This is our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life (Hebrews 11:8-10) along the narrow way (Matthew 7:14), even the old paths (Jeremiah 6:16), submitting to the Bible as a light unto both (Psalms 119:105). It is our prayer that these documented moments in our earthly time benefit whom God might choose to edify, but ultimately that God glorifies Himself through them.

Category: community (Page 2 of 8)

March 2018 Community Work Day: Chicken Tractor Retrofit, Curtains & Pecan Shelling

Chicken Tractor Retrofit

Back in December, 2005, just a few months after we arrived here in Texas, we built a chicken tractor to house our chickens, the original process which you can see here.

Well, fast forward 12 1/2 years, and while it has served us well, it had also begun to fall apart, with uprights rotting, etc.

Given that this was the only real overnight housing for our main flock of chickens, I felt a retrofit really needed to be accomplished in one day. I figured there was no way I would be able to do that myself, and so I requested March 2018’s community work day, and this past Wednesday, we men began the process with haste…

The plan was to pull it all apart, replicate the siding, the front frame, the lower section in the back, and the upper “penthouse” section, and then put the sections back in place, and then the siding pieces. This would allow for not having to re-design things, and allow for using the same roofing and chicken wire pieces without having to re-do those.

But first, we had to pull all of the staples to get the chicken wire pieces off. Everyone got to participate in that, and it actually took a little while:

Removing Chicken Wire from Chicken Tractor

Here, the roof, siding, and lower back section (which you can see on the ground upside down on the right) are removed, with the front frame and penthouse section still in place:

Chicken Tractor Roof, Siding, Back Section Removed

Here you can see the back section center right, upside down, and a youngin’ sitting on the back door:

More Chicken Tractor Roof, Siding, Back Section Removed

Still working on the penthouse section:

Working to Remove Chicken Tractor Penthouse Section

Here on the left, you can see the penthouse section removed:

Chicken Tractor Penthouse Section Removed

And here, the new front framing and new uprights are in place:

New Chicken Tractor Front Frame & Uprights

And here’s the new penthouse section, guarded well by a couple of smiling gents…would you trust these fellers? 😉

New Chicken Tractor Penthouse Section

Skipping forward a little, here we are with the back and penthouse sections in place, and the new siding installed:

New Chicken Tractor Back & Penthouse Sections & Siding Installed

And here’s the front view:

Front View of Chicken Tractor Put Back Together

And from another angle. I was really hoping to get to this point so we would at least be able to box them in for the night, and thanks to the Lord and the guys, we were able to! But, we did pray the Lord would grant the chickens safety through the night, being they were a little more exposed with the chicken wire not put back:

Another View of Chicken Tractor Put Back Together

Here’s looking in the back. I decided to use the same nest-box structure as it was still in fairly good shape:

Back View of Chicken Tractor Put Back Together & Nesting Boxes

And here’s how we attached the roofing tin:

Inside View of Chicken Tractor Roofing Tin

And just a metal flashing piece to cover the roof apex:

Chicken Tractor Roof Apex Flashing Covering

Here’s the smattering of the old pieces and new left-overs all over…quite the war zone! 🙂

Chicken Tractor Pieces & Leftovers

Well, the next day, after God did graciously grant the chickens’ safety through the night, I went ahead and stapled on all of the chicken wire pieces, and they all fit very nicely! Good job to the chicken tractor retrofit crew! Now all we need is some paint:

Retrofit Chicken Tractor with Chicken Wire Stapled Back On

Hopefully a little more so now! 🙂

Happy Chickens

Curtains & Pecan Shelling

Over on the ladies side of things, they graciously helped Sue make some new curtains:

Shelled Pecans

And did some of the pecan shelling from the pecans the Lord granted us from our trees last year, which is something of a time-consuming process. The lady who did this got quite a bit of them done!

New Window Curtains

We are very thankful to God for His graces and mercies in allowing us to be a part of this fellowship. We thank Him for the people here, and we always pray we do these things in love and service for each other out of love and service to Him!

And thanks to the folks for all of the help! May God bless each of you and your households with an abundance of His graces, and temporal, spiritual and eternal blessings!

— David

Summer Kitchen – Update III – External Siding, Community Work Day & Acorns

This past Wednesday was our first-Wednesday community work day, and this month it was at our place. The men worked on our summer kitchen, and the women and children washed house windows, shelled pecans, collected acorns, and sewed aprons and dresses!

Summer Kitchen External Siding

It has been 6 years since our last summer kitchen update. Wow!

Over the years I have done a decent amount of the internal siding, which you can see here:

Summer Kitchen Internal Siding

More Summer Kitchen Internal Siding

You can see what the mice have done to the insulation at the top:

Still More Summer Kitchen Internal Siding

And more here. We have traps in there, but they still do the damage:

Still More Summer Kitchen Internal Siding

Even with some work on the internal siding, the external siding has been sitting unfinished, with just the OSB, for 9 years, shown in this blog update!

And then, as one might imagine, the weather has taken its toll on it. With the Lord graciously granting resources to do so, we were able to do some work on the north side with the men helping…

Here is with the old siding off:

Summer Kitchen North External Wall Removed

The mice have been busy! 🙂

Insulation Removed by Mice

Here is removing calked windows. This worked pretty well, thankfully! (I have had a previously unsuccessful attempt before 🙂 )

Removing Summer Kitchen Window

Bending the outside away was the best approach:

More of Removing Summer Kitchen Window

Here’s with the first window out and first new OSB board in place:

Summer Kitchen Window Removed, First OSB in Place

And then putting the first window back:

Summer Kitchen First Window Installed Back

Here’s with some of the tar paper up:

Summer Kitchen First Row of Tar Paper

And then all the windows and boards in place:

Summer Kitchen All Windows & OSB in Place

Here’s with tar paper on the entire side:

Summer Kitchen Tar Paper on Entire Wall

And finally, with a couple of the external siding boards in place, which is how far we got on this work day:

Summer Kitchen Two External Siding Boards in Place

Excellent! Thanks to the guys for all of the help!

Acorns

While the fellows were working on the summer kitchen, the ladies helped shell pecans and make some aprons and a dress for Sue, and the children washed house windows and collected acorns for our pig!

Here are buckets of acorns they collected!

Buckets of Acorns

Thanks to the ladies and children for all of their help too!

We are very grateful to the Lord for granting us the opportunity to be a part of the fellowship! We always pray we love Him in part by loving and serving each other, and we thank the folks here again for all of their help and willingness to serve!

— David

Community Singing – October 2017

Once again, this past Lord’s day, God graciously granted we be able to gather together to sing to Him, in prayer and praise, the Psalms from the psalter we use! And we recorded them as we try to every so often, so we can learn them better, and so they might help others to as well. Here are the latest:

(If you would like to save any of the files locally to your computer, you can right click on Download and click Save As in the popup menu.)

Psalms 60A-65B

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

Psalms 19A-22E

Psalms 22F-24C

Psalms 25A-27F

Psalms 28A-31G

Psalms 32A-34D

Psalms 35A-37F

Psalms 38B-40F

Psalms 41A-44F

Psalms 45A-49C

Psalms 50A-53

Psalms 54A-59B

As always, we pray the Lord glorify Himself through these, and that they be prayers and praises from our hearts!

— David

Community Singing – May 2017

Last Lord’s Day we gathered together to record our next set of Psalms from the psalter we use! We thank the Lord for this continued opportunity, and to be able to sing prayers and praises to Him!

(If you would like to save any of the files locally to your computer, you can right click on Download and click Save As in the popup menu.)

Psalms 54A-59B

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 50A-53

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

Psalms 19A-22E

Psalms 22F-24C

Psalms 25A-27F

Psalms 28A-31G

Psalms 32A-34D

Psalms 35A-37F

Psalms 38B-40F

Psalms 41A-44F

Psalms 45A-49C

We pray the Lord glorify Himself through these, and through us always in whatever way He desires!

— David

Community Singing – November 2016

God graciously allowed us to meet a couple of Lord’s Days ago to record the next set of Psalms from the psalter we use! We are always thankful to Him for His word and this means of grace to be able to learn it in song!

(If you would like to save any of the files locally to your computer, you can right click on Download and click Save As in the popup menu.)

Psalms 50A-53

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

Psalms 19A-22E

Psalms 22F-24C

Psalms 25A-27F

Psalms 28A-31G

Psalms 32A-34D

Psalms 35A-37F

Psalms 38B-40F

Psalms 41A-44F

Psalms 45A-49C

We always pray He grant these to be true prayers and praises from our hearts, out of love for Him, with an eye to His glory!

— David

Root Cellar/Storm Shelter – Update IV & Community Work Day

Root Cellar/Storm Shelter West Footer

After the guys helped us get the north footer of the root cellar/storm shelter poured, after some heavy rains earlier this year, we were still getting some water in the root cellar. I had previously added flashing on the west side to temporarily help the water slide away from the structure, but after having to remove it at one point and put it back, undoing the caulking, we had rain still leaking in. And so, it was time to get the west footer poured.

This past Wednesday was our community work day for the month, and so the guys gathered at our place to help do the concrete pour.

Before work day, I had dug out the area about 3-4 inches down and a trench on the outside end about 8 inches down. Then, I added anchor bolts to try to tie the new concrete to old, and re-mesh for concrete strength:

Dug Out West Footer with Remesh

Here are the anchor bolts into the north footer:

Anchor Bolts to North Footer

And a closeup of one into the root cellar structure:

Anchor Bolt to Root Cellar/Storm Shelter

And then it was time for the pour! Here are the guys mixing the concrete by hand:

Mixing Concrete by Hand
More Mixing Concrete by Hand

And then they would pour it into the trench, and I shaped it. And here are the results! It took about 2 1/2 hours and 34 bags of 80-pound Quikrete, with a couple of level-off shovels full of dirt into the mix (to help the concrete go farther, since what we were doing was not really load-bearing). After we were done, I spent the afternoon keeping it sprayed down with water to help slow the drying; and the rest of the men were able to go to neighbor’s for the remainder of the day to help him with other projects:

West Footer Complete
Straight View of West Footer Complete
North View of West Footer Complete

Thanks so much to the guys for the help getting this done! The Lord was merciful in holding off some rain too that had been forecast potentially for Tuesday, and although we never want to have rain withheld, we are thankful it was stayed after the footer was dug out and completed.

Thanks to the Lord for granting the resources and help to be able to do this, the safety during the work, and thanks to the gentlemen for their willingness to serve!

— David

Sewing Clothes for Sue

This lifestyle is really hard on clothes and we have several ladies in the community who are very good seamstresses…..but I’m not one of them 🙂 I can mend and do very basic stuff but have not yet learned to sew. A couple of the ladies, as well as my wonderful mother-in-law, have sewn for me several beautifully made dresses, for which I am very grateful. But Dave and I agreed that since we were having community work day at our place this month, it was a good opportunity to have the ladies help me by making a few new work aprons and head covers.

I also am experimenting with simple curtain ideas. Here is one of the young ladies helping with sewing one of them.

Sewing On Community Work Day

One of the great things about sewing our own plain/simple/modest clothes is that you can make these work aprons very economically with quality sheets bought at the thrift store. Here is one of the women making one of the aprons:

More Sewing On Community Work Day

I have learned over the years that pockets are so helpful and handy but most of my work aprons didn’t have them. So I’m thrilled to have pockets being sewn into these new aprons!

Even More Sewing On Community Work Day

One of the ladies had given me a sewing machine several years ago and I have used it many times but in the process of transitioning into the house it has stayed in storage for a long time. Another one of the ladies painstakingly cleaned and oiled it up yesterday and she did a great job.

At the end of the day these wonderful ladies had made me four aprons, a head covering and helped me sew a set of curtains! Here are three of the four aprons and a head covering.

New Canning Aprons and Capp

I am so blessed to be part of a church community with these ladies and am very thankful for their help yesterday. I am very excited to have these new aprons!! Now I can burn a couple of the ones I have been wearing wayyyyyy too long. :))

Susan

Community Singing – May 2016

This past Lord’s Day we gathered together in fellowship to record the next set of Psalms from the psalter we use! We thank the Lord for this opportunity!

(If you would like to save any of the files locally to your computer, you can right click on Download and click Save As in the popup menu.)

Psalms 45A-49C

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

Psalms 19A-22E

Psalms 22F-24C

Psalms 25A-27F

Psalms 28A-31G

Psalms 32A-34D

Psalms 35A-37F

Psalms 38B-40F

Psalms 41A-44F

Again, thanks to the Lord for allowing us this privilege, to sing His word and to sing it together! May these be prayers and praises from our hearts, and we thank Him for His condescending ear to hear! May He write His law on our hearts that we may not sin against Him!

— David

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