A little report on the progress of summer growing season. As the weather is very warm, everything is growing fast. We also plant some raspberry this year, together with a couple of rose plants.
Kale is growing OK, but a lot was eaten by cabbage moth catepillars.
Swiss chard is a dependable crop.
Sugar snap peas.
Purple cabbage, can grow to 2 pounds.
Purple bean.
Onion.
Herb garden. We have sage, lemon balm, sweet basil, pruple basil, fennel, rosemarry, oregano, parsley, corriander.
Corn.
Banana squash is a success this year because we give it lots of room to grow. Taste is OK. I like butternut squash more.
This year we bought 5 bush cords of firewood. Anyone burning firewood knows that 5 bush cords are a lot of wood needed to be stacked. Natural gas is definitely cheaper, cleaner and more efficient way to stay warm. However, living in the country on a farm, burning firewood in winter seems to be an icon for rural living. Dirty and hard work it is, but also good for the children to help out and learn about teamwork.
Praise God for making Melody better. Her eczema/allergy is not fully healed yet, however, it has been improved greatly. We do not have to tie her hands for most of the nights now. In addition, she is very active and happy most of the time she is awake. She likes to stand, which is good for walking. Kay has been eating some apple and banana and it seems Melody can take it.
It has been a tough whole year since she has the eczema. We don’t get enough sleep at night. We have to constantly hold her the whole night. Someone has to watch her during day time. Some homeschooling subjects need to be pushed back/delayed. Kay missed several Sunday worships because Melody’s eczema was too bad. However, these were not the toughest part. The most challenging part is the criticism and comment from relatives and friends. Almost every person who sees Meldoy questions why we don’t bring her to the doctor. Why don’t we give her the chemical cream from drug store? It seems like we are doing nothing and we don’t care for Melody.
How I wish that they can see the struggle we have during the numerous day and night, taking care of her. How I wish that they go through huge amount of research Kay has done in boosting Melody’s immune system. How I wish that they see the tears from the whole family when Melody suffers. Thank God that Kay and I stick together on our goal to give only natural treatment to Melody. We turned down sincere offers from well meaning friends to give her steroid cream, knowing it would further weaken her body. Anyway, there is hope if we have faith in the Lord. And although God did not heal Melody sooner, we believe He is teaching us a lesson here.
We have learned to pray, laugh, feel sorrow, look after Melody together as a family. Everyone in our family gains the credit of helping Melody to get better. Above all, we know many brothers and sisters in faith have been praying for us consistently and we are sincerely grateful for your prayer. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (James 5:16) Please continue to pray for total healing of Melody.
We apologize that we haven’t been able to update for quite a while. As you know, summer is the busiest time and we have been swamped with different projects and activites. We will be more diligent from now on to update our blog. Thanks for visiting us.
We went to Arrowhead Provincial Park with other amilies during Canada Day weekend. We spent 4 days/3 nights camping there. This is our first endevour since we married for 10 years. Lots of preparation. Tent, sleeping bag, bikes, food, cooking utensils, clothes, etc….it is almost like a mini-moving. Although it was a lot of work, the Lord has given us pleasant weather. The children had a good time playing with other children. We walked on trails, went fishing, playing on beach and had our Sunday service beside the Arrowhead Lake. Next time tough, I would prefer a cottage style vacation, less work for dad and mom. 🙂
A little report on the progress of new growing season. This year we have a few revolutionary endevaour. First, each child has 6 small squares of garden. They can pick whatever they like to grow. They would seed, water, weed and harvest. Secondly, I am using the planter box on deck as a seeding bed and later transplant the seedlings to garden.
Kale is a new try
I never had any success with pok choy, let’s see if this works this year.
Sage from last year grows vigorously and starts to flower.
Swiss Chard is a good stable crop.
This is the children’s garden, all done by themselves. There are potato, carrot, spinach, sun flower, marigold, red lettuce, romane lettuce, green onion, cooking onion and swiss chard.
Just before the meat birds arrived, we had a very windy storm on the weekend. It was so powerful that it blew the run-in shed over and damaged the portable chicken coop. I had to replace one of the 2×4 for the coop and reinforced it again with L metal plates. God’s creation is powerful and full of awe.
The layers are now 13 months and still lay about 12-14 eggs every day. Now the weather is warmer with abundant grass, the kids like to pull them off the ground and feed them.
Last year we had quite an experience with raising meat birds on the pasture. We are going to continue this endeavour this year.
The kids are exicting to hold the 2-week-old white rock. Tiffany and Odelia helped daddy to fix the tarp and cord around the coop. We have doubled the size of the lot for the chickens this year. The day we picked up the chickens we have frost for 2 nights. However, most survived except one.
