The Big White Farmhouse

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Life is finally getting back to normal around here, praise God!  (We’ve had enough excitement for one summer, thank you very much.)  Feeling very grateful for my health and my very boring, very ordinary life.

Grateful for // the tiny bouquets my daughter creates and sprinkles throughout the house.  Planting more flowers is definitely on my to-do list for next spring.

Grateful for // a rainy day that kept me inside.  I got a wild hair and decided on a whim to rearrange the living room furniture!  I love the new setup; it feels bigger and will allow for more seating options.

Grateful for // this exciting morning.  One of my sons went to the garden and picked an onion, some red potatoes, and two jalapenos for his breakfast.  He made a spicy hash with over easy eggs (from our hens) and we were so tickled that he could make an entire meal from the fruits of our labor.

Grateful for // the daily probiotic I’ve been taking to get my gut back in working order after a week of antibiotics.

Grateful for // the bird that made a nest in a cleat in our garage!  We peek in everyday for updates.

Grateful for // the two batches of iced tea we made this week.  One was my go-to peach and for the other, we tried “Wild Berry Zinger.”  So delicious and refreshing.

Grateful for // one project to check off the list!  I sanded and re-stained the coffee table with an oil treatment we already had on hand.  It’s not perfect and not exactly what I had in mind, but it’s better than before, it was free and it’s DONE.  I’ll take it.

Grateful for // a ridiculous new “problem” we have with the hens.  After the big storm, some of our moveable fencing was damaged.  We decided to let all of the ducks and hens free range until we can get a replacement and they are loving the freedom.  Definitely living their best life, but now we have a new problem: not everyone is laying in the nesting boxes!  It was like a daily Easter egg hunt for awhile there, searching for eggs under bushes and tree branches.  Thankfully, most seem to have remembered that it’s much more comfortable to lay in the coop.

The past two weeks have been a bit of a nightmare.  The kids caught this weird low-grade fever/cough situation, which knocked them out, one by one, like dominoes.  Around the same time, one of my sons started exhibiting some troubling skin issues.  We were afraid it was MRSA, but it was finally diagnosed as impetigo.  I was his primary caregiver and within days, I started exhibiting some of the same symptoms inside my ear and on my face.  So scary.  We were both put on antibiotics and my son responded much more quickly than I did.  (I’ll spare the gory details, but let’s just say that I looked way worse before I got better.)  Anyway, we’re on our way to a full recovery, praise God.

And then…this happened:

On a seemingly normal summer afternoon, a severe thunderstorm with 80 MPH winds ran through our county and left a ton of destruction.  We watched in horror as huge trees were uprooted and branches snapped everywhere.  We watched pieces of our infrastructure bend and break.  (The photos above are just a few examples.)  The power pole at the end of our street snapped in half, leaving our area without power.  Thankfully, we are all fine and our animals are all alive.  But the damage is significant for our neighbors and our fellow farmers.  A kick in the teeth in an already difficult financial time.  In your charity, we would appreciate your prayers.  I hope to be back with cheerier news next week. XO

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. – Romans 5:3-5