A Baking Challenge

A Mackenzie magazine arrived in the mail around Christmas. It was full of pictures of expensive, delectable foods and desserts that were exorbitantly priced. When Father saw it he said all of them could be made at home, and most of the main dishes just needed butter to make them look and taste so good!

So after everyone had looked at all the different foods and talked about how they liked this one or that, Father said, “Hey, Jean, why don’t you make all of these meals out of this magazine? It could be your baking goal for the year!”
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May 31, 2019 2

Springtime Happenings

Ah Spring, I thought it would never come!
It had been an especially hard winter here, a death in the family, winter traveling, and lots and lots of snow! It seems almost unreal now: green grass, budding trees, garden planting – it is really here.

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April 28, 2019 1

A Morning Walk

It was a picturesque, crisp, Fall morning. The sky was a perfect blue and the sun had just shot its first radiant beams above Mt. Dominion’s heights. I was heading down our mountain-goat-like path to the barn to collect my “lions” and do my dog chores.
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November 28, 2018 0

The Art of Gopher Hunting

It was many years ago at our old house at the age of 10 that I began this sport. Gopher hunting was a useful occupation for father put a $2 bounty on the heads of these nasty critters that would dig up our pasture and eat our trees.

It started when we had our first flood irrigation day and the gophers were coming up everywhere to get out of the water. Mom said she got like 4! So, I carefully whittled a good point on my “gopher spear” and excitedly anticipated the next irrigation day.

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November 4, 2018 1

Garlic Galore!

Planting garlic about 8 inches apart, points up!

Last year was the first time we ever planted garlic the way you’re supposed to: in the Fall. Our seed was questionable at best – wrinkled, spotty leftovers that had been forgotten in the cellar. But our row was tilled and it was all we had at the time, and we missed the local country store’s garlic seed sale.

Now, every time you put a seed in the ground, it is an act of faith. You are trusting, expecting, hoping that God will work that miracle again, bringing life from death. However, our faith was a little weak at this planting…

But God is faithful! Sure enough, the first signs of life were in the garlic row in March, after the deep frosts had thawed.

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June 28, 2018 1

Taming a Range Cow

Yes, those cows we bought just a little impulsively in February came right off the range. And, though you could tell they were used to having people around, they were not broken to stanchion, let alone milking, and nowhere near the sweet family milk cow- yet.

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June 7, 2018 2

Orchards – Keep ’em or Loose ’em!

Spring has finally arrived here in NE Washington, and the last tree of the season has just been tucked into the earth. There’s something magical about walking through the orchard this time of year, looking for those first signs of life, taking in the shape and health of the tree, imagining all the fruit it will yield in its lifetime.

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May 3, 2018 1

A Costly Mistake

Yes, this winter has given us an excellent lesson in nutritional science. It has been extra long, cold and wet, and we bought cheap grass hay- it has put our ewes to the test.

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April 17, 2018 0

My Wooly Adventure

It was 3 years ago today that I first put my wool on Amazon, and it took me a good year before that to really got to know my product!

Lovely Crimp!

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March 23, 2018 0

Of a Milk Goat’s Death and Spring Fever

One cold morning in January, 2018, Kate went down to the barn to find her pregnant

milk goat lying in a corner of her stall- unable to get up. Not being able to get up is a near sentence of death to all ruminants, but we nursed her faithfully for a week. We called our goat guru, and she was diagnosed with milk fever. So 3 times a day we went down to the barn scared to be the first to look in for fear of finding her dead, but hopefully looking for signs of recovery. Every day we prayed for her recovery, but the Lord thought it best to answer our prayers with the goat’s death a week later. Now we had no hope of milk for another 6 months.

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March 2, 2018 3