Feed Your Bread

The summer before I started seventh grade, we moved from a neighborhood to a house "in the country." It was actually in the same town, just with a little more room to spread out. Anyway, we had neighbors right next door that we shared our long gravel drive with. Once, when I was visiting at their home, I noticed a note on the fridge that said:

Feed
Bread

It was written just like that. Now, me being an inquisitive child and thinking it was her shopping list...I asked,"Why do you need feed? You don't have any animals." She laughed and replied, "No, it's a reminder for me to feed the bread." I must have looked at her like she was crazy. I had no idea what that meant. In my house, our loaf bread did not get fed, but was fed to us! She went on to tell me that she made her own bread and that was how you started Amish bread. Oooooh. Okay. Now I get it....I think.

Now, My mom may have made home made bread before, but I don't remember....I must have been too busy playing with Barbies or something. If I remember correctly, our neighbor may have given Mom some Amish Bread starter after that....that's when I remember that we started to feed our own bread. Mom, correct me if I'm wrong.

Fast forward to present day....my friend passed along some starter for sour dough bread. I have "fed my bread", let it work, mixed the dough, let it rise, punched it down, made some loaves and they are now rising in the kitchen. I can't wait to pop them in the oven this evening. Let's just hope they turn out like bread and not bricks!

When I think about feeding the bread, I am reminded each day we are to feed ourselves with daily bread...The Word of God. "Give us this day our daily bread." Matthew 6:11 Jesus is the Bread of Life. "The Father gives you the true bread of heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world...And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." John 6:33,35

Oh the stinking smell of apples!!!

One of the great things about having 5 apple trees are, of course, the apples....then there is the down side....the stinking, rotting, bug infested apples that lay on the ground under the trees. I know, I know, you are saying, "Just rake them up!" Well, honestly, it got away from me. They started falling....I didn't get out there to rake them. The ones that fell got mashed in to the ground. Then more fell on top. We aren't mowing as short during the summer so the grass is thick and the rake won't reach down far enough into the grass....IT'S HARD! Last summer, Melecio, Brett's AWESOME maintenance forman, would always pile them up for us and then we would feed them to the cows across the street. Well, advance one year, Melecio went back to Mexico to be with his family (also a great guy) and we have a new forman. He does his job, just not like Melecio. Brett doesn't want them getting too much overtime and I think if the crew started to clean up those apples, they would certainly be into overtime! There are a ton....and my entire point of this is that THEY STINK! I just have to go out there, suck it up, pretend I am a pioneer woman and work my booty off!

So back to the up side of 5 apple trees....I made four loaves of apple cake/bread with peeled apples to spare....I found a recipe for Apple Scones, but I've not ventured there...yet. I've never been good at "cutting butter into flour" and it calls for that in the scones recipe. Besides, Brett is using my huge mixing bowl to hold his precious...and I'll add delicious....yellow meated watermelon. So my bowl is in use at the moment.

After our lessons today (which went very well), we ate lunch and headed out to the barn for the second time to check on the goat family. Still no baby.... Then we headed out to run some errands. While we were out, my "magic" back door on our van quit working. It won't stay open when I open it with the auto feature aka "magic" OR if I open it manually. Ugh! I took it by the local Japanese Automotive (great guys) and they will take a look at it next week. I hope it's not too expensive...it's out of warranty...of course! At least it's not a horse and buggy, huh? Maybe that would actually be easier....hummmm.....

Oh, that sweet apple smell!

Today, during the girls lunch, I peeled about 10 apples with my handy "apple, peeler, corer, slicer." It made such quick work of the job! Now they are awaiting some chopping to be put into apple cake...with NO nuts....per Mary B's request. I think I should have enough apples for 3 small cakes. The remaining peels and cores are sitting in bowl on the counter next to the door. The sweet smell is permeating my kitchen. The scraps are waiting to go out to the goats. My luck, they won't eat them...they've become so spoiled!

Speaking of goats...Kisney (Like Disney, but with a K), our goat doe, is going to kid (have another baby goat for those city folks) any day now. She is a "scaredy goat" so she's never been one to let us pet her. I can't get close enough to her to feel her belly to see if there is more than one kid in there. She looks about as big as last time, so I think there is just one. The last time she kidded, Brett was in China and it was the coldest day we had all winter. Talk about timing! Dad and Mom rushed over to take care of my kids...you know...Mary B and Emily....so I could run back out to the barn to take care of Kisney's kid. Hee Hee. After all that, I think I can handle another baby goat in the nice warm summer. It will be any day now, probably right now as I am sitting here typing. I'll let you know...and will have pictures, too!

Today, we finished our first day of our homeschool lessons. In Mary B's words, "I liked the counting chip game, and Clara and the Bookwagon, and the Earth, too. I loved reading my Bible because it has everything God wants us to do." She is sitting here reading this post as I write it and requested that I put the "loved" in italics because it means "looooooved." Oh, from the mouth of babes! We covered Math, Language Arts, and History and Bible. I have to say that the K12 curriculum makes it so easy and fun for the parents and children. We add Bible...it's not included in the state funded curriculum....go figure. We spent a total of four hours on our work (required and extra). Emily enjoyed learning along while we read Clara and the Bookwagon, and studied the continents and the oceans. She even pointed out where Africa was when asked. Now, she's sleeping, while Mary B has some free play (and reads my blog entry).

Now, I am off to make that Apple Cake (with no nuts). YUM!

Playing at Pooles Mill Park

Today, we met the Woody's at Pooles Mill Park. It is a great park...with the exception of the yellow jacket infestation....makes it really hard to sit and have a picnic. We actually ate our pbandj's while running up the path trying to get away from those darn pests! It was an adventure to say the least. One great thing about this park is that it the home of a 107 year old covered bridge. It is really beautiful there! The kids had a great time playing together on the playground and swings while Brandi and I got some "mom" talk time...which is always a good thing!

Tomorrow, our lessons start with GVA! We are so excited! I'll update later in the week with a report on how it is going. Please pray for us as we continue our schooling.

The Beach

I just downloaded some pics from our vacation in July. We all had so much fun! Here are some pics from the July 4th celebrations at the village.

Every year the girls wait in line for "The Balloon Man" to make a shape balloon. Brett and I watched from the patio at dinner while they waited in line.

Amicalola

Monday, we took at morning trip up to Amicalola State Park with Michele and her girls.

We packed a picnic and the girls swimsuits for some playtime in the creek. The waterfalls were BEAUTIFUL! We climbed up 175 steep steps to get to this bridge...even the little ones. They are so brave! I was the one that was nervous! It was definitely a memory making trip...their first time playing in a creek bed at the base of a waterfall!

Time to Post

I feel kind of weird posting this...no one reads it...but I don't like to leave things undone. It has been over a year since my last post. My girls are 6 and 3! We just measured them and they have grown 1 inch each since May and a total of 3 inches each in one year. Our homeschool studies start next week. We have enrolled Mary B in the second charter year (if there is such a thing) of the Georgia Virtual Academy. It is a state funded and accredited homeschool program using the k12 curriculum. We are so very excited to try this. It is free! (Well, Brett says it's reallocated money that we've already paid in taxes...and rightly so.) They are sending her textbooks, science materials, even a dry erase board. That's so funny!

So living on a little farm is wonderful! Last night, after I cooked dinner, we all headed outside to play with our animals. I groomed Cupcake (our pony) and April Ann (the Miniature horse) while the girls ran around chasing Starflower (The baby goat). I'll post pictures later. After we all got really sweaty (it was 95 degrees) we came in for baths. While the girls played in the tub, I went back out to pull the girls dresses off the clothesline. I came in and told Brett that I felt really "country." You know.."country, but comfy."

I've been reading some great books by Nancy Wilson about Biblical womanhood. They are really encouraging to the Christian mother. Her blog, Femina, is great too. Being a stay at home mother, I need all the encouragement I can get. Interestingly enough, there are only three full time stay at home moms in our church, and I am one of them (and we are the only family that homeschools in our church!) Isn't that strange? If you go down the road to the "Big" First Baptist church in our area, there are a lot of stay at home moms and several homeschool families. Now don't get me wrong, we love our church and we know that God has a purpose for us there. This path that the Lord is leading us on is wonderful and so fulfilling...and definitely narrow!