The man on the front of this pamphlet is Rene’ Descartes. He was a French mathematician who lived from 1596-1650. Some of the things he said weren’t helpful to humanity. But one of the good and profound things he said was, “I think, therefore I am.”

This phrase helped me to believe something I already knew in my heart but didn’t know how to put into words:  I am more than just a body. I am more than just my brain. I cannot be the same thing as my thoughts for I am aware of my thoughts and can even decide what I want to think about. This proves, at least to me, that I am a spirit living inside a body.

But proving to myself that I am a “spirit-inside-of-body” also helped me to believe something else I already knew in my heart: I didn’t create myself…which means that a Spirit greater than me must have.  Yes, I began to believe in God.

I read a story in the Bible where a man named Moses met God and asked him what his name was. The reply from God was, “I am.” That reminded me of what Rene’ Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” If this God I was reading about in the Bible were the greater-than-me Spirit that I knew had to exist, then it made sense that His name was “I am.” Before He created any other little spirits, this would be how he would refer to Himself, wouldn’t it? So, I began to believe in the God of the Bible.

I kept reading the Bible and found that God values Himself and the people (little spirits-inside-of-bodies) He made. Because of this, He made rules on how He ought to be respected by the little spirits and how we little spirits ought to treat one another. These are known as The Ten Commandments and you can read them in the Bible’s book of Exodus, Chapter 20, and see them clarified in Matthew, Chapter 5.

I kept reading the Bible and found in the Book of Hebrews, chapter 9, verse 27 that, “Man is destined to die once and after that face judgment.” Our bodies won’t live forever, but our spirits will. After our bodies die, we will stand before God and be judged by His rules. I read that God said that those who had broken even one of his rules would go to a place of everlasting fire called Hell (James 2:10,  Matthew 5:22). That concerned me because I haven’t always treated God or my fellow spirits-inside-of-bodies with respect. I haven’t always honored God and I’ve have been unkind to some of my fellow spirits; I’ve lusted after some of their bodies; I’ve even wished that some of them didn’t exist at all. What would I do?

Amazingly, I found in the Bible that God is actually made of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that this second person, the Son, allowed Himself to become a spirit-inside-of-body just like me. He knew that none of us had kept God’s rules perfectly, so He lived a life of keeping those rules perfectly FOR US. Then He died a violent death, shedding His own blood as the punishment for OUR breaking of God’s rules! Now he asks us to do something that only a spirit can do: TRUST in what He has done for us. If we do, He promises we will live forever with Him in Heaven and we will be given new power for us to obey His rules until then. You can read all about this in the Bible’s book of Romans, chapters 3 through 8.

I love you, fellow spirit-inside-of-a-body. I don’t want you to spend eternity in Hell, but rather in Heaven with all those who have put their trust in the Son of God, Jesus. Please read God’s Word, the Bible, and trust in the great “I am” and all that He has done for us.

April found us having another baby goat, one we weren’t expecting until about four weeks before her birth. Her mother is quite aloof and so we didn’t notice anything until she started developing a milk bag. The baby’s name is Sadie May, and she’s just beautiful. She makes up for her mother being so stand-offish. What a sweet girl she is.

We also got three packages of bees, as we lost our hives during the winter. One hive we put at Mimi and Popsie Westfalls’, and two are on our property. We’re struggling to learn the ends and outs of beekeeping. I still think it’s the most fascinating venture we’ve attempted here.

May found us bottle-feeding baby goats. Tom took some time off from work so we could explore the local zoo and spend some fun time together.

At the zoo

T.J. had his wisdom teeth pulled. I’d show you pictures of him all drugged-up but he might not appreciate it! After recovering, he was blessed with the opportunity to exercise his gifts of website design by building Popsie Westfall’s business website. You can visit the finished product here.

I had a happy birthday at the end of May.

Anna celebrated her thirteenth birthday in June. Anna loves music and has taught herself many songs on the piano. You most often find her playing music from The Prince of Egypt or Celtic Woman. She especially enjoyed our summer visit with our music teacher. There has never been a child who loves to swing more than Anna. If she has any free time, we know exactly where she is: swinging as high as she can.

Joy celebrated her second birthday at the end of August.

And since this was the best birthday picture we had, we’ll give an even better one: Joy wearing T.J.’s glasses and playing on Maribeth’s iPod! I would say she’s just a little spoiled . . .

This has been a very hot and dry summer. We are thankful for Tropical Storm Lee, who gave us close to 10 inches of rain, as well as the beginning of September. We’re starting our list for everything that needs to be done before cold weather sets in. It’s a good thing we have some time . . .

That was Friday. Saturday (yesterday) I began watching Gretel, our young Alpine, who seemed unusually large and uncomfortable, especially since she was four days overdue. She began having contractions in the late afternoon and had her darling baby doe, Liesel, at 8:30 last night. It was quite different from Pepper’s delivery, since Gretel is a first-time mother. I kept telling Maribeth it was the difference between her birth and Benjamin’s. But Gretel did a great job, and we were very proud of her. Our only problem was that we don’t have lights in the barn. Since we didn’t have enough light, we had trouble clamping Liesel’s umbilical cord, and the amount of blood caused some alarm. But thanks to dental floss and fluorescent light in the utility room, Liesel is no worse for the wear.

Dixie is bossy, Houston is laid-back, and Liesel is feisty. They’ve enjoyed playing with each other and sleeping all over each other. They should be good buddies in the coming weeks.

Pepper, the proud mama

Dixie and Houston rest after entering the world

Liesel could pass for a triplet if she didn't have the Alpine "airplane" ears!

All cozied up together . . .

Ben is having the time of his life!

“Red,” says I. “And thank you!”

I must admit, I had no idea that I would come to love this pot the way I do. There are some items in my kitchen with which I have a love-hate relationship, like the VitaMix, although Maribeth doesn’t have a problem with it at all. And there are some items that I like just fine, such as the Cuisinart food processor. But this pot is wonderful. I just put meat, vegetables, seasonings, whatever, and this pot comes up with the most delicious food. Maybe it’s the cast iron, maybe it’s the pretty color, but I think it reads my mind. It’s become a good friend on those nights when you don’t know what to serve for supper. The kids often ask, “What’s for supper?” and my answer now is, “Whatever comes out of the big red pot!”

Isn't it beautiful?

This is one of the meals everyone enjoyed--and I'm sorry, I don't have a recipe! I made it up, and my red pot did the rest!

Double Digits. Carolyn turned 10 on February 12. She is really growing up. Most of our family has been sick with a stomach virus this week. Carolyn has taken over most of Emily’s jobs since Emily’s been in the bed the past three days. She has a sweet relationship with Baby Joy and totes her all around the house. Now that Joy is walking and a bit heavier, Carolyn has taken to pushing her around the yard in the stroller. Carolyn almost always has a smile on her face and loves to laugh heartily.

Chocolate cake made by Mimi Poche is oh-so-yummy!

Carolyn is famous for that big smile.

The Big Guy! Tom was the next one to have a birthday. I won’t give his age since I don’t want him to give mine . We had a lot of fun with Daddy on his birthday. He tried really hard to make everyone laugh–which doesn’t take much trying at all. Tom is quite busy getting ready for bee season. He’s been painting bee boxes and filling bee frames. He is anxiously awaiting spring. Work has been taxing but profitable, so he’s not complaining. We all think he’s a great Dad/Hubby, and I love him very much!

The candle from Tom's pudding pie became an object of humor. He looks just like his dad . . .

For Daddy's birthday dinner, we had Cheesy Chicken Tetrazzini and Pudding Pie--his favorites

Our Young Lady. Maribeth turned 19 the day after Tom’s birthday. She is growing into a fine young woman and we are enjoying her immensely. She got lots of books for her birthday because that’s what she begs for, and she shares what she’s learned with all her younger siblings. (Unfortunately, the younger ones get a little confused. Ben thinks Hitler was at the Alamo, and when Katie found out Prince William and Kate Middleton were British, she was shocked, assuming all British are evil bad-guys because of the American Revolution! We do have some work to do there . . .) Maribeth is anxiously awaiting the birth of our baby goats, due in a week. Kids are literally frolicking through her dreams.

Maribeth and Lillie are buddies.

Books, books, and more books. See the smiles?

Now we’ll have a break from birthdays for a little while. And that’s good, because cake every month is hard on the scales!

Our new buck, Balto, is doing well. T.J. and Tom have experienced his strength on a number of occasions! The does seem to like him, to put it delicately. The bees are prepared for the winter, and so we won’t be checking on them anymore until the spring. That’s kinda sad, because they’re the most awesome thing we’re doing out here right now. Our friends the Blouins came over to see how we slaughter chickens. They were real troopers and got their hands really dirty, too!

We’ve been working on homemade Christmas presents with our friends, the Kemps. They’ve come here several times, and we’ve been working fast and furious. But we can’t tell you what the presents are, because of the chance that grandparents might visit this website!

We’ll post more pictures of these projects after Christmas.

Our 300 strawberry plants came in and are now planted. That was a pretty big job. All hands were on deck. Paw-Paw guided us through the process and later went back and corrected any mistakes we made.

Two baby strawberry plants--ready to go in the ground.

Everybody works hard anticipating juicy springtime berries

Two rows of strawberries

And after three weeks, you have…

We thank God for the rain and the sunshine that are helping our strawberries grow.

Since August, we’ve had a birthday each month. Joy had her first birthday. T.J. turned seventeen, Katie eight, and Emily fourteen. Ben will be six in December. It’s been great fun celebrating each child’s big day. But I must admit, as a mom, it’s a little bittersweet. They seem to be growing up so fast.

We’re looking forward to Thanksgiving this week and we’ve had fun studying about the first Thanksgiving. Everyone has put in their special orders for Thursday’s meal. We hope everyone has a very happy holiday!

In late September, I got the market bulletin and prayed before opening it, in front of the children, that there would be a buck for sale in the bulletin. Amazingly, there was an advertisement for two bucks–in East Feliciana Parish! Tom called the number and we went to visit the bucks. These farmers had quite a herd of goats! The first we looked at was Balto, a Lamancha-Alpine-Sanaan mix. Maribeth and I immediately said he was too big for us to handle and went to look at the Lamancha buck. He was much smaller, but not nearly as handsome or polite. So we decided to come home and think about it.

On Sunday Tom and Maribeth went to check out another buck not far away from us, but it turned out that it wasn’t a buck at all–it was a doe! So God closed that door with a bang.

As Maribeth and I were discussing it the next day, we concluded that if you had to have a stinky, destructive, but useful buck, it ought to be one you could appreciate. Balto filled the bill. I mentioned it to Tom that afternoon, and to my amazement, he was thrilled! He said he and T.J. would commit to handling him, since he is so very big, and Balto was the one that Tom appreciated the most.

So he started making plans, and it was off my shoulders!

We prayed, rented a truck, prayed some more, mended the fences, prepared a shed, and prayed some more. Balto was successfully brought home yesterday, without any problems. He seems to like his new home and his new caretakers. He comes when he’s called and beats his head against any walls he can find–he’s desperate for female company. We’re looking forward to life with Balto and his future descendants.

We certainly feel like God blessed us in our quest for a buck.

Last Saturday, we were able to do our “little bit” against today’s tyrannical forces. We volunteered with the Parental Rights Organization and went to Clinton’s Community Market Day to gather signatures for a Constitutional amendment defending our rights as parents over the education of our children.

The amendment reads:

SECTION 1
The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right.
SECTION 2
Neither the United States nor any State shall infringe upon this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.
SECTION 3
No treaty may be adopted not shall any source of international law be employed to supersede, modify, interpret, or apply to the rights guaranteed by this article.

We were very blessed in our mission. We went out there with a goal of 80 signatures and left, after four hours, with 103. The weather was lovely, too. Our prayer is that the Parental Rights Amendment will succeed in a more friendly Congress after the big elections next month!