Rainy Days and Mondays...

We were blessed with another rainy day today. Lord willing, we are forecast to have another one tomorrow. Rainy days are a blessing for the land and bless us with a somewhat slower day. Not much outside work is done and we enjoy the cooler temperatures during the warmer seasons. Inside though much of the normal work still goes on. Today I finished canning Boss Hog and started to render all the fat we got off of him. Michael cut some pretty nice pork chops from the meat before we cut up the rest. We also saved the ribs to smoke and Michael is curing the 20lb ham.



Here is another reading selection by Rev. William Jay from his book "Morning Exercises for Everyday in the Year" p. 148-149:

We judge prematurely. He that believeth maketh not haste. It is good for a man not only to hope, but quietly wait for the salvation of God; and one reason is, because it will prevent a wrong conclusion. "Therefore," says the apostle, "judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come." You would not judge the abilities of the limner from the unfinished sketch, but you would wait till the canvas had received the last touches of his masterly pencil. You would not judge of the perfection of a building from the digging of the foundation, and the coarse materials lying in a kind of disorder all around, especially if you had never seen the plan or the model; but you would stay till the parts were all put together in their places, and the top stone brought forward with shouting. Let us stay till God has done. "What I do," says he, "thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Then everything will speak for itself. Then shall we walk, not by faith, but by sight. Then we shall see what we now believe, and for ever acknowledge, "He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are judgement: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He."

As I write the family is working on their first batch of sauerkraut. I have never tried sauerkraut before so I guess I won't be prejudiced about the taste of our homemade batch. Here is a picture of Michael supervising Jennifer cutting up cabbage:



And here is Tracy cutting up cabbage too. Funny thing that she is unsupervised since she is the one that cut the tendon in her finger while she was sharpening a filet knife. Nothing that a "little" surgery won't fix though!



Reforming Daily,
Danielle
"Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." Mark 10:15

Ranchfest, Weather, and Potatoes

Time to mark the ending of another Ranchfest. We all had a great time. It just all seemed to go so quickly. The men did fencing, roofing, and we had a few new doors installed. The ladies made some cheese, made some soap, some went to the local thrift shops, and there was lots of mommy stuff to do. We had a large number of children this year, 15 to be exact and there were 17 adults. It was a really great time! Here is a picture of me attempting a batch of soap:


Today's weather was a crazy temperature swing day which is pretty normal for springtime in Texas. This morning it was in the lower fifties and I actually thought about starting a fire for some warmth. I decided not to since it got to the lower nineties yesterday and I knew it would be warming up pretty quickly. It actually got into the 100's today! I did not know it was going to get that hot! I had already decided I was going to can some plain potatoes today but if I knew it was going to get that hot I would have planned the canning for a cooler day. Wow, it got hot on the porch! Here is a picture of the end product. My camera is missing so I used the camera on my phone.

I hope to can some more soon. I would like to can some sweet potatoes soon. Many of the sweet potato recipes I have tried call for mashed sweet potatoes. If I had some on hand that were canned that would be a quick way to get mashed sweet potatoes! I will have to experiment and see if the flavor changes much if they are canned first. I have really grown to like the sweet potato. They have a pretty flower too!

In Christ,
Danielle
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb 4:12)