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Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Amadis”

March 25, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

Back around the second week of February, the Lord granted us our next calf for this year! A little bull calf from our cow Adelina! We decided to call him Amadis, which means “to love God.”

Here’s a picture of him — he’s the tan one to the right of the red calf in the middle, and his dam Adelina is to the left:

And here’s his video:

We thank the Lord as always for His graces and mercies in granting this healthy new little provision, for the safety He granted in the delivery, and for the continued safety and provision He has granted the entire herd!

— David

Chickens On Ice Show

March 15, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 4 Comments

We’ve had two straight weeks of cold fronts lately. And for us thin-skinned California-raised folk, that feels like two years! However, the Lord was very merciful in that there was one day in the middle of each week where the sun came out and it was warmer; just enough time to come out of the cave and get to town for some essentials and back again before the next wave hit. We were spoiled in January with some very mild, beautiful weather, and then the other shoe dropped hard at the end of February. Well, one morning last week I came out and was treated to some farm levity that I thought I’d share with you. This short video captures some sights, sounds and slips on our icy homestead. Hope it makes you smile 🙂

Susan

The Orchard – Winter 2015 – Fruit Tree Pruning

March 8, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

With the growth of the fruit trees the Lord granted in our orchard last year, I figured it was about time I get out there and start to prune some of them, especially the big ones.

And so, I watched a few videos, and here are a few interesting things I learned:

Peaches grow on first-year wood
The skin of apples actually helps in the photosynthesis process as well as the leaves, which is why it’s important to take out a lot of the middle of an apple tree, to allow the sun in
The worst thing you can do with pruning is not get out there and do it.

So, I got out there with the loppers and pruners, and started in.

And here are a couple before and after shots. I noticed that I became a little less timid from the first tree to the latest done: 🙂

I believe just about all, if not all, of creation has type and shadow in it of spiritual realities. The Bible talks a lot about fruit, and that there must be not only fruit, but good fruit, being beared by ones who take the name of Christ, which evidences good works brought forth in their hearts by the Spirit (Eph 5-22:23 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.“)

Even pruning is discussed in spiritual terms:

John 15:1-2 – “1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.“

Here is what Puritan commentator Dr. John Gill says about verse 2, which regards two types of people who say they are Christians:

Every branch in me that beareth not fruit
There are two sorts of branches in Christ the vine; the one sort are such who have only an historical faith in him, believe but for a time, and are removed; they are such who only profess to believe in him, as Simon Magus did; are in him by profession only; they submit to outward ordinances, become church members, and so are reckoned to be in Christ, being in a church state, as the churches of Judea and Thessalonica, and others, are said, in general, to he in Christ; though it is not to be thought that every individual person in these churches were truly and savingly in him. These branches are unfruitful ones; what fruit they seemed to have, withers away, and proves not to be genuine fruit; what fruit they bring forth is to themselves, and not to the glory of God, being none of the fruits of his Spirit and grace: and such branches the husbandman

taketh away;
removes them from that sort of being which they had in Christ. By some means or another he discovers them to the saints to be what they are; sometimes he suffers persecution to arise because of the word, and these men are quickly offended, and depart of their own accord; or they fall into erroneous principles, and set up for themselves, and separate from the churches of Christ; or they become guilty of scandalous enormities, and so are removed from their fellowship by excommunication; or if neither of these should be the case, but these tares should grow together with the wheat till the harvest, the angels will be sent forth, who will gather out of the kingdom of God all that offend and do iniquity, and cast them into a furnace of fire, as branches withered, and fit to be burnt.

And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
These are the other sort of branches, who are truly and savingly in Christ; such as are rooted in him; to whom he is the green fir tree, from whom all their fruit is found; who are filled by him with all the fruits of his Spirit, grace, and righteousness. These are purged or pruned, chiefly by afflictions and temptations, which are as needful for their growth and fruitfulness, as the pruning and cutting of the vines are for theirs; and though these are sometimes sharp, and never joyous, but grievous, yet they are attended with the peaceable fruits of righteousness, and so the end of bringing forth more fruit is answered; for it is not enough that a believer exercise grace, and perform good works for the present, but these must remain; or he must be constant herein, and still bring forth fruit, and add one virtue to another, that it may appear he is not barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ, in whom he is implanted. These different acts of the vinedresser “taking away” some branches, and “purging” others, are expressed by the Misnic doctors

It behooves us to examine whether we bear true spiritual fruit of the Spirit or not.

May He grant us His fruit, which is only brought forth by the work of His Holy Spirit in our hearts; and then may He grant us extra faith, strength of heart, and courage during times of His pruning.

Temporily, we pray for a successful pruning of our fruit trees in the Lord granting us provisions from them, according to His will.

— David

A House – Update XXXII – Attic Access

March 1, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

With the ceiling sealed in and still needing to get insulation in the attic, I also needed a way to provide an access portal into the attic. I figured having it above the closet of our bedroom was probably best, so that I could stand on top of it to be able to more easily get into the attic without having to have a taller ladder to reach the greater than 11 foot ceiling height.

After some planning and obtaining some supplies, I delved on in…

This is the panel I chose. Besides being above the closet, I wanted to use one of the half-panels so I could more easily remove and install the panel without assistance:

Here it is removed. Before removing it, I first had to remove another small panel so I could get into the attic and mark out lines where the trusses ran along the access panel, which would help me know exactly where I would need to cut:

Once the panel was down, I drew the cut lines that would make the access door. The plan was to have one side of the door be the original side of the panel and close onto a truss and cover half way, thus requiring only three cuts. The opposite side (shown top here) would lay half way on the other truss, allowing the panel to be re-attached to the truss and for the door to cover the other, exposed half of that truss when closed:

And here is the cut panel:

Attic Access Door Cut Out of Ceiling Panel

And then back into place in the ceiling:

Here is the view from the attic, showing the cross pieces in place. The cross piece that was to hold the door hinges I put flush with the ceiling panel cut, and the other side, where the latches would be, I put exposing half of the cross piece, which would allow for that side of the closed door to cover that half of the cross piece:

Then, it was on to making the door…

Here are the door frame pieces. They needed to be cut to length so the hinge side would be flush with that edge, and the other three sides would show about one inch of panel, which are what would cover the exposed halves of the trusses and cross pieces when closed, plus a little gap to keep the door frame from hitting a truss or cross piece when actually closing the door:

These are the pieces made into the door frame:

And then installed on the door:

Here, the door hardware is installed — two hinges and two bolt latches:

And close-ups of each:

This is the fancy way I held the door in place to attach the hinges to the ceiling and cross piece: 🙂

Attaching Attic Access Door Hinges to Ceiling

And here the door is closed and latched into place! One side of the bolt latch on the door didn’t have a door frame into which to put screws, so the ends of the screws were sticking out and preventing the door from completely closing; so I drilled out little holes into the cross piece where the ends of the screws would fit into:

And here is the original ceiling panel showing the new attic access door installed:

And with it open:

From the back side:

And front side:

I was amazed it actually worked. It was almost anti-climactic in that there was no “drama” with it, which there usually is in my building projects. 🙂 But, it was nice to have it work out as well as it appears to have worked.

We’re thankful as always to the Lord for granting the provisions and continued progress on the house, and I’m thankful to Him for the idea and plans for making this bit of the project seem to work successfully.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Vinicio”

February 19, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

Apparently calf dropping time is upon us! Several weeks ago, Rosa strolled up to be fed with a new little calf by her side — a little bull calf, that we’re going to call Vinicio, which means “vine,” because he’s red, and wine is red and comes from the fruit of a vine. 🙂

Anyway, here is a picture of him, his daddy is on the left:

First 2015 Pure Longhorn Bull Calf Vinicio

And one with Rosa and I believe Manolito, Rosa’s calf from last year (so Vinicio’s big brother):

New Longhorn Calf Vinicio with His Mother and Brother

And here’s a little video of him. I say he’s a couple of months old in the video, but it’s closer to one month:

We are grateful to the Lord for granting this first safe and healthy calf of the new year! And we are always thankful for His continued provisions, both spiritually and temporily.

— David

A House – Update XXXI – External Wall Insulation

February 9, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

With the wood-burning stove in place, and the ceiling panels all up, the last major piece of the house-heating puzzle was the rest of the external wall insulation. We had already done the bedroom insulation some time back, but now it was time to complete the other rooms.

First, I went around and stuffed insulation in all of the door frame gaps using a shim:

And then I started working my way around the house, beginning with the great room living room:

Then behind the cook stove and into the kitchen. I also took the heat barrier we had been using for our barn stove and put it behind the house one:

Great Room Kitchen Wall Insulation & Heat Barrier Behind Wood-Burning Cook Stove

Through the rest of the kitchen:

And finally in the library:

And there it was! Ready for guests!

And here is a picture from outside showing the lamps and candles lit in the house for the first time we had the group over for a community meeting on a cold night!

First Cold Weather Community Meeting in Our House After House External Wall Insulation From Outside

And from inside with the camera flash before everyone got there:

First Cold Weather Community Meeting in Our House After House External Wall Insulation

Once again, we are most grateful to the Lord for supplying the resources for continuing the house, to those out there who have helped with them, and we are very thankful and excited to be able to finally host the group, and hopefully in a bit of comfort. Last year, we had to cancel some meetings because the community center stove pipe is rusted through, so we’re glad we can now meet once again, to sing praises to God and learn about the Lord Christ, in unity together, we pray for His glory, even in colder weather!

May He grant us the heat of His charity in our hearts!

— David

The Barn – Update III – First Animal Stall

January 30, 2015 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

One of the purposes of having a barn was to have animal stalls in it, for keeping animals or for when they would need to be out of the weather. We really wanted to be able to have this shelter for the goats available this winter, and with some of the loft in place, and us having a pretty cold few days of weather, and us having some sick and/or shivering goats, I quickly formulated what I hoped would be a fairly inexpensive plan, got some materials, and started in on putting up our first animal stall!

I was originally going to use three rows of 2x6s, but in judging the costs, it was less expensive to use four rows of 2x4s, so that’s what I went with. I simply just screwed them into the loft posts. Here is the long-side wall:

And the short wall and gate. I just buried a landscape timber for the wall end:

Here it is with the gate closed:

And its hinges:

And its latch:

And then open:

I wanted to make sure their eating-hay was off the ground, so I took some left-over 2x6s from the braces we used to keep the porch posts from twisting, and some left-over plywood, made a couple of frames, with the back one a little higher, tied them together on the ends, et voila! Hay trough! I initially just set it up against the stall wall, but I wondered; and sure enough, soon after putting goats in the stall, they tipped it forward; so as a temporary solution, I stuck a cinder block underneath the front frame:

Here’s a view from inside the stall, with all of the hay on the floor too:

With the gated-wall being not too steady, I added a corner brace that you can see in the lower part of the picture:

And that was it! I put it all together basically in a little longer than a morning.

And we immediately had some customers!

Winnie, the white one, had been having non-eating spells every so often, and was particularly sensitive to the cold; and so, we brought her in, along with Annie to keep her company, and because Annie sometimes is last in a shed because she’s low goat in the “pecking” order. And of course, they had on their sweaters. If you look closely, in this and the final picture, you can see that we draped blankets over the lower rails to help prevent drafts from blowing on them while laying on the hay:

Lucy had also been not eating much and shivering, so at one point we brought her in as well. She needed at least one blanket too, maybe more. So did Winnie at times:

And finally…Winnie being Winnie, and styling with the scarf, I must say! 🙂

Goat Climbed Up Barn Animal Stall Wall Looking Over

In the end, it seemed to really help them all through the cold and wet times. All the goats made it through their non-eating/sick times, thanks to the Lord; and they’re all still with the rest of the herd.

As always, we’re grateful to God for granting the provisions to provide this hideaway for the animals, the idea for its design, and that it seemed to all work pretty well!

— David

The Sifford Sojournal

Page 50 of 93

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Amadis”

Chickens On Ice Show

The Orchard – Winter 2015 – Fruit Tree Pruning

A House – Update XXXII – Attic Access

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Vinicio”

A House – Update XXXI – External Wall Insulation

The Barn – Update III – First Animal Stall

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