March 24, 2009 by Debbie.

Gina’s newest sig lines  - “A loving person lives in a loving world.  A hostile person lives in a hostile world.  Everyone you meet is your mirror.”  Ken Keyes, Jr.

“All things are possible until they are proved impossible - even the impossible may only be so, as of now.”  Pearl S. Buck

The new mushroom bed is producing wonderfully. I cut 10 very large mushrooms to freeze this morning. Oh me of little faith bought some while at the store the other day thinking these wouldn’t mature for awhile yet. I hadn’t counted on almost 80 degree warmth to sprout them up so fast. I was too lazy to take a picture of them so use your imagination.

Same with the worm bed. I did add the worms (picture is still on the disc … lazy me) and saw them actively eating some banana peel. I only have 10 worms so there’s not a whole lot going on yet. This week’s warmth might have called more to the ground surface and maybe I can dig some more soon.

I finished 3 books last week and found a new to me author Patricia Sprinkle who wrote The Remember Box. It’s fantastic. I also read a quilt novel and re-read Saturday Morning by Lauraine Snelling - a must read, re-read, re-readeth. As I can’t be bookless and felt drawn to The Scarlet Thread by Francine Rivers and re-read that, finishing it last night. I had planned to do a book review after finishing The Shack and re-reading The Victory Club (Robin Lee Hatcher) two weeks ago but words fail me. All I can say is check them out of the library and start reading. Now I’m hungrily scanning my book shelves again.

I have a friend who regularly asks me, “How can you read all those books so fast?” I’m answerless. I want to reply, “How can I NOT?” Each one has something that cultivates my heart soil.

A new to gardening friend recently reminded me of the importance of the soil quality and condition if you want a fruitful harvest and a successful venture. Thanks, Faith!

Speaking of heart soil, remember the parable of the sower? Jesus said the soil represented the heart. Keeping that in mind I’ve been chewing on Isaiah 61:11, “For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nations.” The NIV says it this way, “For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.”

How backwards I’ve had it before. I often prayed for God’s Word (seed) to come into my heart and life and make me fruitful for Him. Instead it’s my heart soil that causes God’s seed to grow and produce. In that way we are still gardeners like Adam - we cultivate our own and each others heart soils so that soil can cause God’s Word to sprout in our heart and lives. It sure brought me up short on how I treat other people. Would the words I say to them cause their heart soil to be friable, soft and accepting of the Seed? Or would my actions cause hardness, compact heart soil where nothing can produce? Would I rain down the love of God to water and nourish their heart soil ?

I am wrongly frustrated with my dogs some days. When my dogs decide they want our attention they LET US KNOW. Pudge loves to pray with John in the mornings. He climbs up on to John’s lap with his two long front legs and leans until he’s perpendicularly belly up. All the better to scratch his belly, you know. Heide has never read (she needs glasses, but just to eat or read) the scripture “Knock and the door will be opened” but she KNOWS how to knock. When we don’t come on the first scratch, she’ll get up on her hind legs and thrust all of her near 100# weight onto the door, scratching with her front paws. We drop every thing and OPEN that door; it’s easier and cheaper than replacing it. When Bud’s ready to eat he comes to find me. Doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of the night (woooooooooooooof!) or while doing emails early in the morning (his nose can flip my arm/hand high in the air from a keyboard faster than I can think to guard against it, time and time again. You’d think I’d learn!). Then in the afternoon, about 3:00, he comes again to find me. It’s TIME to go on the porch swing and eat whole wheat crackers and cheese. Life has to come to an abrupt stop regardless of what I’m  doing. And this isn’t just a gobble down the crackers and get back to my agenda. No, it’s Bud laying on the porch swing with me while he daintily (hahahha) eats his crackers one at a time interspersed with bites of cheese. Pudge and Heide stand beside the swing, only one swinger in the family, I guess. After eating his snack it’s HIS time with me. I scratch his ears, rub his belly and gently massage his whole body, checking for any hurts, bumps or lumps. I know better than to get up before he’s done. After this personal attention he just lays there with me; me reading or doing piece work while he watches the horses a field over. When he’d done and gets off the porch swing I’m excused to go back to my life and my own agenda. Every time impatience tries to overtake me I remember Bud is 15 years old - old for a Lab - and my time with him here on earth is limited. What a privilege to take an hour out of my day to spend with him. I thank God for bringing him in my life.

And I wonder do I dog God the way my dogs dog me?

Posted in Homestead living | 1 Comment »

March 18, 2009 by Debbie.

Just a quick post on what is going on in my mind/heart/thoughts/prayers -

I want to give away the pencil

and throw away the eraser.

God, help me to write my life in ink

regardless of how meny many mistakes I make and people see.

Posted in Homestead living | 2 Comments »

March 17, 2009 by Debbie.

Gina’s new sig lines - “A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.” Arthur Golden

and …     “You’re a perfectly valuable, creative, worthwhile person simply because you exist. And no amount of triumphs or tribulations can ever change that. Unconditional self-acceptance is the core of a peaceful mind.” Author Unknown (Debbie note on this - and unconditional self-acceptance is only true when combined with realizing God’s unconditional acceptance - when you realize He accepts you just like you are.)

Worm beds

Find a cheap or old, used plastic container. A long shallow one works well. Drill some holes in the bottom for the moisture to drain out. This water/moisture is very nutrient rich so save it, dilute and use to water your plants.

Shred some newspapers or junk mail into thin strips. You can do this by hand or with a shredding machine. Our’s broke years ago and I can’t seem to replace it. Wet the paper strips until damp as a wrung out sponge. If you get them too wet, just let them sit for awhile.

I got my papers too wet so I added a few new dry strips and stirred it all together.

Fluff the dampened newspaper up to fill the container most of the way full. Add some coffee grounds, tea bags, banana peels, veggie scraps (no citrus, onions nor dairy/meat scraps).

I did not add very many scraps (is that grammatically correct?) because I’m going to start with a small number of worms … which I will dig later when daylight appears. I’ll also dig a clump of dirt around the worms and put the whole mess right on top of the scraps, introducing them to their feast. You can either dig worms out of your yard or garden, stop by a bait store, or buy some from gardening supply companies - local nurseries may have them at this time of the year. I know Gardens’ Alive and Gardeners Supply carry worms.

Add the worms.  Cover lightly - do not suffocate the worms with the lid!! I’m going to put newspaper over top my bed as it will be in the garage where the cats can’t visit. Place the worm bed out of direct sunlight, in a cool place (about as cool as a garage on a spring day). You can even keep it inside as long as you put something under the container to catch the water draining out. Makes a big mess in the kitchen without that. Don’t ask how I know.

In a few weeks you’ll need to harvest the worm castings and compost and I’ll show you how to do that then!

Gardener’s Supply has fantastic worm composters - I really like the round ones - that start at $149. It’s that $140 in front of the $9 that stops me cold every time but I dream of having one some day. This worm tub works just fine.

If you want to do an outside worm bed, just do the above without the container. Pick an area that is not in full sunlight 24/7 or so it feels in Texas summers. Pick an area that may have morning sun but afternoon shade. Dig a shallow pit, about 2 foot x 5 foot and fill with light soil and/or straw/hay that is dampened. Pull the bedding away and add your veggie scraps. The worms will stay in the area you’ve made as long as you feed them and provide them clean bedding every now and then.

Regardless of which method you use, you’ll want to keep the bedding SLIGHTLY damp and do NOT over feed - this isn’t a compost pile. Watch how fast the worms eat the scraps and don’t let the scraps mold and rot - remove some if necessary.  Worms need the egg shells and coffee grounds to help them digest the food. BTW, they will eat the newspaper and paper shreds so those will need to be replaced just like the hay/straw bedding will. (Side note - if you use paper towels, compost them.) When the temps get too high, put a piece of wood over the top of the  OUTSIDE worm bed to keep the area cool and damp. We had friends who spread corn flakes on their worm bed to feed them but with dogs, cats and guineas I wouldn’t try that myself.

If fire ants get in your worm bed, and they will come hunting the cool, damp bedding, sprinkle some ag DE on the ants. DE won’t hurt the worms but it will discourage/kill the ants. Believe me it is no fun to harvest a worm bed full of fire ants.

I’m going to keep my worm bed in the garage for right now. Not sure if I’ll move it outside later or not. We used to keep the worms under the rabbit cages. Didn’t have to do much of anything - nature took care of it all.

Thanks, Gina, for asking about worm beds. Let me know if there are any questions. I always forget some things as I explain stuff. I’ve written this all in a rush so if I’ve scrambled some thoughts, just let me know. Feel free to edit!!

Posted in Homestead living | 6 Comments »

March 13, 2009 by Debbie.

I’m an idiot. A nut. Unusual. Odd. Different. What ever you want to call me, I’ve already been called it. And that, too, but I won’t type it here, after all this is a family safe blog. That’s the background for this blog entry.

Because of the above statement I didn’t think anything about people looking at me oddly and smiling as I strolled the isles of the McKinney’s Sam’s store this week. At least I didn’t think anything til I went in the rest room and looked in the mirror. I had roughly clipped my now shortened hair before I left the house and it was half way falling down on one side and the other less secured side was as windblown as a palm tree in a hurricane. No wonder people were staring at me and backing away. I thought the meat manager just thought it odd someone was asking for the fat scraps to render for soap making. I never thought it was my wild woman look that caused such amusement on his face.

I remember another time, years ago, when I wore an all cotton shirt dress - bright orange, no less - and went to the mall early to walk before going to work. The mall was filled with senior citizens who were extremely friendly, or so it seemed. Everyone I met smiled broadly at me. I smiled right back. THEN at the end of my walk, I went into the rest room and found my dress had responded to the static electricity of the dry Ohio winter heat and was crumbled up into a ball in the middle of my legs. It looked like I was carrying around a crumbled fabric pumpkin with my thighs while my slip was hanging down around my knees. And although I weighed much less back then, it wasn’t so much less that I wanted to parade around with bare thighs in front of anyone. I often wondered how those old men didn’t have heart attacks, smiling all the way.

My kids never got a chance to embarrass me. I always beat them to the punch line.

But back to Sam’s store this week …. as I stared at myself in the mirror I wondered why in the world didn’t someone have the curtisousy to mention my windblown look to me? Surely no one would think I intended to look that way. Would I say something to someone else? I tend to think I would as I have in the past.

Have you ever tested out that theory?  Have you ever gone in some where, wearing something outrageous just to test how many would mention it to you? Like trailing a long string of toilet paper out back of your skirt or pants? or put a blob of vaseline under your nose for a bugger? or a streak of ketchup on your cheek? Try it some time and see how many responses you get! I won’t tell you if I have done such a thing (who me???) but I will tell you no one has ever mentioned anything to me, tentional or non.

Do we even LOOK at people around us? Do people around us LOOK at us? I do try to actually see the people around us. Before I leave the house I ask God to give me at least one person I can help in some way, either with a word or specific prayer or a smile or whatever. I also ask Him to tell me the whatever! I remember once I was so deep in my own thoughts that I thought I had spoken to an elderly woman before I started lifting her grocery bags out of her cart to put in her open trunk. But I hadn’t said anything and, boy, did she turn on me! “Those are MY groceries!” I apologized, explained my absentmindedness, and continued to help her load her groceries, taking her cart away when we were done.  But I do wonder how many times I have walked by someone who is desperately praying, “If you’re there, God, send someone to just speak to me.” I know people pray that way cause I have before.

I used to work as a cashier at a small grocery store whose main customer base was the local farmers. The women/wives/mothers would come in, work worn and tired, and seldom would smile. I know them because my own Mom seldom smiled at anyone unless she knew them and not always then. I don’t know whether Mom was embarrassed by her teeth (nothing wrong with them) or just afraid someone would actually talk to her and she’d have to talk back (yes, she was shy) but I often wondered why she didn’t smile. Anyway, I made it my goal during my work shift to smile at everyone, giving them a chance to smile back. There’s a connection smiles make that lifts up the heart and brings even a small ray of hope in a struggling life.

A smile. It’s free. It doesn’t wear out. It doesn’t have an end; you can give it away and still have another one ready to go for the next person. Whoa, you think, big deal. A smile. In a drowning, dying world where people are starving to death, others so depressed they kill themselves, crime topping the headlines, financial despair - big deal, a smile????!!!!!

Consider the earth worm. Such a lowly thing to most people. Frankly, I think they are beautiful. What would our earth be like without the lowly earth worm?  Earth worms aerate the soil, fertilizing it as they go (no pun intended, but pretty good anyway). Earth worms keep our soil friable to allow the plant roots to take up oxygen and nutrients, hence the plants (our food) can grown. Plant something in a cement block and you will see what soil would be like without the lowly earth worm. And people wonder why I go around after a rain, picking the worms up off the sidewalks, placing them back in the ground where they can live.

So I offer three  goals for today

1. LOOK at people and SMILE

or

2. SAVE an earth worm

or

3. DO both!!!!

And your goal for all tomorrows,

1. Repeat

PS - if anyone’s interested I’ll post how to build a worm bed and you can grow your own worms!!! Great project for kids to learn composting/recycling.

Posted in Homestead living | 4 Comments »

March 5, 2009 by Debbie.

All it takes to put our dogs in cow-heaven is a trip to a semi-local butcher shop. Six bones weighed out at 33 pounds ….. better than 5# each! These leg bones last a long, long time and it will be a long, long time before they are allowed in the house. Until then, Bud and Pudge thoroughly enjoy their new treats. Heide does chew on one every now and then, but it’s such a dog thing to do and SHE’S not really a dog…..

The gardens are doing well - here’s the garlic, onion and parsley bed. We’ve had high winds (as usual up here on the hill), higher than normal temps (85 today) and much less rain than normal so any growth is fantastic!

The old broccoli bed is starting to play out in the grow house. The new one is a ways away from producing - notice how dry the ground is in the new bed. I’ve watered by hand every other day and still can’t keep the ground damp.

The lettuce/greens row in the growhouse is producing well with kale, swiss chard, spinach, mixed greens, lettuce and weeds. Soon the heat will just be too much and I’ll have to pull the plastic off the sides of the growhouse. I have a new bed of lettuce ready to set out to replace this bed. Pictured behind the lettuce seedlings is the final harvest from the cold frame.

Here’s a neat way to grow tomatoes -

http://www.minifarmhomestead.com/gardening/tomato.htm

I’m going to try it this year. I’ve heard good results. Anyone can grow tomatoes this way, even if you grow them inside in apartment or outside on a balcony.

Suga’Baby is such a danty eater. You can tell by her belly bulge she’s about a month away from kidding for the first time.

Betsey is also a careful eater …. not Mercy. She really gets in to her food, feet and all. She learned this trick early in life when she was the smallest. None of the other goats wanted to eat out of a feed bucket that had been stepped in (God’s protection against disease and worms that could be carried on poop picked up in the hooves). Mercy figured out that no one would fight with her for food if she stepped in to the feed bucket. Mercy and Betsey are also due to freshen in April/May. I will be so grateful for fresh raw milk again!

Life is good here as it is where you are too, I know. I had planned to do a book review of a few of the books I’ve been reading but spring fever just reached out and grabbed me today so I thought I’d share what’s going on here at Beulah Land instead. Book thoughts to come soon!

Posted in Homestead living | 1 Comment »