Vaughnshire Farm

I am a little late on the latest news in the homeschool blogsphere.  However, the 2006 Homeschool Blog Awards are here…

Nominations will be accepted from March 26th- April 6th.

Voting for these nominations will begin on Friday April 9th. 

They have added a bunch of new categories this year.  Be sure to read the rules first. 

Over this next month, our family will be preparing to move to our farm.  My computer blogging time is limited, but after we get settled and my quadrant 3 activities are organized (Ha), my blogging format will be changing.  You will have to stay tuned to see what we have up our sleeve.  However, in the mean time, blogging will be sporadic. 

Ok… Speaking of gardening…

Because of our soon to be move, I have not planted anything in the ground.  Actually, it is too early still to plant summer plants with our start date being April 25th.  Being a Texas girl, after we moved here, I thought people were nuts around here when they would tell me that I needed to wait until the last frost date of April 25th to start my garden.  My first garden here, I planted before I was supposed to because the weather was so nice.  That next day it snowed all day…in April!  Of course it didn’t stick, but I learned that I should trust the locals.  Now that I am starting to feel like an adopted local, I stick to the the “cool weather plants and warm weather plants in their proper seasons” format. 

Currently spring is springing and we are seeing more and more flowers and leaves pop out each day.  It makes the gardener in me want to plant something!  Last week, I started seed trays so that when we get moved, I will have some good size starter plants to plant in the ground.  I planted squash, cucumber, more lettuce, and some herbs - sweet basil, sage, oregano, cilantro. 

I would like to try some staggered planting this year.  The idea is to plant in stages to maximize your quantity and length of harvest.  If you were to plant 10 plants, the fruit would be ready approximately at the same time.  However, if you planted 5 plants and then 3 weeks later plant 5 more plants and then 3 weeks later plant 5 more, you can control your produce to work for your family.  It works well on things like lettuce where you can have a consistent harvest of lettuce without it all turning bitter before you can eat it all.   

For now, I am enjoying reading gardening and herb books and finding experienced gardeners from which I can learn from. 

Here are some highlights from my favorite trips this month: 

Trip one: 
Spent:  $11.79
Coupons and Store Savings:  $50.89

I also sent in my receipt for a $10 rebate.  So my total for this trip was $1.79! Because of this trip, I am stocked on trash bags for a long time. 

Trip two: 
Our small town grocery store ran a .10 cent sale on produce.  Each item was .10 cents and here was the breakdown:

10 grapefruit
20 oranges
20 apples
5 lemons
20 red potatoes
50 potatoes

So for a little over $12 I was able to get loads of fresh produce.  I saved over $67 that trip. Unfortunately, that produce didn’t last as long as I thought it would.  I’ve decided that we need a greenhouse in addition to a big garden.  I was reminded of a conversation I had with an older woman a while back.  She told me that while she was raising her 5 boys, she planted a 1 acre garden every year to supply enough food for them as well as provide food for canning.  I was inspired by her wisdom and reminded that this type of gardening use to be norm in our culture.

I am looking forward to dropping my grocery bill even more with gardening this spring and summer but more than a grocery bill savings, I am wanting that fresh, organic, natural, local food. 

I’ve intended to right on this topic for some time. However, I think Mr. Powers gives a great summery of the issue and stands on principled ground with his decision.

This would also serve as a rebuke to my own state leadership in TN who scoffed at the notion of supporting the removal of the Nevada dissidents. I guess once you have power you want to stay with the one who gave it to you.

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Dear fellow American:

I am writing you today to make you aware of the current status of the Constitution Party, and in particular, its affiliate here in Minnesota. I have been an active member of the Constitution Party of Minnesota since February 2003. In that time, I have served as Secretary/Treasurer of the 1st District Constitution Party, Chairman of Minnesotans for Peroutka, and most recently as their US Senate candidate.

Since 2003, the Nevada affiliate of the Constitution Party, the Independent American Party of Nevada (IAPNV), has elected and retained a chairman that is a vocal proponent of aborticide, referring to children conceived of rape and incest as “trespassers and intruders deserving of extermination.” Chris Hansen is a zealous member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a pseudo-Christian cult that believes in continuing revelation from its President/Prophet that supersedes all previous revelation including the Holy Bible and their own Book of Mormon. Members of this corporation are more colloquially referred to as Mormons.

The national Constitution Party platform states an opposition to infanticide for any reason including rape and incest. This human life plank had been bedrock to the party. So important was this plank, that in 1998 the national committee unanimously passed a resolution denying support to any candidate that would promote a view divergent from the Sanctity of Life plank. It would stand to reason that there should be discipline for any affiliate of the Constitution Party that would elect pro-abortion officers.

Ever since Mr. Hansen’s public promotion of abortion as the IAPNV’s Chairman, principled pro-lifers have sought resolution to the issue. Beginning with pleadings with Mr. Hansen to resign, to putting in a disciplinary process for wayward affiliates, and finally a resolution to disaffiliate the IAPNV at the 22 April 2006 national committee meeting in Tampa FL, all of these proposals and requests were rebuffed by the national committee.

Current estimates state that over 1/3 of Constitution Party national committee members are Mormons, and most of the employees of the national Constitution Party are Mormons. This past election season, Mormon-controlled Constitution Party affiliates in Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada ran pro-abortion candidates. Mr. Hansen and his supporters contend that they cannot be held to the life plank or any other plank of the Constitution Party platform if their Prophet decrees opposition. By the logic of Hansen, Inc., a Satanist should be welcome in the Constitution Party and should be exempt from the party platform rather than be in opposition to her religious beliefs.

Since at least 1996, Constitution Party literature has been critical of the Republican Party and its candidates that are in direct opposition to the Republican Party platform. The Constitution Party has in principle now jettisoned its much flaunted motto, “Principle over Politics!,” and made itself no better than the Republican Party.

The Constitution Party has promoted itself as a patriotic pro-life Christian party since its founding in 1992. This is no longer the case. The Constitution Party is now more interested in peripheral issues such as immigration, taxation, and more importantly supplanting the Republican and Democratic Parties. By the standards of today’s Constitution Party, any person is welcome and can hold a leadership position as long as they hold agreement with at least one plank of the platform. To be consistent, the Constitution Party should welcome Greens since they oppose the Federal Reserve. The only crime in the Constitution Party is to be a sincere Christian that stands firm on the Word of God, the Holy Bible.

Since April 2006, nine affiliates of the Constitution Party have left to become independent political parties, including Michael Peroutka’s Maryland, Rick Jore’s Montana, and Mark Moore’s Arkansas. Other affiliates are expected to leave in the next year, among them: Wisconsin, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas. Many other individuals have left the Constitution Party when their own state affiliates chose not to disaffiliate, including Reed Heustis of California, and Cal Zastrow of Michigan.

Today, I was privileged to present a disaffiliation resolution for the Constitution Party of Minnesota. Unfortunately, this resolution was not adopted. I am writing to let you know that I have resigned my leadership positions in the Constitution Party. Being a leader in any organization implies a duty to promote that organization. I cannot continue to promote the Constitution Party (including doing parades) and remain true to my Christian faith. I now refer to myself as an independent, and not a Constitutionalist.

I have not dropped out of politics. I strongly encourage every one to work hard for the candidate that they most agree with at any level whether that man is running for township board or President of these united States of America without regard to party affiliation. Most important, I encourage you to daily immerse yourself in God’s complete Word, the Holy Bible. In addition, regularly visit Michael Peroutka’s website, The American View, http://www.TheAmericanView.com.

George Washington implored the American public in his 1796 Farewell Address to avoid loyalty to party over principle. I see the wisdom in Mr. Washington’s advice. The Constitution Party no longer promotes our nation’s Biblical foundation, and rather desires to have its hands on the levers of power at all costs. How does the Constitution Party expect voters to trust them to restore a nearly 220 year old document when they will not even follow their own stated principles?

Sincerely,

Benjamin Powers

Ok, so it’s March and we have been on a break from blogging for a while.  After all a man has to feed his family.  But what about all those Christmas posts back in December?  What about Christmas?  I promised I would share my thoughts….so, here are a few thoughts.

First nowhere in scripture does Christ tell us to remember his birth.  He tells us to remember his death and resurrection (as often as we come together), but not the birth.

Secondly, we do not even know the date of his birth.  The date that is celebrated is a date that belongs to a pagan deity.  It is and always has been a pagan celebration.

Commercialism and materialism do not glorify Christ.  Ask any child you meet in December what they like about Christmas.  It will not be the “idea” that Christ was born on that day… Oh not my child someone says, but if 99% of the children understand the day as “getting” something then why would we as Christians participate in it?  What is the most popular question asked by adults to children that are not theirs in December?  “What are you getting for Christmas this year?”  Or, “What is Santa going to bring you?”  Of course they always start with, “Have you been a good little boy or girl this year?”  After all we must be good to get our gifts.  Is there anything in the season that says we must obey the God who created us?

Christmas was not celebrated nationally until the mid 1800’s.  So what was wrong with all those Christians who lived in the country for the 200 years prior to this time?  Where they just not as well informed as we are today?  It is also interesting to note that the rise in the popularity of the Catholic holiday directly coincides with the industrial revolution.  Maybe dad felt guilty for leaving home and the giving of gifts helped to relieve that guilt.

Prior to this, the only groups to celebrate Christmas in America where the Anglicans and Catholics.  The Puritans, Baptist, and Presbyterians did not celebrate Christmas until the mid 1800s.

Lastly, here is the question I would encourage everyone to ask.  Does God look down from heaven during the month of December and see all the Christmas lights and think to himself, boy these people must really love me, look at all those pretty lights!  I wished they would hang lights like this up the rest of the year so I would know they love me.  After all my word says if you love me you obey me, and they aren’t doing that so this must be how they show their love to me… isn’t that sweet.  I sure am a blessed creator.

OK I know that was all pretty harsh, and I know that some people have a sincere heart when they purpose to do a “God honoring” Christmas celebration.  I appreciate that heart, but still cannot see any reason someone would participate in Christmas once they have reviewed the history of the holiday and the commands of scripture in respect to what is true worship and how we as Christians are suppose to engage in worship. 

The only reason I can see for people to celebrate Christmas is the fact that for the last several generation we have always “done” Christmas.  I can appreciate this as the strong influence that it is.  After all some of the best childhood memories I have are at the annual Christmas gathering.  But at the end of the day, shouldn’t we be concerned about what the one who is being “honored” thinks about the day set aside for his birth.

The history channel created a special on Christmas that is an un-biased look at Christmas and its history.  Honestly it is very pro-christmas with all its history.  But for the Christian it should be an eye opener for what we have been participating in without question for the last several generations.

http://www.history.com/minisites/christmas/

I would encourage Christians to review this or other material about the history of Christmas.  Research the scriptures and see if there is biblical warrant for the celebration.

Lastly, celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ was born, lived a sinless life, died on the cross, was buried, rose from the dead, and is seated at the right hand of God the father….every day!

December 25th is not special.  It’s just the day the rest of the world pretends to know Christ.  Those who do know him don’t need a worldly holiday to celebrate what that means.

Our family just finished a training series on time management.  It was a course that my husband went to when he was working in the corporate world and said that we would be going through it at home as a family with him.  At first I was having a very difficult time relating the information to my own life because home life is nothing similar to corporate life.  However, as we were finishing up the course yesterday, I had a light bulb moment and was able to sift through the corporate junk and relate some important time management truths to home management. 

Here is what I came up with: 

Most everyone has heard of the time square quartered into quadrants. 

• Quadrant 1:  Important/Urgent, which is the quadrant of necessity. 
• Quadrant 2:  Not Important / Urgent, which is the quadrant of leadership. 
• Quadrant 3:  Important/Not Urgent, which is the quadrant of deception or distraction. 
• Quadrant 4: Not Urgent/Not Important, which is the quadrant of time wasting. 

 Ideally, I want to spend my time in Quadrant 3, important but not-urgent.  This is where the planning, prevention and preparation activities take place which will help prevent the excessive amount of Important and Urgent tasks, as well as discourage the non-important and non-urgent time wasters.  When I find my self too often running in the important and urgent category, I burnout and become overwhelmed quickly.  Obviously, quadrant 1 is also going to be a big portion of a mothers life, however, the goal is to prevent as much as can be. 

Can you imagine if you never had to worry about supper?  There seems to be a breakdown time every day and for our family it is around 4 to 5 pm.  Just when I am preparing supper.  I am tired.  I have been going all day and am ready for a break.  The babies are whining and difficult.  The toddler boys are rowdy and literally bouncing down the hallway.  Sound familiar? 

However, many of these scenarios can many times be prevented by taking some time in the meal planning department.  If you had supper in the crockpot or just had to pull it out of the freezer and pop it in the oven, life automatically becomes much easier and peaceful. 

I would say that one of the greatest helps to a mother of several or many young children is to put some time and effort into meal planning.  It is amazing how much this one area, once well organized, contributes to a peaceful home. 

Here is a look at what I came up with when applying time management to home management: 

We thoroughly enjoyed the Christian Homemaker’s Conference last Saturday even amidst the technical difficulties and the fact that we heard and saw very little of it! 

A group of ladies gathered in my area at a friend’s home and spent the day fellowshipping with other likeminded women.  Though we were unable to see and hear the majority of the conference, we were thankful and inspired by what we were able to hear.  In the down time, we decided to engage in our own made up version of the conference and talk about applicable things relating to Christian homemaking.  Such topics like, “What to do with toddlers when you are trying to home school your older children?” 

I enjoyed Mrs. Jennie Chancey’s talk on “Gaining Vision: Why full-time homemaking isn’t about high heels and pearls”.  The parts we were able to hear were excellent.  She clearly laid out that our view of the ideal homemaker should be shaped by what the Bible says and not what culture dictates.  She also talked about how we should fear nothing but God and be happy to embrace hard work.  There were many things that I found encouraging and inspiring but one thing that stood out to me was the fact that we, as Christian homemakers, have to have a clear vision of why we work within the home.  We serve the Lord with our lives and honor Him through our obedience.  Though our culture attacks the home maker from all sides, we can stand knowing that it isn’t culture, but Christ who defines us.  Jennie Chancey has an excellent website at http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/artman/publish/ .

The other talk we were able to hear was from the Botkin ladies on “Training daughters to be competent and visionary keepers at home.”  This talk was outstanding!  I may post more on this talk later this week. 

I took pages of notes and am anxiously awaiting being able to obtain the CD’s of all the talks given. 

If you missed it you can order these CD’s.  Here were the titles:

• “Gaining Vision:  Why full-time homemaking isn’t about high heels and pearls” (Jennie Chancey)
• “Homemaking 101:  Help!  How did my grandmother know how to do all this stuff?”  (Kim Brenneman)
• “For Busy Moms of Little Ones:  How to avoid growing weary in well-doing” (Jennifer McBride)
• “Training daughters to be competent and visionary keepers at home” (The Botkin ladies) 
• “Why teenage rebellion isn’t inevitable and how you can avoid it” (Lydia Sherman and Lillbeth Humphrey)  

   For more information:  http://www.christianhomemakingconference.com/index.htm

I have always intended to take a picture of the things I collect out of the washer and dryer each week.

Here is my running list of things that I have pulled out of the washer or dryer over the last several years of having boys:

1. part of a bungee strap with hinge.
2. miscellaneous scrap metal pieces from who knows where. This week I found a small copper pipe?
3. crayons - several times this has happened. Most of the time I catch them before the dryer, once I did not and if you are wondering if it ruined the clothes…yes, it did and the dryer as well.
4. candles - i caught this one before the dryer.
5. rocks
6. springs, nails, screws, nuts and bolts, staples and various other tools and tool parts.
7. pocket knives - this is a regular
8. compasses and tape measures - also another regular
9. wallets and money
10. legos, lincoln logs, toy cars and various other toy parts
11. and last week a large real looking and feeling fake plastic snake that I think stopped my heart as I screamed and nearly fell back over my pile of clothes. To make the story more interesting, when I bought this life-like snake for my 4 year old, the young guy said, “Now, you need to remember you bought this because it is liable to scare you real bad late one night!”  Imagine putting your hands (working in very dim light in the unfinished basement which made it worse)  in the washer to scoop out wet clothes and feel a slimy, wiggly thing that wraps around your hand and all you can see is a black snake like thing amongst the clothes that you can’t get away from fast enough.  I think I took 3 years off my life with that experience!
12. once living real red worms that son #4 put in his pockets last spring
13. a once living real blue belly skink lizard that son #2 put in his pocket and forgot about. Afterwards, I called upon the guilty son to retrieve the dead lizard out of my washer and he tried to convince me that his lizard was only half-choked because of swallowing too much water. I assured him that his lizard was fully choked.

I threaten to charge a nickel for everything I find in their pockets and a $1 for all living or once living creatures, but in all my spare time I haven’t managed to put together a tally chart with each boy’s name on it and items I need payment for.

Spring cleaning and gardening are two items on my “want to do” list. However, we are in the process of buying a farm a bit farther out in the country and so many of my “want to do’s” have been put on the back burner. More on this later.

Many know that we remodeled a 1978 ranch style home over this last year with the intention of selling it when we bought it. Over the last couple of years we have been making our way out of corporate america work and transitioning to self-employment and going after our desire to live debt free on a working family farm. We have juggled jobs and houses around over the last couple of years to enable us to work from home and move to a farm and God has blessed us in the process. One of our transition projects has been this little farm house we bought specifically for the purpose of fixing up and selling. We found something that was a under priced, cosmetic update-type remodel, although we did end up knocking out some walls and doing a bit more than cosmetic work on it. It was an experience for sure, one we will always remember and one we learned a great deal from.

When we walked into this little house it smelled like a nicotine factory. The house was dark — dark brown paneled walls and dark cabinets and dark brown cheap doors, dark brown windows. It was a good solid house, just terribly outdated.

We torn into 3 layers of outdated linoleum, updated lighting and faucets, installed wide planked flooring and added modern paint colors and crown molding. We took down the dated brown paneling and replaced it with sheetrock. We even put central heat and air in the house. Our major focus was on the kitchen and bath. We tore these rooms down to the studs and completely refaced the entire room putting in new everything. We took out a staircase in the kitchen and expanded the kitchen to be a nice big open work space.

Finally, we are down to minor finishing touches like trim and caulk and some paint. Outside, we will be landscaping the flower beds and painting the door and shutters.

We are pleased with how the little house has turned out and pray it will be a profitable conclusion as we move to put this house on the market this spring.

Here is the kitchen before:

Here we knocked out the staircase:

Another before picture:

Here is the remodeled look of the new bigger, better kitchen. Pick what doesn’t belong. I have since replaced the yellow stove with a stainless matching oven/stove. It looks much better. Actually, you can sort of see a picture of what the new stove is like in this post of my muddy boy.

And another view of the kitchen now:

Here is the old dining room and the gutted bathroom:

Here is the new dining room:

For now, this little house has served us well by giving us plenty of opportunity to bring to surface character flaws and sins we have had to deal with. It isn’t easy remodeling a house with 7 little ones, while my husband was working full time in a corporate job and working part time on remodeling a house. Once we finally moved into this small house, we found out that we had new character flaws. It also isn’t easy living in a 1,000 sq. ft. house with 7 little ones! However, this transition was necessary to launch us into the self-employment work as well as transfer out of our big house debt as we awaited finding our farm. As the pieces of this maze begin to wind down, we are all excited to see where God is leading our family.

With the final finishing touches of paint and trim still to go, we are excited that this project is almost completely finished. A lot of hard work, a lot of mistakes but a lot of learning and experience now too.

I have been following this story for a while. It is a must read if you are not familiar with this situation.

Police State, Germany
Homeschool Family Told To Give Up 5 Other Kids; Officials suggest breakup would solve dispute over daughter’s home education.

Some may remember a story I posted about another German homeschooling family where they put the mother in jail for homeschooling her children.

Like I said before, we need to remember these families in Germany who are enduring horrible persecution for the sake of standing for their Christian beliefs that the family, NOT the STATE, is responsible to train up their own children and educated them with a distinctly Christian biblical worldview.

Let us not become lax, lazy Americans and deceive ourselves into thinking “that could never happen here”!