Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.
Once again, the Lord has graciously granted another calf, this one to our cow Amistosa. She’s a little heifer calf, and we decided to call her Amilita (little Ami).
Here’s a picture:
And a quick video:
We are always grateful to God for His continued providence in perpetuating our animals; and now we pray for His wisdom, help and guidance in their disposition during this difficult time of drought.
— David
The Lord graciously recently granted another calf to be born to Holga, our Longhorn cow. She’s a little heifer calf, and has a heart-shaped patch on her forehead. With the Spanish word for “heart” being “corazón”, we decided to call her Cora.
Here she is with her mother Holga:
And a little closer:
And here’s her video:
We’re grateful once again to God providing this offspring. Given the drought here at this time, we’re having to sell much of our cattle; and so we pray for wisdom in selling them, and for buyers perhaps, or wisdom to know if we should handle them in a different direction.
— David
Once again, the Lord graciously granted another clutch of eggs to be hatched out by one of our game hens. Out of 12 eggs, 11 hatched, although 1 died; but the other 10 are going strong. You’ll see from that video our one Australorp rooster has apparently been busy:
We are once again very thankful to God for granting these new chickens that we pray will be productive members of the flock, for His glory and the benefit of His people.
— David
About three weeks ago, the Lord granted another set of goat kids, this time to our full Nubian goat Betsy. She gave birth to two little bucklings, which are also full Nubian; and we decided to call them Stanley and Ollie.
Here they are shortly after being born:
And here they are now (Ollie on the left in the first picture; Stanley on the right; vice-versa in the second picture):
And here’s their moving picture:
We are again very grateful to the Lord for granting these provisions; and we again pray for guidance in raising them and continued provisions for the herd.
— David
Dave and I have been learning about the health/medicinal benefits of certain vegetables, herbs, etc. We were so impressed with the benefits (and obvious great taste) of garlic that we decided to plant some. The Bunkers have been very successful with growing Spanish Roja, a high quality gourmet bulb; so we went with that as well. Since garlic is a good Winter garden crop, we decided to plant four beds with it as everything had been pulled from our 2010 Spring garden. We figure you can never have enough garlic, and this particular variety is highly valued among the “gourmet garlic buying” crowds. We thought that if the Lord allowed a large crop we could turn around and sell some. We looked to buy it later in the season and found it was already about 90% sold out and somewhat difficult to locate, but Dave finally triumphed on eBay and with another garlic seller, so we took the garlic plunge:
We had to prep the garlic before planting, so the first step was peeling it and separating it into individual cloves:
Those ice cream buckets really come in handy! That’s the only reason we buy them, you know. 🙂
We then soaked the cloves in rubbing alcohol for an hour or so in order to kill any bacteria on them:
And then we soaked them in water over night and then planted.
Dave planted them in late November, and we had to water them sparingly because we have been in an awful drought. But God allowed them to grow and we recently pulled the first batch in early May!
Here they are freshly harvested:
In preparation for long term storage, and I wasn’t aware of this, but through research I discovered that garlic goes through a drying or “curing” process after harvesting. Here are the bulbs dried and ready for braiding and curing. In my ignorance, I did wash this batch; but with further research, I didn’t see anywhere that washing was appropriate at this stage. Apparently though, the drying helps harden the dirt so it comes off easily; and the curing hardens the outer layer, which helps seal in the moistness:
You can braid the garlic or simply hang it out to dry for a few weeks to cure it. We thought we would just stick it in the food dehydrator, but my research indicated to keep it out of the direct sun. I found a very good braiding garlic tutorial online to help me with the process.
First I separated out the different sizes of garlic bulbs:
Then I tied a large bulb and two smaller bulbs together with a twisty tie like the nice lady said on the video:
Then I continued to braid in the remaining bulbs, and this is the result. I made several mistakes but learned from them, so it’s not perfect by any means but accomplishes the goal of curing the garlic! Several of the bulbs lost their tops, so I have them drying on a table in the summer kitchen. This represents just a portion of one garden bed, so it looks like I may have ample opportunity to hone my garlic curing and braiding skills and put it on my agrarian resume! 🙂
We are ever thankful to our great Provider for this harvest of garlic with its manifold benefits.
Susan
Almost a year ago in August, Dave and I were looking to sell our pure Nubian buck, Donny. We said in our ad that we would also consider a trade for another dairy buck. A local man called us and said he had sold all of his bucks; however, we discovered he had a LaMancha-Saanen dairy doe he was willing to trade, which, he said, was pregnant and expected to drop within a few weeks. We were very satisfied with that deal. The name they had given her was Hannah, one of my favorite names; so we decided to trade for her and keep that name.
Well, those few weeks came and went; and it didn’t take long to figure out Hannah was not pregnant, and we think possibly hadn’t been before, based on the size of her “bag” (udder); but we weren’t sure. Anyway, we were disappointed but so pleased with Hannah’s disposition and gentleness. She has been easy maintenance and a joy to have, for a goat. 😉
We put her, along with our other eligible does, in with our buck, Shatner, in early December. About four months later, we noticed Hannah’s little udder starting to puff out a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more, until we were very excited at the prospect that she was pregnant. We narrowed down her potential delivery date to sometime in early May. Her bag had become so large and engorged we knew the time was getting near. One morning, I went out to milk and noticed her bag had gotten bigger overnight; and I was cautiously optimistic that this might be the day! So I decided to prep the sheds with fresh hay for her, just in case, and took our digital camera with me to chronicle the day:
I have been somewhat protective of Hannah since we got her because she is low on the totem pole and her gentle disposition makes her a default bullying target for the stronger does. And assuming this was her first kidding, I asked, if it be His will, that the Lord would allow me to be present for her delivery. Some goats like the moral support of their owner by their side, and it seemed Hannah appreciated me being there. So I was very thankful that He granted my request, and I was excited that some new neighbors came by to visit right when Hannah was going into hard labor, and they had the opportunity to witness it as well.
It is now several days later, and our new “kid” on the block, Wahlberg, is doing just fine. Again, we want to be careful to give God all of the credit and glory for perpetuating our goat herd:
Susan
Once again by His graces, the Lord has granted a new calf to our Longhorn cow Rosa, a little bull calf. He comes from the bull we’re are borrowing we call Toreo (because he’s a bull that looks like an Oreo cookie!). And so, we decided to call this new little bull Rosoreo.
Here he is in the center:
And here is a video:
As always, we are grateful to God for His continued provisions, and for this one, in His graces and mercies.
— David
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