Come on by ...

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, Ecclesiastes 9:10a

Canning, canning, canning some more...... at this point that is about grape jam, diced tomatoes, and dried cream beans. This is the first year we have canned tomatoes. My goal is to have 12-15 cans of diced tomatoes for the year. Right now we are saving 20# of tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce. I still need to make some more of Heather's Tomato Crack also know as Cilantro Salsa! But I still have to find a use for my medium sized tomatoes perhaps tomato juice?

Homesteading on RH

Children of New Life

This week at church Elder Alan was preaching from Malachi 2....

At the end of his service a little guy named Jax went to the front to pray on the steps. He was soon joined by his little brother, another little guy, and two of my own girls.

5 "My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.
7 "For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction—because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty.

At the end of the service we call for family & individual prayer. A few weeks before we discussed guide, graze & guard in terms of living our lives as Shepard's of the flocks of people in which we are around. Last week we as a church body committed to help parents raise their children in the fear admonition of the Lord. This week little Jax was guiding other little ones through his example to prayer.

Sometimes as a Mama, I think my Pearsy is too little to understand. But of these 5 children that all went unashamedly to the alter 3 of them should have been in the nursery, 3 should be too little to get understand. In fact, in many churches all of them would have either been in a nursery(0-5) or a children's worship type situation until about 6th grade (5-13) when they would first see their family and the body in corporate worship.

It was such an encouragement to me to see someone so young guiding other little ones through his example, the example that he has seen watching his own Daddy worship. Additionally, that the other children will see in their parents worship. I am so grateful for a church that encourages whole families to worship together. To see little hands raised, little knees bowed, little eyes searching, little Bibles open and small voices with big questions.

"so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty,but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." Isiah 51:11

I have to remember always that God's word does not return void even in the littlest of ears and that ... the "commandments that [God gave us] today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:6-9

Remember always that we are nothing: So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 1 Corinthians 3:7 It's amazing to me that he can use those little ears even when my Mama ears are sometimes hard of hearing. :)

All of this really makes me wonder what did Samuel & Timothy's parent's did to raise them in such a way to produce such a Godly seed for the Lord to grow? I just hope this is an encouragement to those who read it to and are persevering in raising Godly seed.

RH

Busy Bees...

We are on a school break before we start summer school. We've been doing swimming lessons and that and that always wipes us out! Plus we have been harvesting our garden for the past few weeks. We have jammed mustang grapes, frozen green beans, okra, Swiss chard, turnip greens and we are shelling cream peas. We are getting ready to start canning tomatoes and storing butternut squash!

Preparing to offer homemade jams made on the farm. Starting with the grape jam which is difficult and time consuming to make.

Additionally we are hunting for an egg eating chicken. We are also getting ready to hatch about 40 eggs for new Fall

layers. As we prepare for a visitor this week and then off to a Wedding in Dallas & visit with he Renkes. Our summers are busy in fact I am actually scheduling time to relax at home. It's sad when summer is so busy you long for the organized and schedule days of Fall.

So we are a basically a bunch of busy bees.

Cheap Meat Alert - Stock up now!

Run do not walk to Village Foods and buy your 2 family packs of Pork Chops for .88! You need to hurry because someone has lost their mind and priced these chops .09 cents less then I have seen time in a while! They also have a "freeze now or cook now" meat selection, nearly day old bread selection (from which I grabbed 2 loaves of sunflower seed bread for about .75 each). Since I can freeze bread I'll just schedule it into the meal rotation. If you cannot make it to Village Foods Wal-Mart will price match! Remember just because you just purchased 15#'s of pork chops does not mean it is time to feed your family pork chops for weeks. Put a pork meal on the menu once a week and look for the next great deal!

Saving Dinero @ RH

Lessons from the summer garden with Parker's Pictures

a time to plant and a time to uproot, Ecclesiastes 3:2a

This is our garden and it keeps me away from the computer. As I am writing this I am just waiting for the heat to cool down so I can go outside and weed. Our new garden is huge it is

50'x50' . We are learning how to grow all kinds of veggies for our family. Hopefully, we will be

able to grow an organic garden in the future but for now we are using the traditional methods while we learn what we are doing. I really love being in my garden

I knew I enjoyed gardening. I enjoy landscaping throughout our entire yard. Which is probably a good thing when you live on 5 acres of undeveloped land!

When I was waiting for our garden I was waiting for the

vegetables that it was going to provide. I was so

excited about the

long term savings I would

experience in our budget and all the new skills I would pick up in the kitchen. Canning,

pickling, freezing & saving our garden veggies.

Well, our garden has been attacked by rolly polly, centipede, mites and ants. (Yes, I am sure they are ants because they have bitten the stew out of me!). Many of our plants have not yielding the way I had hoped that they would.

Outside of the botany lesson I find the Lord in the garden! The other day when we were still hand picking the rolly pollys out of the garden Parker pulled out an entire bean plant trying to get to the rolly pollys. I came just started to fuss at her and tell her to be careful and that it was foolish etc... My friend Lisa Smith would look at the events in her life through the lives of folks in the Bible. This and those that know me know I love the Old Testament and I dwell often in I&II Samuel with David, Samuel, Saul, Johnathon and all. So right here I knew

"The Spirit of the LORD [did not speak] through me;his word was [not] on my tongue." 2 Samuel 23:2

It's one of those moments that I knew I had sinned that the words of my heart and the meditation of my heart was not pleasing. Then I felt d-_-m-_(I had to spell it like that because it's a no-no word here!) because why had I blown it over a plant. Who am I now Jonah complaining about a plant that I did not grow, that God had graced me with??? I'd rather not...

As I apologized to Parker I was telling her how mommy sinned and she of course forgave me and apologized for pulling out the plant. Which at that point I asked her not to apologize again. That I would have gone outside and pulled up every plant to erase the foolish words I had spoken. She told me "Mommy please don't do that I forgive you!"

Every time I go into my garden I am reminded that God is in control. That HE determines if any veggies come up or not. That HE decided that, that green bean plant had to go. As I am walking with HIM I need to learn to joyfully accept that decision. Because HIS ways and His thoughts are higher then mine. He has already seen the beginning and the end.

I thought my garden was a place to grow vegetables, I should have known that as in all things it is just another place to grow righteousness.

The tongue of the righteous is choice silver Proverbs 10:20a