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Garden – Spring 2015

May 8, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 5 Comments

A little over a month ago, with the weather looking like it was going to hold and not bring another freeze, it was that time of year to begin the garden! Always a joyous time of hope!

The War of the Weeds

As always too, there is a constant war with the weeds. Over the Winter, they certainly had their way with the garden areas:

But I had the tool and the power! 🙂 These hoop hoes work great!

And here are the results!

May the Spirit of Christ weed the garden of our hearts continually by His almighty power!

Planting

Once I figured we were clear of a freeze, we got to it, sowing seeds. Here Sue is helping:

We also discovered that a zucchini we had planted last year decided to start growing now!

And here we are as of today, freshly weeded again yesterday. 🙂 I’ve been a little disappointed because a lot of things didn’t germinate, not to murmur as we know all of these things are in God’s sovereign and wise hands, but to maybe understand if I’m doing something wrong. We’re still learning about planting in the mulch beds, and perhaps I really need to get them started in small containers first. Also, someone here asked if the seed was old, and it was, so I’m hoping that’s the real problem.

Anyway, we are thankful for what the Lord is granting! The beans always do great around here. There is also some squash to the left. Between them were peppers, but none of them sprouted:

These are the tomatoes. We’re trying putting them in the shaded area to see how they do there:

And this is that zucchini from last year! That’s kinda funny to me. 🙂

And if you look closely, you can see just a few others, I think maybe a pumpkin, and maybe some more okra:

I thought I’d try starting some more in some good soil, but only the okra (I believe) is coming up. This might help confirm that “old seed” theory:

We are always thankful for the provisions the Lord grants, even daily for our daily bread! We pray He continues to direct us in these agrarian activities.

May He grant us good soil in our hearts, not hardened (where Christ and His truth make no impact and are stolen away by sin, temptation and the devil), not stony (where faith withers under trials and persecutions), nor thorny (where they are taken away by the cares of the world). Mark 4:4-20

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Natilla”

May 3, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

Around the time of our last calf, Mateo, was born, we found another calf in tow, this time with our cow Holga. The calf is our first heifer of the year, and because of her creamy color, we’re calling her Natilla, which is “custard” in Spanish. Where she got that color I have no idea. 🙂

And here she is:

And her video:

We are very thankful to the Lord for the continued safe and healthy delivery and calves, and for His continued provisions for them!

— David

Goat Field Grass

April 27, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 3 Comments

When I had bought the seed to plant the north field with sorghum almum (with some millet as a filler), I also had bought enough to plant one of the goat fields that has just turned into more of a place in which the dogs can run around than anything else.

So, just a couple of weeks ago, after the field had been plowed, I wanted to get it planted before some potential rains, and so Sue and I got out there and just walked around, hand-throwing the seed:

Also, I thought I’d use the shack caddy similarly to how we did the north field, dragging it; but I really didn’t want to use the truck or tractor; and although I forgot about it initially, I didn’t want to hook up the chain to make drag “fingers” like for the north field, as we wouldn’t have been able to pull the caddy by hand with them.

So, Sue graciously accepted my invitation to help me drag it around the field, and we got out there and did it. The result wasn’t as good as having the chain “fingers” behind, but I was hoping it would be sufficient to cover enough of the seed, and that the rains would do the rest.

And here we are on our little “romantic” walk in the field together, including shots from the DavidCam and the SusanCam! 🙂

Thanks to Sue for the help and nice time together! 🙂 And thanks to the Lord for the provisions to plant, and we pray the Lord might grant the grass in the field, so we can be further sustaining, relying on Him directly!

— David

David’s Digest: Of Reviling

April 22, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 3 Comments

I came across these verses as I was going through 1 Corinthians in Puritan Dr. John Gill’s commentary:

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – “9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.“

Reviling is listed here by Paul as a great sin. But what does reviling mean? Here is what Gill says:

Nor revilers;
who are free with other men’s characters, load them with reproaches, and take away their good names; either openly or secretly, either by tale bearing, whispering, and backbiting, or by raising and spreading scandalous reports in a public manner.

That’s pretty clear, and convicting.

Reviling is highly divisive and strife-causing, allowing the devil to drive in wedges, which he knows works to destroy (Matt 12:25). Even secret reviling is a grievous sin. Sadly, I find this in myself at times, for which I ask God for forgiveness and that He grant me repentance and help against this.

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Mateo”

April 17, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

Once again, the Lord granted us another calf this year, another little bull calf from our cow Amistosa! We’ve given him the name Mateo, which means “gift of God.”

Here are a couple pictures of him — he has the grey coloring from his daddy:

Another View of New Pure Longhorn Calf Mateo

And here’s a video of him, and him with the other two calves we’ve done blog posts about before:

We are always grateful for these gracious gifts of God. We pray they’re used for His glory, and the benefit of His Church!

— David

A House – Update XXXIII – Wood-Burning Cook Stove – Update I – Baking & Hot Water

April 7, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

With our wood burning cook stove in place, it was time to try it out on things other than just keeping the house warm.

It has a water trough on the back to heat water, and David will talk about that in the second part of the blog post, but it also has an oven, and we thought Susan could take you along for the ride of her first foray into baking with it! …..

“Go Ahead, Bake My Day”

I had grown fairly comfortable with cooking and heating things on our newly functioning wood burning stove top, but the oven seemed like this intimidating metal monster with its steely stare saying “Do you feel ‘lucky’ punk? Go ahead, bake my day.” Well, I figured I didn’t have much to lose in that our propane oven had been broken for a time, so I overcame my hesitancy with this opportunity to bake again. And if it was edible – bonus!! I couldn’t go “too” far wrong with simple cookies, right?

Cookies Ready for Wood Burning Cook Stove Oven

So, while I still had the courage, I hurriedly prepared my snickerdoodle cookie dough, took a deep breath, walked ten paces towards the oven, nervously opened the door, quickly slid our inaugural cookies onto the baking shelf and closed the door yelling “Bake THAT!”

Well, we soon found that 375 degrees F are not the same in different ovens, according to how quickly these were baking:

Wood Burning Stove Oven Almost 400 Degrees

I’m still not sure which oven has the correct temperature, but I was thrilled something had actually gone from soft and doughy to hard and crunchy! Practice makes perfect, so I attempted to disarm the metal monster by singing “Getting to Know You” to it…..

First Plate of Wood Burning Stove Oven-Cooked Cookies

My attempt at making a new friend must have had some impact. Here is my second batch after adjusting the temperature and baking time. Much better!

I don’t have to tell you which batch is which. 😉 They were all very tasty, though! (Clarification: I didn’t personally eat them all, but I did take the liberty of sampling the heck out of them):

First Two Plates of Wood Burning Oven-Cooked Cookies

I figured I’d keep going and strike while the oven was hot, so I made up some dinner rolls and shoved them into the metal monster’s mouth, as well:

First Biscuits Ready for Wood Burning Cook Stove Oven

You’d think I would have learned from the cookies, but I still needed to fine-tune these batches. I’ll let you guess which was batch number one. 🙂 But it was all edible, thanks to God! Another monster slayed; another friend made! Hopefully, my baking in this new stove will get better over time. Thankfully, I have a wonderfully understanding, patient and supportive husband:

First Two Batches of Biscuits Cooked in Wood Burning Stove Oven

We are so thankful to have this method of baking that doesn’t rely on anything we need to buy. I realize women have been baking this way for hundreds of years, but now I’m one of them!! With God’s help, if He wills it, I hope to continue to improve in my baking and utilize this stove for many years to come.

Susan

Wood, Ashes and the Hot Water Trough

We’re still a little unorganized with our wood piles, but here is some of it stacked inside where the kitchen counter will, Lord willing, go one day. I do plan to build an indoor wood pile stacker:

And here is the staging area outside next the house entrance:

This is where we’re collecting our ashes. This fairly large, handy galvanized pail works great!

In our first wood-burning attempts, we didn’t really know how to get the ashes to burn all the way down, so some charcoal was left over. I’m thinking after wiping off any ash these could be crushed up and used as activated charcoal:

And here is a video of the hot water coming out of the water trough. It works great! Not that the water is really potable, but I figure the animals’ health won’t really be compromised by using the hot water once in a while when their water is thickly frozen on top and it dilutes with the water already there:

We are thankful once again to the Lord for granting the provisions of the wood burning cook stove and some successful oven and hot water trough usage!

— David

Wheat 2015

April 2, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

Back in October or November, we planted a wheat crop for this year. Since we had decided to try to keep our inner field in the native grass that had started to grow last year, I thought I’d take one of our goat fields and use it for a crop, figuring it would be a more manageable size (I think they’re each about 1/2 acre, while the inner field is something like 3 1/2).

There are some places where Winter weeds have grown in, especially where the chickens ate the wheat down in the south east (front right) corner, but we thought we would just post a quick mention about it, and show where it is after the majority of the Winter weather has very hopefully passed. 🙂 These are from mid March: