Glad to be home from the hospital for the moment. Look forward to catching up while there is still a grid around...
Seems like the Lord is being very gracious with all the warning shots lately.
Hope to update soon on the West Virginia happenings and some related news.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
December 16th,2009
As some of you know I have gone through a series of spinal injections in recent months that has left me in fairly bad condition. Lately, the bad effects have started wearing off and I have even wondered if the shots might actually be doing some good. But, as each day brings the same thing i am more convinced than ever that these injections have permanently damaged some new areas of my nerve centers in some way. Still, they say that the vast majority are greatly helped by these procedures and that I am one of those 'few' that 'do not respond well'.
For me it has been a nightmare of paralysis and pain in the lower portion of my body. Thankfully, i have regained use of my left leg but the weakness is pronounced and the p-a-i-n is bad stuff. Several nights were spent in local emergency rooms getting sedated that I might rest some. The last few days have been a needed break in the cycle and I am very thankful to the Lord that I am still able to think and remain free of the constant influence of narcotics. This has been a serious concern as I have entered into official training as a ministerial candidate within denomination. I continue to seek God's will in these matters and have filed for S.S.D.I. as a result of being out of work for almost 2 years now. it is not the best situation and I certainly tend to rant against abusive watse of programs like S.S. but I have little choice at this time. I am seeking to keep my family afloat and our nearly $16,000 mortgage from defaulting. actually, this is my Pastor's motgage and that is all the more reason i want to fight and save his property. His land was paid for and free until I was hurt and he bought a mobile home for my family to move into. The guy has paid my lights as well, every single month since my injury. Well, except for the blessing I received last year from the Piper family which kept us afloat for over 6 months!
Just continue to pray that God will help the SS process a fast one as healing seems unlikely at the moment.
We are not wanting to complain alot as there are too many pro's out there doing that now. Rather, we hope to convey our trust in the Lord and our gratefulness for the mercy we have been shown. Most any one else would have been sent to a homeless shelter a long time ago. We even had some one buy us an 8 month supply of toilet paper about 7 months ago! It is amazing what you become thankful for in hard times!
I think many more of us will have to learn this in the coming days as our judgement continues nationally. We will pray for one another and fulfill the law of Christ.
For me it has been a nightmare of paralysis and pain in the lower portion of my body. Thankfully, i have regained use of my left leg but the weakness is pronounced and the p-a-i-n is bad stuff. Several nights were spent in local emergency rooms getting sedated that I might rest some. The last few days have been a needed break in the cycle and I am very thankful to the Lord that I am still able to think and remain free of the constant influence of narcotics. This has been a serious concern as I have entered into official training as a ministerial candidate within denomination. I continue to seek God's will in these matters and have filed for S.S.D.I. as a result of being out of work for almost 2 years now. it is not the best situation and I certainly tend to rant against abusive watse of programs like S.S. but I have little choice at this time. I am seeking to keep my family afloat and our nearly $16,000 mortgage from defaulting. actually, this is my Pastor's motgage and that is all the more reason i want to fight and save his property. His land was paid for and free until I was hurt and he bought a mobile home for my family to move into. The guy has paid my lights as well, every single month since my injury. Well, except for the blessing I received last year from the Piper family which kept us afloat for over 6 months!
Just continue to pray that God will help the SS process a fast one as healing seems unlikely at the moment.
We are not wanting to complain alot as there are too many pro's out there doing that now. Rather, we hope to convey our trust in the Lord and our gratefulness for the mercy we have been shown. Most any one else would have been sent to a homeless shelter a long time ago. We even had some one buy us an 8 month supply of toilet paper about 7 months ago! It is amazing what you become thankful for in hard times!
I think many more of us will have to learn this in the coming days as our judgement continues nationally. We will pray for one another and fulfill the law of Christ.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Time flies when your busy
Well, today we are packing for our return trip to WV and I still haven't posted the first trip! I guess I'm a pretty unreliable read, but I will try and get better when we return.
I plan on doing some study on blogging to learn a bit more about it, so hopefully it will have been worth the wait.
Also, please continue to pray for my health situation. The doctors are now leaning away from surgery and have recommended full disability. As you can well imagine, this doesn't exactly fit into my worldview. While many of my countrymen would be thrilled at the idea of getting a disability check from the govt. I am not one of them. Here we stand on the very end of the Empire, and they are trying to encourage me to sign on for a bigger role in the pillaging of my fellow man before they finish their song!
I am hoping that a modest adjustment can be made that will allow me to live and work on our land without the need for drugs. And without the governments involvement with any part of my existence. Please pray with me about these things as you have opportunity.
Many thanks, and see you in a few weeks.
I plan on doing some study on blogging to learn a bit more about it, so hopefully it will have been worth the wait.
Also, please continue to pray for my health situation. The doctors are now leaning away from surgery and have recommended full disability. As you can well imagine, this doesn't exactly fit into my worldview. While many of my countrymen would be thrilled at the idea of getting a disability check from the govt. I am not one of them. Here we stand on the very end of the Empire, and they are trying to encourage me to sign on for a bigger role in the pillaging of my fellow man before they finish their song!
I am hoping that a modest adjustment can be made that will allow me to live and work on our land without the need for drugs. And without the governments involvement with any part of my existence. Please pray with me about these things as you have opportunity.
Many thanks, and see you in a few weeks.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The pause before the storm
We have made it back from our recent trip to WV but we won't be home long!
We had a very productive time during August and most of September as we did some serious preparation with some seriously raw land! There will be quite a few photo's and tid-bits about logging, saw-milling, and chiggers...LOT'S of chiggers....coming soon!
My hope is to post a bit over the next couple weeks because we are returning to WV for the month of October so that we may complete a pole barn and 2 16X12 foot rooms on our humble abode!
The Lord is always gracious, and there is a lot to share with this new adventure and the things we are learning.
We actually made it through a month of no running water, and no electricity, with 9 children and 4 adults covered in chiggers and poison sumac for most of the time! We are talkin' serious lessons learned about WV wilderness living!
Thankfully, no bears have been encountered and everybody left with the same body parts they came with. And that, after dropping some 30 large diameter trees along with a hundred scrubs and bushes.
Yes indeed! We have much to be thankful for!
Well, as you can imagine there is a ton of catching up to do before we turn around and do the whole thing again! We also have two children that we will be teaching to read over the next few weeks, so ...busy, busy.
I promise that I will try and steal enough time to share some of the amazing times that we have had lately.
P.S., Did I mention our week long trip to Monticello and the surrounding area!!!
Hope to share soon.
Grace and Peace, Bob
We had a very productive time during August and most of September as we did some serious preparation with some seriously raw land! There will be quite a few photo's and tid-bits about logging, saw-milling, and chiggers...LOT'S of chiggers....coming soon!
My hope is to post a bit over the next couple weeks because we are returning to WV for the month of October so that we may complete a pole barn and 2 16X12 foot rooms on our humble abode!
The Lord is always gracious, and there is a lot to share with this new adventure and the things we are learning.
We actually made it through a month of no running water, and no electricity, with 9 children and 4 adults covered in chiggers and poison sumac for most of the time! We are talkin' serious lessons learned about WV wilderness living!
Thankfully, no bears have been encountered and everybody left with the same body parts they came with. And that, after dropping some 30 large diameter trees along with a hundred scrubs and bushes.
Yes indeed! We have much to be thankful for!
Well, as you can imagine there is a ton of catching up to do before we turn around and do the whole thing again! We also have two children that we will be teaching to read over the next few weeks, so ...busy, busy.
I promise that I will try and steal enough time to share some of the amazing times that we have had lately.
P.S., Did I mention our week long trip to Monticello and the surrounding area!!!
Hope to share soon.
Grace and Peace, Bob
Sunday, August 2, 2009
A brief update and needed pause
I wanted to let my vast readership know what is going on in my little slice of the world.
Since last blogging, our new baby girl has been doing well and the family is adjusting to the new pecking order! Her father ( that's me!) however, has taken a turn for the worse. My health has become much worse than we anticipated. Mostly, it is related to general pain and the need to take large doses of really nasty medicine. For those of you who are not familiar with pain medicines let me tell you that they cause as many problems as they solve.
The upside is that they have completed a few successful, albeit, painful tests that have determined the level and extent of the nerve damage. This will allow them to see exactly where and how the spinal cord is injured and come up with a long term treatment plan. For this, I am very grateful.
For the past month I have been in a virtual whirlwind of pain and/or delirium from the medicine and the associated problems. I am planning a few blogs on this whole process and what you can expect from our new socialized health system, since that is what I have been on for the last 12 months to get to this point. A very long year to get a few answers that could be achieved in a few days if the right procedures are applied! Anyway, that will have to wait because I will be out of commission for the next month as we are planning to leave for a trip to the mountains for the month of August. We were originally planning on going back to West Virginia and felling trees and saw milling them into lumber for this whole month but my health has changed our plans! Instead, our gracious hosts will be taking us on a tour of our national landmarks and do some general resting. The day before leaving I will get a spinal block that is supposed to numb all nerves in my injured areas so it will be a pain free/drug free month!!!!! I will post the updates in the second week of September, just before my expected surgery dates.
All prayers are appreciated and I thank you for your patience in my delays answering your comments. There have been few lucid days lately and I look forward to being pain/drug free as soon as possible.
Until then...
Since last blogging, our new baby girl has been doing well and the family is adjusting to the new pecking order! Her father ( that's me!) however, has taken a turn for the worse. My health has become much worse than we anticipated. Mostly, it is related to general pain and the need to take large doses of really nasty medicine. For those of you who are not familiar with pain medicines let me tell you that they cause as many problems as they solve.
The upside is that they have completed a few successful, albeit, painful tests that have determined the level and extent of the nerve damage. This will allow them to see exactly where and how the spinal cord is injured and come up with a long term treatment plan. For this, I am very grateful.
For the past month I have been in a virtual whirlwind of pain and/or delirium from the medicine and the associated problems. I am planning a few blogs on this whole process and what you can expect from our new socialized health system, since that is what I have been on for the last 12 months to get to this point. A very long year to get a few answers that could be achieved in a few days if the right procedures are applied! Anyway, that will have to wait because I will be out of commission for the next month as we are planning to leave for a trip to the mountains for the month of August. We were originally planning on going back to West Virginia and felling trees and saw milling them into lumber for this whole month but my health has changed our plans! Instead, our gracious hosts will be taking us on a tour of our national landmarks and do some general resting. The day before leaving I will get a spinal block that is supposed to numb all nerves in my injured areas so it will be a pain free/drug free month!!!!! I will post the updates in the second week of September, just before my expected surgery dates.
All prayers are appreciated and I thank you for your patience in my delays answering your comments. There have been few lucid days lately and I look forward to being pain/drug free as soon as possible.
Until then...
Thursday, June 25, 2009
A healthy home-birthed baby girl!
Praise the Lord, for He is good!
We are happy to welcome our new daughter into the family! Mary Elizabeth wass born @4:10 am on Thursday in the comfort of our bathtub. 9lbs 2oz, 22" long and a head full of hair!
We are pleased..and tired.
We are happy to welcome our new daughter into the family! Mary Elizabeth wass born @4:10 am on Thursday in the comfort of our bathtub. 9lbs 2oz, 22" long and a head full of hair!
We are pleased..and tired.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Lord is gracious and we are thankful.
It is a wonderful thing to look outside and see a couple of young dairy calves grazing in the yard!
Yes, as unbelievable as it seems to us right now, there are a pair of Jersey bovine in our back yard! The Lord is good to His people at all times, but sometimes we have a special blessing that really reminds us of that fact. Our friends recently surprised us with this 4 week old Jersey heifer calf and a 5 week old Jersey mix bull calf! We have always dreamed of our own Jersey milk cow but at around $1000.00 a piece in these parts, we did not expect to procure them this soon. We are overjoyed at the kindness the Lord has shown us!
This is Bessie! Our future little cream maker!
And here is Buddy! Proud future Papa!
It turns out that there is a Dairy farm about 50 miles south of here that uses Jersey cows. Usually they seem to use Holstein cows in our neck of the woods. Holsteins are copious milk producers, but there is not enough butter-fat content in the milk to make a good supply of cream products like cheese and butter. Jersey cows on the other hand, produce less milk but the most cream of any cow. This means that a Jersey would be a good homestead cow in most situations.
The really odd thing about the dairy industry here is that they will almost never let any heifer calves go for sale. One farm that I contacted in the past even said that they would cull, (kill), the heifers before selling them because it would be hurting themselves to have people keeping their own milk cows! The bulls are not so hard to come by. Bulls are a burden on a dairy farm so they are usually glad to sell them for $100-$150 just to get rid of them.
As it turns out, this heifer was nursing from an older cow that was once a regular industrial milk cow but had recently been moved to the 'nurse' cow category. The mother cow was not only rearing this calf, but had 2 other orphan calves that it was feeding. A week ago we had a huge storm system moved through the area and the venerable nurse cow was killed when lightning struck a tree that she was under! This left all three calves without any milk. The farm had planned on culling them, but a worker asked if he could have them as bottle calves to try and save and the farmer said yes.
The worker bottle fed them for a week and then decided to go into the cattle business himself and placed them up for sale. He was planning on making quite a pretty penny of the two heifer calves and a modest $150 on the bull. Apparently though, there was little interest in the calves and he was stuck rearing them and buying milk to feed them!
The fellow posted a couple ad's offering to sell them for $150 each to the first comer. As soon as our friends heard of it they came and got us to go look at the heifer. The thinking is that this will be a good investment for our future homestead in West Virginia.
Upon our arrival the fellow said that he was willing to let the bull go for $75 if we bought a pair. He even dropped $25 on the heifer! So, in all we got both calves for $195 !
Our friends paid the man on the spot but since we were all crammed in our vehicle it was decided that I would come back with my little pick-up the next day and get them.
Saturday morning had me and the two older boys loading old hay in the back of my truck bed and setting off for a 100 mile round trip to get our new little blessings! We were thrilled to get them loaded up and back to their new home. The only thing wrong was that we had no where to shelter the animals and more rain was coming.
We have been told that rain could kill new calves because they just stand out in it from pure ignorance without a mother cow to teach them. We needed a cheap shelter and quick!
Enter the many purpose pallet! Recycled pallets were the obvious choice to build a little barn for the protection of our new beasts.
Below are the photo's of our new two stall calve 'barn' done Poor Man style! I think that you will agree, they came out even better than my chicken tractor! That is a 16oz waterproof canvas tarp on the roof, and it was a gift also. In all the building cost $129 with the $100 tarp and nails and feed. Pretty good for a two stall barnette!
Here is a good shot of Bessie's new room! The open slat walls are perfect for the hot Florida weather! Here we never worry about warmth or snow. It is the lack of cross ventilation that kills all the livestock here. Also, having the inner/outer wall keeps the rain out very well.
Here you can see how we made the 'doors' by driving in a trio of free fence posts to allow for the pallet doors to be slid in and out! We even got his and her milk buckets hanging on the posts to dry!
I told ya that the Lord is good and kind!
Yes, as unbelievable as it seems to us right now, there are a pair of Jersey bovine in our back yard! The Lord is good to His people at all times, but sometimes we have a special blessing that really reminds us of that fact. Our friends recently surprised us with this 4 week old Jersey heifer calf and a 5 week old Jersey mix bull calf! We have always dreamed of our own Jersey milk cow but at around $1000.00 a piece in these parts, we did not expect to procure them this soon. We are overjoyed at the kindness the Lord has shown us!
This is Bessie! Our future little cream maker!
And here is Buddy! Proud future Papa!
It turns out that there is a Dairy farm about 50 miles south of here that uses Jersey cows. Usually they seem to use Holstein cows in our neck of the woods. Holsteins are copious milk producers, but there is not enough butter-fat content in the milk to make a good supply of cream products like cheese and butter. Jersey cows on the other hand, produce less milk but the most cream of any cow. This means that a Jersey would be a good homestead cow in most situations.
The really odd thing about the dairy industry here is that they will almost never let any heifer calves go for sale. One farm that I contacted in the past even said that they would cull, (kill), the heifers before selling them because it would be hurting themselves to have people keeping their own milk cows! The bulls are not so hard to come by. Bulls are a burden on a dairy farm so they are usually glad to sell them for $100-$150 just to get rid of them.
As it turns out, this heifer was nursing from an older cow that was once a regular industrial milk cow but had recently been moved to the 'nurse' cow category. The mother cow was not only rearing this calf, but had 2 other orphan calves that it was feeding. A week ago we had a huge storm system moved through the area and the venerable nurse cow was killed when lightning struck a tree that she was under! This left all three calves without any milk. The farm had planned on culling them, but a worker asked if he could have them as bottle calves to try and save and the farmer said yes.
The worker bottle fed them for a week and then decided to go into the cattle business himself and placed them up for sale. He was planning on making quite a pretty penny of the two heifer calves and a modest $150 on the bull. Apparently though, there was little interest in the calves and he was stuck rearing them and buying milk to feed them!
The fellow posted a couple ad's offering to sell them for $150 each to the first comer. As soon as our friends heard of it they came and got us to go look at the heifer. The thinking is that this will be a good investment for our future homestead in West Virginia.
Upon our arrival the fellow said that he was willing to let the bull go for $75 if we bought a pair. He even dropped $25 on the heifer! So, in all we got both calves for $195 !
Our friends paid the man on the spot but since we were all crammed in our vehicle it was decided that I would come back with my little pick-up the next day and get them.
Saturday morning had me and the two older boys loading old hay in the back of my truck bed and setting off for a 100 mile round trip to get our new little blessings! We were thrilled to get them loaded up and back to their new home. The only thing wrong was that we had no where to shelter the animals and more rain was coming.
We have been told that rain could kill new calves because they just stand out in it from pure ignorance without a mother cow to teach them. We needed a cheap shelter and quick!
Enter the many purpose pallet! Recycled pallets were the obvious choice to build a little barn for the protection of our new beasts.
Below are the photo's of our new two stall calve 'barn' done Poor Man style! I think that you will agree, they came out even better than my chicken tractor! That is a 16oz waterproof canvas tarp on the roof, and it was a gift also. In all the building cost $129 with the $100 tarp and nails and feed. Pretty good for a two stall barnette!
Here is a good shot of Bessie's new room! The open slat walls are perfect for the hot Florida weather! Here we never worry about warmth or snow. It is the lack of cross ventilation that kills all the livestock here. Also, having the inner/outer wall keeps the rain out very well.
Here you can see how we made the 'doors' by driving in a trio of free fence posts to allow for the pallet doors to be slid in and out! We even got his and her milk buckets hanging on the posts to dry!
I told ya that the Lord is good and kind!Hope you get some ideas for cheap building too!
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