Day 197 (Sunday)

1. Parish group of Joseph and Hannah F's...
2. All of the piggies!
3. Rebekah & Cal with Brownie the cow
4. A picture of yours truly with the pigs
5. What else? Church of course, visiting with friends, doing farm chores with R & C

Day 196 (Saturday)

1. On our way to get pigs(!) Scott and I encountered a road closure... we were wondering how much of a closer it really was, so he ventured past and we saw that it really was closed, but he had to take a picture as proof of his daring-do.
2. A lovely gravel road detour we took courtesy of google maps. It reminded both of us of California gold country.
3. Pigs! At the pig farm
4. Mama pig and her piglets under a persimmon tree. I bought four of her piglets.
5. Driving past a buffalo farm
6. Pigs (my very own!),. They are about two months old, 3/4 Gloucester Old Spot (GOS) and 1/4 Tamworth (If I remember right) and all males. 
7. Jeffrey Allen- Mom and I have been wanting to go into this store for a long time. We finally went in and what a surprise. It's a store full of beautiful Chinese home decorations furniture. Like a little museum!
8. What else? A baby shower for Hannah F, running errands with Mom all afternoon and Cal & Rebekah F arriving late that night for the weekend. This was my Facebook status:

Busy day today! Left the house at 8am to go pick up four baby pigs (!), came home got them settled in and rushed off to a baby shower, then ran errands for 5 hours, came home, convinced the pigs that instead of running around the pasture they really did want to stay in their pen (while trying to not ruin my dress), then spent time fixing the pen, had a quick dinner and then it was time for the evening round of farm chores (which finally ended at 9:15). And then the day ended with ice cream and Calvin &Rebekah arriving. Yay! But, my goodness, I think I'm going to be dead by the time summer ends.

Day 194

1. Moozer reluctantly sporting his new handmade-by-me rope halter... he got to wear it while I did farm chores.
2. What else? Ugh, we are still getting through the stomach flu's domino effect on our family. Dad was kind enough to come out and help me with chores tonight. :)

Day 193

Pictures from Wednesday...written on Thursday.
Well, because life isn't exciting enough and we simply don't have enough going on this week getting ready for the next two weeks (12 days of friends visiting, an OSU class here, a small graduation party, a three day camp)... this week has been the stomach flu. One of the most entertaining (not really) and annoying things about having a large family is getting to watch people topple one by one with the stomach flu. You know you are pretty much doomed... you just never know how doomed. About half the family has ended up seriously sick with this one.

And of course, this is the week we are supposed to buck hay. Thank God, we got the hay we needed this winter bucked into the barn before the boys got smitten with the flu! We got about 17 tons this year, which is really good. Last year we got almost 20 and that was supposed to be a good hay year. Well, this year, we didn't hay 1/3 of the top pasture (prob at least 3-4 tons) and one of the other pastures was pretty sparse as I didn't graze it wisely this winter.

Martin (our neighbor) took the whole lower field which came to about 10 tons, or 400 bales.
We took in 65 bales from the top pasture. And another crew is coming in tomorrow morning to pick up the rest, praying a rainstorm doesn't appear tonight (unlike last year)! It's much nicer selling it direct from the field...

Also, I was very happy that the haying guy said that our pastures were the best pastures he had seen. That made me really excited. I'm slowly but surely learning pasture management!

Now, I know that wasn't all very exciting, but my goodness, it's helpful to have this stuff written down so I can reference it next year. :)

Now for pictures.
1. My feeble attempt at taking pictures of Andy and Daniel bucking hay while I drive the tractor still half recovered from the flu
2. Daniel working hard... and I really thought I had more pictures... I guess I'm semi delusional when sick.
3. Which speaking of, I have no clue when or why I took this picture. I think I was thinking of the fact that I had fallen asleep sick on Monday night in this clothing and hadn't changed out of them yet. Not the most practical clothing to help buck hay in...
4. What I wish I had a picture of? Dad teaching Daniel how to drive the tractor while I bucked hay for a minute... 

Day 190

1. Enjoying the early morning sunshine on my orchid plant. It's growing a new leaf!
2. 3. & 4. Enjoying the Willamette River with friends
5. A purty nice sunset
6. What else? Sunday School, church, Future Womans Camp meetin', Softball in the blazing heat (I haven't played in two years thanks to my concussion, so that was really fun!), hanging out with Amanda (and Scott & Juli, and Sam and Jacob and all her kiddos, and some Lyons) after the river, reading Dune - I have about 50 pages left and I'm still trying to figure out what I think about it.

Day 189

1. Jacob showing Laura W his amazing bow and arrow while we barbecue steak
2. The only proof I have that Laura was here (bad friend!)... our shadows waving while she did farm chores with me... (fyi, and I have a grain bucket hanging from my side...)
3. What else... Home Depot in the morning, lots of woodworking, starting to watch Foyle's War, working for Dad, taking a nap in the sun, the first pesto and fruit salads of the season, hanging out with Laura

Day 188

1-3 Woodworking! My rough and tumble jig for the router. Detail of the mortise and tenons. Completed one door's worth or mortises & tested them out with mock tenons. They are starting to look like carriage doors, I'm so excited!
4. The Buckeroo! with Tyler & Kenneth H. 
5. The arena
6. Cowgirls!
7. This is one of my favorite parts... when the cowgirls ride intricate patterns. Love it.
8. Buckin' Broncs
9. The announcers booth... real high tech... the person on the right has just lowered by string a clipboard of papers to an official down below. 
10. What else? Stuffing my face with a GIANT elephant ear. Tyler didn't realize how big they were... we couldn't finish it!
  

Day 187

1. The Ayers leaving for Bend... so sad. But happy for them. Andrew & Daniel went along to help unpack the truck and then spend the weekend hanging out with the cousins that are arriving tonight.
2. At the feed store, waiting for feed.
3. & 4. Hannah and I being all crafty like and creating an ugly gate frame
5. Framed. 6. Enjoying ice cream as reward for our hard work
7. Silas and Jacob enjoying their ice cream on the bench.
8. What else? Woodworking, knocking apples off the trees, noticing how quiet the house was when you're used to 13 people for two weeks and then 7 of them leave. Wow. 

Day 186 (The 4th of July!)

Highlights from the fourth of July include:
:: Getting pictures taken with Brownie the cow and some baby chicks. Hopefully one day I'll get to put some on here!
:: The annual Wilson's party. Yay for parties.
:: A round of live battleship with water balloons. It was fun.
:: Lots of volleyball. I hadn't played for two years, so that felt good. :)
:: The best Merlot I'd ever had. Yum.
:: And some yummy blackberry and lemon meringue pie. Double yum.
:: Good conversations. 
:: Having too much fun to bother with taking pictures until we were leaving the party.. thus the photos of a neighbor's fireworks.

Bible verses and thoughts of late

Lately, I've been meditating on (and now I'm working on memorizing)1 Peter 3:3,4...


³ Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel— ⁴ rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.


And then listening to the Bible this afternoon, I discovered this passage to add to my thoughts (2 Peter1:5-7)...


⁵ But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶ to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. ⁸ For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.



In my little bit of studying the first passage, I discovered something rather fascinating... the word adornment is, literally in Greek the word kosmos, ie, world. I find this helpful to know as I tended to skip over this passage because, to be honest, I'm not always very good about caring about how I look. (!) And so I never really thought about how it could apply to me. But, if you apply this to your whole "world" or what you hold important to you, than that makes it much easier to apply!

I also used to read this passage and think "a gentle and quiet spirt?!, how boring does that sound?" I know, so bad, right? But, I'm learning that when one has a gentle and quiet spirit, it doesn't mean you can't still have fun and laugh loud, it means that it's actually much easier to do those things. Because if your spirit is right with God, then you are not weighed down with the cares of the world. And that's a lot more fun!

As for the second passage, I haven't mediated on it a lot yet, but I feel like as of late, the standard variety of temptations/trials I used to face are fading away - of course, maybe this is just asking for them to come back... or at least until I've forgotten the lessons I've learned, right? ;) And now as of late, I am beginning to discover another bouquet of trials that require the learning of more lessons. Oh, thank God for variety!