Hello All! How has everyone been? Today we are taking it a little slower as we've been very busy this week. On Thursday we butchered chickens and started out Joel Salatin style :) At least according to the time of his book "Pastured Poultry Profits". Dad got up at 4am to start the scalder and the rest of us got us at 4:45 had coffee or tea and a boiled egg and then we trooped out at 5am to process about 150 birds. It was lovely be finished by 7:30am! Then we ate breakfast and did the morning chores. We also received a surprise batch of turkeys that day! A whole month early! There was some sort of mix up with the hatchery and so we received (over the process of two days) 200 extra turkeys in addition to the 400 we are to receive in July! Needless to say we will have plenty of thanksgiving turkeys!:) At first we got a little panicked at the prospect of raising double the turkeys we had last year! But as Mom pointed out, the Lord knows what He's doing; we needed them for some reason! After breakfast and chores we cut some of the chicken and then packaged and bagged everything. We were finished by about noon. Then we had the rest of the afternoon off! Needless to say we have adopted a new schedule :) Though not quite so early... We get up at about 5:15 have coffee and meet out in the backyard at 5:30. It lovely to be sitting down to breakfast at 8:30am instead of 10:30am! On Friday we got 11 of our pigs back from the butcher. So we scrambled to find room in every nook and cranny of our freezers:) We were able to fit everything just fine. So today we are taking it a little slower. I find it is so easy in all of the busyness to get off focus, and shift my sights off of the things that are most important like spending time with the Lord and family, not using all of my free to time seek my own pleasure and overlook the needs of my siblings and parents. Making sure I am honoring and obeying my parents from the heart and not just surface cooperation. I need to be sure I am setting a godly example to my younger siblings who look to me as their big sister to see how I react to the many and diverse situations that arise during the day. I need to make sure I'm taking the time to really smile into their little hearts and let them know how much I love and care about them, whether it be stopping to take the time to read a book or include them in whatever I'm doing. Being their friend and confidant and not only their "bossy" big sister :)
Well, I hope everyone has a great weekend!
-Morgan
