Sledriding, Nutcracking and Nose-Tweaking

What excitement one night last week when Daddy brought home seven sleds for the seven children!

Plans were quickly made to have a ride behind Dad's truck the next morning. 

So everyone hurried around the next morning, taking pictures of the beautiful sunrise as we got around.

It was breathtakingly, frostingly beautiful!

In due time, the six younger children had tied four toboggans in a row behind Dad's truck to go for a ride around the circle and down another little prairie lane down the way. Hannah and Danny sat on laps of older children.

Here they have come home again.

Time to roll out, and get back to school and the work for the day.

The children get kisses from Dad before he leaves, and I blow him a kiss from the front door.

After school and work is over, the little ones get out their blocks.

One Saturday night, Kenn and Iva had a double date with us. We went to a cafe where my sisters-in-law, Ruth and Julie and I had gone a few weeks ago. I'd loved it.

I ordered hot camomile and peppermint tea.

And corn chowder along with my entree.

The guys both ordered salmon.

Kenn and Iva declared that this was not a fork but a threek.

This picture is a bit blurry, but I loved the warm fireplaces here, and the country decor.

However, I like home best!

Homemade is just the best.

The girls made five homemade pizzas on a Friday night when we had a friend for supper 

whom Jonathan had asked to come and do a little welding repair for us.

He brought along a long nutcracker gismo and a bucket of pecans from his folks' tree back in Kansas. 

He says there are many pecan trees there, next in number to Georgia, I believe.

We all sat around cracking nuts and digging the meat out of the shells, thinking we might make a pecan pie.

Instead the girls decided on homemade butter pecan icecream a few days later.   

 Danny looks very excited about having homemade icecream between two chocolate chip cookies.

 We were having a bit of a crazy evening with wet coats and leggings hanging around the woodstove, and Hannah and me eating ice cold icecream while hovering near the woodstove, too!

And we decided to just have family worship around the kitchen table.

 As I said, it being a bit of a crazy evening anyway, I got my camera and sneaked pictures of what goes on in the Lucas household during prayer time which I showed the children afterward, much to our amusement.

After all, the only rule during prayer time is that you are supposed to keep your eyes closed.

 

However, "as far as everybody else knows, we are a nice normal family!"

 Anyway, we will remember family worships like this one for years to come!

It's sure a heap better than fussing at everyone!

Are There Feathers for Me?

We've been so blessed to have so many sparrows, juncos, and finches fluttering about our little fir tree, and our austree during these snowy days.

 

 It reminded me of another poem I wrote years ago before I got married.

Feathers

I looked out from my window

  One rainy day and dreary,

Feeling that way, dreary as the day,

  And woebegone and weary.

 My eyes caught sight of an evening bird,

   A mourning dove just sitting

Upon a line, feathery and fine,

   With raindrops around it hitting.

"Poor wet bird!" thought I, but she

   Seemed not to mind the weather.

All fluffed and fat,  content she sat,

   All sheltered by her feathers!

"See, child," God said, "I gave this bird

   Feathers to keep her warm.

And if I so care for birds, do I dare

   Leave you alone in life's storm?"

"No, Lord," said I, "I know You care,

   But in life's stormy weather

I've nowhere to fly, and cannot stay dry

    Because I do not have feathers!"

"Then come unto Me, My child," said He,

  "My wings shall be your cover.

My feathers will keep you safe until

Life's rain and storm is over." 

 

Have Faith in God!

Recently I found this poem that I had written years ago, and it ministered to me once again.

So I thought I'd share it on my blog.

Have Faith in God!

 

Someone said to me one day,

"When you start out this Christian way

The devil always will be there,

The prince, the power of the air.

He'll never leave your soul alone

Til you are cold and dead and gone.

That wily fox will tempt you here.

Watch out! The devil you must fear!"

 So for the devil I watched out

And found him everywhere about--

At the corners, on the street,

In my home, the devil I'd meet.

Ready with his wiles and craft,

He'd plan his snares and stood and laughed.

Yes, when I'd fall, he laughed at me.

He said, "I'm everywhere, you see!"

 Then all distressed I came one day

Unto the Lord and heard Him say,

"My child, when you begin this Christian way,

I the Lord will always be

Close and near and dear to thee.

I shall never leave you lone.

Have faith in God! You are My own!"

I listened and I lost my fear,

For now I knew that God was near.

And for my Lord I looked and found

Him always everywhere around.

At the corner, on the street,

In my home, the Lord I'd meet.

And when the devil came in sight,

My valiant Lord put him to flight!

This the lesson, God's own Word:

Fear not the devil; trust the Lord!

Choosing Courage Instead

After posting pictures of our steer-loading day, I was reminded of a little article I ran across in an old Country magazine, by a girl who was in the middle of horse training a horse named Dream.

The article was called, "Who's the Boss?"

(By the way, this is our almost earless buck goat, who looks more like a camel at this angle, and he thinks he's boss around here!)

 And all through life, this is going to be a question we are going to ask, and others are going to ask of us. "Just who's boss around here?"

Children start asking this question as soon as they're born.

And adults have their ways of sizing up who's boss, too. 

The girl wrote that as her darling colt grew bigger, he quickly learned that a little intimidation could get him what he wanted.

And who hasn't learned that?

She wrote, "With help from a horse trainer...I had to learn how to let him know I was in charge.
I had to learn how to intimidate him, and not the other way around.

I remember the sweet triumph of realizing that I didn't have to be afraid, that I could

choose courage instead...

I was no longer a puny little human down on the ground. I was a warrior astride a powerful animal."  

And a horse isn't the only powerful thing in the world.

So is a relationship.
So is approval.

Whether it is with your spouse, your children, your relatives, your friends, or your enemies!

And you can let someone intimidate you and control you, 

or you can choose courage instead.

 "Admittedly," the girl wrote, "I was a warrior who often came off Dream's back.

But...I always got back on."

 Maybe sometimes life bucks you off;

but you have to get back on and not be intimidated and controlled by circumstances, negative people, or your own inner critic and negative thoughts.

 "Sometimes," the girl wrote, "he'd lull me into relaxing with his generally laid-back disposition,

then quickly remind me who was faster and stronger. 

Then one day...I decided I was sick and tired of being bucked off. 

He wasn't going to throw me, no matter what! (italics mine)

I hung on  and got him back under control.

It was one of the most triumphant experiences of my life."

I thought about that.
I thought about the times I've been bucked off by the circumstances of life, the times I've been thrown into the dirt and humiliated.
And I thought about the times I had hung on and gotten back up and ridden that bucking circumstance.
I thought about the sweetness of the triumph I experienced inside,
regardless what others thought of me. 

There are times when I have been and am too weak to ride, and so I just choose not to ride the horse that day or that week or that month. But when I'm back in one piece,

I'm gonna choose courage and ride that horse again!

You better believe it!

This article meant a lot to me.

And now my children are home from sledding, so I need to get busy!

Nutty, the Steer and Peter, the Pig

Today was a red letter day at the little Lucas ranch.

It was the day to take our big black steer and one of our pigs to the butcher.

 Danny got into the trailer to say goodbye with a big grin. He's not a bit afraid of Nutty.

We aren't that unhappy about getting rid of this big, horned steer. 

For one thing, he drinks a lot of water!

We had quite the time getting him inside the trailer. I did the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen so the children could all go out and help. It took about half an hour, but finally they got the steer inside the trailer.

Then they had to pump up the tire with a bicycle pump! Sam and the girls took turns pumping.

 

Jonathan had planned to take the trailer to the butcher with his truck, but we couldn't find the right kind of trailer hitch sleeve, so Sam ended up hitching our van to the trailer instead.

And then the van got stuck in the snow!

So they had to hitch a chain from Jonathan's truck to the van and pull it out of the barnyard that way.

A great cheer went up when the van came unstuck!

 

Of course, the children all run and jump onto the trailer to ride along.

 Carrie closes the gate behind them.

 And the next step is capturing one of the three pigs, Peter, James and John.

The children decided it would have to be Peter. 

James and John are going to be allowed to grow bigger.

 The children thought they would just grab this pig by its legs and it would be an easy task.

 Carrie grabbed it and you should have heard it squeal!

We had a rather merry chase.

"Here, piggy, piggy!"

 Sam, our best ranch hand, said not to chase it, but to coax it with feed.

 He got it close to the side door of the trailer.

 We weren't sure it would climb in over the layer of hay, so Sam moved a bale and then another one.

 Yeah! We have him!

 Ooops! Not!

 Try again.

 Action snap!

Sam grabs the pig, and everyone closes in !

 Dad and Sam wrestle the pig's front legs in while Carrie falls on her knees behind Sam to keep the pig's back end from backing up between his legs.

 Talk about squealing decibels! I just wish this had been on video!

 But they got him in.

 Boy, is he a hunk!

I ended up being the one having to drive that half ton steer in the horse trailer on some snowy country roads to the butcher, as Jonathan had to get on to work. I came home a little weak from worrying we'd end up in the ditch or worse,
 so we kind of ditched doing much more school than the children did while I was gone.
 And yeah, there are jeans that need to be mended and other things that need done around here,

(Sam said last night that these were his favorite jeans, so I promised to see what I could do with them)

but I'm taking time to blog while the kids are sledding up at the bluffs this late afternoon.
Blogging is a bit of the glue that holds my life together and gives me a bit of outside purpose when I'm just a country mom at home a lot.
Writing is the way I unwind!
I hope something I write is a blessing to the readers--or gives them their laugh for the day!
I hope to post a laugh or two soon!