Showers of Blessing

One of our Old English x Modern Bantams has very recently hatched six adorable bantam chickens. Here, the mother bantam is teaching her young charges to scratch for food.  This last year has been an extraordinary year, with most of our chooks going broody in February, and they almost never go broody at this time of year. Not only the bantams went broody, but the Rhode Island Reds, too, so this has meant a dramatic shortage of farm-fresh eggs, but they are starting to lay again, now.

~~~oooOOOooo~~~

For those of you who have been praying for us – thank you from the bottom of my ♥, my husband’s pain is much better controlled for now. I think that the best thing that could have happened for him was to be admitted to hospital, as they have now given him Kapanol capsules, which the doctor had previously prescribed, but they have now doubled the dosage, so his pain is much better controlled. In hospital they also gave him STRONG antihistamines, and the HUGE spots that he had are starting to subside.

There have been wonderful lessons learned during these times, too. My son has learned how to milk effectively and to feed the animals, and my daughter has learned how to make a delicious goat stew and helps with the ironing and anything else that needs doing inside our home.

Around our home, it is the weekend, and things are so much more relaxed – God is so good as He gives us times of refreshing and showers of blessing as we wait on Him, knowing that He works all things out for our good!

The “Resurrected” Chickens

The “Dead” Birds???

Last night we hunted high and low for our four bantam chickens, but we couldn’t find them anywhere! My son and husband spent simply ages (until the torch battery went flat) searching under the bushes, in the Sheoak grove, in the chookhouses, in the back yard, under the grapevine and even in the compost heap, but they were nowhere to be found. Sigh! We really don’t seem to have luck with orphaned chickens.

Then, my daughter came in this morning and said that she had found two of the bantam chickens – dead, alongside the fence in the goat yard – ripped to pieces. Oh, no! This was so heart-wrenching for me, as we had them in the laundry in a box and fed, watered and nurtured them for ages before we released them back into the confines of the bantam house in a smaller cage so that they didn’t get picked on.

This afternoon we had friends here for lunch, and when we went outside to bid them farewell, there were two bantam chickens in the back yard of the house. Um. Yeah, who let the chickens out? Have I confused you, yet, for I sure was confused by this stage in time???

My son thought that my daughter must have let the bantam chickens out to have a peck around, but when he questioned her, she said that she hadn’t let them out, so confusion reigned here for a while until we looked at the “dead chickens” next to the goat yard fence. It wasn’t a dead bird at all – it was a bird’s nest. I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief, as I was beginning to think that these chickens were the missing ones.

My son went down to the bantam house and brought the other two bantams up to the house yard, and they were reunited once again. It’s no wonder that there is joy and rejoicing in heaven when the sheep that has gone astray is found, for we left the bantams that were not lost, and we found the two that were “lost”.  Imagine the rejoicing in heaven over one lost soul who repents of their sin.

After writing this blog post, I went out into the back yard to try to take a photo of the bantam chickens, but they were nowhere to be found. Sigh! Not again. I enlisted the aid of my son, and together we found them, and I managed to snap a quick photo before they disappeared into the dense foliage of our back yard, AGAIN! Praise God that He kept them safe last night!

These Bible verses have such special significance to me, now.

For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. Matthew 18: 11-14

Of Snakes and Strawberries

Jeanne wrote a post the other day about how “Fresh is Best“, and this started me thinking about how we actually live on the farm. With three asthmatics, we have to be very conscious of what we eat, and pre-packaged foods contain some real nasties, such as MSG, sulphur as a preservative and loads of other additives that we really don’t need. Consequently we don’t eat  much that is prepackaged, the exceptions being yoghurt, cheese, fritz, pitta bread, tinned pineapple and mettwurst.

Kalleskes of Tanunda make a really delicious mettwurst, and we use this for home-made pizzas, using pitta bread, tomato sauce, grated cheese, pineapple, fritz and mettwurst which is our Sunday night meal. The majority of the foods that we eat are fresh, as we live on salads, fresh fruit and vegetables and our own farm-fresh produce.

In our home, we :

• Make our own bread.
• Make our own ice-cream.
• Milk our goats.
• Grow our own sheep, chicken and turkeys for meat.
• Keep chickens for eggs.

Last night we picked up our meat from the butcher’s, maybe in a slightly different form to when we dropped her off, but this sheep was VERY fat, and dressed almost thirty kilograms, which means that as live weight, she would have been about 60 kilograms. Our butcher kills and cuts up our meat, rolling the front legs into roasts, and all for $30.00. We don’t have a meat saw, nor do we have a cold room in which to hang the meat, so this seems very good value to us.

This afternoon I went out to water the strawberries, as they don’t like bore water, and one step from the strawberry trough, I nearly stepped on a baby brown snake. Now, I don’t know how much you know about snakes, but a baby brown snake is as deadly as an adult!

I let out a HUGE scream for my husband, and in one bound I was on top of the outdoor table, with my feet on top of the bench seat. Did I want to be anywhere near that snake? No way! No siree! Nope! I hate snakes with a passion, and my vocal chords certainly had their workout for this week. My husband came out and re-located the horrid thing, and I dissolved into a flood of tears. Now, why, oh why, do they have to pick our back yard to have their babies?

The strawberries are growing wonderfully well, and we actually get to harvest our fruit, now that a good friend gave us a helpful hint:~

When you plant strawberries,

make sure that you have tinsel

scattered around the strawberries,

so that the birds don’t beat you to the fruit.

AND this helpful hint actually works. We only planted our strawberries this year, and they are fruiting so well. We planted blackberries (the thornless type) last year, and this year they were badly frosted, so we didn’t expect to harvest any, but they are actually fruiting again, now. This morning my daughter and I actually had our first taste of thornless blackberries, and they are every bit as good as the variety with thorns – YUM!

This morning my daughter picked the ripe tomatoes, and they are absolutely divine – I love home-grown cherry tomatoes, as the taste of a home-grown cherry tomato is so full of flavour! There are also a few Apollo tomatoes that are good for sandwiches, as it is so fiddly trying to place cherry tomatoes onto a sandwich.

I praise God for His constant provision over us, and I am truly thankful that He constantly provides us with all that we need. Notice that I said, “All that we Need”, for He provides for all of our needs, but never our greeds. I also praise Him for keeping me safe from the fangs of the brown snake that intruded into our back yard today!

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Colossians 1:16, 17

Wordless Wednesday

Hospital Ward

Squeaky, the turkey poult pictured above, has had a really rough couple of days, after the bantams and other turkey poults pecked a big hole in his her its neck. I must apologise for the poor quality of the photo, but it just wouldn’t stand still – you can see the peck hole in its neck, though.

The solution:~

We made a hospital ward, and have isolated Squeaky from the other bantam chickens and turkey poults, but they really don’t like being alone, so we have taken turns in being “Mum” to this little one. If you don’t pay it any attention, it squeaks at the top of its voice until you pick it up.  I was holding it yesterday when it decided that my armpit looked like being under its Mum’s wing, so it snuggled in and went to sleep.

Today we have also added an aluminium foil plate above the light to reflect the heat from the lightbulb downwards into the box. It works really well, and the babies are growing ever so quickly. They love multi-grain bread, too, as well as watermelon and sweetcorn.

My son said that he always knew that his mum was a turkey – hmmm, I’m not sure whether to feel flattered or down♥ed – I’m not really worried, as my son has a delightful sense of humour. Seriously though, turkey babies are ever so cute, aren’t they?