotten pretty dark. I grabbed the camera and headed outside. These first 2 pictures are of the low hangin ceiling of clouds.



I was blessed today with getting some help from dear Miss Anna. She came over and picked my tomatoes and peppers for me. I was back in the office for a minute and I heard her come in the back door calling for me. I kept hearing a sound like small metal marbles rolling around in the big metal bowl I had sent outside with her. I asked her what I was hearing. She came around the corner with this cicada in her hand. Bless her heart, she was not the least bit afraid. My first comment was, "Don't let it go in the house." My second one was, "let me get my camera." =)
She said they were everywhere in my garden. Makes me want to go out there... NOT!!


Here is the produce that she picked for me. I know what I will be doing tomorrow. =)




We have a large chest freezer that we bought used. It is 28 cubic feet I believe. Anyway, the door to it broke awhile back and I could not open it. If you did, the liner fell out and then you could not close it. It was also in a very inconvenient place. Stuff got really old in it. We saw stuff dated 2002. So, we cleaned it out on Saturday. In it, I found some bee hive cappings. Why I froze them is beyond me. However, I have been working with them to try and save the beeswax. I think it is going to work. Each time I go through the cleaning process it gets a bit cleaner. However, I have beeswax over several of my pots and a strainer that I use often. It is NOT easy to get off either.

Count Your Blessings Monday

I am giving us an opportunity every Monday to not only count our blessings, but to share them with others. This is a way that we can encourage one another. Make a post on your blog telling us about your blessing. Please put a link back to this post. You can add the URL of your blog post on Mr. Linky below. Many of our blessings we will have pictures of and we can share those as well. This has been sort of slow to catch on, but it is growing. I think that many times we forget that it is a blessing to be able to breath, to get out of bed, to hold a baby... Share your blessings with us.



This week, I am thankful for my farm. If you had told me 12 years ago, that I would be living in Ohio on a farm and that we would be raising and growing a lot of our food, I would have laughed you out of town. I love living in the country. I love to look out and see the cows grazing and to hear the sheep call to us when we walk out the door. I love to hear the roosters crowing and to hear the hens do their victory cackles announcing their egg laying abilities for the day. It has been a long and interesting journey to bring us to this place. Our first chicken we butchered we had the knife in one hand and a book in the other. We read and read books. We pestered people with questions. We have had lots of fun and lots of character building experiences. We are shown first hand the life cycle that God intended for creation. We get to see new life each spring. I don't know that God will always keep me on a farm, but OH, I am so grateful for this time on one. I hope that I grow old on a farm. I want my grandchildren to enjoy coming to help out and to explore barns and see the new babies, and feed baby animals bottles. It's a good life and a major blessing to me. Thank you Lord!!!!