Quotes.....

I have started a journal, a spiritual journal if you will. Things I can look back on and remind myself of some important things when I am having a off day. No one is perfect, no one is above any other. But there is one who is and who we can turn to. My quest for a better life with God, a better walk with Him...to show my children who they should turn to, who they should put first.

And to be a better wife to my husband, a better mother to my children.

Lovely flowers

On our place there are these wild flowers that grow this time of the year. I changed my photo on my blog to these flowers. I think they are so beautiful!

I love fall and this time of the year, we can open the windows more often and let the cooler air in! Makes me want to be outside more longer because at least we don't have all the humidity. Good time to go fishing, hunting and camping!!!

Guess it just happens that way

I don't know how long after losing a parent you still cry. There probably is not any 'normal' time frame and everyone is proably different. Today was a day I just cried, I don't really know why for sure. Proably many things contributed to it, it has almost been a month since her passing for one. Other things too, but I won't bore you with the details on here. I don't think mom would want me to be so sad, but I guess I still need time. On top of it all, out little boy was diagnosed with the flu Monday and that H1N1 is going around here bad. I started feeling bad myself and we have been stuck at home all week. That can not help things with my mind, being stuck inside. But who wants to get out and expose others to what we have. I don't feel like it and don't want to and I know our little boy does not want to get out. The day we were at the doctor he just begged to go home. My poor little baby boy, well he is not a baby anymore. But that just broke my heart to see him feeling so bad. Thank God he is feeling better everyday and thank you to everyone for the prayers.

Riding the fence....

Today I looked outside and one of our chickens had flown out of the chicken yard earlier. I don't know why but there a couple that do that, guess they like chasing bugs just that much. But as I looked out the window in the backyard, the chicken had decided to fly up to try to get back in the chicken yard. Now I tried to go get my camera but did not make it in time. The chicken sat there on that fence top and then decided to fly down.

Are we sometimes like this chicken? Riding the fence? Chosing to do our own thing vs. doing what God wants us to do?

Now don't get me wrong, I am not perfect. I am far from it, God loves me even inspite of my imperfections. I saw a church sign that said God hates the sin but loves the sinner. We all sin, we all fall short of the glory of God. But we must stive to do better and have a better relationship with God. For our own sake's, the sake's of our family and the sake's of others. And what I mean by that, is that if other's see us as Christ like by the way we live and speak. Maybe we can help lead other's to Christ by planting that seed...

Speak Lord in the stillness...

Thought I would share this poem I read....

Speak, Lord, in the stillness,

While I wait on thee; Hushed my heart to listen

In expectancy.

Speak, O blessed Master, In this quiet hour;

Let me see Thy face, Lord,

Feel They touch of power.

For the words Thou speakest,

"They are life" indeed;

Living Bread from heaven,

Now my spirit feed!

All to Thee is yielded, I am not my own;

Blissful, glad surrender,

I am Thine alone.

Speak, Thy servant heareth!

Be not silent, Lord;

Waits my soul upon Thee

For the quickening word!

Fill me with the knowledge

Of Thy glorious will;

All Thine own good pleasure

In my life fulfill.

Like 'a watered garden'

Full of fragrance rare

Ling'ring in Thy presence

Let my life appear.

-----Emily May Grimes Crawford

Kermit....the Frog....

Yes, Kermit the Frog, Jim Henson is from Leland in the Delta region of Mississippi. We stopped at the Welcome center close to the Ms. River bridge there in Greenville. They have Kermit upstairs, the kids just loved that and personally I thought the picture was quite cute :)

Going back and seeing alot of places I use to go when I grew up was amazing. So much has changed and so much has stayed the same. I went there for reasons I wish I did not have to go. But such is life here on earth....

Being with our Lord

My mom passed away this past weekend and I was reading and thinking of some things.
There is the song in the Baptist Hymnal called 'In the Garden' the corus says "and he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own, and the joy we share as we teary there, none other has ever known."

It is sad to loose a love one, but I know she is with our heavenly father and not in torment from the things that were wrong with her earthly body.

Love you mother, rest in peace.

Birds and Humming Bird Feeders...

Spring is here and yesterday I noticed more birds coming to out bird feeder. I have black oil sun flower seeds in this one feeder. The best place I have found to get seeds is the really big bags at Lowe's. BOSS - as some people know black oil sunflower seeds are also loved by our chickens and it is added nutrition for our goats. I use 3 to 1 on the sweet feed instead of buying Purina goat feed. That stuff is expensive and if this gives as good a nutritio factor for our goats, why not go for it. I need to get more bird feeders and differnt types of bird feed to attract a variety of birds.

Yesterday I was outside and a hummingbird buzzed our feeder. I guess it has been about a week that we hung up the hummingbird feeder. But the bird would not go to it while we were right there. But at least I know they are here in the south and looking for food. Our weather has still been cool in the morning and then warms up. The butterflies have been out and so that is what made me want to hang up the bird feeder now.

Have a great spring day!

Cowboys and Indians

Children are so inoccent and it is so much fun to watch children playing in there own little world. My husband and I don't believe and all the x-box and playstations. We live sort of in the country and on 13 acres, we want our children to get out and play. There would not be a childhood obesity epidemic if kids got out there and played. I know things are different then when we were young, you can not just send your kids out to play till dark. The world is even more scarier then ever. Which is qutie sad, I remember my Mamaw Lester leaving my cousin and I on her screened in porch playing. We were told to latch the screen door and leave it locked and she was just going to run up the street to bring my Papaw his lunch. This was in Benoit, Ms in the 70's, she could even call in her groceries to the grocery store up the road. Which was really neat! Very vaiguly I remember milk being being delievered in bottles in a metal crate with a handle. I was telling some girlfriends about this at lunch one day. They laughed and said my God how old are you? They never had any experiences like that and are around my age too. I thought how sad, but how fortunate I was to have that in my life. Such simplier times. It makes me wish for more of that. I guess that is why I love the country life we have made and the milking of goats, fresh eggs, growing our own food and fruits, etc.

Here is a picture of my husband and son playing cowboys and indians (just like the little army men my cousin and I played with on my grandmother's porch)

How can it be?

How can time fly so fast on so many levels? You hear that when you are younger, but it really sinks into me now....

Let's see a little over 20 years ago I graduated high school, I have two sisters 50 and over, I am the youngest of four girls and I am almost 40! That is hard to believe, although I don't feel any older than mid 30's. But I do know none of us are getting any younger. My dad for instance is going to turn 80 tomorrow. I can't believe that one. I don't think he looks his age either, I think it was about 6 years ago and he was jumping rope with Caitlin and Anne. To me that is great and I believe my sister and I told him so. He use to love to hunt and fish, I know he does not feel as good as he use to. And he is having a hard time with that too. I so picture him so much fooling with his boat and taking me fishing. Great memories, my oldest sister was not into the fishing as I remember it, my second to oldest sister if she went fishing, well I would not call it fishing, she brought a book! LOL! My sister that is just (well 10 years older than me) I remember her fishing some. But dont' remember her going alot with us either. Was it that my dad took me more because I showed interest? I still love to go fishing, we went fishing in Ark. on our vacation in July this past summer. Or is it that my parents were seperated and my dad took me to spend time with me and that time was his only time off too and his chance to get to do what his interest were. Which made them my interest too, because I love to fish, be outside, hunt and want to do even more of this as my kids get older and lean on me less and grow up out of toddlers. I wish my sisters were not all spread out, but that is how we are in all different states. I live closest to my dad. A job brought me back here and I am blessed to have it had work out that way too. I just don't know how much longer we have with him. God knows that answer and all we can do is spend our time with him and enjoy what time we have. I am just so glad he can still do all that he can. Not everyone is so blessed and that is so sad.

My oldest sister has a blog too, she has posted a pic of our dad smiling. This is not something he does alot of in pictures. But I was looking at some pics this past weekend and this is a pic I had to share....my dad....smiling....this is my nephew in the picture too. (the picture at the top of the post)

Birthday for Riley

Riley's birthday was March 15 th, we had his birthday on March 14 th (Saturday). He turned the big '4'! Growing up so fast!!! This is a picture of his cake. I know I am just getting a picture on here and it is now the 27th. I can not write good enough to ice a cake. I have tried and get so picky with how it looks. My sister Charlotte told me about a website her daughter Blair found. There are all kinds of ideas how to decorate cakes on there with picks. Someone I guess is like me and cannot write on a cake. So they made a mini banner and used toothpicks to hold it up on the cake. I thought that was a great idea! So here is the cake, Riley loves the movie Wall E and this is the theme of the cake! It was really good and he loved it!!! That is the most important thing, he helped me mix the cake with all the ingredients and then I let him and Ava lick the beaters, just like my mom use to let me do.

Adventures in bread making

Well I have had a bread machine for about a week now. But we have been sick and I am just trying it out. I made a french loaf and it turned out very good. Our son had to get up to see what the noise was and I told him he could watch the bread being kneaded. So he pulled up a chair and I had to snap a photo, thought that was just to cute. This is my first time using a bread machine, but I have made bread totally by hand. That bread did not turn out as good as I thought it might. It was chewy and hard crusted. That was not to my liking, I had found that reciepe in Mother Earth News and they said the bread was made alot during the depression. Well I am so glad things have improved :-)) Although some may like that kind of bread, I prefer the one I just made today!

Whiskey and goats

This is funny to me, we bought a Nigerian Dwarf goat to keep our New company so he would not be the lone male. Tammy who we bought our other Nigerian's from sold him to us. She had already named him and his name is.... Evan Williams. Yes Evan Williams, my husband said so now we have a goat named after some whiskey! I told him I did not know that! LOL! Oh, well, he knows his name and we just usually call him Evan anyway. Evan Williams is a mouth full :-)) Evan is quite nice and friendly too. Such a sweet heart, he is also small for being just about a year old or so. He is not much over 21 inches I think. Quite short, poor guy, he will sit in my lap or just let me hold him like a lap dog :-))) So precious!!!!!!

Goat Jumper

We have a Nigerian Dwarf Goat that will jump literally on my back, if I kneel down to pet the smaller goats. Which is quite fun, not really! It really hurts :-(
Her name is Olivia and she is quite loving, but I am not sure why she does it. Does she want attention or is she jealous? Hmmm! Who knows what is going on in her mind.

I do know that I love the goats we have. We made some good choices on the goats we have.

We have also added some LaMancha's. They are really sweet too, we bought a nanny and a buck. I asked Riley what he thought about a name for the female. He was not sure, so I asked him about some characters from the cartoon PowerPuff Girls. He named them and we decided 'Buttercup' would be good for the nanny. She does have a coloring toffee so it goes good. Now the buck is quite a character, no pun intended. When I saw him I just fell in love with him. He has a nice little hair do on top of his head. So my husband came up with Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld! So funny :-)) LOL! Love it!

Spring is not far away

Getting up early feeding the animals, then getting on the milking stand. I can hear the birds singing. Which is very nice, but it also make's me realize how we don't really get to enjoy a Fall or Spring here in Louisiana. Which is sad, those are my favorite seasons! Another irony is that my favorite smells are the smell of rain and fresh cut grass. Well I am allergic to ALL grasses! How about that one! LOL!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. I have not blogged in awhile, I started a website for our hobby farm. I have been busy with that, the kids and the animals of course! I am milking on goat, Joli Lune. She is a Nigerian Dwarf Goat. I go out around 6:30 in the morning and feed the animals and by 7:15 am I am ready to get Joli on the milking stand. It is very relaxing and fulfilling milking my own goat for milk for our own use! I thought eggs were awesome from the chickens and ducks. But how cool is our own Milk??!! I can not tell the difference from whole milk and 2 % milk. This is a new adventure I quite love. I have been searching for reciepes for soap making and cheese. Can't wait till I have enough milk for that purpose too!

Well tomorrow is church and I have now taken on Sunday School teaching. Yes, I am as shocked as you. But it can be fun and fulfilling in itself. I have been teaching the 5 - 11 year olds for at least 2 months now. Well I better get to bed!

Till next time,

m and w hobby farms