Tore up the carpet

Underneath the carpet we discovered...

More carpet

Newspaper from May 12th, 1943

Snazzy linoleum

Welcome to our House

There are no words for this...

Our $7,000 House

This is the house God gave us.

We paid cash, so no debt, and we're going to work on it little by little.

The bones are still good.

But the insides need some work.

Update...

We are getting wood ready for next winter.

This is our pirate ship.

Spring is here.

Finally walked to the top of the hill.  (It's not that far.)

Cello...

Until today I had not practiced the cello for almost a year.  

There are multiple reasons and excuses.  Some of them good, some of them not so much.

Today,

I played for 2 hours.

My left fingertips are still numb and my right shoulder might be sore tomorrow.

Exhausting and Exhilarating

The notes in a song that make me smile, every time, even when I mess them up, they are like a good-natured shove from the shoulder of a laughing friend.  

It makes me want to shove back and skip on, sometimes slowly, balancing on an edge of notes, and sometimes running pell-mell, simply having fun, even if I trip and fall.

Maunderings and Wanderings

I recall reading somewhere, I believe it was C. S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, but I could be wrong, of all flesh being removed and our souls standing naked before God.   

What will the soul look like when the burdens of the flesh are lifted?  

Have those we look down upon borne their trials more gracefully than we would have done if they were placed upon our shoulders?

What will our soul look like?  

What if, because have not the same woes to humble and sharpen us, our souls are weak, almost petty with no substance?  

What if we, having been given much, have not given all that was required of us?

N. D. Wilson writes that life is to be spent, every last drop wrung out.  

What if you were given money but told you could not keep it?  

What would you do with it?

Isn't that our position?

What if you were given life, but told you cannot keep it?

How have you spent your life?

How did you spend your yesterday?

How will you spend your tomorrow?

A place of our own

Spring officially starts in 13 days.

The farm seems smaller (and the house bigger) now that the weather is warmer.

Warm enough to walk anywhere.

The wind is blowing from the South now so the pipe is whistling its low tune again.

My husband and I are looking for a farm of our own.

Nothing found yet.

But plenty of dreams being founded.

Spring...

The farm is putting on it's festive clothing.

The breeze is combing the tangles out of the trees.

The water is chuckling in the creek, glad to be free of ice and snow.

My little one is playing hop-scotch again.

Winter still...

Yesterday got up to 3 degrees.

It was -10 degrees last night.

This winter is real.

Everyone got excited it's 32 degrees today.  

Now we can salt the roads and driveways.

PS I am having trouble posting any pictures.
Photos will follow as soon as I get it all worked out.

Cold

Forecast says 2 degrees tonight.

We've already received  4 inches of snow.

Winter is here.

The only song...

This is the only song that has ever made me get up and dance.

Deer Season *Graphic Content*

I want to tell you an important part of our story.

A vital piece of our Fall.

In the weeks before hunting season opens we are watching the deer every morning and night.

Noting where they cross the road, the fence, the creek.

If we only saw one or two, we would hunt somewhere other than the farm.

We don't want to wipe out the deer in our area.

But we have seen many.  

Mostly does.

A few days before rifle season my husband takes our daughter and chooses a tree for his climbing tree stand.

It is unusually warm for this time of year, high 50's.  We worry it will change the deer's behaviour.

My husband leaves long before the sun comes up and sits, waiting.

Before we came to the farm, deer was our main source of meat, even though we lived in the middle of a busy town in a small apartment.

Venison is much lower in fat, cholesterol, and calories than beef.  It also contains the same or slightly higher amounts of protein, B vitamins and iron.

Around 8 in the morning my husband calls to say he has shot a doe.  He took his time, waiting for the best opportunity.  She falls with the first shot and lays still.

He comes up to the house and has breakfast with us.  

If you are new to hunting, it is ethical to wait a while before tracking or going up to a deer you have shot.  The more quickly you try to track or go up to a downed deer, the more pressure they feel to run.  They are more likely to jump up and run farther and you are less likely to find them.

If your shot didn't kill them instantly, it is better to let them bed down and die quietly.

As soon as breakfast is finished we take the old truck through the fields to where the deer fell.

She raises her head and I see my husband's spirit fall.

He has spine shot the deer and it has been laying there through our breakfast.  

I keep our daughter in the truck and explain that Daddy has to shoot it again.

After he shoots the deer in the back of the head we walk through the dying grass to him.

He is disappointed with himself and sorrowful that the deer was alive - unable to move.

My husband points out to me that it wasn't a doe.  It was actually a small buck that had both of it's antlers broken off at the base fighting with other bucks.

He shakes his head and sighs, several times as we load the deer into the back of Old Blue.

I am so proud that my husband is crestfallen by the fact the deer had to suffer.

We gut the deer in another field.  Our daughter plays tea party and watches us from the back of the truck.
She understands that the deer is for meat.

Whenever we kill a deer we check the liver and kidneys.  These are ways to make sure the deer was healthy.  If we had any doubts, we would feed it to the dog.

After gutting, we skin the deer outside and then hang it in the barn to process ourselves.

We normally let our venison hang at least a few days to help with the game-y taste, but it gets too warm and we decide it will be best to just get the meat into the freezer.

The Bird Woman can't taste anymore, and we don't mind the game-y taste.

I take meat that was cut from the deer the day before and put it in a crock-pot with a can of cream of mushroom soup and a can of mixed veggies.  I place a bay leaf on top and cook it for 6-8 hours.

Easy venison stew.

We thank God for his provision for us and for the deer.

Fall is almost over.

Winter Maunderings

Winter is very close.

I haven't smelled snow yet, and it gets up to 55 during the day, but there is that nip in the air that makes your ears go numb.

I wear my work gloves almost anytime I am outside now.  Especially in the mornings when I get wood.

I love these faded yellow extra small gloves.

I will be very sad when I finally wear a hole in the fingertips.

Sadie, the donkey, has gotten all fuzzy.  I want to just snuggle into her, but she doesn't seem to sure about it.  She's a very aloof donkey, and I get the feeling I exasperate her.

Frost

We have had a few hard frosts.

The garden is done.

The tulips are planted.

We have a fire in the woodstove almost every morning.

Fall and War and Peace

I finished War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

I loved it.

Every minute of it.

I first considered reading it for Humanities and English Literature in high school.  

(You know you're home-schooled when you get to pick what's on your reading list.)

But I read a summary and dismissed it as a romantic drama.

The size was also slightly daunting.
I don't even know what finally possessed me to read it.
I just saw it there, a paperback that was almost as thick as is was wide, sitting on the library shelf.
I couldn't resist.
It was a challenge and I couldn't refuse.
I don't know enough about literature to feel like I could write a good critique.  

I will only say that when I read Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien I had to force myself to continue.
Not once did I have to force myself to pick War and Peace back up.
I carried it around everywhere and read it whenever I could.
I'm still thinking about it, wondering how much I missed because it was so large.
Wondering when I can read it again without ruining it, or getting "burnt out".

In other news:
It's fall.
A perfect fall.
Every fall is a perfect fall.

Half Day

I am reading War and Peace.  

I am almost done with it.

pg.1055  out of 1417

Only 362 pages left to go.

I should be able to get that done in an afternoon.

But I know I won't.

Today is my Twenty-One and a Half day.

I was going to say I was halfway to being 22, but I hit that mark when I was eleven.

I am directly between 21 and 22.  

As others who have also been this age will tell you, it does feel no different. 

The trees are starting to turn colors.

It was hard to tell at  first, because parts of them are dying from something else and have been brown all year.

But the maples are definitely turning red at the tops.

Part of every day is spent catching the last bits of summer in the form of chalk, butterflies, and dandelion puffs.

My Style

I enjoy pinterest immensely.

The favorite among my boards is the board labeled My Style.

Sometimes I go and look at it, just to remind myself of what I like.

It's a way of double checking and making sure I'm not just going along with current fashion.

I want to make sure I am wearing what I like to wear, regardless of what other people think.

That's why the board is called My Style, and not Fashion.

I dress in what I like, not what other people like.

http://www.pinterest.com/mommastorer/my-style/

Blessings...

Technically we have lived below the poverty line for the past three years, yet I have never felt poor.

God provides in such amazing ways for our needs and gives us so much more beyond that.

The box of tomatoes from a woman at church.

The garbage bag of clothes from neighbors I had never met. (2 separate times)

The tax returns that are just in time to pay the bills.

The car with working A/C.

The meals that turn out even when I forget ingredients.

The rain on my birthdays.

The dandelions.

Joy.

The overflowing love and forgiveness in our little family.

God is so good to us.

Garden

The garden is almost finished.  

The lettuce turned bitter long ago and was pulled up.

The peppers tasted absolutely disgusting and some of them have started rotting from the inside out.

The tomatoes taste alright, but have also started rotting from the inside.

I'm afraid to pull up any of the three carrots.

Pork Brains

When we lived in town there was a Food4Less right around the corner.  

Walking distance.

I loved that store!

You never knew what you were going to find.

Yummm yummm!

In case your soul's a little bland.

Want a little Hostess with your quinoua?

Alligator Filet, what else needs to be said?

I have grown more adventurous in the past few months, braver too.

I can't believe that I didn't take advantage of these adventures that were just waiting there!

If we ever move close to a Food4Less again I will be setting aside grocery money to try new and unusual foods.

Like alligator filets, and maybe even pork brains.  

They can't be that bad.

http://www.cooks.com/recipe/ig9qj5xn/pork-brains.html