A Great Way To Expand One's Repertoire

Have to go from five songs to an hour's worth of songs in a week and a half or less!!! Believe me, it's difficult! We haven't quite got an hour, but it's close enough. We've added three songs just in the past couple of days! However, everything will be better come show time, but everything will be great after we play!

Now all we need to do is get these fellers up!

Oh To Have What They Had!

3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. 6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

--- Genesis 4:3-7

---

1 And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

--- Genesis 7:1

---

3 And the LORD said unto Jacob, Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred; and I will be with thee.

--- Genesis 31:3

---

Perhaps He does, and I'm just a bad listener, but I long for the Lord to shout at me. I desire such straight-forward instruction that those men had. I want Him to tell me "It desires to have you, but you must master it." and I want Him to help me!

A Thought

I have two "personalities": the one most everyone sees, and the one that only my family and closest friends see. That's not good. I need not to treat most everyone like my family, but to treat my family like most everyone, only better.

I Thought of Something Else to Blog About!

Another chick died a couple of days ago.

Really interesting.

Oh well, Daddy, Kyle, and Elijah are at the moment picking up some windows and doors that one of Uncle Craig's friend was going to throw out. We're becoming quite the scavengers! I was once again thinking about how much things have changed! About five years ago Daddy got his turkey, and I was absolutely grossed out by it! Perhaps I wasn't the perfect model of the average suburban girl, but I certainly wasn't very tough (not exactly the word I was looking for, but I don't want to spend too much time on this). Since that turkey I have helped slaughter several batches of chickens. I have also been more or less involved in slaughtering a steer and a bull. We have had some success with laying hens. We're hoping to do at least one of the pigs in about a month and a half. Things are rolling around here!

Here's Another One

It Couldn't Be Done

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.

--- Edgar A. Guest

---

You can tell I'm working through a poetry book! It is interesting to think of this poem in the context of communities (there it is again. I'm going to wear that subject out!). The last verse especially I think. We've already seen the first half of the last verse, and we're working hard on the last half. It is so exciting (that phrase is showing up a lot too!)!

One Down...

Twenty-four to go! One dead chick by the third day. Pretty good survival rate!

29's Demise (Among Other Things)

This will just be a picture post, if it is possible for me to do one of those.

---

We made soap the other day! Can't believe we actually did it!

The boys demonstrating the cattle chute; Kyle's being the head-gate in this picture.

The boys "cleaning the basement!"

The snow that I mentioned in my last post.

Cutting the throat after they shot our 29. I think it only took one shot, but the Lingos and the Wiggins can correct me on that.

The expert tractor operator, Mr. Tent-dweller, bringing 29 to the chicken yard.

Skinning the legs a bit so they can get the gambrel (I think that's what it's called) in.

Here there will be a slight jump. Our photographer wasn't out there to capture the whole skinning experience. So, they are (or are trying to) pulling the... They are eviscerating 29.

Daddy cleaning out the cavity. Gotta like Jacob's job!

Here Daddy is beginning to cut 29 in half. In this picture you can also see the two color schemes of the men's pants. There were a couple of blue jeans, but Carhartts and Dickies reigned.

29, halved.

29, quartered, and ready to be hung.

Our chicks came in this morning! This is the only picture that's not blurry. It's our "exotic" freebie bird that we got because we bought 25 (I think). All the others are Barred Rocks.

One last thing. Kyle's turkey trophy was destroyed by this dog. Kyle was pretty upset about it, reasonably so. It was his first turkey; he shot it with Daddy; it was the biggest turkey we've heard about all season, etc.

It's SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!

I don't want it to snow! Why can't we get snow in the middle of winter!?! It's snowing hard and fast and in big flakes! Great bull killin' weather. The wind will freeze us tomorrow morning! I'm not sure I've ever seen snow when the trees were green and blooming!

A Poem

Be True

Thou must be true thyself,
If thou the truth wouldst teach;
Thy soul must overflow, if thou
Another's soul wouldst reach!
It needs the overflow of heart
To give the lips full speech.

Think truly, and thy thoughts
Shall the world's famine feed;
Speak truly, and each word of thine
Shall be a fruitful seed;
Live truly, and thy life shall be
A great and noble creed.

---Horatius Bonar

Things

Kyle is 12 years old today. He rarely looks at my blog, but I'll tell him 'Happy Birthday' here anyway. Happy birthday, Kyle! I told him in person, too!

Claire and I have a recital coming up on the 21st. Our first bluegrass recital. We have chosen "Bluegrass Breakdown," "Harvest Home Hornpipe," "O'Keefe's Slide," "Drowsy Maggie," and "Clinch Mountain Backstep" for our pieces. It's just going to be Mr. Brantley's students. We're playing at (of course) the Pickin' Parlor.

Then on the 29th (I think) our community band has a thing to do at Granddaddy's church for their fifth Sunday fellowship thingy. We get to play for an hour.

Last night we made a batch of soap. Don't know if it will turn out right, but we did it!

Today we've been out in the berry patch garden picking up rocks. And more rocks, and more rocks, and more rocks, etc. Kyle, Mr. Tent-dweller, and Elijah have been working on the cattle chute since lunch.

The asparagus is coming in well lately.

The cold weather has kinda stunted the dogwoods in the front yard.

We're apparently slaughtering one of our bulls Saturday. I didn't find that out until this morning! Daddy wants to take advantage of the cold weather. Too bad we can't do both at the same time! We just don't have enough room in the basement.

I can't think of anything else to blog about right now, so here's a picture of our boys two or three years ago. I love the picture, but things sure have changed since then! You just have to think "Luke, my boy! You need a haircut!"

A Few Things That Have Been Going On Around Here

The Tent-dwellers have started to put floorboards down.









Daddy had Mr. Doc Lewis come spread lime on our pastures.


Granddaddy and others hung another bell out front.







Mr. Saenz and Chris came this weekend to play at the Pickn' Parlor. They gave us a great show on our front porch too!









They even allowed us to jam with them! We had a great time!









Saying the rods really do work.

Proving the rods don't work.








Experiencing the rods not working!
















Kyle shot his first turkey Monday morning. Stats here.









Optimism paid off. The scalder and plucker (with a little help) worked well.

See! This tom turned into roast turkey (Did you know that turkey came from a turkey?!?! Apparently Luke didn't) that we had as a fellowship dinner with the Tent-dwellers last night. He tasted even better tonight in turkey potpie!

---

Oh, well, it looks fine in Internet Explorer.