Garden Update

It has been far too long since I’ve done a garden update! Last time I posted, I had planted my seedlings and they were growing indoors. Needless to say, a lot has changed since then!

Normally I put my garden in on Memorial Day weekend, but since we were out of town this year, things worked out a little differently than normal.

Instead of clearing out my garden in a weekend, it took me a couple of weeks. I worked just a few hours at a time every day. As you can see, the weeds had lots of time to take over my garden! I also had to clear out a lot of the newspaper from the lasagna garden I did in the fall.

I focused on clearing out the beds first so that I could spread topsoil on them and get the plants in as soon as possible. As you can see from this photo, some of my lettuce from last year survived the winter and came back up this spring!

I had a rather large garbage pile by the time I was through cleaning up!

On a slight tangent, our wild berries are now starting to develop! I’m hoping we’ll be able to harvest some this year.

Finally! All cleaned out! And plants in it to boot.

In one of my beds I have a Sweet 100 tomato plant, a chocolate cherry tomato plant, a beefsteak tomato plant, basil, lettuce, and cucumbers which were companion planted with radishes.

I’m also attempting to grow heirloom tomatoes in a large pot. On the path directly behind the pot and to the right, I planted some marigold seeds I found that we had saved. Whether they sprout or not doesn’t matter too much to me, but it can’t hurt to try!

In another raised bed I am growing cabbage, collards, spinach, Jalapeno peppers, Bell peppers, zucchini and nasturtiums. In the fall I will plant mustard greens and kale.

In my third raised bed, I’m growing cantaloupe, nasturtiums, and summer squash. In the path to the right, I have some marigolds sprouting.

My dianthus has come back from last year as well. We haven’t tried eating any of the blooms yet, but it at least brightens up the garden!

I also have lots of zinnias coming up from the seeds I saved from last year. I look forward to having lots of fresh-cut bouquets in a few months!

My herb collection has grown a lot over the past couple of years! From Left to Right: thyme (my seeds didn’t grow so I bought a plant which I will pot soon), sweet mint, chocolate mint, parsley (didn’t work), oregano, chives, 2 pots of catnip, cilantro, and spearmint (also didn’t sprout.) I also have our salsa pot from Keeper’s Coop, and a pot of rosemary seeds.

I ended up buying thyme (back left), spearmint (front left), and rosemary (front right) since my seeds didn’t work out. I also bought a lemon balm plant (back right) which smells delightful!

My lavender from last year came back, and I transplanted it from the pot it was in to a spot in one of our other gardens. My hope is that it will grow larger and we’ll be able to harvest more lavender off of it in years to come.

So far I’ve harvested lettuce and herbs. *What’s growing in your garden? Have you harvested anything yet? I’d love to know!*

Making or Discovering the Law

Posted by Benjamin

In a recent essay, I was asked to respond--in favor or against—to the following statement:

“Thomas Paine once said, ‘Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.’ This is the premise of both science and the common law.”

I agree with this common law principle. Although it is up to man to create specifications, basic principles of morality and justice have already been established by God’s Word and common law. It is simply up to man to discover them.

I am reminded of a book that very well illustrates this concept. It was the bestseller in the American colonies in 1776. That book is “Lex, Rex” (which means the ‘law is king’) written by Samuel Rutherford. This book contends that it is not man’s duty to make but rather to discover the principles of law in God’s holy word. The entire message of Lex, Rex can be easily summed up in 3 basic principles:

#1. Only God can distinguish right from wrong, and He has done so in the Bible.

Samuel Rutherford, a Calvinist, believed that man does not have the mental capability to make just law. He believed that if you leave it up to man to make the law, the law will be corrupt. We see this in our government today. Things that are perfectly permissible in God’s eyes are illegal in this country, and things that are an abomination to God are legal in this country. An example: if you go and hold a protest sign outside an abortion clinic, who gets arrested? The murderer inside, or you holding the sign?

#2. Only God can define a criminal act, and He has done so in the Bible.

God’s standard is the most holy and just standard for civil law in the world. He has a holy, glorified mind. If He says it’s OK, then it’s OK! If He says it’s wrong, then it’s wrong! We cannot allow man’s totally depraved mind to determine this for himself.

#3. Only God can determine how crime is to be punished, and He has done so in the Bible.

Point #1 has established that man is incapable of making just law. How more capable can he be of justly enforcing that law? If we leave it up to man to determine criminal punishment after we have left him to define law, the forms of punishment will be barbaric, unjust, and counterproductive. An example of this: an elderly pastor in Atlanta Georgia lost his wife and daughter after they were brutally murdered. The assailant was arrested, brought before a court of law, and charged with intentional murder. The man was tried and found guilty, and instead of being executed (which is legal in Georgia), the man was sentenced to life imprisonment. When a reporter asked the jury why the man did not receive capital punishment, the jury stated; “we only do that for heinous crimes!” That man is now getting three square meals a day, a bed, and a recreation center. Now we must ask ourselves a valuable question: who is paying for all this? The tax dollars of the elderly pastor who lost his wife and child to this man.

So it would appear that if your family is brutally murdered, the murderer gets rewarded with FREE food, a FREE bed, and a FREE recreation center. He will pay no taxes, therefore giving little to nothing back to society. And he will take up prison space, making future prisoners more difficult to confine, and contributing to the plaguing issue of overcrowded jails. If a man murders your family, you get punished by paying a fine (tax dollars) to keep this man alive by paying for his food, his bed, and his recreation center. Before a murderer commits murder, he pays taxes, and he must pay for his own food and bed. After he commits a murder, his victim’s family pays taxes while he gets relief, and they now pay for his food and his bed. This is one example of why we cannot trust mere man when it comes to making law, and properly enforcing it with just punishments!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Ben's Birthday

Recently we celebrated Ben’s birthday! His celebration ended up being spread over several days due to other things going on in our schedule at the time.

The birthday boy at breakfast. He got to open one gift in the morning, which turned out to be a book on Presidential Facts from Grandma and Grandpa. He really loves it!

For our special breakfast, Mom made coffee cake which was delicious as always.

After breakfast, we left for a day of surprises! Our first destination was a local nursery that everyone loves to visit. They have an old house, lots of beautiful landscaping, and the favorite attraction: a pond full of goldfish and frogs.

After we looked around and I purchased a few items for my garden (post coming about that soon!) we drove to the Secretary of State office where I applied for my level 2 driver’s license.

Then we drove to our favorite fruit and vegetable stand for the first time this year. We bought lots of Michigan produce including strawberries (post coming on what we did with those soon), asparagus, radishes, tomatoes, and a few more plants and seeds for my garden.

By that time we were getting hungry, so we went to a local park to have a picnic lunch! We ate egg salad sandwiches, popcorn, apple slices, and Hershey’s® chocolate kisses. It was very relaxing!

We stayed at the park for awhile and then drove on towards the library, where we returned books and spent some time relaxing and reading. We have all gotten very familiar with our favorite sections of the library!

Then it was time for an extra special treat! Several months back, our cousins gave us Cold Stone Creamery gift cards. We’ve been waiting for warmer weather to make good use of them. The ice cream was very satisfying!

After our stop at Cold Stone, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things for Ben’s special birthday dinner. We were going to have the dinner another night since Dad couldn’t be home for dinner tonight.

So we ate a delicious simple supper of Broccoli salad (recipe coming soon!) and cornbread while watching a movie in the living room. It was a scrumptious meal!

The next night, we continued the celebration, with Ben’s requested birthday dinner: sirloin steak hot off the grill, garlic mashed potatoes, tomatoes, and asparagus with parmesan cheese. It was delicious and colorful!

Then it was time for birthday cake!

The Pastel de Tres Leches cake was very rich. But since it’s a refrigerated cake, it was creamy and refreshing.

Then Ben opened the gifts we had for him. In this photo, he is opening a DVD called “Normandy: A Final Farewell.” It was a great movie (as a fair warning, it is a bit of a tear-jerker.)

Another special gift was a book published by Reader’s Digest in 1964 called “Secrets & Spies: Behind the Scenes Stories of World War II.” It looks like a really good book!

I’m so thankful for Ben and all the wonderful years we’ve had together with him! He is a wonderful brother and I look forward to seeing the plans God has in store for him in this upcoming year!

June Nature Pictures

Summer is finally here! This is my favorite time of year. I love going out to the garden and seeing plants popping up out of the ground, going outside and discovering that one of our bushes has exploded into full bloom, and having sunshine late in the day. I found lots of beautiful things to photograph this month!

Technically this photo was taken in late May while we were at my Grandparents' house over Memorial Day weekend. But I couldn’t resist sharing it!

These dogwood blossoms were also blooming at my Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

This year our rose bush is doing exceptionally well. It is absolutely loaded with blooms!

Our peonies bloomed quite nicely as well. The blossoms are HUGE!

Now we move into the photos actually taken in June. We went to a local nursery, and they had a fish pond. Sitting atop of the lily pads were quite a few frogs. Do you see the big green guy in the center of this picture?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” Matthew 6:28-29

This is the view of our yard from our shed towards the back of our triangular property. You can see my garden to the left (more on that soon!) I love seeing all of the green!

Our Tea Rose is about to bloom soon. These roses are so fragrant when they are in full bloom.

I can’t wait to see what July will bring!

Father

This Father’s Day, we wish to honor three men whose faithfulness as fathers has shaped not only their children, but many generations to come. They understood their calling as family patriarchs, and they fulfilled it unflinchingly, with courage and commitment. We love you all, Daddy, Bio, and Grandpa! May the following poem by Douglas Phillips express our gratitude to you, now and for always. 

The Patriarch

“More noble than the valiant deeds of shining knights of yore,
More powerful than earthly plights that make the rich man poor,
More kingly than a royal throne or a lion with his pride,
Is he whose babes sleep well at night sure Daddy will provide.

There is a spirit in this land and Jezebel’s her name.
She’s calling you to leave your home for power, fun, and fame.
She wants your wife, your children too — she’ll never compromise,
Until your house is torn in two by listening to her lies.

But though a hundred thousand million men may fall prey to her lures,
And wives en masse leave home in search of “more fulfilling” chores,
Though preachers praise, and friends embrace, her pagan plan of death,
Stand strong and quit you like a man with every blessed breath.

Stand strong and rise, O man of God, to meet this noble call,
The battle is not new, you see, it’s been here since the Fall.

Your wife is your helpmeet, my friend, and not another man’s,
So care for her and keep her far from Mistress Jezi’s plans.
Protect, provide, and give to her your undivided life,
This is the dear one of your youth, your precious bride, your wife.

And rally to those tiny ones who trust you for their care —
A lifetime spent discipling them’s a lifetime pure and rare.
For when they put their hand in yours and know a Daddy’s love,
You’re showing them a picture of the Father from above.

Look not toward worldly goal or gain, or for your liberty,
Look only into their sweet eyes to find your ministry.
Devote your heart and sacrifice and make your manly mark —
There is none so great as he who finds his call as patriarch.”

 ~ posted by Betsy

Recipe--Sea Salt and Honey Almond Butter

Several weeks ago, I read a post on the Tasty Kitchen blog which had a recipe for Sea Salt and Honey Almond Butter. I was quite intrigued, as it looked very easy and we had all of the ingredients, so I gave it a try.

We had bought almond butter from the store before, but it was plain, raw almond butter. I never really liked it that much, and I really only made this recipe for the sake of the almond butter lovers in the family. I was quite pleasantly surprised when I tried this recipe. I loved it! It was a great combination of sweet and salty. In fact, I almost wanted to hoard my little jar and eat it all myself. But I chose to share! J And now I’m sharing the recipe with all of you since it’s so good.

I’d like to eventually do a cost breakdown to see if it’s more cost effective to make our own almond butter than to buy it. But even if it’s more expensive, it makes a delicious treat from time to time!

Sea Salt and Honey Almond Butter

For this recipe you will need just 3 things: 2 cups Dry Roasted Almonds, 1 teaspoon Sea Salt, and 2 Tablespoons Honey.

If you start with raw almonds, roast them for a few minutes to dry them out. I used our toaster oven and it only took about 10 minutes. Make sure not to burn them!

Place almonds in a food processor and turn on.

The almonds will go through different stages. The first stage is basically finely chopped almonds.

The almonds will then ball up and start to curl over like the above picture. Just keep going!

The oil is starting to release from the almonds in this photo.

And we have almond butter!

IF YOU DON’T WANT TO RUIN YOUR ALMOND BUTTER, TAKE NOTE!!! I (mistakenly) thought that it would make sense to just blend in the honey and sea salt. DO NOT DO IT! For some reason, the honey causes the almond butter to ball up like cookie dough. I tried blending it more and more, but it just wouldn’t turn into smooth butter again. It was edible, but not spreadable. So PLEASE, put it in a bowl and STIR IN the honey and sea salt. J

I made a second batch of almond butter and it turned out much better as you can see from the above picture. J

You can adjust the sweet and salty combination to your liking. I stored my almond butter in a mason jar in the pantry. The recipe recommends storing the almond butter in the fridge, but we don’t usually follow that rule because it gets too hard. Ours stayed fine in the pantry for at least a week (by then it was already gone!) Enjoy!

Pets: Scooter

Back when the twins were 7 or 8 years old, they started asking to get a hamster. Around that time, a family in our homeschool group was offering to give away their hamster, along with a cage, bedding, and food for free, since their girls weren’t as interested in keeping him. That looked like a good option for us! (Just for clarification, Novella was the only pet we had when we got Scooter. Novella died in early 2009, we adopted Zack and Zinnia that summer, and Scooter died that December.)

The twins were very excited to welcome Scooter into the family. He was a friendly hamster, and only nipped occasionally.

They loved taking him out of his cage and playing with him. He got pulled around in the tractor trailer from time to time. J

They also loved building him obstacle courses with tissue boxes and paper towel tubes.

He had an exercise ball that they would use as well. It kept him well protected from the cats when he was out and about!

The twins enjoyed having Scooter as their own pet for several years. Then one day, on our way home from Christmas vacation, we received a phone call from our neighbor who was watching Scooter. He had died that morning. The twins were very sad to lose him. They made a little wooden cross to put at the spot where we buried him in our backyard.

Even though they were sad, they were quite happy to have two new kittens, Zack and Zinnia. More on them next week!

Pets: Newton

Pets: Novella

Pets: Panther

Pets: Noah

Baby Animals

This spring we have found lots of baby animals around our property. Actually, we always seem to be finding some type of animal on our property whether it be a stray cat, a turtle, a snake (hopefully one that hasn’t encountered the lawn mower), or our own pets who have gotten themselves into various scrapes.

Earlier this spring, we found a nest of baby robins in one of our fire bushes. The bushes are right next to our porch, and we had a great view of the nest from our office window. We had to watch our cats very carefully when they went outside though. They were VERY interested in this nest of babies. J The fledglings flew the coop the day after this photo was taken.

Photo Credit: Roma.

A couple of weeks ago, Ben was mowing the grass at the back of our field. As he went past the garden by the shed, he did a double-take. There was a little fawn lying in the garden! He ran inside to get the rest of us so we could see it.

Photo Credit: Ben.

At first we were concerned that he might be injured or abandoned. He looked like he had paused to take a little nap or something. We were later told that does sometimes leave their fawns in a spot where they feel it’s safe for a short period of time while they do something else. Daddy gave this little guy a nudge to make sure that he could move alright. He jumped up bleating and darted for our woods. He seemed to be fine, and we haven’t seen him again.

Photo Credit: Ben.

Ben was mowing our lawn again on Monday, and found yet another creature in the yard. He found this tiny baby bunny just sitting in the field.

Photo Credit: Roma.

This little guy could have fit in the palm of your hand. As you can see, he let us get quite close to him. Eventually he must have gone away when the mower came closer. I love baby bunnies as long as they stay OUT of my garden.

Photo Credit: Roma.

*Do you have any baby animals, wild or domesticated, that you have come in contact with this spring? We’d love to know!*