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.
The Lord once again saw fit in His graces, mercies and wisdom to grant us a new calf, a heifer, to our heifer Catalina (who with this calf has now become a cow). The calf sort of has the color of a redwood tree, so we decided to call her Secoya, which is Spanish for “redwood.”
Here is the new little one:
And here she is again, in action:
We are again very grateful to God for His provisions of this new calf.
— David
Once again God has seen it in His graces to grant another calf, this time to Casi Blanca, daughter of Amistosa. Casi is the calf shown with Ami in the second picture under “Our Herd” in the cattle introduction post. This is Casi’s first calf, a little heifer; and her name is Dulce (which means “sweet” or “candy”) because she looks like a chocolate dipped ice cream cone.
Here she is:
And here’s a video:
We are again grateful to the Lord for His provisions of this new calf and the growth of the herd.
— David
The Lord graciously saw fit to grant us another calf, a little heifer, from Rosalinda, daughter of Rosa. Rosalinda is the calf next to Rosa in the first picture in the “Our Herd” section of our cattle introduction post. This is Rosalinda’s first calf; and we have decided to call her Adelina, which means “little noble.”
Here is a picture:
And a moving picture:
We are once again grateful to God for His providence and graces and mercies in granting this addition to our herd.
— David
We didn’t know what to expect with our 2009 Spring garden, but the Lord has seen fit to provide us with plenty of water in our cistern with which to water the garden; and He has brought the increase, and what an increase! As me and my buddies Rogers and Hammerstein always say, “Zucchini is busting out all over!”
I went out to see what was available to harvest; and, boy, there was an abundance of zucchini ready to be picked:
I looked through our book, “Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning” by The Gardeners & Farmers of Terre Vivante, to see if there were ways other than canning to preserve the zucchini. The book described a very easy, lactic fermentation method. I simply washed and grated the zucchini, skin and all, and put it into canning jars with a teaspoon of salt per pint alternating layers of zucchini and salt. Then I added water to each jar leaving 1″ head space, put on the lids and caps and……that’s it! I put the jars down in the root cellar and within days we had a very delicious and fresh tasting zucchini kraut:
I also read that drying zucchini is a very good way to preserve it. I was excited to be able to utilize the wonderful solar food dryer that Dave had made. So I cut up the zucchini into slices, and within a couple of days they were shriveled and crispy! They say you can eat them like potato chips with dip or use them in soups and casseroles.
Here they are put out to dry on trays in our solar food dehydrator:
Here are the dried chips after 1-2 days in the dehydrator (the orange looking pieces are apricots which turned out delicious as well!):
I preserved the dried zucchini chips in glass jars. And I didn’t have to use the pressure canner or a drop of propane!
I also harvested a bunch of yellow summer squash I was hoping to preserve. I read online that one woman didn’t like the “mushiness” of hot packed canned squash, so she and her family started raw packing it with no water. This way it could be dipped in egg and crumbs to fry it or be used in soups and casseroles. Well, I went ahead and tried it that way, and it worked great! I’m very excited to have found this method, which opens up a wider variety of ways to use squash in meals.
In addition to canning, I also processed some of the yellow summer squash with the lactic fermentation method, as I had done with the zucchini; and it turned out fresh and tasty as well, without any freezing or canning used.
What a huge blessing to be able to capture and preserve the freshness of these garden vegetables without canning or freezing. We are careful to thank God for the bounty of this harvest as well as His many spiritual provisions.
1 Cor. 3:6 – “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”
Susan
We recently obtained a doe Pammy that had been brought down to the land from Mrs. Judy’s herd. We had placed her with Shatner our buck, and Thursday she gave birth to her first kid. Please meet Tapioca, because she’s the same color as tapioca pudding — we’ll probably call her Tappi mostly 🙂 :
She seems to be very healthy and is getting around and suckling, and Pammy seems to be doing the proper mothering things:
We once again thank the Lord for Him granting the provision of Pammy and her new doe, and we pray for help and guidance to take care of His gifts properly and biblically.
— David
The Lord by His graces and mercies saw fit to allow a calf to be born three or four days ago to one of our heifers, Tiara. Please meet our new heifer calf Lajoya, which in Spanish as two words (la joya) means “the jewel” — a jewel being something that might come from a tiara. 🙂 :
Tiara is the little calf you see walking next to her mother Amistosa in the first picture of our blog post introducing the cattle. And now with Tiara having her first calf, Lajoya is the first grandcalf from one of Sue’s and my cows.
Here is a video of her just a day or two after being born. We’ve seen her prancing around in the morning and evening, and so I think daytime is sleepy time:
We thank God once again for His gracious provisions and blessings!
— David
The Lord has been gracious and merciful in granting the water provisions and growth thus far for our garden. We thought we’d just post a progress update.
Here are the onions, cabbage, and a few tomato plants in the first bed; and carrots in the second:
Again the carrots; squash, zucchini and cucumber in the next bed; green beans in the bed after that; and peppers and okra in the one after that (although you probably can’t see those too well):
These are more tomato plants:
And finally, the green shading you see in the cleared area are turnip sprouts. We also planted turnips in a tilled portion of our field (not pictured). We are hoping to grow them for ourselves, but mostly as animal feed:
We thank God for the progress on the garden and all of His provisions for it.
— David
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