Graphic courtesy of www.allposters.com

How can you tell if an egg is any good?  We have been purchasing our eggs from a local farm so there is no sell by date.  I remember something about it floating in water.  Can y'all help me?

Blessings,

~Farrah

God loves a cheerful giver

Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

2 Corinthians 9:6,7 NASB

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You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.

Deuteronomy 15:10 ESV

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O LORD our God, all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own.

I know also, my God, that thou triest the heart, and hast pleasure in uprightness. As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things: and now have I seen with joy thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly unto thee.

1 Chronicles 29:16,17 KJV

Robert E. Lee had a chicken he took with him the whole time the Civil War was going.  Many a soldiers tried to cook the chicken, but he managed to rescue it saying, “Boiling the hen will give us one fine meal, but keeping her alive will feed us every day.”

So, as I said, not only are we preparing to buy a home, we'd like one with land so we can have our chickens.  Today I emailed our county law division and asked them stipulations pertaining to keeping hens and the local zoning laws pertaining to the subject.  I am awaiting for more information so we can keep in mind those stipulation while we look.

In the meantime, as you may have already noticed, I'm looking at both city coops and plans for regular ones.  I have an idea of what I'd like for a bigger one if we find a place in the country. I'll share those plans later.  Right now, I'm picking out which chickens we'll order once we move.

Let me just say that there are lots and lots of chickens out there.  Bantams which are smaller in size and tend to lay eggs with more yolk than whites, then there are the common chickens, the specialty and the Cochins which have the cute feathered feet but have a reputation for being poor layers (please, all jokes aside here, I'm having a chicken breed crisis).  There are crested breeds with feathered crowns and heavy breeds which are used for meat. 

With all those breeds, I felt more and more confused at choosing exactly which ones would work for our area with cold Northeastern snow and wind.  Ones that were well mannered, lay eggs quite often, and are good setters.  (now I'm starting to sound like a singles add.haha)

Murray McMurray is a hatchary with good, healthy chickens.  Not only do they sell chickens, but other game birds like turkeys, ducks, geese. Lets not forget about pheasants, quail, peacocks, and guineas.  If your ever in the market, I HIGHLY recommend Murray McMurray at www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html

One decision I do know, we are looking for brown egg layers.  So, that trims the list down a bit. The best part of Murray McMurray is they have "assortment" options for different breeds and egg colors.  So we have now decided to order the BROWN EGG LAYERS ASSORTMENT.

How easy was that?  We know we wanted brown egg layers, we just weren't sure which ones to choose because we've never had any of them.  Choosing the assortment, Murray McMurray throws in an assortment and you'll only know once they get to you which breed they are.  I like that alot because we don't have to choose just one breed, but can see which ones we really prefer for our next order. In the Brown Egg Assortment, they guarantee 5 of the following breeds:

Black Australorps; Lt. Brahmas; Dark Cornish; Black and White Giants; Buff and White Orpingtons; New Hampshire, Rhode Island Reds, Barred, White, Partridge, Buff Rocks;Deleware, Sussex, Turkens; White, Silver Laced, & Columbian Wyandottes, Red Star and Black Star.

A couple other breeds we were introduced to from our homestead friends, and plan to also purchase are Araucana and Dominique Chickens.  They produce green and blue eggs.  Our friends called them "easter eggs".  They're both pretty friendly and by exeperience with our friends when we were there, they are pretty good natured and do well in the winter months.  Check out a Youtube video above that I found on the breed.

How exciting to have made our choices.  We hope to introduce them late summer, early fall when we close on a home of our own. Woohoo!

Graphic courtesy of www.allposters.com

For the past 2 weeks my husband and I have been engrossed in politics.  Yes my friends, it's the Olympics all over again!  Now that both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention are at an end the question is, who do you vote for?  In whom do you put your entire trust and faith to be a qualified person to run one of if not THE most powerful nation in the world?  Do you believe that Sen. Barak Obama or Sen. John McCain will run the country very well?  What if the Vice-President will have to step in as President.  Who do you believe will be most qualified to run our country, Gov. Sarah Palin or Sen. Joe Biden?

There is quite an uproar in the Christian community about Sarah Palin.  Being a Mother to 5 and a wife to 1 is she hurting someone by being VP?  Would she be putting the country at risk by not getting sleep at night because of her infant?  Would her husband be resentful for being the stay at home Dad and she gets all the glory?  Would she be able to take care of her grandbaby, baby, husband, and run/help run the entire country?  And, is she breaking rules instructed to her in the Bible by not letting her husband be head of household and she stay with the children?  This is what Doug Philips and Vodie Bauccham are saying.  If you are interested read Dr. Bauccham's blog post about Mrs. Palin http://www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/Blog/Entries/2008/8/30_Did_McCain_Make_a_Pro-Family_Pick____.html.  

My "current" view on this is that I think Mrs. Palin is a great speaker, a beautiful lady, smart and ambitious, and is doing what she thinks is best for our country and her family.  However, I do have concerns.  But, quite frankly, what is the alternative?  The alternative of Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden are certainly not suitable.  I have quite an intense dissatisfaction with Mr. Obama's views and think he will ruin America's, well what's left of them, moral fiber amongst other things.  So, maybe Mrs. Palin may not be putting her family first as dictated by God, but the actual possible President, John McCain will be the one running the country.  Unless something happens they will get my vote.

Blessings,

~Farrah

Well, we did it, we restarted school!

It's been a very strange summer for us – almost none of the things I hoped to do got done, mainly because it never stopped raining long enough to do them!

We did survive Pony Club Camp, and having the kitchen floor ripped up, and the sitting room carpeted. We took a couple of trips, though not very adventurous ones, until last weekend when we left the animals with a friend and went up to wild, wet Wales for a Homeschool Conference. It was a wonderful time of fellowship, and we came back refreshed, and ready to begin again.

I guess God knew I needed the help, because our close encounter with the notion of christian school had left me a little disconsolate.

So today, we had a kind of trial run day, since tomorrow we are off to see a friend, and then Friday we will hopefully have another run through, and then Monday we can begin in earnest – and then I shall feel like autumn is here.

So I've been searching for plans for chicken coops.  In our search for a home here in NYS, I'm trying to keep in mind we'd like some land in the country to have chickens, goats, etc.  Sounds silly to those of you who know doug and I in real life, BUT we've always had this dream.

Thing is, he works in the city limits and finding a small homestead or a home on a small piece of land within our budget, has proved to nothing more than trying.

We won't let that get us down though.  If the good Lord wants us in the city limits, then we should plan accordingly.  Some cities allow chickens.  In fact, some allow chickens, just not the loud roosters within the city limits.

With that in mind, I've been looking for regular chicken coop plans AND small city type chicken runners that can move.  You can imagine my surprise when I found a site by OMLET that sells Eglu's.  Yup, IGLOOS for chickens are made from energy efficient polymers using modern construction techniques and at the end of its life it can be 100% recycled. 

Take a Look at their Brochure online in PDF

Above you'll see a guide to keeping chickens. The little girl is SO CUTE and the eglu is in the picture.  I just found the little girl to be so precious that I had to post this.

My one true concern with this is in the harsh Upstate NY winters, how the chickens would get on and not freeze to death.

This is where you avid homesteaders come in.  What do you think?  Have any ideas on what to do in the wintertimes?  Have any other ideas or plans?  How bout plans for bigger size coops if we do find a home with some land?

Let me know your experience and feel free to comment.

Blessings!

Rebekah

 And so dawned a new day.
Thankfully yesterday is but a pale distant memory.
Add snicker here.
Well, it’s enough of a memory.
Today was a much more FANTASTIC 2^nd day of school.
I thought to try my schedule for Mr. Conductor one more day before trying a revamp and I’m glad we did.
Today was great. We did everything on the schedule and had so much fun together. Plus we were done in 45 minutes and he was off painting his latest masterpiece with his new watercolors while I worked with the girls. In order to work without much interruption with Mr. C, I assigned Sassafras to read one of her assignments to herself rather than doing it with her. It went well.
The only blip is that it seems I have misplaced one of Maiden’s grammar books. I didn’t do the frantic search like yesterday- just a quick one- but fruitless all the same. We decided to make it a matter of prayer and pray that it shows up within the next day or so----- or my memory becomes equally clear as to where I may have put it . . . . . .
That could be a bit of awhile.
No matter- today was a good day. We enjoyed our learning, had great discussion and just plain fun doing it.
It is my hope and prayer that we have many more days like today than days like yesterday.
To do that one needs to have perspective.
Perspective.
It starts with me- if I wake up in a lousy mood it’s a pretty safe hypothesis that we’ll have a lousy day.
If I sleep in and don’t get up ahead of the children and have my coffee and quiet time . . . . . well, it’s just not good, people.
Today could possibly have gone down yesterday’s road if I’d let it- what with the missing grammar book and all that.
But it didn’t.
It was icing on the cake to have Mr. C do so well- but I was also prepared to let him run off if it was necessary.
There is only so much one’s sanity can take.
I continue to learn that even in the small every day stuff it is necessary- no VITAL, for me to go to God’s strength first and not go “own my own”. I work with the children to make it a habit to commit our day to the Lord first and ask Him to help us to accomplish all that He desires for us today.
We are never suppose to go it on own strength and then go to God when we’re burned-out and strung-out, gasping for air and begging for mercy. That’s backwards. He is our strength even in the mundane day-to-day-ness of each 24 hour period.
He’s my strength when we’re just starting the day and we’re eager to crack our books and get started.
And He’s my strength when I’m juggling teaching 3 school levels and the doorbell chimes along with the ring of the phone.
He’s my strength when we stretch one meal to two- including leftover for Mr. Steady’s lunch.
Just as He’s my strength when Mr. Steady takes the wrong container of leftovers to work and it throws off the dinner plans.
He’s my strength when Mr. Steady and his brother take turns driving to work to both economize on gas.
And He is my strength when Mr. Steady reveals to me that he put the spare tire on his car because one tire was so bald he thought it would blow-out.
Amazingly enough- I have no idea what kind of strength I will need for each day but I do know this---
What I have on my own will never be enough.
Not ever.
And so being the ever practical sort- I find it best to lean on and invite God’s strength at the beginning of each new day.
Sure I’ll still have those bad days- those Oh-I-just-want-to-go-back-to-bed-and-start-over-or-just-skip-it-and-sleep-through-it days. I’ll have those days when I “forget” to commit the day to the Lord and ask for His strength to lead me through.
And I will fall completely flat on my face.
Good thing God makes each day new.
Thank you Lord for the chances and opportunities each new day brings.
Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not His benefits. Blessed be the Lord. Who daily loads us with benefits. Psalm 103:2, 68:19