Vaughnshire Farm

Today is Friday, August 22, 2008.  Late morning, I noticed the thermometer said 79 degrees.  It is a beautiful day out.  We aren’t without water this year and we have green grass for the animals. 

Last year our thermometer said 110 degrees.  It is good to remember and give thanks. 

Contrary to popular belief around here at our house, CSA does not always stand for Confederate States of America!  It stands for Community Supported Agriculture in this instance!  We have so enjoyed our CSA groceries from our friends, the Lingo family, over at Beaverdam Creek Farm.

For the past few weeks, we have been enjoying a bountiful basket of fresh fruits grown off their farm — which has been a huge blessing this year being that we have been occupied with having a newborn.  This week we received corn, peas, tomatoes, green beans, okra, squash, peppers, herbs and flowers!  When Wednesday rolls around, we always look forward to our trip out to their farm to pick up our basket of CSA groceries!

If you are in the area, you should check them out.  They have wonderful pastured-raised chicken for sale as well.

We have been busily working around here on the farm trying to plant our garden.  With me being 9 months pregnant, I am not gardening….I am trying my hand at managing.  It has given us a wonderful opportunity to delegate tasks to the children and stretch them beyond what they were doing last year.  And for me?  It has been good practice for me to let things go and not micro manage every little detail to my liking. 

My country gentlemen prepared and planted a garden spot for the heirloom variety of corn called Country Gentleman.  A while back they all planted potatoes, onions, cauliflower and broccoli that are thriving and growing beautifully.  This week they worked on planting warmer vegetables like green beans, okra, cucumbers, squash etc. 

Considering the season of life we are in currently, I am pleased with our progress, but I can’t help but be awed by the amazing gardens of history.  Gardening has lost much flair and importance to modern man.  Not too many years ago, gardening was an essential part of life.  Even those who lived in “neighborhood” type areas had garden plants or fruit trees planted in their back yard.  Historically, famous families such as George Washington,  John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Madison had extensive gardens on their land.  In the past, the White House was home to incredible gardens.  As President, Andrew Jackson built an orangery to accommodate indoor, year-round gardening.  That has since been demolished.

I love to visit gardens at The Hermitage and The Carnton Plantation.  Of course they have full time gardeners working in them, but they are beautiful and inspiring to say the least. 

Our garden here is absolutely nothing even comparable and may indeed turn into a jungle, but this year and this season in our life, a jungle that produces food, amidst the crooked rows and weeds, would at least be something. 

Maybe I should start a gardening apprenticeship here?

It’s a balmy March here in the midsouth and that global warming is really getting hard for us to handle…

The kids took advantage of the winter powder and did some sledding down our “mountain” before retiring to build snowmen. 

Amazing how huge trees can be plucked up out of the ground  and stripped of their branches like this…

A small example of what some of the wooded areas look like around here.  Trees bowing down. 

The tornado damage at our farm was localized to this one large ceder tree and some bushes which were uprooted and laid out. 

We have received  emails asking if we were ok from the recent storms.  We are.  Our property is still put together except for loosing one large tree in the front part of our property.  One my husband was wanting to cut down anyway!   

However, at the top of the hill just about a mile away, our neighbor’s properties look quite a bit different.  They have lost lots of trees and sustained damage to their houses, barns, and fences.  Several near by communities have sustained even more damage.  Power was out for a while in many areas. 

As you may already know, the amount of widespread damage all over the state is significant and it will be a while for many of these communities and families to get back up on their feet.  

We are asking ourselves…Is it any coincidence that this major storm swept through on Super Tuesday?  We think not and acknowledge that it is God who has the wind and waves in His hands. 

Psalm 148: 7-13
Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:   Fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling his word:  Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:   Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl:  Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth:  Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children:  Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven.

Also:  Job 38-41 and Psalm 42:7

For some reason this primary season came up too fast for me to give it much attention.  Honestly, it is likely the fact that I’m tired of the fake WWW wrestling match between the two parties that contributed to my un-enthusiastic interest in this year’s election.  Whatever the reason for my own disillusionment, the primary is upon us and we do have our duty to fulfill.  Since that duty is not to just run out and punch the ballot for whatever party we have grown up supporting, I thought I’d post a link or two for some political encouragement during this frustrating season.

This is an important topic in our day and age, or in any age for that matter.  Although I fear the reason I think so would not be the same reasons most might agree with that statement.  Many want to put their trust in the electoral process and electing the “right leaders”.  They believe it is important because as the Psalms tell us, when the righteous rule the people rejoice.  I do believe the blessings of righteous leaders is a biblical principle and pray for the day that we or perhaps our grandchildren would see the righteous in the seats of government once again.

However, the reason I believe this is an important topic has nothing to do with a misguided hope that the “right leader” will make everything OK.  It has everything to do with our obedience to God’s law in supporting candidates that are “biblically qualified” to hold office.  The standard is not who is electable, or who has raised the most money, or who won Florida.  The standard is, “What does God say a civic leader ought to look like?”  Since I have not committed the time to fully work through the candidate’s positions and qualifications yet, I thought I would share an article by Bill Einwechter, titled “Biblical Standards for Choosing Civil Magistrates“.  This is a very powerful and scriptural treatise on this topic which will discuss the standards a leader should adheer to. 

Of course there are other excellent discussions on topics such as women in office, the validity of third party candidates, and more which can be found here:

Then once we have a good solid biblical foundation for what we are doing on Tuesday and the standard to judge the candidates by, I have seen a few folks talking about the following site which seems to be a decent resources for getting to know the candidates that are lobbying for our votes.

http://www.knowbeforeyouvote.com/

I pray each of us are encouraged in the Lord and that we remain faithful to pray for our nation and indeed for a true repentance that will lead not to the revival of our hearts but to the reformation of our souls.  This Tuesday (or November) is not the answer to the problems our nation faces, but it is a chance to stand before God and show yourself faithful to His standards - And His people, being faithful to His standards, is the answer to the problems our nation faces.

Here is an interesting look at how well the government schools have done in indoctrinating our nation in the politically correct ideas of the War Between the States.

Ron Paul has said that Lincoln was wrong to invade the south and press the war.  Do you agree?  Here is your chance to vote.

http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2007/12/26/hot-seat-lincoln-wrong-to-fight-civil-war/

It is a very interesting social study if nothing else….  As the numbers stand at this moment I’m actually fairly impressed that a good number of folks seem to at least grasp the idea that 618,000 dead American’s is bad.  I doubt that most of them are voting on the basis of states rights or other principles, but it is a much closer poll at this moment than I would have imagined.  A majority of people in at least most of the traditional southern states and some confederate minded people in the north west, with the exceptions of the liberal coastal states, agree with Paul’s statement.

Check it out and place a vote.

As I mentioned in the previous post about our expanding farm, we did indeed acquire a for real coon hound dog last week in an unexpected way.   Ever since our boys have read the Henty book, “In Freedom’s Cause”, where the king has hunting hounds as well as listening to me read the “Where the Red Fern Grows” book and watching the movie, hound dogs have been the topic of many a conversation.   Add to that the fact that since we moved to the farm, the boys have been trapping predators like possum—The greatest catch being the raccoon they caught last summer.  Well, it is just in them—and they have been making plans to get a coon hound. 

The other evening after supper, we heard a knock at our door.  It was a man who said that his truck had died in the middle of the road in front of our house.  My husband offered him use of our phone and then helped him move the truck out of the road.  They stood outside talking as the man waited for his ride to come get him. 

My husband and two older boys came inside with some exciting news about who the man was.   I wasn’t sure how exciting this news should be.  It was definitely exciting boy news. 

The man, Mr. Gene, had a dog kennel in the back of his truck that my husband inquired about.  One thing led to another and the chat turned into a very exciting conversation for the boys.  Mr. Gene just so happened to be a coon hunting national champion the last 4 years and had a coon dog that he wanted to give the boys.  He told the boys he had been hunting in the hollows and hills around here since he was a boy.  He raises and handles coon hounds and had an extra hound that wasn’t quite up to par for his game, but would be a great hound for some young boys to train and hunt with. 

Within a few days, Mr. Gene brought over the young Treeing Walker Coon Hound and handed her over to the boys.

She is a beautiful dog, I have to say, but once she got the scent of the cat and went baying after it like she couldn’t stop herself, I was thinking this isn’t my kind of dog.  My husband and the boys took off, literally, with her while the rest of us went inside.  After a while, they came back grinning ear to ear and talk of how great that was! 

Ever since then, the boys’ farm chores have increased.  Taking care of a coon hound is a big chore…especially when they have a mother with absolutely no nerve for howling, barking dogs.  “It’s for the them”, my husband reminds me and he is right.  A young boy with responsibility grows to be a man with greater responsibility.  At this age, they need chores and jobs to train self-discipline and self-control in them on a daily basis.  Farm life has offered that to us for sure!

I’ll stick to organizing my closets  and trying to figure out how to make cheese out of all our extra raw milk!

Armed with homemade spears and split-fire wood sledge hammers, a bag of cookies and a jug of spring water, we left mid-morning for a trek across Vaughnshire.  It was a beautiful morning after a night of steady rain and a morning with cool temperatures. We loaded up the baby girls in the wagon and set off.

Our first fence crossing led us into the present cow pasture.  Our 6 year old reminded everyone to watch out for cow patties a bit too late.  We stopped off at the barn to pick up the dogs.  One is a good for nothing beagle that we didn’t get 5 feet with before she literally dug her feet into the ground and howled for dear life.  Forget that idea, we put her back and took our more reliable mutt dog that has turned out to be a very smart farm dog that actually does some good around here.

Off we go.  Through the first pasture, to the second fence line.  Through the second section to the third fence line until we entered into Vaughnshire Forrest.  We walked along the path while our dog, Dixie, ran ahead of us and circled back around us making me tired just watching her.  I was quite impressed with her abilities to stay with us and sniff out danger ahead and was by now very confident that she would alert us if any snakes or other unwanted wildlife were around. Soon, I would be disappointed…but that is getting ahead of the story.

We strolled down the path looking at the many varieties of trees, moss, ferns, grasses, flowers.  I am still awed by the rock ledges, rolling hills and soaring trees in this part of the country.  It is truly a beautiful sight to behold.  We soon came to the first road block which was a downed tree in the path. The older children worked on getting the girls over the obstacle and we were soon back on our way.

We came to a 2nd road block a few minutes later. After the boys tried to put some strength into moving the tree out of the path along with some good ol’fashion back breaking sledge hammering by the 6 year old, they decided that this was a good place to stop. We had our snack and rested a while.

They soon set off on a self-made path which brought them to a tree bridge over the dry creek ravine. Boys resist crossing a tree bridge??? Not even close!

I soon heard excited voices yell back that they had discovered two hunting stands in some trees.

They inspected these new finds and marked their path so they could visit again. On their way back, one of the boys yelled they had found water in the creek bed. We all went to check out this new discovery that the dog had actually found and are still undecided if it is just a water hole from the rains or is in fact a small spring. We also discovered a unique tree along the side of a deep ravine that created a Narnia like hiding place. It was a large tree whose roots stood up like stilts creating a roomy cubby hole in which three adventurous boys and a inquisitive dog could hide beneath.

We started back after the exciting discoveries of the water hole, tree bridge, tree root hiding place and the hunting stands to get home to some much needed farm work.

As we approached the edge of Vaughnshire Forest, one of the boys yelled out, “SNAKE!” The dog didn’t flinch, didn’t bark, didn’t even see it and in fact steps over it several times before wandering off. The 5 year old boy yells,”Quick, GET THE SWEDCH HAMMER!” The two older boys grab the homemade spear (a stick, copper pipe, a large nail) and the sledge hammer (split log nailed to another stick) and proceed to kill the snake. I am wishing we were home by now and frantically reminding them they “better not let that thing bite them”, “are you sure you know what your doing”, “don’t miss”, “did you get it”, “are you sure it’s dead”! They attacked the snake with the homemade sledge hammer killing it within short order. One of the boys carried the snake back on the end of the stick so he could confirm what kind of snake it was when daddy arrived back home (which ended up being harmless).   As we approached the house, the cows met us as we entered into the pasture directly behind the house and followed us home. When we arrived home, one of the boys spotted another snake hanging out of the beak of one of our laying hens, which they assured me was a harmless baby pink-belly snake.

Except for the snakes, even if they were baby snakes,  the morning walk was a wonderful break amidst the large amount of farm work we have before us and was a needed reminder to stop and look around and enjoy God’s magnificent creation.