Through Mara's Camera Lense

Mara loves to notice all the little things in nature.
She says this is a fairy table with acorn seats and a lamp. 

 Last week Mara got a new camera that she had ordered in the mail. She decided to get a pretty nice one this time after saving a lot of money from her cleaning job. In this post I thought it would be fun to share some of the pictures that were taken on her camera.

 Lots of leaves at Grandpa and Grandma's!

 The kids had fun playing in them as we were getting ready to leave my parents after a day of butchering chickens.

 My pretty Mara. On Friday of last week she went to spend a day with her Aunt Keren so that they could have fun trying out her new camera (Keren loves photography). They had fun walking around town and taking pictures.

 Keren by the famous statue in our town.

 A fairy picnic she made.  Mara loves anything that looks like it would be great for "Fairies".

After her day with Keren she also joined two sets of Aunts and Uncles for supper.

 Keren and Benjamin

 and the rather crazy Luke and Bea. I am not sure what prompted this photo but it looks like they were having fun!

 Luke can get much more serious. The next day they came to help us on our house. Here he is working to put up the lath for the rock. His job was to screw into the cement wall which was incredibly difficult.

 Aaron ready to help.

Mixing up the mortar and getting it ready to use.

MollyBea "butters" a rock.

Putting the first section up.

 Saturday was a beautiful sunny day.

 The stairs are taking shape!

 On Monday we worked on putting up rock again.

 My sister Keren came over to help. This strip of rock will have dirt back-filled up to the bottom of the rock.

 Mara found some harebells still blooming (most things have died because of the frosts) - these are one of my favorite flowers.

 Wispy haired Megan.

 A very yummy apple dipped made accidentally (a mistake in following a recipe) by Mara. I will share the recipe soon.

 Megan working on crocheting.

Jonathan still hard at work on the chicken coop. It now has shingles, a window and house wrap. He is working on fascia and Mara and I are working on fencing in the run area.

  That is a peek and some of what has been going on in our lives recently.
What have you been doing?

A Chicken Coop Built By Jonathan

 This Spring we thought one of the first things we would get done on our property (following the outhouse) was the chicken coop. But as we couldn't work on it right away as we waited for permits and then things moved along quickly and we really needed to just get the garage done (for living in) the chicken coop kept getting put off. All the supplies were here - neatly piled up under tarps - we just didn't have any time to put them together.

  It came time to move in August and the chicken coop still wasn't done - we hoped that we could do it that last week (before moving) but there just wasn't time - so we asked my dad if he could board our birds and he characteristically said yes. So our birds have been over at my parents.

  Ken and I have continued to stay quite busy - with rock gathering, putting on siding, fall harvesting/food processing and lots of other things and we just didn't manage to work on the chicken coop. The kids however would like to have our birds here and so Ken told Jonathan that he could make the chicken coop if he liked and he gave him the plans, explained a few things and Jonathan got to work. Some of the rest of us have helped too - Aaron, Megan and I helped put poles in and get the base level. Aaron has also helped to hammer quite a few times and Mara or I will run up and help when he needs something lifted up (though he has been moving a lot of 4 x 8 sheets of plywood by himself which I find impressive) and I did help him get all the trusses put in place - mostly though Jonathan has been the one doing the work.

The building is 12 foot by 8 foot with 8 x 8 for the chickens and a 4 x 8 section for a garden shed. The above picture shows the chicken door that will go into the run and the hole for a window.

 This is the garden shed side.

The door to go into the chicken coop.

 I don't have the most recent photo as he does now have sheeting and tar paper on the roof too.

This project has been a great learning experience for Jonathan. He did already know how to use the miter saw, drill and jig saw but now he has learned to use the circular saw as well. He has also learned a lot about framing and following a plan. He also gets to practice a lot of math while working on this project - so though we have been doing a lighter load of schoolwork this fall we still have a lot of learning going on. It has also been good for him in learning some of the joys of being self-motivated and doing a job well. Our neighbors and our contractor have been having fun watching him and are quite impressed with his work.

  I will be linking this to the Homestead Barn Hop

Is Genesis True?

"In the beginning God created

the heavens and the Earth"

Gen. 1:1

  This evening at church we enjoyed watching a video where Ken Ham (from Answers in Genesis) spoke about how are society has really changed in what we believe - that primarily we live in an Acts 17 type society (when Paul spoke to people in Athens about the Unknown God - he was dealing with a group that believe in many gods and didn't know the true God) rather than an Acts 2 type of society (Where Peter spoke to many Jews and religious people that already knew God but just need to be told the Good News of Jesus Christ). While I had definitely known that there were many people now who don't believe in God and don't believe God's word is true - I really hadn't thought about how very prevalent that opinion was.

  I, like Ken Ham, do believe that God created the Universe just exactly how He said He did in the book of Genesis - that is was done in 7 literal days and that we have a young earth and that God created things perfectly - there was no need to evolve to some higher form. Ken Ham points out how critical this belief is for the foundation that the rest of the Bible is also true - including that Jesus died for our sins.

  Now, I am very curious about what you all believe. Though I have my guesses about what those who read my blog believe I would really love to hear from you!!!!

 Do you believe in the literal Creation account in Genesis OR Do you believe in Evolution OR do you believe in something in between - such as God created the earth but it took Him millions of years and then there was even more time and so on OR do you believe something else entirely concerning our origin?

I would also love to hear what was most influential in your life in forming your opinion on this.

 Thanks so much for taking the time to comment!

Lots of Progress on the House

 This was a really great week of progress on the house. It was rather exciting!

On Monday our well was drilled. We don't have electricity or plumbing done in the house yet (next week- I think!) so we can't use the well but still it is done.

 They put up all the trusses on our house.

 The roof sheathing is now on too. Our house is really taking shape and that is so fun! This is the front view.

The house from the back. They were working on the living room bumpout at the time - they still have one to do for the kitchen too.

  Even though today was Saturday our contractor and crew worked for a while. They started getting the stairs done which was pretty exciting.

We were busy working on the house too and Luke and MollyBea came over to help. We started putting our rock ("cultured stone" - really made out of concrete) "foundation" up. We made good progress. We have a window of 4 days where the nights are supposed to stay above freezing in which we will try to get this done. Hopefully it works out!

 

Life on the Family Farm - Under an Open Heaven {Book Review}

I have been enjoying reading aloud "Life on the Family Farm - Under and Open Heaven" to my kids lately. It is a book written by and about Tom Heck - a dairy farmer in Northwestern Wisconsin.

 Each chapter is it's own separate short story about Tom and his wife Joanne and their two kids. Mostly it is of things that happened on their farm though sometimes we hear a bit about Tom's growing up years and things like that. We (and Aaron - our future farmer/rancher probably the most) were rather excited about reading this book. We love reading about how others are living the farming/homesteading lifestyle.

  Though I will admit that the stories aren't written in the riveting style of an author like James Herriott (Veterinarian and author of "All Creatures Great and Small" and other books) they are still interesting and what I find to be really, really neat is his Honor and Praise of God in every chapter. He is constantly pointing out God's wonderful workmanship or his provision and more. His worship of our Creator just comes through every chapter that he writes and that is a beautiful thing!

  As a mother I have also really appreciated his tying in lessons on Thankfulness, The Joy of Hard Work, The Benefits of Fun Family Time and things like that in many of his stories. I think that stories like this along with being an example in your own life and learning from the Bible are great ways to teach these things to your kids.

  So if you would like a book that is easy to read and interesting and constantly prompts you to give praise and honor to God - then I would recommend this one. You can find it at Amazon if you would like to purchase it.

  Disclaimer: I was blessed to receive this book free of charge from Life Sentence Publishing for purposes of reviewing. All thoughts however are my own and are true - I was not paid for writing this.

Processing Corn Over a Campfire

 My parents blessed us recently by giving us a bunch of corn from their garden that we were able to process and put in the freezer for this winter. Putting up food for the winter takes a little different twist this year as I don't have a normal kitchen with running water and a range to work with. That didn't make things all that difficult though. We just did it differently.

The corn was husked just like normal. I had a good crew to help me (Jonathan was missing because he has been spending every spare minute lately working on the chicken coop).

 The next step is to put the corn in to a boiling pot of water for 4 or 5 minutes. I could have done this using the propane campstove or the electric burner but I have found that the campfire has been the most efficient way to heat up large pots of food and also we have just been using stuff that we wanted to clean up from around here for the firewood so having fires serves a dual purpose and doesn't cost me anything. I like that! The only negative is that we did get smoke in our eyes from time to time and that isn't so fun.

After boiling the corn I used a tongs and got them out and put them in a bowl of cold water to cool and then I cut the corn off of the cob and put it in containers.

Quick and easy! I used the boiling corn water over quite a few times which saves a lot of time.

While I was processing the corn we also enjoyed snacking on it and we ate corn on the cob for 3 different meals last week. Corn on the cob is a fun part of summer and fall!

  I also cooked down applesauce over the fire. My next task that I intend to try using the fire for is canning tomatoes and applesauce. I think it will work just fine.

  Do you like to do any campfire cooking? How do you put up food for the winter? Have you ever done it over a campfire?

I will be linking this to the Homestead Barn Hop.