Bible time

Here's a darling photo of my studly man having Bible reading time with our youngest two. Notice Daddy is reading a Veggietales Bible study guide but the 2 year old is "reading" a KJV pocket Bible...LOL. Too precious!

Pig Lure = Pizza Rolls

Pizza rolls: the best kept secret in wooing a piggie back into its pen. Who knew? Seriously works though! My hubby and I decided that we'd try our hand at raising our own meat (other than chickens), so we set about learning of pigs. They seemed small enough and easy enough to try as novices. He asked around at the county fair in the swine building. We were not interested in the full-grown show pigs but figured the "pig people" would know where to obtain babies. Sure enough one of the teenagers gave a call home to his dad right there at the fair and we came home with a date of when to pick up our 3 little pigs. My hubby put them in the barn at first. They were still relatively easy to handle while they were little. We later moved them to the spot of the yard that I wanted to turn into my garden and we used them as little rototillers. That worked beautifully! They did in about a week what we would've had to rent expensive equipment to do for this particular patch of ground. We didn't use electric fence to keep them in; just a roll of fencing attached to posts all around. It worked - for awhile! The piggies got big and got VERY interested in the world outside thier pen! They were still young enough at that point to come to my voice when called. They honestly came better than any dog I'd ever had (I'm terrible with dogs mind you!). I hollered out "Here piggy piggies" and they ran right to me grunting happily. That didn't last terribly long, however. We came home one afternoon to a note on our door from a neighbor saying to call him ASAP regarding the pigs. We went out back to their yard and saw only one. We then heard a strange noise from the barn. We called the number and discovered that the 3 little pigs had gone all the way down the street to the neighbor's house via the ditch. I think they even crossed the highway. This other house is at least 1/4 mile from ours! A driver on the road had called the sheriff's department. They were about to cite us with a "Pig at large" ticket or some such thing when the neighbor talked them into just helping get the piggies home (thank heaven it was the same neighbor whose dog we'd helped return a number of times!). Anyway, this neighbor said he spent all afternoon with the deputy trying to corral our pigs in the barn. He then gave my husband some contraption to electrify the fence and swore that THAT would keep them in. He didn't make fun of us or anything (well, at least not to our faces!) for doing it "wrong". Hubby tried the contraption. It did NOT work. The very next day we spent at least 7 hours chasing these piggies through the woods. By this time they no longer came to "Here piggie piggie"! I even rode our 4 wheeler up and down the street 6 months pregnant calling for them at one point! (that doesn't work either!) In exasperation we began pulling items our of our cupboards and freezer that might help lure them into their pen. Apples and potatoes didn't work, various breads and crackers didn't work. Their feed corn was absolutely useless now that they'd been foraging all morning through the woods behind our house. Finally, we tried the pizza rolls, BINGO! They LOVED them! We finally got them all back to where they belonged and eventually boarded them up in the barn to spend the rest of their days until we could haul them to the meat market. Go figure; pigs love pizza rolls! Just don't tell them they were pepperoni!

TMI crazy morning

I got up at 8 a.m. (with a huge, painful lump in my breast and raging hemerrhoids mind you - there's the TMI) and began to wash the dishes that were in the sink so I could start making buttermilk pancakes for the boys and daddy. I needed to get going with that and get them fed and out of the kitchen so I could make the poppyseed torte and also frosting for the cake I made the night before. I had planned to do all the cooking and prep for Sunday on Saturday but I didn't make it home from the grocery store until 8 pm and I was so sick from the DQ moolatte' that I let my mom talk me into... Anyway, so I am hurrying to get all the prep and cooking done so I can finally get in the shower and try to ease the lump issue and praying that the rear-end issue didn't worsen or I would have to go get another "surgery" done in that region which I want to avoid at all costs. I got all the cooking stuff done as far as I could for the moment and even got all the dishes washed from breakfast. It was about 10 am at this point and we had to leave at 1:00p. I then decided spur-of-the-moment that the boys HAD to have haircuts. They looked so cute dressed up and I figured people would be taking pictures so I didn't want them to have that "hair growing over their ears" look. So I brought my 5 y/o down to the basement to find the clippers. It was then that I noticed the same 5 y/o had left the freezer open all night long (he put the frozen groceries away the night before). Sure enough, a TON of meat was thawed. I grabbed a huge armful of it all to carry upstairs and start cooking again. Hubby was trying to be nice and also felt sorry for me and said "you can just throw it all away". I knew that really wasn't an option - we needed this meat. I managed to get a huge crockpot of mexican pork going and another one full of italian sausages. I also seasoned a rump roast and some porkchops and put those in the freezer to cook later that week. I then took each boy down and very hastily cut their hair. I still needed ashower myself and if the newborn woke up before I could - I might not get one! Well, I DID manage to get a shower in. We also managed to get out the door and to grandma's for Resurrection Sunday dinner without any more problems. I did notice while we were there though that none of the boys' haircuts looked very good. I probably should've left that one alone! :-) After a day like yesterday, I sure am grateful for leftover dessert!

cloudy days and garden veggies

The weather here has been rather dreary as of late. That tends to put everyone in funky moods. Not so great for mama trying to keep everyone amicable as well as keep herself cheery. I, for one, could definately use some sunshine. Some nice, good old-fashioned fresh air would be good too. Gardening season is around the corner. This time of year always brings mixed emotions for me. I am excited to try again another year but apprehensive at all the work and concerned I will fail yet again. I am not a naturally patient person and my hastiness has proved to be detrimental in the garden. Each year I do it, though, I get a little better. I have spent hours and hours reading and learning and planning. It is all so beautifully structured in my head and then it rarely resembles the mental image when all is said and done. Maybe this year will be better. My hubby says it needs to be what with grocery prices skyrocketing and all the information we have learned this year on genetically modified seeds and pesticides used on produce. Will this be the year we actually grow our own food? I sure hope so. Now if this weather would only cooperate...

disclaimer on archived post

How cliche' is it to put a disclaimer on your own stuff? Cliche' might not be the word I'm looking for... Anyway, I just want to put a "note from the author" regarding the article entitled Liberation. That one has gotten me some flack. People misunderstand sometimes and think I am trying to attack women who work outside of the home. I want to go on the record as saying that my intention was not to "attack" anyone but merely address a society. Most of the "flack" I've recieved has also been because of the books I have listed as suggested reading (Created to be His Help Meet in particular). I also want to go on the record as saying: That doesn't bother me one bit...

Note on archived posts...

It had been my endeavor to publish my old articles here just as they were when they were finished and/or published in the Wisconsin Christian News. Some of them are over 2 years old. I now prefer to use only the KJV of the Bible to quote scripture references but there may be a few quotes throughout that are from the NKJV. If this is a problem to some readers, I apologize. At this time , however, I do not plan to go back and re-reference the quotes.

Runaway Chickens

My husband and I made the move from the city to the country about 3 years ago. Neither of us knew too much about rural living, but we did our best to read up on some things and figured we'd make the most out of it.

It was a tough decision for my usually "steady" man to buy this 30 yr. old home on 8+ acres. He builds beautiful, luxurious homes for a living. Neither of us would want a home as glamorous as the ones he typically constructs, but he has always wanted to live in one he has built. Well, that is still a dream in progress; because as I stated before, my typically "steady" man announced to me just 2 months before I was due with my 3rd son that we were moving to the country! I had already gotten the nursery all situated at our old house!!! But I am usually up for any adventure so I gladly packed the house all up and, just 2 weeks before our son was born, got us all situated in the new place.

Thus began a whole new life for us. I knew right off that I wanted to raise chickens. There just seemed to be something so motherly and feminine about tending to a flock of chickens. I got books from the library on how to raise them from chicks and placed an internet order. Who knew that chicks come in the mail? Our first time brooding was a huge success! No fatalities. They were all Rhode Island Reds. I didn't know then that they tend to be feisty. Well, at that time we had converted one stall in our stables into a coop. My husband built a beautiful row of nesting box es and we chicken-wired the whole thing to keep critters out. Eventually the eggs came in abundance and we were able to sell some to our friends and family. We were horrible at butchering the roosters our first time at it, though. It was quite the experience (I'll save it for another time!). Sadly, we began to get lax about shutting the stall door at night. At that time we still didn't have any electric lights out there and it was a cold, dark walk from the house to the barn. My hubby took it upon himself to make it his job; especially after a few run-ins with some deer who were strangely not skiddish and frightened him a time or two. I was grateful as I dreaded running into the big dark barn to shut the door. Honestly, I was beginning to dread opening it in the morning too as the chickens would chase me all the way back up to the house (those feisty RIRs!). Well, it wasn't long before no one was shutting the stall door at night. Raccoons and foxes picked off a few of the chickens. We felt like such bad "parents". After that the chickens wouldn't go "home" anymore. Instead they roosted in parts of an old truck we had pieced all over the back of the garage and a few even came up closer to the house and tried nesting in our windows. Over time, they began to disappear into the woods, probably flocking up with neighboring chickens or becoming victims to more racoons. We were down to just a few hens. It was sad. One day, as I was driving home from the country grocery store, I saw the last of our pretty red hens running down the highway. Seriously! My chicken was bolting down the highway (in the gravel at the shoulder)! I didn't know if I should pull over and try to shoo her into the van or what!?! It's not like a pet dog that runs away. I just glanced in the rearview mirror and said goodbye. We ended up being such terrible country-dwellers that fist year that my chickens ran away. Truly, truly embarrassing! We can laugh about it now because we've gotten a lot better at it and our chickens like it here now but it was something quite different then!

To tell you the truth, we have wanted to give up many times since we first moved here. It is not easy! But, no one said it would be. And we now know that it wouldn't be nearly as fun or rewarding if it WERE easy. It is good, clean, fun, HARD WORK! I do have to remind my hubby when he gets overwhelmed that someday we will have three teenage sons who need a pace to tromp and play and work and this is just the place for it.

What ever became of my runaway chicken? She took up residence right smack dab in the middle of a golf course a few miles down the road... stupid chicken ... must have looked like a big red bulls-eye to the neighborhood red-tailed hawks...

Beginnings

This is my first time blogging... I am totally new to the world of blogs. I hope for this to be a place to archive some of my articles, many of which have been in print in a local Christian newspaper. I have always enjoyed writing for pleasure and am thrilled when it can be used to bring glory to God.