Cranes mean Spring

This morning the cranes are migrating and huge swirls of them fly overhead with their unique noise that heralds Spring. The garden is plowed and manured. The lilacs have swelling leaf buds and the plums and cherries are starting to develop buds. Oh how I love spring!
It's been a long difficult winter. The ram got me just before Christmas and I broke a couple of toes in my left foot and toes and bones in my right foot. So I spent a lot of time in my easy chair with feet up and did counted cross stitch like a mad woman to busy my mind. I burnt out on that and now I'm into crocheting. I made a cover for my Kindle and library card, a cover for my cell phone, a pocket (sort of like a fanny pack) to wear with all my clothes that don't have pockets. I assume I am getting old since I'm so into pockets that I am threatening to sew pockets, without them matching, on all my clothes. Why do they think women don't need pockets? We don't want to carry a purse around the house! Now I know why women used to wear aprons all the time, it had a least one pocket and the skirt would be bundled up to be one big pocket.
Now I am working on a rug. You know those potholders that have a double thickness with only one seam. A chain stitch that is gone around and around with no increases in single crochet. Well, I've found that they make good rugs, too. You just make them real big. I'm doing this with cotton yarn so it will be absorbent for in front of the shower.
Speaking of Kindles, Pat gave me one for Valentine's day. I can't afford to read much on it but I found out you can get 2 free first chapters of a book, so if I hear of a book that sounds good, I read the first two chapters for free and then try to find the book in the library. So far I've found and read, Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl (she's the editor of Gourmet magazine), The Help by Kathryn Stockett, the time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer (which I didn't finish as I ran out of time and others were a faster read. It was a good book but one you should own it so you could take your time and digest all the facts.) Now I'm reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I have One Good Dog by Susan Wilson waiting next on the table.
I got into a bit about trying new recipes for about a month and found a few new ones we liked. Korean Won tons, Cranberry Biscuits with smoked turkey (sandwiches) and Sweet and Sour Meatballs. It's awful what a rut you can get into cooking the same thing all the time. But one of the best things for my taste was the trying of putting about 2 cups of dried lentils into my Zatarain's dirty rice mix (one box) and added appropriate water,for the lentils, cook til lentils tender and liquid absorbed. It's a great veggie option that Pat likes too, if he has some meat along side.
So other than stamping and teaching classes and visiting my 3 ladies at the nursing home and taking care of Gene's leg ulcer and working on Mabel's house to get rid of and organize many, many years of hoarding; this is the story of my life since I last wrote. The Sabbath school class that I facilitate (we're reading the Bible through) is in Ezekiel now is going good. We are all learning new things and identifying with the various people in the Bible.
Pat's sister, Katy, has cancer on the larynx and metastasis to a lymph node in her neck and is undergoing chemo therapy at the present. She has a severe case of thrush secondary to the chemo right now and is miserable. We pray that they are able to eradicate the cancer. Pat's dad had a accident about 3 1/2 hours from home and rolled his truck. He broke 2 ribs and was battered and bruised but otherwise is okay. The insurance is fixing his truck so it wasn't totaled, thank God.
One last thing, the earthquake in Japan and the tsunami, doesn't it seem to you that surely Jesus is coming soon and Satan is trying to wipe out God's children as fast as he can? Make the hymns and bible texts your comfort now so they will be in your mind when you need comfort later.
I'll try to do better with keeping up this blog this Spring. Thanks for being patient with me. My love to my readers.

Dying

Glenda called me yesterday to tell me that her mom, Shirley, was having strokes now and they thought she would be dying soon. Shirley has thyroid and lung cancer. I went to tell her goodbye yesterday afternoon. She said she was ready to die now and asked me to pray with her, which of course I did. This morning I woke up early and she and Judy, another daughter, came to my mind so I was praying for them and the words, Sitting at the Feet of Jesus, came to mind but no other words. So I got up and looked up the song and listened to it on YouTube by the Gaither Family. Then I found the lyrics and printed them out. It's a beautiful song and I've listened to it several times this morning. Just type in (song, sitting at the feet of jesus) in your search engine and it will bring it right up so you can hear it too. The song was written by Asa Hull who was born in 1828. It's always so amazing to me how God speaks through song and the years matter not. It's like God is indeed the same today and yesterday and all the years of our lives.
Death can be sweet to those who love Jesus.

The price of a lamb

Well, Pat got back home and showed me the sale slip for Speckles. He weighed 115 pounds and he sold for $1.23 a pound. After the sale barn takes it's cut, we got $134.79. About what all that colostrum and lamb feeder cost. But isn't that how it is with babies, expensive but worth it. I try not to think about Speckles becoming lamb chops.

BooHoo

Well, we decided that it was silly to keep Speckles, the lamb, any longer so he went off in the trailer to the sale barn today. He wasn't cuddly and cute anymore and we couldn't stand the thought of butchering him ourselves so... boohoo my baby is gone. I remember how he would sit on my lap so peaceful when we drove to the nursing home or church (the children's story). The old folks loved him. And yes, I was driving with him on my lap. But he was better than a dog or cat or some children I've met.
So after I said my prayer this morning, I was singing out loud, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and I truly heard the line, God and sinner reconciled. The writer of that hymn understood the truth of Jesus' birth and why that was peace to us.
We did kill the roosters (all 5) Sunday, I'll write about that another time. It was crazy and the roosters were too old.

Anyway, here's to spring lambs and hopefully no more bottle fed babies. and here's to gratitude to Jesus for reconciling us and giving us that perfect peace.

 

Saw a card using an old reader illustration and thought I'd give it a try. It's 6x6. Have alphabet paper on top then a strip of green cardstock, some old blue ricrac with glitter to cover the exposed adhesive. a punched blue cardstack flower with a lavender flower brad that has a rhinestone on it and a tag that says, "you're so fun!" tied to back of brad with twine.

December 3

Sometimes when things are stressful, you just have to bake! And new recipes are the best to try because you need to sing a NEW SONG, like David says in the Psalms. So today I made Orange Cranberry Loaf from the cookbook Colorado Collage. It sounded good, the batter looked wonderful and the bread measured up in every way. We have restrained ourselves to only eating half the loaf tonight, but I was wise enough to double the recipe and make 2 loaves so we would have more longer. Here goes:

325 degree oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes. One loaf pan greased and floured.

Big bowl: 2 cups flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1 cup sugar
stir this together

little bowl: 1 egg beaten, 2 TB melted butter, 3/4 cup orange juice stir this together

another bowl: 1 cup cranberries cut in half (be smart use the food processor and a couple of pulses) and 3/4 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans)

Make sure oven hot, pan ready and tada, add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix, then add the berries and nuts and stir in well.
Mixture will be thick. Pour into pan, put in oven and set timer. When done set on rack til pan cool enough to touch and then take out of pan and let finish cooling on rack. Divine.

November 1st

Dug most of our potatoes tonight, ate some boiled then browned in butter and they were yummy.
The ram, Blackie, got to join the girls yesterday and he and the girls were happy to be together. So we will have March baby lambs in 2011.
Mabel fell Saturday night and re-broke her left wrist (had just gotten the splint off from first break) and she broke her left hip. So now she has broken both hips in less than a year.
Aunt MaryJane died, I found out when I called Mom Sunday as she had just gotten home from the funeral. Sad but she's out of pain now.
Crystal is engaged to be married and we are all happy for her.
Pat's family is all coming here for Turkey Day (as Uncle Bill used to say).
Managed to get all 3 class supplies for this month cut and ready; so now it's get house ready for influx of people and then cook my head off.
We have a cat now. Walter (Mabel's cat originally) who gave us a scare last week when he disappeared. But he returned a couple of days later and apparently decided he would have to be satisfied with us as his feeders.
Not much to tell, it's just life as usual.