Great Deal on Diapers Here

We gave you a tip of what was to come here.  Many of you know about the various shopping adventures Beth has had over the years and you may have noticed that some of her couponing articles have started to disappear from the blog.   Don’t despair, this is by design.

Beth has been working on an ebook detailing her shopping experiences and the many money saving secrets she has learned over the years.  We decided to launch a new web site in honor of the soon to be released e-book.  All the articles from vaughnshire.com relating to grocery shopping, couponing, pantry building, etc… have now been (or soon will be) moved to http://pennypantry.com.

This is an exciting adventure for Beth to share about a topic she is passionate about.  I’m looking forward to working with her to create an on-line e-course that will go with the new book in the near future.

For now click on over and checkout the great deals on stocking your pantry and be sure to check out the pre-launch special on the new book.

I’ll share more about what to expect from Vaughnshire in the near future.  We are hoping to refine the focus of the site a little more by narrowing the focus to topics specifically related to farming, agrarian living, slow food, and sustainable living.  It would be great to have your input as we move this direction.  I was considering configuring a poll to see how Vaughnshire might better serve your needs, but until I get around to something that official feel free to leave some comments if there is an area that would be helpful to your family.

You will notice several changes around the farm… uhm the farm web site that is.  It’s way too cold to be making changes outside. We are updating the site and trying to keep up with the latest changes in WordPress Technology.

We have upgraded to a new theme, which I hope to write more about later. It is a fancy SEO optimized theme that does just about everything for you but wash the farm eggs. And, I’m not so certain that it doesn’t wash the eggs, I keep thinking I’ll find that option in here somewhere!

Stay tuned, we have a lot of fun announcements coming soon. You may find a little tweet about one of them here.  Of course the other thing you can do to keep up with the news is to make sure you subscribe to the Vaughnshire Feed.  We updated it as well.  Unfortunately in the transition from our self hosted feed to our new fancy Feedburner feed, we may be missing some previous subscribers.  So if you wan to make sure you are keeping up with us, join (or re-join) the feed here.

Ok, so why is the site moving around so much?  First we were at vaughnshire.com and then we moved to blog.vaughnshire.com, and now we moved it back to just plain O’ vaughnshire.com and to top it off we have hardly been posting at all.  Your probably wondering why we even need a blog at all if we aren’t going to post!

We had two things that happened this last year that impacted our web presence.  First we had some plans in our “church planting endeavor” that did not go as desired.  This both required physical time that we did not have in the schedule and secondly it took an emotional drain on the family.  We just didn’t have the usual spunk we needed to provide fun and exciting blog posts!  We like to think that is all behind us now and are looking forward to getting back to normal… whatever that might be with a family of 10 living on the farm.

The other event was the launch of the Cow Share Program.  We were not certain how we wanted to manage that effort on the web and initially decided to place it at vaughnshire.com.  In doing so, we messed up a lot of your links to our blog – sorry about that!  We have a new web strategy for 2010, which looks a lot like our old strategy.  Our blog will be vaughnshire.com and any thing else we do will be at a different web address.  But the exciting news is that we plan to create some additional sites on topics that we enjoy and will enjoy sharing with you.  Stay tuned for more details on that.

In the mean time, if your looking for the offical Vaughnshire Farm web site, it is located at http://farm.vaughnshire.com.  You can find all the latest info on the Cow Share Program for fresh dairy products, our beef and pork shares and anything else we produce on the farm!

Summer blog neglect…for sure…  However, I do have a slew of posts ready to be posted this week. 

Without the time to actually write the articles I thought it would be fun just to share the titles that would have been posted this week.

• Church is Good
• Patrick’s Chicks and Ducks Arrive; “Mostly” Dead
• It’s a Boy
• The Cow is Bred
• WordPress Upgrade Goes Awry
• Two Goats Bred; One Dead
• The Truck is Broke
• The Kingdom is Now
• An Average Week at Vaughnshire

As the seasons change, so does life and in our case it has been quite an eventful season change.  We have been extremely busy lately around here on the farm.  Fall has set in with a chill in the air and a feast of color.  We have several interesting posts on chicken tractors, milk barns, herbs, homeschooling, Thanksgiving turkey and the sort that are on the verge of being finished but as of yet have not been completed with the pictures.   

We had some hosting issues and the site was down for most of the day today.  Everything is back on-line and seems to be running smoothly.

In addition look for some updates from the road soon.  Ask yourself this question.  How does a family of 9 with seven small children, 2 cows, 3 goats, a pig, a turkey, 4 guineas, and a plethora of cats, dogs, and chickens take a family vacation?

The answer:  Very Carefully.

We’ll be posting pictures from the road soon.  But here is a hint, it involves a “Cow Sitter” a “Farm Sitter”, and a large vehicle.

Paul has been working on a new website www.familyworkforum.com It is a website that encourages family entrepreneurship. Family Work Forum, is a meaningful exploration of legitimate opportunities for families to turn their hearts towards home while still earning a living to put food on the table.

It is still very much in the baby stage, but he hopes to build over the next few months to something substantial. The FAQs are still being written.
The Family Work Forum will contain a wealth of business and entrepreneurship ideas and articles. It also will be home to many blogs on various subjects for business owners to post information, updates, ramblings etc. etc.

The Birth Dynamics blog will be moving over to The Family Work Forum soon. I have already posted a couple of repeat articles out there. http://familyworkforum.com/?q=blog/3

I will be posting Annabelle’s birth story on my website. I will update it later on in the week after I get back some more information from the midwife. During labor, she keeps a pretty detailed labor flow chart. I asked for a copy to put in Annabelle’s pregnancy journal and baby book.
For now…here is the link to the rough copy of her birth story with some pictures: Annabelle’s Birth Story

I’m excited about the all new look of Josiah project. We have the Blog up and running, but it will be awhile before we are fully 100% operational. In the mean time be sure to check out Vision Tennessee for some hard hitting articles.

EDITORS NOTE: Vision Tennessee has been merged with josiahproject.com as of May 10th, 2006.

Excellent and must haves for mommies— I ordered 2 of Shonda Parker’s books off her website and have almost finished The Naturally Healthy Pregnancy, The Essential Guide To Nutritional and Botanical Medicine For The Childbearing Years. Here is the link for the books: Naturally Healthy Website

The other book is called Mommy Diagnostics, The Art Of Taking Care Of Your Family. It is a huge resource for everything you ever wanted to know on how to treat common ailments herbally and naturally.

Here is some info I have found in response to some questions about fat and beef:

“Research shows that grass-fed beef contains fat that is actually good for you. grass-fed beef has more Omega-3 fatty acids, which reduce the risk of heart disease. Grass-fed also contains more beta-carotene and up to five times as much CLA.”

No feedlots, hormones, grain or antibiotics in your meat will give you better tasting meat as well as nutritionally superior meat compared to meat that comes off of a bad fatty grain fed cow. (whose fat is not comparable to grass fed cow fat)

So fat from pasture fed animals is desirable. Fat from grain fed, antibiotic and hormone filled cows is completely different in nutritional content.
Also fake fats like Crisco, margarine and other synthetic fats are completely unhealthy and should be avoided. Homemakers use to use lard instead of Crisco which was a much healthier. Not that you would just eat the lard by the spoonfuls…but the point being that fats consumed in moderation that are real and unmodified are healthy. I prefer raw butter personally as I can not get past the word “lard”. The myth that all fats are bad is simply not true. We need fats–not refined, chemically, altered fats…but real fats are beneficial and downright necessary for life. Breast milk has an incredible high amount of cholesterol because babies need this vital nutrient for proper growth and development of the neurological brain systems.
God designed cows to eat grass, not be packed in a feed lot eating as much grain as possible. Vegetables grown without being genetically modified and chemically bathed are absolutely delicious and wonderfully healthy for you. Dairy products that are raw and fresh are beneficial.
I do not believe that we should consume mostly fat and beef, however. I have just come to believe that these products, naturally produced, in moderation contribute to a well rounded diet. I am very much in favor of freshly extracted juice and lots of vegetables and believe that we should eat more raw food.

I am getting away from the refined, altered, processed, genetically modified, hormonal, medicated, fake foods.

An interesting website with lots of information is called EatWild.com

For further reading on more exact facts about the health benefits of grass-fed products – this article is a must read

Another article: Confused about Fat? Choose Grass-fed!

32 weeks pregnant and slowing…… As these last weeks approach, I have grand nesting plans. The problem is that my grand plans and my physical ability don’t match. I will try and aim my focus on completing those tasks that will aid in an easier last part of pregnancy and postpartum time. Some things on the list are:
1. stocking the pantry
2. buying extra necessary supplies to avoid trips to the grocery store (laundry soap, paper plates, diapers, etc.)
3. Store several weeks worth of freezer meals. Supper and lunches are helpful. Calzones, pizza pocket type sandwiches are great for the freezer and heat up nicely. Supper freezer meals are quick and complete with a fresh salad and some bread or a steamed veggie.
4. Store away extra toys and stuff. Limiting the toys, storing away or getting rid of clutter that will make keeping house difficult. (Why, I should do this regularly!)
5. Order enough prenatal vitamins for the postpartum time— mother’s milk and postpartum teas, herbs, iron building herbs.
6. Gather birthing and baby supplies.
7. Round up helpers. Mother’s helpers for the toddlers, helpers for housekeeping and meals.

Vision Tennessee’s new blog. Check out the link.

and so it starts….Blogging for Tennessee families who want a state worth passing on to their children. For those who are tired of the WWF match between the two political parties, who are growing weary of the courts contempt for the Constitution, and who are looking for a way to make a difference. Hopefully, prayerfully, by the grace of God this will be a site for you.

As time allows we will be identifying various subject areas that need reform in the State of Tennessee. Your suggestions and participation are always welcome. For today, we’ll start with public schools. Not that they are high on the priority list, but because a good resource was found for them today. While it is not specific to TN, it is after all part of the government school system at large, which we have in TN to the tune of about 1,352,845 students as of five years ago and 1.4 million as of 2003. At any rate, I think you’ll enjoy Zero Intelligence.

Remind me to post about the disparity between the elementary school number and the high school numbers.

(Editors note: This was the original post on visiontennessee.com. visiontennessee.com was merge with josiahproject.com in May of 2006. josiahproject.com has been operating since 2002 and changed to the BLOG format in Janurary of 2006)