Recent Happenings

Where to start! The past few months seemed to fly by at a dizzying speed. Our annual Thanksgiving Turkey pick up day went well. We were worried we might not have enough birds but the Lord provided and we had enough and then some. He always provides. I don't know why we worry:) We are outgrowing our four hour pick up window, we had a line of cars waiting to get in our drive way to park! The Lord has greatly grown our business since we started almost 10 years ago. We were blessed with lots of friends who came to help us that busy week. The mornings started early with morning chores, then after a delicious pancake breakfast by Mr. Jack, we got started with the actual processing around 7-7:30am. We butchered about 150, more of less per day. What awesome friends we have! (You know who you are:)
After the flurry of processing and pick up day we found ourselves swept up in a whirl of fun social activities. I (as well as the rest of my family) found myself with very frazzled nerves after the constant, go-go-go of the November calender:) It was so nice to get to kick back and relax, rest up and go to fun social events:) For Thanksgiving, most of our family was out of town so we got together with church family for a day of fun, fellowship and food:) It was great!
At the beginning of December I went up to help some dear friends of ours who just welcomed their ninth child into the world: little John David Furhmann:) I so enjoyed my stay with them and enjoyed the challenge (in an exhausting kind of way:) of semi-running the household while Mrs. Furhmann was recovering. I'm hoping to get some pictures up soon.
That's all for now,
God Bless!
-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

Mom and Dad are back!

Hi everybody, you probably thought I had dropped out of blogging altogether! Mom and Dad have been gone this week on their 25th wedding anniversary trip. They went to Williamsburg and then to a sweet little cabin in the mountains! They just got back tonight and we are so glad to have them back! I missed them terribly! But we had a good, productive time at home. My grandparents stayed with us while my parents were gone and it was fun to visit with them. Hopefully I'll be posting some pictures from their trip soon. Katie, Maddie (and soon Hannah) have started posting now, it's nice to have lots of different perspectives!:) Also, don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the music post:) That subject will most likely turn into a series which I will probably post in January after the busyness. We're supposed to get alot of rain tonight and tomorrow with maybe some snow mixed in. I know in some places folks are expecting 8 to 10 inches of snow! Fun! (Though cold and harder to work in.) Tomorrow we have an on-farm pickup day scheduled. Dad and William will be running it because Mom and the rest of us girls have a surprise birthday party to go to. Well, bye for now! Sorry this post is not as interesting as the other girls' posts have been:)
-Morgan

P.s Yeah! I was finally able to get a video to load. So here is the test one, a sword fight from last Sunday at the Heffingtons house between Justin and Daniel T.