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Community Singing – July 2010

July 21, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 9 Comments

In a past blog post about fellowship activities around here, I mentioned the singing we do together on the Lord’s Day. We had recently gone through our “hymnal” (which is just a collections of hymns we had put together) and removed probably 2/3 of the hymns as they were either doctrinally incorrect or just fluff pieces with no real spiritual meat; and now, it seems over time we’re leaning more toward the singing of the Psalms from our psalter as our preferred song choices, given that they are based on God’s Word, where we believe God has dictated how He should be worshiped (see the regulative principle of worship).

In our singing of the Psalms, we’re also trying to learn them by heart so that when the Psalter is not around, either at times during the day now, or perhaps if we’re ever prohibited from having it, we will be able to continue to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.

We’ve recorded our Psalm singing a couple of times now (which we hope to continue to do), and since some of you might be learning from the same Psalter we are, or even if you’re not, I wanted to share them with you. I look forward to listening to them myself as hearing songs repeatedly helps me memorize them:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

(This is not the performance-oriented “worship” that occurs in most “churches” today; it is just simple a capella Psalm singing.)

It is our prayer that God glorifies Himself through us, at times of singing His praises, and throughout our lives in any way He might.

— David

William of Orange

July 12, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 3 Comments

Recently, the our neighbors captured a garbage bandit in a live trap they had set. The culprit was an orange tabby cat, a male. He ended up being quite friendly, and some of their children wanted to keep him, but the decision was made against that, and he was offered to us actually.

Sue had been wanting a cat for some time, but we really need things to have utility value around here. We have had some mice problems in our barn; and so, I decided that he could be beneficial to have for our barn; and I could do a little something for Sue as well, especially given how friendly he seemed.

So, we decided to take him; and here is how we decided on a name:

On March 17 of each year, we have a tradition around here of having an orange party, with orange being the somewhat official color of Protestants, in protest of the Roman Catholic St. Patrick’s Day and their green color. Some time ago, Protestants in Northern Ireland and Scotland took the color orange in honor of William the III, also known as William of Orange, and for his stands against the Roman Catholics, especially on this day, July 12, where he defeated the antichrist Roman Catholic forces at the Battle of the Boyne (see the “Antichrist” section on our “Soul Info” page regarding our belief that the Pope and Roman Catholic Church are the Antichrist and religious system of Antichrist).

And so, since orange, being the color of Protestants, was derived from William of Orange; and since our cat is also “of orange” — of orange color, that is — we decided to call him William.

Here are some pictures:

Cats apparently like to lay around a lot it seems, especially during the day — at least, this one does:

Also, I must say that he is the friendliest animal I think I’ve ever been around. We keep him inside with us during the day, unless he wants to cruise around outside; and he really likes to just hang around people:

But, here he is earning his keep:

William’s fun to have around; and he seems to be doing his job, at least to some degree; and he doesn’t cost too much to maintain.

We’re thankful to the Lord for granting us this living mouse catcher, and we pray God grant that William fulfill his duties. We’re thankful for this friendly gift of creation, but we pray the Lord grant us a continued proper perspective on animals without sinning by having inordinate affections. Also, we stand with our Protestant brethren throughout time who have been faithful to Christ against Antichrist, even to death: see Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Piglets

July 8, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 6 Comments

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve had some piglets born; but the Lord has graciously granted a litter to our gilt Missy. She was one of two that survived her litter, and was the smaller of the two, but was a fighter. She had a fairly large gash on her leg when she was young, but God granted her healing. Also, she got caught in a hail storm some time ago, which we believe was the cause of her ears swelling up like pillows. In researching the condition, there was basically one remedy suggested: lancing the ears.

That was fun. I took a folding disinfected razor blade knife out there with some hydrogen peroxide; and being this was the first time I had ever done something like that, I basically just poked it in. It burst, shooting out blood and fluid, which surprised me probably more than her. Sadly, that didn’t do the trick; so over time I had to go at it again a couple of times; but I modified my technique by poking it in and slicing down. That sure got it bleeding all right. Also, each time, I chased her around until I could pour that hydrogen peroxide on her ear. In the end, that worked much better; and her ears haven’t been swollen since; but they are somewhat deformed now.

Missy also took a long time to get pregnant. I believe we had her with two different boars, and several months with this last one; but after many estrus cycles, which we were able to track, they finally stopped.

Here is Missy (left) with the second boar Wilbur (right), borrowed from the Bunkers:

And here they are again, opposite sides:

And sure enough, almost to the day (which is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days for gestation), 11 piglets were born, all alive. This is the largest litter we’ve had; and at this point, only two have died:

Here is their introduction video, taken around the time they were born:

And here they are two and a half weeks later:

We thank God again for His gracious granting of these piglets, a healthy delivery for their mother, and for granting her a good motherly instinct.

— David

Providence’s Perennial Provisions: Agarita Berries

June 29, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 8 Comments

In trying to live off of the land, we have learned to consider ways that God via the land already provides. There are quite a few native edibles out here, one being Agarita berries. They are small, red berries that ripen around this time, and can be fairly sweet if gathered at the right time. Even a bit tart, they’re not too bad.

And so, we decided this year to pick a few, to take advantage of the gift off of the land the Lord has granted.

This is a picture of a some Agarita berry plants with fairly ripe berries:

And here is Sue gathering the berries. The Agarita plant leaves have very sharp points, and will stick you and stick in you; and so, she is wearing gloves:

When we picked the berries, we tried different methods, including using a fork to pluck them off, but decided to try to just grab as many berries as we could, which seemed to be the quickest way. However, when it came time to clean them, Sue had to go through the lot of them pulling out those prickly leaves; and in the end, it might have taken just as long to pick and clean them as it would have to just pluck them cleanly in the first place. Thanks to Sue for her patience in somewhat painfully going through all of those. Gary marveled at her patience too 🙂 :

And here are the results!

Since it’s only Sue and I here on our homestead, we have to make a lot of priority decisions as to what we spend our time doing. Because of how long it takes to collect them, we didn’t spend much more time doing that, although I went out one other time to try the fork-plucking method. And, to save time in the processing, and to continue to practice not relying on the world’s fuels, we put them in our solar food dehydrator to dry them:

If you’re interested, here is a link to some details about the Agarita berry plant (it may take a moment to open as it is the archive page). And here is the Wikipedia entry for Agarita berries.

We are grateful to God for His provisioning of these perennial berries here growing natively off of the land.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Celestina”

June 23, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

The Lord again has granted us another calf to be born, a little heifer calf, to one our our heifers Carlita, who is out of our cow Holga (who is the mother of our new calf Rafaela). This new heifer is another chocolate brown one that looks just like our new calf Bernardo. Since she looks like chocolate, and some people think chocolate is heavenly, we thought we’d call her Celestina, which means, well, “heavenly” (I know that may sound a bit carnal (or is it, caramel?); but hey, we’re just trying to give her a name 🙂 ).

Here’s a picture:

And here’s her moving picture:

As always, we are grateful to God for His provisions of this new calf, and we pray He glorifies Himself through this act of Providence.

— David

The Orchard – Update I

June 16, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 3 Comments

Well, it’s been a couple of years since we posted about the orchard we have tried to start (if you click that link, pay no attention to the immodestly dressed person in the cowboy hat 🙂 ). Each year except this one, for which we only did replacements, we have tried to put in at least a few new trees. We now have 35 fruit trees — apricot, plum, nectarine, peach, apple, pear, and persimmon, 7 pecan trees, and 10 grape vines.

Here are the fruit trees:

These are views of the fruit trees down the rows:

Here are the grape vines of the beginnings of our vineyard:

And our first little grapes! At this point, our plan for any grapes God graciously grants is to dry them into raisins:

We haven’t really received much fruit up to this point; but this year the Lord has granted some apricots, nectarines and peaches. This is our first year to have apricots, and they are the first ones to be ripe enough to pick so far:

Here is Sue gathering some:

And what we gathered:

In order to preserve the apricots without canning, freezing or having to use a preservative, we put the apricots in the solar food dehydrator. Also, I wanted to save the apricot seeds to be used in moderate quantities for the health benefits of vitamin B17; so they are being dried as well. And, on the lower shelf you can see some plums we were given, which we’re drying into prunes:

And here are a couple of pictures of the pecan trees. They really seem to grow slowly. We lost one last year too — it had been growing nicely, and then one day the leaves dried up, and it just died; and so we replaced it with a new one. Also, in order to allow the goats to keep our main homestead area mowed (thus allowing them access to all of that free food), I fenced off the orchard area, and each pecan tree, as you can see here:

We thank the Lord for allowing us to plant perennial fruit-bearing plants; and we pray for His provisions from them for many years, if it be His will.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Luchador”

June 9, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

I know from an interest and information stand-point posting calf after calf might get a little boring for some readers; but hopefully the readers will understand that these types of gracious provisions are for our livelihood, and are thus important events out here, and are wondrous in the granting of new life by our Creator.

And so, without further ado: the Lord has granted another calf to one of our cows — this one to Tiara, who is Amistosa’s daughter, and was our first born to our family on the land. It’s a little bull calf; and like the new Longhorn heifer calf born to Amistosa, he ended up with similar facial markings, much like a Mexican wrestler. Thus we decided to call him Luchador, which means “wrestler” in Spanish.

Here he is with his mama just before dark:

And here’s the live action version:

We are once again very grateful to God for granting the provisions of this new calf.

— David

The Sifford Sojournal

Page 78 of 95

Community Singing – July 2010

William of Orange

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Piglets

Providence’s Perennial Provisions: Agarita Berries

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Celestina”

The Orchard – Update I

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Luchador”

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