Katie's Picture Post

Hey guys! Last Saturday we went to the birthday party of a friend at an Ice-Skating rink. It was sooooo fun! It was the first time my sisters and I had been ice-skating. Here are some pictures I took with my new camera.

-Katie


Alaina and Me.






Crack the Whip





Sarah and Me.

Rachel and Morgan.

Happy 8th Birthday Lucy!

Lucy turned eight yesterday! Happy Birthday Lucy! We love you!
(Rebecca in the brown and Lucy in the pink)

A Little About My Trip

Hello Everyone! I'm back safe and sound from the Furhmanns! I had a wonderful time! It was really perfect timing too, the little ones got sick after the first few days that I was up there and I was able to milk in the evenings for Mr. Fuhrmann so he could be inside with the little ones. The baby, Peace Mary Odele Furhmann is such a tiny sweet little thing! She has lots of dark hair, big blue eyes, and tiny little nose and such cute little features! Do pray for her though, her mouth is very small and so she has trouble nursing, they are having to feed her with a bottle so that she is satisfied after each feeding. I had so much fun with the children! I had never been up to their farm before so they showed me around and I got to help with the outside chores. One morning, Hope Furhmann (8) and I took the rugs out of the downstairs and beat the dust out of them outside. That was really fun! I felt as though I had stepped back into the 18th century as we beat the rugs for all we were worth:) The scenery is so beautiful out there too! Rolling hills, woods and farmland speckled with old farm houses and out buildings. I'll have to post pictures later. One day an apprentice from another farm came over and taught us how to make farmhouse cheese, That was really neat! Only I was in charge of taking notes and I accidentally left out a few key instructions (whoops!) But we were able to get them later:) Another day, the children took me out in their woods to show me their old outbuildings. One in particular that we visited had been named "Pirate Joe's Cabin" :) As we stood just outside the doorway of the falling down cabin, Joshua Furhmann explained about it's name. All about how Pirate Joe lives in the loft and how he pulled up the ladder after him, prefaced by a motion to the drawn up ladder. As he is finishing speaking his sisters, Sheila and Hope, lean inside the doorway for a better look. Suddenly a look a alarm crosses Shelia's face, with a scream she darts backwards. Hope screams too and they both run back a little up the path towards their oldest brother Sam. I echoed their scream, but didn't move, all the while Joshua is asking with an incredulous look "What?!" After a moment the girls screaming breaks into laughter. "I saw a huge vulture!" Sheila explained. "It's wings were about three feet long!" she said, holding out her arms to demonstrate. "I saw it too!" Put in Hope. "I just screamed because they did" I admitted sheepishly. We all got a good laugh out of it and had fun relaying the frightful event to their parents when we got home. I have lots more fun memories treasured up from my time there. I was so busy I hardly had time to be homesick. In fact, when it was time to go, I shed a few tears because I was going to miss the Furhmanns! I hope to go back up again sometime this summer or fall. It was a neat experience to get to play "mama" for a week, I am very grateful for the opportunity! I felt very loved when I overheard the Furhmann children deciding who was going to sit by my for one of the last meals, and again when my brothers and sister came running and yelling down the driveway to meet me when I returned home!:)
Hope everyone has a good week!
-Morgan

I'm Off!

Hello All! Tomorrow I'm off to help out for a week at some of our friends, the Furhmanns. Mrs. Fuhrmann just had their eighth baby this afternoon, a little girl. Yay! They don't have a name picked out yet, they didn't find out if the baby would be a girl or a boy but left it a surprise. (I don't know if I could be that patient!:) Mrs. Fuhrmann had the baby at home with a midwife and the baby was actually born breach but mama and baby are doing well. Please pray for a quick recovery for Mrs. Fuhrmann, also that I will be a good help and that I won't be too homesick:) It's the longest and farthest I've ever been away from home by myself before. I'm sure I will be too busy to be homesick though!:)

Have a great rest of your week!

-Morgan

Of Spring and Growth of Many Kinds

We have been enjoying this weather so much! This warm weather brings hope of Spring, the renewal of life, color and growth to come! I stumbled across this verse in Song of Solomon that seemed to fit perfectly. "For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;" Song of Solomon 2:11-12 We were able to get our spring garden in the ground before all of this rain. We planted an abundance of potatoes, carrots, onions, peas (yum! raw peas straight from the garden taste like candy!) broccoli, cabbage and other such things that escape my memory:) I so enjoyed getting in the garden and planting the tiny seeds and plants. Some of our potatoes we had saved from last year's harvest and so we planted those along with the other seed potatoes we had bought. Our family loves potatoes and with 11 people we can go through up to 10lbs at a meal!
We have had 12 baby goats born over the last month. Maddie runs the dairy goat business, last year she sold a few shares but this year she is planning on expanding. We purchased a goat milking machine! Two to be exact:) But the second one hasn't arrived yet. Maddie has been working with her goats to get them trained to the milker. We have two batches of chicks in the brooders, one batch of broilers and one batch of pullets. Katie headed up the team that moved the first batch of broilers out to pasture yesterday. After yesterday morning's rain, Dad exclaimed that he could almost see the grass growing! Hooray for grass! Hooray for green in general! I'm sure the cows are happy about it, they have been escaping every chance they can to get at the new shoots of grass. They have managed to find the spring onions too! I could smell it as I strained the milk the other day:) We have had several calves born as well. We are running out of girl names for our calves! The two that were born recently we named Honey and Marigold. Marigold's mother is a first time milker. She kicks something dreadful and has a "bad attitude"! A farmer friend of ours taught us a trick for cows that kick. You hold up their tail vertically in the air and they will not kick. I think it's because it makes them feel off balance and so they won't move their legs to kick, at any rate it does work. We also have ten pigs at the present, great big fellows too! Pork seems to be a very popular product. Though probably beef ranks the top, we can never have enough beef to meet the demand. And so we are beginning to bust at the seems again! I am grateful for the start of another busy season. We were blessed to be able to really take a little break this winter and not "go, go, go" all year long, but now I am glad to start back up with the busyness again! One of the things the Lord has been reminding me of recently is that His ways are not our ways. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9
Sometimes, just when I think I have everything planned out, the Lord lands something I had never considered in my lap! While I look back on my crumpled plans and moan, "But Lord, I thought this was what you had for me! This new plan doesn't make any sense!" The Lord reminds me. "Didn't you give your plans, dreams and future to Me?" And I know in my heart that God has the the ultimate best plan. He wants me to give Him my nearest and dearest plans, hopes, dreams, everything! And He will give me something far greater than anything I could ever dream up or plan! "For I know the thoughts I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart" Jeremiah 19:11-13. These times draw me close to the Lord, it pushes me to seek Him more often, spend more time in His Word, praying and asking Him what His will is, what He wants me to do. Even though these growing times are painful, I wouldn't trade them for the world!
Hope everyone has a great week!
-Morgan

An Incident

Anyone want to guess what happened?:)

-Maddie