Our Summer

Here's a whole gamut of pictures from our Summer here in Ocosta. I'm trying to catch up from August. : )


Okay kids, your daddy took this picture a few weeks ago. You were with him (all four of you), down at the barn and the pasture having fun while mommy had some quiet time.

Here's a toad. Many, many frogs we spied this year but not too many toads.

Here's daddy growing a beard. You should see him now! I love it on him.
He sure looks handsome. ; ) I see his pictures without the beard and I keep telling myself that his face looks naked. Isn't that silly?

Here's another picture daddy took

And another. Finally, daddy got some bees in his hive after 3 years of waiting. See the honeybee going into the hive? Unfortunately, they didn't make it. It's been too cold out and they didn't build large enough to last. Maybe they will remember to come back next year. We'll get honey yet...



Okay kids, when you are older I wonder if you are going to remember this? You all went "slug hunting" to get a little snack for the piggies. Yes, you picked them up with your little fingers. Hmm, maybe you'll still be hunting for slugs later too.



Leah, you look puzzled! A week away from 1 year old. You and Chops (we call Matthew Chops because he used to like to bite), will both be a year old for a few weeks. Wow, two 1 year olds.

Our collards, bib lettuce and another type of lettuce

The collards got quite large. We still have some growing into monstrous size.

Good ole green beans. We can't get you kids to eat your greens at the table, but by golly all daddy has to do is bring you down to the garden and you eat to no end.

See, you little piggy's are just feasting now.

Unripe but a pretty picture. Daddy took good pictures today.

Our common little frogs around the property

Our two piggies. They are in our freezer now. We had pork chops tonight.
The sausage is the best!

Matthew kissing/blessing his pumpkin

Our pumpkin patch a couple of months ago

Here's some pictures of Leah, pretty girl.

I love this picture of you little Leah

Resting on your napping father, Chops.

Yum, yum banana. You are always so cute to me.

Hannah, now it's your turn.

Big, three year old girl!

You two don't always play together much because you are always playing with your sister Elisabeth, Hannah. So, I had to catch this rare occasion.



Doing a little school time. We spend a little time each morning coloring and doing flash cards. You are all doing so well with the letters. I think Elisabeth is going to be ready to start reading here pretty soon.





You look so quiet and proper Hannie. But, we all know you are the "bouncy" one to say the least. : ) I love you.

Our Pumpkins

Here's our first pumpkins. Daddy grew all these from seeds. You all had your own pumpkin. Mommy has already made 3 pies and we ate one of the pumpkins with dinner one evening with butter and brown sugar. It was delicious. We have 11 up the hill here ready to prepare for the freezer or more pies (or pumpkin bread), and I think your daddy shared with me today that we still have 26 down the hill that he could see. : )

Little sugar pumpkins - Aren't they pretty? Daddy was in deep thought last night and shared how sad it is that the devil and the world has turned such a beautiful food given from our Creator God into something so evil. We are just so appreciative to have this blessing of a good, first crop of pumpkins.

Elisabeth and Matthew inspecting one of the pumpkins.

Hannah helping out. They pulled this little wagon up the hill (with daddy's help of course),
full of beautiful, little pumpkins.

Elisabeth holding up her prized pumpkin

Matthew, oh you're so cute...

These are the ones we had for dinner the other night

These were for pie. Amazingly they made 3 pies. Here's a fantastic recipe (use real cream in place of evaporated milk though): http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php

A real beauty

Unripe but so pretty

Life Was Here - Our Fifth Child

Written 9/30/2010

Our dear child whom we'll never get to meet while on this earth. We love you so dearly. We miss you greatly. My sorrow is great. Oh how I love you my dear one. My heart yearns for you, for your life still so much but it will never be... here. How much we will wonder who you would have been, how beautiful your face. How much your father wanted to hold you. How much I wanted to nurse you in the quietest time of night. I prayed to have you over moving - ever, if it would've kept God from taking you. Our loss is great. Through you the Lord is teaching us how valuable life is and our family. We love you so much my child. You'll never be forgotten, just deeply missed. I love you.

August 9th (conception date) to September 27th- Nine weeks

 Life was here, your little form was visible to my eye. 

Life was here. I was so excited to see these lines my hands were shaking when I wrote Baby #5. You were our fifth child, a fulfillment of the Lord's promise to us back in 2006 while I was pregnant with our first. Here you are I thought, and so quick. I miss you so much.

A Deeper Life

Update: A couple of months ago we were in the process of trading our home for a home in Greenville Kentucky. We found it very inconvenient to try to locate moving trucks, best route of travel, motels, Title Companies, etc... for this move so we got back on the internet and found life to be a whole lot easier. Unfortunately the couple recently decided to stay in Kentucky for now and we are still just waiting on the Lord to move. In the meantime I miss working on the blog and do enjoy the convenience of my monthly transactions with Azure. I love looking at homes online too so we will be staying online loosely unless we hear a clear Word or pulling from the Lord to do otherwise. : )

We haven't been online much the past couple of months because the Lord is calling us to a deeper life without the internet. We will be offline starting July 23rd. We are excited about where the Lord is taking us. There is a little fear but great anticipation too in getting back to a deeper and more contemplative and prayerful life. As for not having the blog anymore? I will be making several ongoing scrapbooks with the same pictures, etc... for our children. I will be making recipe books for them as well that will include things such as homemade fermented sauerkraut, sour cream, buttermilk, home ground soft white wheat pancakes, the best homemade ketchup and mustard we've ever tasted and so much more. We are just starting out in where the Lord is taking us and growing us. He's really putting us back to a beautiful place of simplicity and fullness in life that the fleeting, dazzling worldly lures cannot measure up to. So, I'm stepping off this fast train called the internet to walk a bit slower so I can smell the flowers and walk in the cool grass. May the Lord bless you all.

New Changes

Currently we are without a camera for about another week until our new one arrives. It seems that I am missing all the best shots too. : ( Right now we are in the process of looking into buying a milking cow for the family. Please pray that we can so we can make fresh butter, cheese, raw yogurt, sour cream, ice-cream (yum) and more for our family. We are still hoping and praying with anticipation for another pregnancy. Though only a short time has passed since Leah has been born, it is becoming more and more evident through the changes going on in my body that we are coming to the end of our childbearing years.

Some things I would like to share when I get the camera going again: I made some fresh, homemade horseradish the other day. It smelled beautiful, fresh and fragrant while I was grating it. A good strong but not fumes strong like the Chinese hot mustard (until it sits). It is delicious. I mixed it with organic, raw apple cider vinegar and olive oil. We are slowly changing everything over to our new way of eating and enjoying this journey as we continue to learn and grow. We are apprehended by it for the time. Just a few of the books we've been reading: Real Food by Nina Planck, The Untold Story of Milk and the Nourishing Traditions cookbook. It has been life changing to say the least. I could blog about all the knowledge I have learned these past 2 months but would rather let the knowledge in these books turn you to the truth about eating real food. They are much more knowledgeable and convincing than me. : ) Some other good things... we received about a half a gallon of homemade vodka from a fellow who gives us fish (about 40 lbs of fresh ocean fish in our freezer right now) for fresh, live chickens from our farm. I am going to make some homemade vanilla with it. I am waiting for the camera to share on this blog. Today a man drove up and asked for some roosters. Matthew found that he just wanted them for the feathers for fishing. He shared with the man that he would be glad to give him the skins after he butchers some today. He was elated and shared that he owns a crab boat and will be back when the boat comes in next week with some fresh crab. He came back and dropped off some albacore and salmon. I can't believe how the Lord is working, how He is bringing people to trade chickens for fresh fish. What more could you want for your family? Wow, we are just besides ourselves.

We're busy from sun up to sun down these days but it's a good busy. The strawberries are just starting to turn color, we're already eating some of our spinach and arugula with our lunches and all the other vegetables are on their way. Our rototiller quit working last week and is in the shop but things are still moving along. Before we know it we'll be picking, washing, eating and storing. This is only our second year but I can see many more beautiful things ahead in farming and the community here or wherever the Lord may have us.

Our Day Part One

Our weather has been exceptional lately. I have had the urge to take my children to our nearby (7 minutes away) ocean to run and play. Today I decided was the day.

On our way there. This is Grays Harbor

Brady's Oysters. We used to trade eggs for oysters here last year. They were delicious!

Arriving at the beach

Straight ahead


Looking towards Westport

Looking towards Tokeland

Beach Houses

Gorgeous day. We nearly had the beach to ourselves. This is pretty normal here.

Beautiful waves

Looking for shells, rocks and anything else they can find

One of the many beautiful sand dollars here

Here's our boy playing in the sand

Here they have all found something fun to do

Elisabeth

Going up the BIG, grassy hill

View from on top of the hill

Many sand dollars just laying on the ground. They were everywhere today.

Matthew, you lost your shoe!

Friendly, little centipede

Second Half of Our Day

When we got home from the beach, we had ourselves a fabulous lunch, put the kids down for a nap and went outside to do some work and enjoyment of the sunshine.


Here's daddy and Elisabeth planting some soybeans. We are trying them out as they are a rich source of protein for the animals.

Here are the starters that daddy has been tending to in the hothouse part of our barn

Working Hard

Elisabeth and I went for a walk in the other field that daddy mowed for me the other day. We don't use this field right now but it sure is nice to go for a walk in a trail throughout. He's so thoughtful! : )

There's our barn way over to the left. I walked this just this morning before everyone got up. It was so peaceful.