The Puppies have New Homes!

Today the last of the puppies were adopted and have gone to new homes. I pray YHVH keeps each puppy in the safety of his hand and that they have loving homes and long lives.

We did keep one puppy. A person was supposed to take one of the puppies and he backed out.. in the mean time, Shelly has grown attached to her and she has talked Daddy into letting her keep it.

So, we have a puppy... well, 2 because my son decided to keep one of them too... sigh. Oh, and did I mention my other daughter adopted one, too. Well, so we found homes for 9 of them and the other 3 have adopted our family. Still, I didn't keep all 12 (thank goodness!) So, here she is (she is the one on the left).

She was the runt, and is the smallest. Shelly has named her Rivka. She is a darlin' isn't she!

Our son, Ricky, has named his pup Emit (we affectionately call him Emet, which means truth in Hebrew.) I don't have a picture of him yet and the battery on my camera is dead. Guess I'll have to break down and go buy a new cord (I know it will show up the minute I buy a new one, but I can't function without my camera!)

Blessings

New Horse!

Hey, Ya'll!
Well, I meant to post this last night but life got in the way! So, yesterday morning the farrier showed up on time (thanks, Jessica) with a trailer and a beautiful Sorrel Filly!

She is spirited, but sweet. A little thin, but healthy. She came with the name Rosie, but Shelly decided that since Rosie doesn't really know her name she wanted to change it. She decided to name her Niji (pronounced nee-jee). Niji is a Cherokee word for partner. This means that Shelly has decided that she will work with her and has made Niji her own. Yah has answered our prayers and Shelly was out this morning feeding her a bucket of oats and getting her hay.

We will never forget Sasha, but Yah has a reason for everything, and we praise him for his excellent greatness!

Time to Make Socks!

We have just finished our Sukkot celebration, the weather is cooling off, and the days are getting shorter. What does that mean to me? Crackling fires (outside currently, but soon, in the wood cookstove in the kitchen!), soup and fresh, warm bread, family game nights, and evenings working on some sewing or knitting project.

So the project I will start tonight will be socks! I promised Shelly I would make her a pair of socks out of some specialty yarn we bought last year and I haven't had a chance to start them. Actually, I started a shawl for her during her surgery and put it on the shelf for the summer (I am too busy in summer with gardens and summer activities to knit). I pulled it out last week and got it finished on Friday.

 Isn't she gorgeous? Anyway, finished just in time for the cool weather! But, now our feet are cold! So I'll get started on her socks and do some spinning for myself. I am still learning to spin, so I will make some "designer" yarn for myself and make a scarf.

Her socks will be made with Opal Specialty Sock Yarn and I will try my hand at knitting two at a time, toe up, on two circular needles. The last two pairs I made were two at a time, cuff down, on 2 circulars. I will probably make a few pair for myself out of worsted wool for warm footies to wear around the house this winter.

I picked up several yards of different colored corduroy fabric for $1.99 at the fabric store so I will be making some jumpers and skirts for us for warm winter clothes. Yay, for fabric sales!  I am looking forward to winter projects.

Ponderings Over the Past Year

I just found out that we are getting a free horse on Tuesday! She is a 3 yr old, red TN Walker. She has been ridden, but not much and needs some work. Shelly was back and forth on weather she wanted another horse and she is a bit nervous about it. I think it will be good for her to get back to working with a horse again.

So, Yah is faithful to restore what is taken. This time of Sukkot is the time when the Torah scroll is rolled back to the beginning. A time when we look over the past year, remembering His blessings, and ponder what will come. As I look back over the year in this time of 'New Beginnings' I consider all that has happened.

Last year at this time we were standing at the river, looking at the giants in the land... making the decision to cross over or to let fear erase the blessings Yah had given in the wilderness. The choice? To have brain surgery.

As the year progressed, we were blessed with sheep and goats, had them attacked by dogs, had brain surgery, had baby sheep, lost our bull calf, had a new calf, new bee hives, nursed sick mama cows, lost one of our horses, and were abundantly blessed with gardens, lots of fresh fruit, children all summer, puppies and now to finish it off, a new horse... young enough to teach to pull and ride.

And the river we crossed, Shelly is seizure free and coming off her meds, out of Babylon! There were good times and bad, but how would we recognize the good without the bad? How would we see Yah's blessing without the need for one? As Tevia would say, "Somewhere in the good book it says, 'the Lord giveth and the  Lord taketh away.'" I don't believe that anything is ours, but all belongs to Yah, so he can take, give, and redistribute as he pleases! He is good!

We're Up to our Elbows in Honey!

We’re up to our Elbows in Honey and Other News from the Farm!

Literally! We spent the afternoon filtering our honey! We ended up with two full 5 gallon buckets and a couple quarts. I promptly gave one quart to Yvonne, my honey helper (she loves to get her hands gooey,)  and the other to my mom who has been out of honey for weeks waiting for me to get our honey (she refused to buy it from the store.)

So the whole process went something like this…

I poured the honey (extremely) slowly through my large metal colander (I don’t like to heat it up in case I kill any of the good bacteria.) Once I got the large particles out, I poured it into a cheese cloth that was then squeezed by my friend Yvonne and Shelly (my daughter).  We squeezed it into clean 5 gallon buckets and popped the lids on. Done! Well, it took a bit longer than that… actually we started at 3:00 and finished about 6 so a total of 3 hours plus clean up.

Oh the clean up! Of course we cleaned periodically during the whole process, but afterward I washed the floor in my kitchen several times and still stick to it! I’m glad Donna and Danielle come in the morning. Donna and Danielle help me with the house work on preparation day, floors and bathrooms! What a blessing! I do Danielle’s hair every couple weeks and pay them a small amount to help. Yah is truly good!

Finally, Satch got a raise. Not as much as he did a couple years ago (I should tell you about how Yah blessed then), but enough to feel a little bit of a difference.  It will sure help with Ricky moving back home and Grandpa Norm’s hours getting cut to 2 days a week.

So let’s reminisce for a moment….

Two years ago, Abba started telling us to do specific things that cost big bucks. My dear husband, Satch, works as an office/logistics person (sets up classes, orders supplies, etc) and does not get top pay. So I just shook my head and said, “Abba, if you want us to do all this you will have to provide the funds. We can’t afford it.”  That was in September. Well, in October, Satch came home with his pay statement and it had a pay raise on it. He got a 25% per hour raise! How’s that for stepping up to the plate!  The Father is amazing!

Well, enough ramblings tonight. I’ll catch ya’ll up again soon. Tomorrow I make grape jam!

Shalom!

The Grapes are Juiced!

Hey Y'all!
I finally finished juicing the 2 bushels of grapes I bought.. and all the 'mash' is in the freezer for making jam. Whew!

I made a home-made juicer using my water bath canner, a stainless steel bowl and colander. I'll try to get picks to put up soon. It was a bit tricky and I may make some changes for next week when I get the next bushel of grapes, but it worked pretty good! We averaged about 4 quarts of juice for each 1/2 bushel box. I didn't try to get more, I'll use the rest of the juice for jam next week.

I still have a bushel of tomatoes in the back fridge that I need to put-up and the honey to clean. They will have to wait until Thursday cause I'm tuckered out and tomorrow we have to run to town.

Today, I went to a gentleman's home that had some interesting items for sale. I got an old popcorn popper, ash bucket, butter mold, coffee grinder, potato and onion bin, and pitcher and bowl for under $50. Everything is usable and in excellent condition. I look forward to popping some corn!

Well, if I can find the cord for my camera, I could put pics up... but alas, it is missing... I'll keep looking so I can get some pics up here!

Big Bee Adventure!

I woke up this morning expecting to work with the bees, remove the supers and harvest our honey. I looked forward to this with eager anticipation and sent DH out to get a 5 gal bucket we had in the summer kitchen, turned puppy play area (we have 12 puppies almost ready for their new homes!) As he was walking toward the back door with bucket in hand I saw a huge wasp nest swarming with wasps inside the bucket and yelled, “NO! NO! NO! Wasps!” At the same time he felt them crawling on his hand and he threw the bucket down and ran into the house. We watched safely behind the glass storm door as the wasps flew angrily around our screen enclosed back porch. I intended to work with the bees, but these were not the kind I wanted to work with!Finally, the wasps settled down and I could get to my bee keeping equipment and off I went to work with the ‘real’ bees. Our three hives are good and strong this year! We got 6 very full supers off and ended up with over 12 gallons of honey (to be strained and bottled next week.) What a wonderful Yahovah we serve! He has truly blessed us with a little piece of land flowing with milk and honey!