The Sifford Sojournal

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.

Page 45 of 94

Garden – Winter 2016 – Mini-Greenhouses

Sue came across this article about sowing seeds in the winter using mini-greenhouses out of milk cartons or two-liter soda bottles (or anything similar). Once again, this is the kind of idea I like: easy to do and inexpensive, assuming you have the containers, which we do, from the club soda we like to drink. đŸ™‚ The nice thing about these too is that the seedlings are apparently already hardened!

And so, I obtained some seeds for vegetables that apparently can grow in the winter — cabbage, broccoli, beats and peas — and started making our little greenhouses…

After removing the label, I drilled 1/8 inch holes in the very bottom:

Drilling Bottom Hole in Club Soda Bottle

And also up about 3/4-1 inch, all to try to make sure water can flow through so it does not sit and rot the seeds and roots:

Drilling Upper Hole in Club Soda Bottle

Then, I made a starter slice in the side, and cut around, leaving maybe 2 1/2 inches uncut for the bend:

Making Side Slice

Cutting Around the Bottle

Finished Mini-Greenhouse Opened Up

And then, it was off to the garden. Here is one with the soil in it, and then set in place in the mulch garden bed:

Soil in Mini-Greenhouse

Mini-Greenhouse Set in Garden Mulch Bed

And here are the first results!

First Mini-Greenhouse Seedling Sprouts

And finally, this is where we are as of yesterday morning:

Garden with Many Mini-Greenhouses

And those same first sprouts! They even survived the snow we recently had:

First Seedlings Growing Some More

Excellent! Thanks to the Lord for granting the germination and seedling growth!

Many of the seeds have sprouted, so we’ll have to see how this progresses through the winter, as God might grant.

We are thankful to Him for being able to work to grow our own food, and new and creative ideas, and we pray He might indeed grant provisions from the garden, in accordance with His will!

— David

A Boar-ing Update, Take 2 & 3

As we mentioned in our last pig update, we had purchased Odysseus to mate with our female Penelope. We left them together for four months and then took him to the butcher, expecting her to deliver any time. Well, four more months passed, and…..nothing. Bummer.

I’ve been trying to figure out what do to, and asking God, as we try to do with everything, that He would direct in this. I really like the line of Durocs we have had, and have been hoping to try to breed Penelope still, but if that’s not what God would have, I have asked He would direct whichever way He would.

Well, one day much to their surprise, Michael and family found out one of their Duroc females had dropped a litter of piglets. She hadn’t been placed with a boar, so the assumption was a wild boar got to her, which was evidenced in the characteristics of the piglets. Given that, I thought it might be nice to get one of those males and mate him with Penelope. And when they were big enough, so I thought, we began the process…

The first fellow we put with her was pretty small, although they got along pretty well. However, by afternoon that day, he was gone, and we found him again back with his mamma and siblings. We were happy that he at least made it back with them. So, we figured it might be good to let them grow up some more before trying again…

Take 3! We rounded up a young male again, which ended up being a different one this time, and began the operation of putting him together with Penelope. This at first didn’t go very well. Penelope became downright hostile, even to me at one point — very unlike her. But, eventually, they have learned to at least get along, and are cohabiting relatively peacefully now.

When trying to figure out what to call him, with his long, wild-hog snout, he reminded me of the aardvark from The Ant and the Aardvark cartoon, so we decided to name him Ardy. And here he is:

New Mating Boar Ardy

While a bit long, this video takes you on the journey of putting the first little one with her, and then how it went with Ardy. It shows Penelope snapping aggressively at me at one point, then slamming her snout full speed into a tree chasing Ardy, but also a couple of weeks later things being much more calm. And finally, I take you along for a morning feeding with them, which includes views from the bucket cam! đŸ™‚


We thank the Lord for this opportunity, and His continued health and safety with the animals (and me at that one point). We pray He might grant provisions from these two, or show us a different direction if that’s what He would rather have.

— David

Try to Remember the Snow of December (2015)

It’s somewhat rare here, thankfully, but it snowed overnight here, and this is what we woke up to this morning!

December 2015 Snow

December 2015 Snow 2

December 2015 Snow 3

December 2015 Snow 4

December 2015 Snow 5

December 2015 Snow 6

December 2015 Snow 7

December 2015 Snow 8

December 2015 Snow 9

December 2015 Snow 10

December 2015 Snow 11

On this one, the snow drift formed into a wave extending out from the roof of the barn (you can see it more in the video):

Wave Snow Drift Off the Barn

And, Sue took a video of the area as well:


While very cold, and a reminder of winter, and the time of death out of which life springs (a type or shadow of Christ), the snow is beautiful, white and pure like Christ, and brings always-needed moisture to the ground. We are thankful to the Lord for His mercies in the weather, and for the warmth and shelters He has allowed us to have!

— David

A House – Update XXXVIII – Closet Ceiling, Bedroom Windows Internal Siding, Pier Bracket Replacement, & Birdhouse

After some of the great room siding had been done, we’ve been able to continue on the house, with the assistance of Robert.

Closet/Pantry/Bathroom Ceiling

Next job was the closet/pantry room/bathroom ceiling. Here are the cross blocks:

Closet Ceiling Blocks

And Robert working up there:

Robert Putting Plywood Down on Closet Ceiling

And the ceiling done. We can hopefully even store some things up there now as well:

East-West Closet Ceiling Done

North-South Closet Ceiling Done

Enclosing the Bedroom

We decided to go ahead and try to make the bedroom its own sealed-in room so we could have separate heat in there at some point, and so we needed the siding around the bedroom windows to go up, in preparation for installing the windows:

Bedroom Windows Internal Siding

More Foundation Beam Work

After adding spacers to the south beam to level it some, I didn’t like how the end of the beam was torquing still a little, with the pier being very slightly tipped that way, and so I thought I might try replacing the pier bracket with a wider one so I could set the beam a little bit back on the pier and add a side spacer to help keep the beam a little more vertical. And here is that process…

Here the beam is raised:

Raising House Beam

And here, loosening and removing the bracket:

Loosening Pier Bracket

Removing Pier Bracket

This is the bracket removed:

Pier Bracket Removed

And the new one in place:

New Pier Bracket in Place

Again, I used the floor jack to push back the bottom of the beam. I also temporarily removed the hurricane clips from the beam and floor joists to allow it to maybe pivot back a little easier:

Pushing Beam in Place with Floor Jack

And here the beam is set back down with the 2×4 side spacer in place. Hopefully that will help!

Beam Back in Place on New Pier Bracket

Birdhouse

And finally, one other nice touch for this update: young Elijah, one of the Stonger boys, built us a birdhouse, which we put up on the south side of the house! Thanks Elijah, and nice job!

Birdhouse

As always, we are very thankful to the Lord for providing for continued progress on the house!

— David

Community Singing – December 2015

This past Lord’s Day we were able to meet to record the next set of Psalms from the psalter we use! It is always our prayer God glorify Himself in these things, and through us in whatever way He may!

(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 41A-44F

Sue and I sing a Psalm each evening as part of our family worship. Interestingly, William our cat almost every single time if he is around, once we start singing, comes over to us from wherever he is and hops up onto the couch or Sue’s lap while we sing and just hangs out with us. It is near 100% that he joins us like this, so we thought we’d show you that fun nightly event!


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

We are always thankful to the Lord for granting us His word, and the opportunity to learn the Psalms in this manner! May these always be praises and prayers from our hearts, and we ask and thank Him for His condescending ear to hear them!

— David

Critter Corner – Texas Redheaded Centipede, Butterflies, Tree Cricket, Roadrunner, Ring-Necked Pheasant

We’ve had some interesting and sometimes new visitors around the homestead this 2015, so we thought we’d show you some of them…

Texas Redheaded Centipede

Ran into this fellow next to our cattle trailer. A little creepy given its size, but this was a relatively small one as they can get to be 8-9 inches, and has beautiful colors. Apparently, their bite is painful and mostly just causes localized swelling, but some people can have worse reactions:

Texas Redheaded Centipede
More of Texas Redheaded Centipede

Butterflies, Tree Cricket, Roadrunner, Ring Necked Pheasant

Here is a video of a bunch of beautiful butterflies that decided one day to be or fly around the front of the barn, a tree cricket “singing” its song, a roadrunner that had been hanging about quite a bit, and what we identified as a ring necked pheasant—a new visitor we haven’t seen before. The tree cricket is a little blurry given the video was taken at night, but it can sure vibrate those wings!


We are thankful to the Lord for allowing us to see His marvelous works in creation!

— David

Garden – Spring 2015 – Update III

The Lord has graciously granted our garden to continue through most of the Fall. But, our first freeze came recently, so we took some final pictures…

We kept the beans going through the Summer, even though we had to water with pond water, but they never really did much after the beans we got in the Spring. But, the okra just kept going and going!

Okra & Beans

The tomatoes have kept going too, although about the only thing actually fruiting are the cherry tomatoes:

Tomatoes

More Tomatoes

And here’s more okra:

More Okra

With the first freeze on the way, about the only thing we could cover were the tomatoes, which we did, with double blankets in some places:

Tomatoes Covered with Blankets for First Freeze

And here they are after the freeze. The double blankets worked really well! The rest of the garden plants basically were killed in the freeze.

Tomatoes After the Freeze

Tomatoes After the Freeze

That was about the last of trying to maintain it, with freezes coming and going, and we have had several light freeze nights, which have pretty much finished off the tomatoes. And so, this is the final garden haul from this year from just a few days ago!

Final Batch of Tomatoes

We are very thankful to God for the garden provisions He granted this 2015! Lots of okra, which Sue lacto-fermented for long-term storage! Again, we are very grateful!

— David

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