Religious Satire and Work

I have a sort of strange liking of this stuff, but through all the satire I am learning more definitely what it is I am a part of and believe in. Recently, Susan posted about another satirical site, and this one is better than The Sacred Sandwich (I think) because his posts are relatively short, nice and simple, and fairly frequent.

Okay, the title says: Religious Satire and Work. I have to write something of the work that got accomplished today. No, I didn't even touch the sewing machine (I did want to though)! This morning I made a batch of bread which we later ate with lunch (I also did a pan of sweet rolls so I could pop them in the oven for breakfast tomorrow morning). Soon after I got the loaves out of the oven Kyle came in and said that Elijah would appreciate my help with the fencing effort. Mama and I went out, and I helped Elijah fence until lunchtime (around 1:30pm). After lunch, Kyle, Elijah, and I went back out to finish fencing around the pond. Once that was done, we decided to go to the pasture closest to the house (there is a debate about what to call that, but I'll post that another time) and get one strand of barbed wire up and drive the t-posts. After that was done we were all tired and getting a little touchy so we decided it was time to quit for the day.

I cannot close this without mentioning that while we were fencing Mr. and Mrs. Brothers were cleaning up the barn and the chicken house/shed! Daddy was so happy with all that had been done while he was away! Another thing I must not (for fear of chastisement) leave out is that Mama cooked lunch and dinner for the whole bunch of us, and Elizabeth and Catherine did a wonderful job watching out for the little ones!

Irony

I was just quickly skimming over some of Mama and Daddy's old blog posts when I came across this one and I noticed that Mama said that Heritage was just too far away for us to worship with regularly. This is no longer the case! Just a few months after the barn raising we started making a church three and a half hours away our church home. We have been regularly going ever since not regretting the long drive in the least! We still are amazed to think "Not a rotten apple in the bunch!" The fellowship just gets sweeter! The family that wasn't able to make it for the barn raising is now living on our land (they got back today, by the way!). It has been really neat getting to know the Heritage folks; it makes me feel now like we're not the only oddly-shaped apples in the basket! Some things never change though. Even though we usually see our church family every week, the end of the day is always the same: we still hate to leave. However, the pain of separation is much abated because the parting is not indefinite!

It would be really neat to have a barn raising reunion now! Maybe we'll just have to have everybody up for a hog killin' and bar-b-cue! I don't know anything about pigs, or at least not much, so maybe you can't eat a pig soon after you kill it. Well, we can at least have beef of some sort. There's always the chili/soup fall-back too, or maybe we'll all just sit around eating pop corn. Heritage church family, I (and I think I can safely say so for the rest of the family too) can't thank y'all enough for allowing us to be apart of it all (I can't really describe it, it's every aspect of your lives I think)!

We miss you, Lingo's!

SPBGMA Awards

Well, I don't think my opinions about who should win what swayed the officials at all. Not very many of "my winners" won. Oh, well, there's always next year so long as you don't go country or pop!

Pictures

Well, here is a picture of our four pigs piled into the doghouse. They have already rooted up the "ICU" so much that Daddy says that we'll have to rake it and re-seed it once they're out! The white spots in the picture are snowflakes; we've gotten quite a bit today!

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The pigs are out and rooting!

We Arrived Safely Home

With several new bags of feed, tons of fabric, and four good-sized pigs. It is dark now so I can't get any pictures, but I will try hard to get some tomorrow. The pigs are going in the "ICU" for now, but they will probably move out to the barn soon.

Mama, Claire, and I had quite a time in Fayetteville today. After a couple of hours of shopping we had an overflowing cart (the fabric is not all for us though...), and we decided to go across the square to O'Houllihans (I doubt that's spelled right, oh well) for lunch. We split a couple of sandwiches and had a white chocolate chip macadamia Cristy Cookie! After that we went back to Sir's for a while. Daddy came and picked us and our bags up after about another hour.

We stopped at the Wiggin's to drop off their two pigs, and we ate dinner with them. Unfortunately, we couldn't fellowship with them for very long (seeing as how we had four other pigs in a trailer).

Tomorrow!

Tomorrow we are getting pigs from the Sanders' farm, and (what is even better) we ladies are going to be dropped off at Sir's! They are having a $1.00 a yard sale! Think of all that money we are saving... :)

I might have pictures of the pigs tomorrow.

CARNAGE!!!

No public details.

Who would you be?

Do you ever wonder who you would be, or who you would like to be, from the books that you've read? I do. I have imagined myself all the Jane Austin heroines and Edith (from The Inheritance, by Louisa May Alcott) and Polly (from An Old-Fashioned Girl, again by Alcott). I have caught myself being like Caroline Bingly in the scene where Mr. Bingly keeps trying to give his opinion and she keeps interrupting him. I have sometimes (thankfully not often) felt like Marianne from Sense and Sensibility, and I have often wanted to be like Fanny in Mansfield Park, all long-suffering and patient. One thing I recently noticed was that I don't think I have ever thought of myself as a Brontë novel heroine! I may have imagined myself as Shirley, while I read it, other than that I don't think I have. That is very odd for me not to even try to think of myself in the heroine's position, however, I find their books rather dark and depressing. I have recently been reading some Greek and Roman literature, but they are so different from what I normally read I can't even begin to place myself in the book or play!

We got a couple of pictures of Clarabelle, our future Jersey; I may be able to post them later.

A Few Little Things

Not a whole lot going on around here, although we are preparing for some BIG changes! Well, they seem big to me anyway. We are getting a two-year-old bred Jersey, four pigs from Top of the World Farm, we're looking at more chickens (eggs and meat), and possibly some geese. There's the changes for around the farm.

I just finished the Sense and Sensibility 1910's Tea Gown. At least, I finished the instruction booklet, but I may have to add an insert thing at the neck. My "experience" was thoroughly put to use on this dress, but other than the fitting the pattern (had I been able to follow it word for word) wasn't all that difficult. The back of the dress went WAY too low for my taste so I had to put an insert in there, but I think that was the only "major" alteration I made.

Claire and I continue to take lessons from Mr. Brantley, and we are enjoying them immensely even though I (Claire doesn't really) have to work hard to be ready each week. He has started teaching us together, we do the same songs sometimes we do harmonies too. This past week we worked on "Mississippi Sawyer" and harmony and melody on "Harvest Home Hornpipe". This week we are to work on "O'Keefe's Slide" and "Drowsy Maggie". Both are Irish fiddle tunes, and both are very different from bluegrass (which makes them a little more difficult for me). "Drowsy Maggie" is especially difficult.

It Snowed!!!

There was snow on the ground when I woke up this morning! However, by lunch there was nothing left. That leaves us cold, wet, and miserable! Okay, not miserable, but I can easily think of other situations I would rather be in! I will not let this weather get me down though!Just think spring will be here before too long! With it will come all the garden work, but I love that.

How Forgetful I Am!!!

I can't believe I forgot to mention Saturday night in my last post! Yet it seems so long ago. Oh well! We actually met Roland White!!! He is an awesome mandolin picker, and he's played with some REALLY BIG names! He came with the band Richard Starkey and Friends. Unfortunately there were enough sandwich orders to keep me in the kitchen almost the whole time, but I did speak to him a minute when we bought one of his Cd's! It was really exciting to see a famous man come into the restaurant when you've only seen him on the front of your lesson book and on the internet!

SPBGMA

I was just checking out the nominees for this year's national SPBGMA event in Nashville. Rhonda Vincent has so many nominations she can't help but walk away with several awards! She's got: songwriter, album, female vocalist (in the contemporary category), and the list goes on! Sometimes I wonder if bluegrass is so small that there really wasn't anybody else to nominate, but I know that can't be true. I am not a big Rhonda Vincent fan; I'm just not. You know how you can like or dislike something for no apparent reason; that is kind of how it is. I guess I have learned to appreciate a more traditional sound. Looking at the vocal group of the year I don't know all of them, but I see that Cherryholmes is still big (I have not heard enough of their stuff to form an opinion), predominately female groups (or groups with women leaders) are popular. Of course I would be the odd one, but I like the two that are all men (I think). Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver are GREAT! I have a CD of Mountain Heart and I like their sound, REALLY FAST! Anyway I would like to see: The Gibson Brothers "Red Letter Day" win the album of the year, gotta hope for Ronnie McCoury in the mandolin category, female vocalist-contemporary is difficult (don't listen to that stuff much) nope not gonna do it I'm not educated enough to form an opinion on this one, I'm not too sure of myself on the female-traditional either, I don't know about the male-contemporary maybe Ronnie Bowman maybe Terry Eldredge, Del McCoury or Larry Sparks for male-traditional, Gospel-contemporary I don't know any but the Isaacs and Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver so I'm hoping for the latter, Gospel-traditional again I just know Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver but BlueRidge has a good name, I'm hoping Mountain Heart will win vocal group, instrumental group would be the Grascals although Ricky Scaggs and Kentucky Thunder is good too, song of the year is again "Red Letter Day" by the Gibson Brothers, and I have no clue as to the last two categories. There. I've had my say.

On the Road to Recovery

We hope! Luke's been well for days now, and bouncing off the walls! Kyle is well off and on. Mama is pretty much well, but trying to shake a headache. Claire seems to have gotten this thing worse than the rest of us, and she is pretty laid up, but better I think. I am doing way better! Unfortunately, Daddy is down with it now.

Yesterday is the perfect example of those days when everything you planned goes out the window. At first Kyle wasn't going to go to the birthday party, but then Mama and Daddy decided he could go, since he is practically well. So Mama took Kyle, Luke, and the desserts for the Pickn' Parlor. She dropped Kyle off at the party, and took Luke and the desserts to the Pickn' Parlor. Claire and I were at home. Claire was resting and I was working on putting in an invisible zipper, still haven't got that thing in. Daddy came home looking awful! He went directly to bed, but only stayed there for about an hour. Then our plan to stay home tonight, and not work blew up. Daddy said we were leaving in twenty minutes with Elijah and Mrs. Brothers. Uncle Craig was unable to be there so we had to pick up the slack. Thankfully we had a lady who worked as head chef kind of. She was GREAT! One couple who were not going to work any more came in ready to help. We had a rather hectic kitchen, but it was a happy one. Kaliste and Mr. Lovett came in too! Kaliste discovered our delightful sink! Thank you so much; we can always use another dishwasher! The night was thankfully slower than a normal Friday night, but I think we filled up close to our usual amount. We were beat when we got home, but it was a good night.

Everytime We Think We Get Better...

We get worse! How much worse can it get?!?

MORE!!!

Daddy is coughing a bit now, but he said he doesn't have the fever. Wednesday night Claire's fever came back up, and now she has some sort of stomach thing.

Yesterday we watched "Lord of the Rings", but (I'm rather afraid of the comments this will bring) we skipped through most of the scenes with Frodo and Sam after they left the Fellowship. After viewing it again, I hold to my original favorite part: The Battle of Pelennor Fields after Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli arrive with the Dwimorberg-ians (I am not a LOTR "scholar", and I only know all this because the little booklet is in front of me. I usually just call it the battle of the dead).

And It Keeps Going...

I've got it now. However, Claire is well enough to go to lessons today; Mama is over it now too, I think. Who knows about Daddy! Being in an office all day may keep this away from him. The Brothers have moved back out to their camp, and the house is very quiet. Luke is still not back to normal, so that makes the house just that much more quiet. He, we found out yesterday, has a bad ear infection. We are all hoping and praying it doesn't spread to the rest of us.

Sickness in the house!

This week the inhabitants of Allelon Farm have been sick. Not many of us have managed to escape the persistent fever, chesty cough, and congestion; probably fewer of us will. Right now everyone is sick except: Daddy, Mr. Brothers, Mrs. Brothers, Benjamin, Lydia, Elizabeth, and me. That is half of us, but we thought the babies were sick yesterday. We would really appreciate your prayers as we try to get everyone well again.

The Eighth of January

Several things of note happened on this date. In 1815, Major General Andrew Jackson led a small army to victory against the British in New Orleans (I think it was the day after peace papers were signed). In 1935, Elvis Presley and his stillborn twin brother were born in a two-room house in Mississippi. In 1993, Claire was born. The Eighth of January is also an old fiddle tune that Johnny Horton put the words of "The Battle of new Orleans" to.

Obviously, Major General Andrew Jackson.

In case you couldn't guess Elvis is the one in the center.

Claire.

Barber Claire.

Working Claire.

A portrait trial.

Claire dancing with Kyle, her partner.

Just a Note

How on earth do you write a truly thankful, perfectly honest thank you note to someone who has given you something you don't particularly like? I find it one of the most difficult things.

Sorry!

Will post soon.