I just wanted to thank "our crazy farm" for the soaps.. They came today in the mail. The smell wonderful. I can't wait to try them. I will let everyone know what I think.

Blessings

I just want to take a moment and Praise my Lord and Savior!! We received a blessing today. It was a very unexpected one, but a very needed one. Just when you are about to fall to pieces and think that you are not going to make it, the Lord shows you one more time just who is in charge. PRAISE HIM<>

J.C. with his Checkers. This boy loves this horse!

This is a pic of kids back in the spring at the USS Razorback sub that is in Little rock.

THis is JC feeding the calf yesterday morning. He ate good then, but last night wouldn't take his bottle again. I have tried for two days to load some more pictures and have had a terrible time.

I have to buy animal feed and people feed today .We have pretty much just stayed home this week. We are trying to save money by not going so much. I have realized that a lot of our money the last couple of months has been spent from us just constantly on the road.

God Bless ya, Tara

pictures

I am going to try and post a few pics this morning.

J.C showing at our county fair year before last. He was three.

It's raining , its pouring,

GOD IS GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It has been raining here again today! And it has been a lot cooler! We are so thankful for the break in the heat. It is too late for the gardens, but we are fixin to start on our fall one!

I hope the baby calf is doing okay. He took his bottle this morning, but it took him a really long time. This afternoon he wouldn't take it at all and so we tried again about 8:30 this evening and he only took about half of it. His sides are not sunk in, so I am hoping this might mean that he is getting more from his momma. We have left her with him because he was still nursing on her and she kept licking him and trying to take care of him. I couln't see seperating them if I didn't half too. He took the bottle feverishly Sunday night, so I am a little worried. It is only by Gods grace that he has lived this long.

Well I did not get any of my baking done today. I apparently am out of flour. I thought I still had some in the bag, but somebody had already emptied it. So for dinner tonight we had pinto beans that I had cooked all day with a pork neck bone, and homemade chicken enchiladas with sourcream sauce. They were yummy! I also made a yellow cake, and we have already eaten half of it. No one wanted frosting, just the cake. The kids acted like they were starved when I got through mixing they all fought over the bowl and beaters! Dear hubby brought home some flour for me, so maybe tomorrow I can get some bread made.

Our extension agent came this morning and looked at the kids livestock projects. We are getting closer to the fair. We moved it up this year and it is going to be tough to get ready in time.

God Bless Ya,
Tara

RAIN

It RAINED this afternoon. Praise the LORD for his goodness and mercy! I don't won't to be selfish, but we will take some more please. It is just so dry that it soaked it all right up!

Well Homecoming went well today and there was lots to eat and the singing went well afterwards. I actually managed to get up after only a couple of hours and get everything cooked. I made a huge batch of brocolli rice and cheese casserole (using my very own brocolli), homemade chicken strips, and ranch potatoe salad using new potatoes, peppers and onions from our garden!

We recasted the baby calfs leg this evening and worked with the show calves a little. Sometime tomorrow or Tuesday or extension agent is coming to look at their livestock projects. We had a death in the church we are attending and Tuesday I am going to take food and help serve the family lunch after the funeral.

Lets see tomorrow I am going to try and make up a bunch of bisquits and sausage and try to freeze them. I would like to have something that is quick and easy. We need to start eating better and breakfast is the one thing that a lot of times we don't eat. I may also make some bread tomorrow. We are going to have spagehetti for super. Every thing from the meat to the sauce is all homegrown! (Well except the pasta)LOL I tried to talk my hubby into planting me a little patch of wheat, but he said no way! God is Good!

God Bless ya,
Tara

church

Some how in my last post not all of it got posted, it was the devil I thinkLOL. Any way Because I assurped my husbands athority and insisted on joining this church we are now very unhappy. So dear hubby has decided that after tomorrow we will go and visit the chuch that he wanted to visit two years ago!!!! Now I will let you know what happens. I am going to give up the fight and let him have it. We have just never felt like we are part of this church that we are at now. My husband has a lot of family there and I thought that the not belonging feeling would just go away over time, but it hasn't. It has been two years and we still feel like outsiders.

We seem to feel like that every where we go. Because oh my good ness we only have one tv with 3 pbs channels. We don't have one in every room and video games and the latest computer stuff. (the world is going to come to and end)LOL And when someone finds out that you are trying to live a simpler life by canning and gardening and raising your own food and raising your children under God's authority. Then they really think you have gone over the deep end.

Well I have been on my soap box long enough tonight, maybe I can go get a little sleep before I have to get up
May the Lord Bless yall,
Tara

I can't sleep

I can't seem to sleep tonight. My brain is wore out, but it won't stop running either. We are having homecoming at our church tomorrow and I am going to have toget up in a couple of hours and cook, but I am still AWAKE. This has been a long week for us. We have had VBS all week and on top of that we have had water problems. Our well has been going dry for a couple of weeks now and Friday sometime some kind of pipe busted loose and needless to say what water we had in the well was gone by the time we got home for town Friday afternoon. We spent today bringing buckets of water from the barn to use to flush the toilets with and to wash dishes. Jeff finaly got it pumped back us this evening and we now have a little bit of running water. We are going to have to be very careful with it. We went to a birthday party today for a dear sweet friend of mine's son he turned 10 and we visited a little while after the party. We used to go to church together untill we left the church and then shortley after they left the church and went somewhere else also. They seem to like it where they are now, unfortunatley we are not happy where we are. After we left we went to my husbands church that all his family attends and where he grew up in untill we got married and then he moved his membership to the one where we got married and I attended, because it was closer and I already had jobs in the church. I really pushed him into joining because I wanted to get back to WORK. He really didn't want to but I kept nudging him to MAKE A DECISION. Well let me tell you how wrong I was. I assurped his authority and now we are paying the consiquences. Untill a few months ago I would never have thought about it before I read Debbi Pearls book "CREATED TO BE HIS HELP MEET" I thought I was the good Christian wife, but boy let me tell you that after 16 years of marriage I have been badly wrong and have been a Jezabel. I have on numerous occasions tried to be my husbands concious. I have argued and pouted and all this time that I thought it was him, alot of it was me not behaving and being in my proper place. God has put me here for him and not the other way around. We women have lost our focus. The new age movement has left us with broken homes with women raising their children all alone, because we have felt that we are always in the right and who needs a man. Well I am here to tell you that I need my husband. I used to be one of those women. There are no telling how many times I have threatend to leave my husband because of something silly. It frightens me now to think that the kids and I have come so close to me tearing our family apart because I always thought that I could do it all by my self and I didn't need him or that he was always miss treating us.

Thank You Jesus for nocking the scales from my eyes.

Homestead Happenings

There has not been much happening around here lately. We are in the middle of VBS and that has pretty much taken up all of our time. I am doing the music for it and lets just say I need your prayers. We have a new projector that runs through a computer and I have been trying to use it, but the last two nights have been rough trying to work out all of the kinks. I am praying that tonight will be much better.

Well the baby calf also known as "little tuff man" is doing well right now. He is running around on his piped up leg and actual chased Elizabeth in the barn yesterday morning for his bottle. It is only by God's Grace that he has lived.

We are going to pick tomatoes and peppers this morning and try to work with the calves a little. We won't have time to get many projects started though.

I pray for some rain today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well I better get the day started
God Bless ya
Tara

Busy, Very Busy

It has been very busy around here on the homestead. We have been canning, and gardening, church camp, etc. We have had a very crazy week. We had a calf born last Tuesday that was a little too early I think. I thought he was going to die. We took him and his momma to the barn and he was like a noodle he was so limp. We started rubbing him and I got some colostrum down him. I started giving him some vitamin B shots and we rubbed and stretched him every two hours. He took a good bottle on Thursday morning, but still didn't get up. We checked on him after lunch and he was standing up! I thought all right! Well that afternoon the boys were in the barn doing some cleaning and they left the gate open to the barn and the pony got in. They started to shoo the horse out and the horse jumped over the calf knocking him down and then steped on his leg and broke it. At first I didn't think it was broke, but by Friday morning it was swelling. Friday I got some pvc pipe and vet wrap and some duck tape and made him a splint. I put it on so that he could walk on the pipe and not his leg. Saturday morning he had managed to get up and get out of the barn and we found him in the front lot with his mom , but now he had gotten snake bit under his mouth or on his jaw. I was swelling pretty fast. We have been doctoring him for the bite and the broken leg. He has been taking the bottle really well and this morning we finally caught him nursing his momma, but I just don't think she has enough milk. He was almost jumping around this morning. He didn't look so good this afternoon, but it has been really hot today. It is by the Grace of the Good Lord that he has lived as long as he has.

Yesterday was a busy day. We cleaned out the feed room in the barn and organized it, cleaned out the hen house, hauled some wood chips and filled in some holes in the chicken house where the chickens had dug out some big holes. The kids mowed and weed eated and I canned 10 quarts of tomatoes. Today I have been making blackberry jelly. I am going to work on VBS songs tomorrow. We are having VBS next week and I am going to help with the music.

The kids have also been very busy getting ready for the fairs. We are having our county fair early this year and so it has been a mad rush around here to get calves ready in time.

It has been really dry here so far. We finally got a really good rain Sunday. Our well is going dry, so we have been praying for the Lord to send some rain. Our garden is about all gone except some tomatoes and peppers. We are going to try and plant a fall garden this year. We have a family member who is willing to give us a couple of pumps to put in the pond to water with. We have been praying for one and God is Good!!! So I would like to plant a fall garden and try to get some veggies put up. I have so far put up around 50qts green beans, 30 qts tomatoes, 600 ears of corn that I cut off, 25 qts of peas, I also have quiet a few peppers that I have been drying and some I have been cutting up and putting them in freezer bags. I did not get to put any squash up because we either sold it, ate it gave it away or fed it to the pigs. Oh and I also got several gallon bags of brocolli put up. We still have potatoes we have not dug up yet we have been going out there everyother day and digging potatoes but we are eating them as fast as we dig them up. So, that is one thing that I want to plant for the fall. I read somewhere that potatoes love to be planted behind sweet corn, so that is where we are going to try and plant them along with some fall peas, and more brocolli. I would love to try and figure out a way to have fresh lettuce and greens all winter long under a hoop house of some kind. I also want to get some fall onions planted and I have a huge bag of garlic that I need to get out for next year. We did not get any okra or cucumbers planted this year. We just ran out of time.

We are seriously considering buying a couple of jersy cows to start milking out. We have about figured where we could build a milking parlor. The thought of fresh milk and cream to make butter and Cheese, just think of all the goodies that I could make! We just have to figure out how to get the funds. LOL This is something that has been on our hearts for several years now. We are praying earnestly that God will provide the way.
Well better go for now. Maybe one of these days I will be able to post some pics of all our happenings around here

God Bless Ya,
Tara