Day of Delights

 

Last Saturday our home school group had a picnic and activities at Fox Run Park. Here the children are preparing for a relay race, carrying an egg in a spoon.

 



I appreciated that the leaders included even the little children in most of the activities.

It is a wonderful way to teach children how to show love and patience, and lets the little ones know they are valued, too.

The race ended with a wee girl trying to race a big teenage boy (from another family). The big boy, instead of hurrying to make sure his team won, poked along on purpose. The little girl kept dropping her egg off her spoon. So the big boy kept accidentally dropping the egg off his  spoon, too. The big boy did sidle in to win the race for his team, but not without giving the wee little girl a good chance to try!

I so appreciated the unasked for kindness of that teenage boy.

Kindness always wins.

This is the kind of behavior that makes me love our home school group.



Now the children must pour water from their cups into the cups behind them without looking!

The littlest girls, including Hannah, play with bubbles.

Web tag.

When "It" catches someone, they must hold hands and keep tagging--within boundary lines.

The web gets longer and longer, till all the boys are caught, and just one girl!!!

Frantically, she tries to catch another girl, until finally Crystal managed to be the last person not caught!

And if you think it is easy to run around tagging people with a row full of boys and girls hanging onto you, you better think again!

This relay race had a child from each team wearing just one big workboot!

Danny did pretty well!!

He must be well practiced at galumphing around with his daddy's work boots!

More practice galumphing.

The best part-getting ready for the water balloon fight.

Carrie and Rose, who had stayed overnight with Zarkovackis, had helped fill the balloons earlier in the morning. 

Splat! Splat! Splat!

Gathering for the picnic while raindrops begin to patter.

It was so refreshing to have other parents engaged in helping the children have a wonderful time. My hat is off to the Zarkovackis for putting this together so wonderfully.

Before the picnic, Rudy, the dad, asked the blessing, praying that God would help us parents to truly raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. 

We were fascinated with these little nuthatches flying about and skittering up and down on the trees.
It's been a long time since I've seen nuthatches! 



Our little puppy

I dubbed this iron my "Miracle Iron."

Sunday morning when I accidentally had to iron something quickly that I wanted to wear to church, my iron refused to work at all. We'd been having trouble with it, but jiggling the wire usually got it to work.  That morning it would not work no matter how much I jiggled the wire!

So I spoke to Jonathan about it.

And he said, "Oh, did any of the children bring in that iron I picked up yesterday--at the dump?"

What?

Yes, he explained, he was dumping his load of trash at the transfer station, when the guy in charge suddenly asked, "Can you use an iron? There is a brand new iron over there--still in the box!"

Well, Jonathan figured it might come in handy, so he picked it up and.....

the next morning my old iron quit working!

God knew ahead of time and provided!

Several times in the last couple weeks God provided in special ways for us, one day after another!

He is truly a wonderful God!

 

Below, after a busy morning of cleaning and vacuuming, I was having the little ones wash the baseboard. Hannah decided to do more and wash this dirty garage door!

She and Danny had such a ball scrubbing lots of woodwork and the door and...

the top of the freezer!

Or was this more about having something to climb?

How quickly woodwork and baseboards collect dust and dirt!

And how quickly do our lives also get dusty and bogged down.

Lord, wash us anew.

Renew our minds, refresh our spirits,  restore our souls.

Wipe away any dirt and cobwebs of sin or error, the dust and wear of daily use,

"Create in me a new heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit."

Learning about the Flood

The leader of our home school group found that Glen Eyrie was offering the Creation Tour at half price to home school groups. She set up our group to go last week. It was a wonderful time of information about not only creation, but the Flood, from a creationist perspective. Here the tour guide is explaining about the difference between igneous rocks, sedimentary rocks, and magma, etc. Because those differences clue you in on whether a rock was created that way, or whether it became a rock during the crushing and smashing activities of the great Flood.

Rocks have always been rocks to me. Those rocks up there are just slanted rock. But after listening to our tour guide, we discovered that those slanted rocks are actually proof of what happened during the Flood, when God caused mountains to push up from the earth.

The tour guide is showing us what an UNconformity in the rock is--where flood material meets originally created material. The original rock is solid, while rocks created by the Flood are sedimentary type rocks.

All the families got photos here at the spot where The Great Unconformity begins.

Where the big boulder on top meets the rock underneath it (where Hannah is sitting) is here dubbed the Great Unconformity.

Our friends, the Zarkovackis.

In the beautiful gardens at Glen Eyrie.

Keeping Boys Busy

 

After a couple weeks of worrying if little Jersey calf would survive, he is thriving. He loves this little spot in the pasture beside his surrogate big longhorn brother.

In the middle of the humdrum and work, we've had fun trying to learn to swim at some Christian friends who set up a swimming pool. The girls and boys took turns.  Here it is the boys' turn to swim. I've prayed for years for a safe and acceptable place for the children to learn to swim, as I believe it is a needed skill and not something to be ignored just because we do not believe in wearing bikinis!   

 

So many answers to prayer lately--including opportunities for our children to help others and do some hard work. Here Sammy (furthest away) is digging a ditch for plumbing pipe while Timmy and Mark are using rakes to fill in where pipe has already been laid at the property out east where our friends are moving.

The house had been vandalized and all the windows broken, every exposed wire cut. So there was a lot of broken glass to clean up. Yesterday while Mark directed Sammy with plumbing in and under the house (teasing Sammy about kissing the skunks under there--PHEW! we did get some whiffs of skunks!) the girls and I cleaned out broken glass and dirt with a flat shovel and broom from the window boxes in the sun room. 

It was such a blessing to help lift the load for someone who was overwhelmed with fixing up a very run down place. It was incredibly fulfilling to watch the place be transformed in about three days' work to a house that was clean and very livable. The Davises had amazing vision to buy that place. It is going to be a lot of work, but blessings on them!

When Old Dreams Are Transformed

I wrote this poem after being touched by some thoughts someone close to me wrote about the "death of her dreams." Taking the liberty to use some of the thoughts from that person, some of my own, and thoughts from other people I know, I felt God gave me these words in poetry to encourage other moms who at some time or another experience moments when they feel their dreams have died.

Death of Her Dreams

She'd dreamed of a home climbed with roses,

   Blue morning glories, and hollyhocks dense,

With maples and gardens around it

    All surrounded by white picket fence.

But she looked from her house on the prairie,

   From windows bespotted by flies,

At the yard full of weeds and dirt piles and rocks,

   And tumbledown fence met her eyes,

                               Orange snow fence, wooden snow fence, and patchwork

                                             Of chicken wire and electric fence, too,

                                              And tiny raised beds quite henpecked

   Where the chickens had managed to sneak through.  

The Austrees and aspens were absent--

   Disease and hail made them a thing of the past.

Only sad little pine trees and fir tree

   And one Austree that had managed to last.

She'd dreamed she'd be a foreign missionary

   Helping her husband day by day,

Teaching and sharing the gospel

   And showing lost sinners the Way,

But here she was out on the prairie

   While baby after baby came along,

While debt piled up on their credit,

                                                    And she felt she had lost all her song.

Her dreams, like the broken down fence,

   Lay ruined and smothered in dust.

Like patchwork, her life was a frazzle;

   For bread, she'd been handed a crust.

But her spirit unbroken within her

   Rose to meet the challenge she faced.

When dreams lie all scattered and broken,

   And hard is the spot you are placed,

You can dream different dreams full of passion.

   You can tell all the old dreams goodbye.

Resolute you can look from the dirt piles

   To the expanse of the cloudless blue sky.

Goodbye to the roses and maples,

   And welcome the single sunflower.

Goodbye to the white picket fence scene,

   And welcome the children's story hour.

Goodbye to the gurgling streamlets;

   Thank God for each droplet of rain.

Goodbye to the lush and the wealthy,

   And learn contentment with pain.

Goodbye to the great things you dreamed of,

   Embrace the small children who pass.

Goodbye to the bank account with its savings,

   And gather the treasures that last.

Goodbye to the ideal husband,

   Appreciate the one that you have,

Glad he puts up with your faults, too, together,

   Holding hands and sharing a laugh.

Goodbye to the faraway country

   Find someone to help near at hand.

Goodbye to the sparkle of missions,

   Just be that one friend who understands.

Life is not those long ago dream fluffs;

   It's the dreams that you dream here and now.

You can moan over dirt, or look to the stars,

   One letter changes "Woe!" to a "Wow!"

Sisters on Cistern

Recently we've been helping friends move from town to a home on the dry prairie. They have been fixing up a house that needed a LOT of TLC! In this picture, Danny, Hannah and Carrie are watching Timmy dip up old, dirty water from the bottom of the 1500 gallon cistern. 

 

I had thought that I would do that job, but after pumping as much water out as the pump would do, Timmy begged to go down inside barefoot and dip the rest.

"Mom! I'm having fun!" he shouted out as he dipped several pails of dirty water that had sat in this cistern for who-knows-how-long. 

Here Timmy is pulling himself out of the opening in the top! After his part of the job, Carrie offered to do the last of the scrubbing and disinfecting of the inside of the cistern. Our friends were soooo thankful for the children's help. We did a lot of carrying and stowing of stuff.

Every time we help someone move, we come home and get rid of more stuff!!!!

Timmy turns ten!

He made his own cake, icing and all!

 

A recent job Jonathan supervised--painting a white dome roof.



Sammy went along this day and took pictures.

The guys had rented a 60-ft lift which was great fun operating and working from.

Hello, way down there!

The guys were done with the first coat in just a few hours of the early morning.

The homeowner was trying to save his gardens from critters!

Charming!

Couldn't resist this charming scene as our weak little calf is finally getting better and stronger and suddenly found a surrogate mama!~

Goat Molly was waiting to be milked when little Buddy discovers free milk!

No bottle this time!

 

Over and over, we thought we were losing him, and he's been heat stressed yet refuses to lie in the shade. He loves the sunshine! A shot of penicillin seemed to help him over a hump. Now he seems back to normal--starving!

 

Below is a tomato plant we have.

So proud of the children's little garden beds.

One project this week was sanding, staining and varnishing our porch swing. Almost everyone helped.

The boys stained it.

 

This is a job Mom has very often around here--pulling splinters, prickers and stickers out of feet! Jonathan got this photo of Hannah shining the big flashlight so I can see.

Lord, shine Your light on our feet, and find what is pricking us--

Remember that we are dust,

that the hurts of life are sometimes too small to explain

yet they pain each step.

In Your mercy, find and remove the pricker and give us grace to go on.

 

Below is the very sweet Rodney Loper family singing at tent meeting this week. He is pastor at Hobe Sound. I appreciate their good spirit, their humility and modesty.  Their smallest boy is hiding behind a sister. James Plank is the speaker.

There was a very good service last night.

 

Bottle Baby

Two weeks ago we bought a little Jersey calf at auction. It was only about two days old.

My sister Iva's family was here for the week, so the children had such a ball taking turns feeding the calf.

 

A few days later, the calf became very weak and could hardly stand up. We got him into a cooler place and began to feed him more often, as well as giving him water in the bottle as well because of the heat. In just a short while, he was perking up. Someone let him into the house, and before I knew it, he had already explored the house clear back to the little boys' bedroom and then here he was in the office!

 

Sammy takes good care of the calves.

Here is Rose's raised bed of lettuce, beets, turnips, radishes, squash, and carrot.

We have to keep them covered at all times with hail screens.

Gardens out here must be kept safe from hail, wind, heat, dryness, chickens, goats and calves. If you get anything at all, it is something like a miracle.

A good caption for this picture would be

"How many differences can you spot between the two girls?"

Carrie and Rose had each sewed her own three-tiered skirt in time for July 4th. Then Carrie also sewed Hannah a matching dress, which perhaps we'll get a picture of later.

 

Here is an upside-down peach cake which Rose made.

And then in between the good times, the fun times with Iva's family,

the delicious food, the successful projects,

wellll.............

we won't let on which cousin this is......

 .....there are just those times that leave you feeling like that look on that face!!

 

Did I look like that when I pulled up the garage door and looked at the enormous job staring us in the face? Thanks to my sister's courage, together we worked for hours several days the last couple weeks to get the mess in the garage under control.

Iva was here to escape the heat and humdrum and smoke from fires near where she lives.

No humdrum here!

Lots of fun and LOTS of hard work!

Even the young ones help carry things from where they had been unloaded on the driveway to stow where they belong.



Timmy polishes his boots.

Did you ever arrive at church on Sunday and as you are heading toward the door, you realize your son's cowboy boot sole is almost completely off, and it is going

flap-flap, flop-flop,

right under the nose of the preacher?

What are you supposed to say?



This week, on the Fourth of July, Jonathan got out glue, contact cement, yellow glue, gray glue, clamps, and various other repair articles and repaired such things as Timmy's broken guitar, the piece of laminate that has been off our piano since we bought it, the piano bench which nearly collapses when we sit on it, kitchen chairs which were wobbly. and Timmy's flopping boot sole.

Under the care of the repairman, broken things become whole.

Furniture becomes sound.

Boots become wearable again.

"He restoreth my soul."
Recently I ran across notes I had taken from a former pastor's sermon about "Broken Nets."
The fishermen, Peter and James and John and Andrew,  were repairing their nets not because the nets were bad, but because
they were worn out from use.
Those cowboy boots were not bad boots. They were just worn out from use.
And when we discover brokenness in our lives, it is not always because something is wrong or bad, but it is often because we are worn out from use.
I wrote in my diary how during that sermon about broken nets, I had sat listening, and how I had started crying and couldn't stop.
It was so comforting to feel that not all the brokenness in our lives is from some kind of
inward badness.
That some of it is from just being a worn out human being who needs the tender, compassionate, skilled care of the Master Fisherman who not only catches fish,
but Who also spends an awful lot of time repairing broken nets.
It is hard to keep the tears back, okay, go ahead and just cry while I write.
Repair, oh Lord, our souls, our broken nets, and all the broken things
that You care so deeply about!