More on the Holy Spirit's Work in Our Lives

I am still going through verses that talk about the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian and I wanted to share them with you....

"By this we know that we abide in Him and Him in us, because He has given us His Spirit." 1 John 4:13  - The Holy Spirit is a sign of truly being in Christ.
1 John 3:24 says basically the same thing... " The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us."

Romans 8:16 has more to say on that subject: "The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,"

"In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation - having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of His glory." Ephesians 1:13 & 14

"But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." Romans 8:11

"In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." Romans 8:26 & 27  Isn't that super cool!??

Do you have the Holy Spirit in your life? Acts 2:38 has something to say about receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. Check it out! :-)

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

 We got rabbits (we are up to 5 now and hope to do some breeding soon) this year and so we wanted some hay for them for the winter. When I saw that the county/township had mowed all the ditches in this area I decided that was a prime opportunity to get some free hay.

   Megan and Aaron were my helpers for this job (the others were at work).  The top picture show what the ditches looked like after the grass/weeds dried a couple of days.

We took our rakes and raked it up.

It rolled into loose bales quite nicely. We left them all over in piles along the edge of our road.

Then we went back home and got the van and the trailer. The kids thought this was the really fun part.

 They rode in the trailer and would holler at me every so often to stop so they could load up another pile.

 We got  a pretty nice load.

 Aaron and I tied some holey pallets together to make a hay storage place.

 Megan and Aaron unloaded it and then covered it with a tarp.

Hopefully the rabbits will eat it and we can also use it for animal bedding. This was a pretty fun project thought my allergies did protest a bit. The kids thought it was fun too and we are happy to have all this "hay".

Do you put up hay? Have you ever collected from the ditches?

The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Life of a Christian

Let's look at some verses that show how the Holy Spirit is/can be active in our lives....

"That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:16-19

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. " Galatians 5:16-18

"For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." Romans 8:13 &14

"But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18

"But the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is not law." Galatians 5:22 & 23

That is just a few of the ways the Spirit works in us. With those in mind let us also remember the message of this verse:

"Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." Ephesians 4:30

County Fair Week and Other Recent Pictures

   This is the week of our county fair. That tends to be one of the busiest weeks of the year (though we are doing less at it -than we used to-  in some areas but more in other areas).  On Tuesday we took 4-H projects to drop off. On Wednesday we took our open class items and the 4-H chickens and Aaron and Megan did performing arts with 4-H. Aaron also did Dog Showmanship and a dog training exhibition. On Thursday we only went to the fair quickly for Aaron to take care of the chickens. On Friday Aaron was part of the poultry show and we three worked at the 4-H food booth. This evening we finally went out as a family to watch Aaron and Megan participate in the Dress a Chicken contest. We also found out while we were there that Megan had won Grand Champion in performing arts in the Junior division. We were excited for her. She had played a piano solo.

This is a sculpture that Megan made and entered.

Aaron doing his harmonica song in performing arts. He also did a Mandolin solo.

Here is Megan the Miller with the "Little Red Hen".

Robin Hood and Little John.

Last week was the Dog obedience show and Rally Show. Aaron and Kitchi participated in that and won two blue ribbons and an award.

We are so loving eating out of our garden! This plateful included fresh potatoes, beans and cucumbers. Yummy!

Last weekend we enjoyed spending some time at the Itasca Family Music Festival.  It is a fun time of listening to good music, hanging out with siblings (above I am pictured with my brothers and sister-in-law) and visiting with a lot of friends. It is a really neat family friendly event.

 Mara and our friend Thomas enjoying the music,

 I love my garden at this time of year. It gets a little bit jungle like but it is so much fun to see all the growth and enjoy the production!

 I have made one batch of pickles and I want to make more soon.

What is going on at your place? Do you have a garden that is producing a lot of food?

Buying Bulk Chicken Feed and Saving Money

I am pretty excited because last week I was able to figure out how to get chicken feed that not only was about 1/2 the price of buying it in bags at the feed store but also it has way less GMO ingredients in it AND it works for all our chickens (layers and broilers) and mixed with some other stuff it is the main source of feed for our rabbits too! 

  I did actually buy food in bulk once last year as well with my dad's help and that was a huge money saver but this time I did even more research so that it was healthier ingredients (without raising the price hardly at all) and it works for the rabbits. 

So... if you also raise animals and haven't looked into this I thought I should share what I did.

 Our local feed store has an option where you can buy 500 lbs or more (I think 500 is the minimum but I am not sure) of feed that they mix together for you according to how you want it. Then they bag it up for you in reusable bags that I can take back to them to use again (I love that aspect too - no waste!). My Dad usually gets his feed in 1000 lb quantities and gets them in a really big bag that he moves around with a bobcat.

I wanted around 18% protein. I think my batch ended up closer to 17% but that should be fine as we feed them a lot of other scraps too and often soak their grain in whey or extra old milk so they will get protein in other ways as well.

Here is my recipe which is just over 500 lbs. I based it off of my dad's recipe and then a lot of research online and a lot of talking with the feed store and finding out what they had available and the price and then figuring out the protein content of each addition.

150 lbs. Barley
50 lbs Corn (I may cut this out completely next time or see if I can get it organic to avoid GMO)
100 lbs Hard Red Winter Wheat
100 lbs Oats
50 lbs Black Seeded Sunflower Seeds
30 lbs 41 Poultry Concentrate (a mixture of many things but high in Soy so I will work to find a substitute for this in the future. I used way less than most mixes however so at least it was a big improvement in my opinion.)
25 lbs Flax Seed
10 lbs Calcium
2.5 lbs Trace Mineral Salt
2 lbs Vitamins A, D and E
1.5 lbs Molasses

My total cost was $95.39

It should last for many months. We are currently feeding 32 broilers but they will be butchered soon, we also have 23 layers and 4 (with 2 more coming on Sunday) Rabbits. We do try to also give them a lot of weeds and scraps. With the rabbits we mixed the feed with rabbit pellets for now but will be added hay and things like that in the future.

I would love to hear what you feed to your chickens and rabbits and why.

 Our broiler pen was getting stinky so I have been added sawdust and other wood shavings to it. It makes it so much nicer! I got sawdust from my dad's sawmill.

Instructions concerning the Holy Spirit

Ephesians 6:17 tells us: "And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."

We need to be actively using the Bible (and the message of the Spirit that it contains) in our lives.

Galatians 5:16 says: "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh."

"Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did; sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit." For the mind set on the flesh is death but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him." Romans 8:1-9

"Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." Ephesians 4:31

Let us work at walking by the Spirit!