This and that…

Last week was a tough one, a good one, but a tough one.  Mommy was sick, that is tough.  My biggest battle is with myself, and not feeling like I’m worth much unless I’m producing.  I have the knowledge in my head that those are wrong feelings and thoughts but they are there and have to be dealt with none the less!

The Lord blessed us with orders last week which added to my feeling of inadequacy, but on Saturday I rose up and got a few things done.  Olivia and Victoria both shelled things, that is what we call it when they serge the basic garment and I put a lot of the finishing touches on them.

We were able to do a tolerably fair school week, because school can be done from a sitting position. 🙂

One of our sweetest customers sent a picture of her little dear in our ruffle pants and it is great to see our clothes being worn practically,  I love style, but equally love practicality…

Victoria made the little hair clip.  Victoria is definitely our hair girl! I should say young lady, Mommy is having trouble with adjustment to this new phase of life.

We have lots of sewing to do after school today and we also need to finish canning our tomatoes from the garden.  I must get on to the next thing, thinking about the list makes me a little faint at heart.  The best approach is to begin the approach!  Onward and upward, thank you Father for your strength for each new challenge, and now that I think about it the old and recurring ones.  You are so faithful to be there for your children.

Lord, I need help to embrace each place you take me through!

A special birthday lunch…

Yesterday we had a delightful time at Grandma Dixie’s.  She is our adopted Grandma.  In honor of Victoria’s 19th birthday which is coming up on 9/11/2011 Dixie, who is 91 and her sister Ruth who is 82 got a very special lunch and Cranberry tea together for us.
This is Victoria with her sisters and sisters, Dixie and Ruth, Dixie is in the orange.

Dixie made it very special by having us read Psalm 103 together before we ate and then Olivia prayed for the meal and we had a lovely time to visit with her and Ruth.

It is such a blessing to be able to spend time with your daughter’s and special friends! Dixie also surprised Victoria with a beautiful ice cream cake.  Tori loves ice cream!  I am overwhelmed with the blessings the Lord has bestowed because I know that I am not worthy of them.  His goodness to me and my family is incomprehensible.  I stand in thankfulness.

Ohio State Trooper field trip….

Yesterday we went on a marvelous field trip

We went to the Ravenna Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol.  This was a great way to start off our school year!

The Sergeant and all the troopers were very good to us!

We got to see a CSI unit…

The trooper was very informative and happy to answer questions…
Then we got to see the canine unit…

They talked to us about the dogs and the trainers and their jobs,  then they staged a “walk around”  in what they called “free air”  they don’t need a warrant to walk the dog around your vehicle in the “free air”.  The trooper had planted some marijuana in a car and the dog picked up the scent and started scratching at the door.  The dog scratched the car at the place where the drugs were.  It was very interesting.  Then the dog got rewarded and the children got to meet and pet the dog if they wanted to…

We were shown the portable scales that the troopers use to weigh suspicious vehicles.  This was interesting to me as I wondered what criteria they use to make their standards ,  I was glad to hear that they are concerned with the safety of the motorist and the upkeep of the roads.  Both important to me as a taxpayer 🙂

The Sergeant of the post showed us inside his immaculately clean car…

This guy’s engine was as clean as my kitchen counter top! I love cleanliness and order!

Thank you Sergeant Bancroft and all the troopers at the Ravenna Post who made this field trip a huge successs!  And thank you to Mrs. Wright who got this field trip together for us!   We learned a lot and enjoyed ourselves along the way.

The Lord is my strength…

The Lord is my strength and song, He also has become my salvation…

These words, are God’s from the Holy Bible,  He can not lie…

I am holding on today…Some times life seems so overwhelming, some times it is imagined, some times the load is really REALLY heavy,  I have seen these times in my life.  Today I struggle to be bright, I want to shine for Jesus, but my lantern glass is smudged with fatigue, and a terrible summer cold and cough, a house turned upside down, because my dear husband brought me the gift last night of a dining room set that is gorgeous, but I do not need, my house doesn’t fit it.

I don’t want to hurt his feelings, it is a style, Queen Anne, that I have always loved, and we actually had one  when we first got married.  We had to sell it because we needed to pay our bills.  He has always felt bad about that.  So, now I have another one.  He wants me to think about it.  I will think about it.  I will pray and ask God to show us what to do about it.  I will pray to be gracious.  I will pray for thankfulness, I will pray for the strength to rearrange my already full house!

My house is full of children which is the greatest treasure I have.  Furniture is needed for functioning, but too much is cluttered and I want my treasures to feel comfortable and that there is room for them.  I also don’t want to be fussy about taking care of the white seats on the gorgeous chairs 🙂

Lord, teach me in this circumstance… Help me to sing and learn contentment in what ever state I am in.  Help me to be wise and gentle.  And help me to get my sewing orders done today in my overturned sewing room.  Thank you that I can look to you in even seemingly silly little problems…Thank you that you care about my need for order.  Thank you for loving me.

Ready for the Sabbath…

Today was an unusual day, my husband was home from work.  This is a good thing, he and my oldest son have been working very much this summer, this is also a good thing.  We just don’t see much of those two guys!  That is not such a good thing.   So, today they began a turkey “house” which is going to double as a green house next spring.  The old milk house the young guys took down a couple weeks ago supplied our lumber.  We are going to free range the turkeys that will give us healthy Thanksgiving and other holiday meals.

I love to have the little boys working with their daddy.

The turkeys are going to have it good!!

This guy gets into his work, unfortunately not his school work, except reading he does love to read! 🙂

On the sewing side, I didn’t have high productivity today.  We finished and shipped some orders and I made an apron yesterday and today.  I have been really wanting to make one out of the red floral.  Now I can check it off my mental list and focus on getting school started Tuesday after labor day.  I’ve got some lesson planning and some menu planning that has been put off for too long.

We need to can some applesauce Monday.

But tomorrow, it is the Lord’s day.  We will go to church and rest our working bodies and minds.  And focus on Him who provides and cares for us more than we can even begin to comprehend.  Thank you Father, for the gift of a day of rest.  Thank you for the gift of being able to work.  Thank you for all of the gifts you give us that we take for granted, like another day.

Give that man a job!…

These men in training have my admiration.  Yesterday was a corker!  Hot that is.

We inherited an old milkhouse from a farm up the road.    They had a fire and my boys thought they would like to have it for a potting shed or something.  Well after a year of sitting in our front yard, their daddy and I asked them to take this thing apart and try to salvage as much of the unburnt timber as possible.  They went at it with some of their dad’s demolition tools, and were finished by supper!  They took a siesta in the heat of the afternoon. 🙂  Now, today if it doesn’t rain they will start on a turkey pen, using this lumber.

They are growing, and the work is so good for them!  They conquered this thing!  I am cheering for them!  And I am learning things about my husband by watching them!  He has been out of work many times throughout our marriage, being a self-employed carpenter.  It wears on him to not be working, and providing for us.  It is against the way God made him.  Also, I am seeing his vision more clearly, as we suffered through those hard times, I kept saying, “can’t you just get a job?’  Because I wanted stability and comfort.  He held on and said “I want to teach my boys a trade, I want to be here to teach them to work.”   So, despite my very ugly whining, or should I say in spite of my negativeness, and weakness.  These boys are working, and loving it.  And I can see by how they are working they have been closely watching and helping their daddy.

Of course, they play, but the satisfaction they get from a job well done, just kinda puffs their chest out with a good feeling!  Which makes mama so happy for them!

Kinda cute to watch them when they have their pow wow’s, talk about cooperation!   It is a good thing for bretheren to dwell together in unity!  Two are better than one: because they have a good reward for their labor.

Peaches…

This year we got 5 bushel of peaches from a farmer in our area.  He called Thursday evening and wanted us to pick them up.  He had traveled up from Virginia with them and was worried they would spoil from the heat.  It was hot last week!

My husband picked them up and the farmer told him you better put these up right away.  And that is what we did.  On Thursday night the girls and I put up 21 quarts, 16 of fruit cocktail and the rest peach halves.  Up on Friday and back at it we finished Friday night with 107 quarts of peach products!  That is the most we have ever done in one canning.  There was the fruit cocktail, peach halves, a couple peach chunks, peach pie filling, peach jam, and peach pineapple jam.

Whew!!  It was a long one!  But fun and rewarding!

Filling jars..

All hands on deck!!

Our friend told us about peeling the peaches and slow cooking the peels in a roaster or crock pot, for pressing later in a food mill to make jams.  It is a wonderful way to get the most out of your fruit!

Here is my little 5 year old pressing the cooked peach skins and pieces into pulp for the jam.  He was turning the thing so fast his little had is blurry in the picture!  He loves to help, especially if it is a cool tool he can use 🙂

The fruit of our labor… Only 1 in 107 jars didn’t seal.  We took care of that at our Sunday snack!

Today we have to finish up the jam.  We refrigerated a big bunch of pulp because we ran out of sugar.

Peach Pineapple jam

double recipe;

6 cups peach pulp

2 cups pineapple puree

1/2 cup lemon juice

sugar

Then we followed Pomona’s pectin double recipe instructions.  Pomona’s lets you decide the sugar ratio.  We used the lowest, haven’t tasted it yet, but last years was yummy.

Working day….

Today was a working day,  the last few days it was up near 100 degrees and humid and we don’t have air.  We were a little slow on those days.  Not to mention the children were falling sick all week, one on Monday, one on Tuesday, one on Thursday, and one on Friday.  No one today yet.  They had fevers and terrible headaches.  The older ones suffered quietly, but my seven year old has zero pain tolerance so, that is trying on the nerves!

I think that is why today we got so much work done, we were able to move a little faster with the heat slacking off.

The girl’s and I finished some scrappy tiered skirts.  A dear friend who is my son’s piano teacher,  and taught the girl’s earlier,  is an avid quilter.  I don’t know if that is the best description.  She is an awesome quilter.  When my son came home from piano Thursday night he brought two white kitchen trash bags of scraps leftover from her quilts!  We had so much fun looking through them.  When you sew, and people know it, sometimes they will send fabric your way.  Sometimes you are thankful, but you can’t really use it.  Other times you are thankful and you get excited!  This was an excitement case!   Being an excellent quilter isn’t all she is, she has always amazed me with her color coordinating.  So, this fabric was perfect for our tiered skirts, and we were in need of some!

I also got to make a blouse for myself, two or three years ago, she sent home fabric and I made a blouse then, and the girls got dresses made up!  Wow, thank you Ruth!    I’m working on a tutorial on making these skirts which I hope will be helpful.  I’ll get it posted next week hopefully.

Then, today a neighbor who we met at our local farmer’s market stopped by and asked if we could use some cucumbers, well, ours just happen to not be doing well this year so our answer was yes!  I immediately wanted to make pickles. We also had picked up our annual 30# of cherries at a local farm and those needed put up.  I forgot all about them, sitting there sewing away this morning until the neighbor came with the cucumbers!  Oh my!  We have to do cherries and pickles!

Well, we got them done!  Praise the Lord!  Just have to give credit where credit is due!  That canning looked daunting at first, but the girl’s were up for it and my husband and the boys were working outside on the chicken coop.  I don’t know why but I just love to get stuff done around here and it seems to give me more determination when my husband is sprucing up outside, even if I am tired.   So, we froze some cherries, and made pie filling with some cherries, and we made some jam/jelly with the juice and some pulverized cherries.

I want to let you all know about Pomona’s Pectin it takes less sugar than Sure jel, or Ball Brand,  I have always been mortified at all the sugar it takes to make jam, and this year a friend told us about Pomona’s,  we haven’t seen the end result yet, our jam will sit for the next 24 hours, but even when we used the other brands we had some that didn’t set well.  It is just so good to know I’m not pumping the children with sugar!!  For a 4 quart preparation of berries or juice you only need to use 3/4 cup of sugar. You can add more if desired but it is not needed.   Ball is 6 or 7 cups and Sure jell is a little less.  And you have to stick with their recipe or it won’t jell properly.   We are thankful for our friend letting us know!

The pickles are still in the water bath. Then one more load of cherry goods:-)  Olivia is baby sitting the canner while I am writing this!

My husband has one care giving client in the evening on Saturday’s so, after he went to work the boys finished up the chicken coop, I mention this because I remember when all the children were young and it was very hard to get things done around the house because of the time taking care of the little ones.  It is all worth it and I wouldn’t trade any of the years training and bringing up my children, but this fruit today really blessed me.  We’re doing the last load of cherry pie filling and I hear a saw running….I ask the girls,” your dad is gone who is running a saw?”  They said their brother, who works with him and is 21.  That just flooded me with thankfulness, Wow, my baby is a man, and he is finishing the job his dad started!  And my 15, 14, and 12 year old sons were helping too!  I don’t know what to say, it is such a blessing to have them just work with us!  We are harvesting fruit!  When they are small let them help you with everything, bring them into your life.  When they are older they will bless you!  Wow!

I failed to mention, we decided to do the coop remodel quite suddenly on Thursday night when we heard a second chicken died this week because of the heat, probably dehydration. We keep them well watered so,  we hope more ventilation will help that for the rest of the summer!  All it needs now is a coat of paint, and I know a lot of painters!!! 🙂

Bless the Lord, O my soul and forget not all His benefits… That is from Psalm 103 it is rich.  Earlier this week when it was too hot for much I was comforted by verse 14…For He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.     I love that!  He understands.  He knows.  He is O.K. if we have a low or slow day.  That is freeing for a work-a-holic!!  I’m not glad I’m driven, but I’m glad that He is showing me He is not driving me!  Thank you Lord!

Tomorrow is the day of rest! Yea!  Thank you Lord!

Baby Eli…

We were so excited when we were bluberry picking on Monday, to see baby Eli and his mommy and brother and sister there!  Many of you know, we have been praying for him through his little life!  My children excepting Olivia had never seen him before!  This was a great blessing to us!  Also my heart sang for his mommy who is able to take him out and just pick blueberries, or walk in the park.  She is a testimony to God’s keeping grace.  She has had a lot of support from her precious family, but being a mommy myself, I know that without her Father in Heaven and her Savior’s grace and strength she would not be able to make it!

Is that not a precious baby boy!  He is a miracle!  A joy to his family. And a joy to all of us who know him!

I over flow with praise and thankfulness to God for His goodness, mercy, and grace!   We continue to pray for Eli and his family.  It is a good thing for all of us to remember each other at God’s throne of grace!

Barn painting….

On Tuesday I asked the little one’s to scrape the barn so daddy could paint when he got a chance.  Little did I know he would come home from work and everybody would pitch in and just do it!  Wow!  Now, I did have the paint ready in case!

I took some paint we had around from other projects.  We had 1 1/2 gallons of exterior paint, 2 different browns.  Then we had 1 1/2 gallons of a paint we used in the house, kind of a light green.  It was in a 5 gallon bucket so, we added the browns, and some Bin primer, and a little cream from another project.  It had a little more of a grey tint than I like so Olivia, got 2 little craft paints, from the school supplies.  They were bright orange and that warmed it up for us.  The color finally came out to be kind of a tan.   So, we painted our barn for free!  Very cool!

They all but finished before dark.  Today or tomorrow they will do the finishing touches.  It was a blessing to see them all just hanging out scraping, painting, and just enjoying each others company.  So many workers it just went so fast, I was amazed.  I got to help too, I like to do handy things!  I love to be outside  in the summer!  It is good to work with the children!  Now, this won’t be happening when I paint, or we paint the bathroom, which needs it pretty bad.  But, they had a blast!  The clothes?  I have them in the washer now.  I guess they will just be painting clothes now 🙂

Happy Summer!  Blessed Summer!   Chrissi