Congratulations Rhonda and Neal!!

A HUGE Congratulations is in order for my precious niece, Rhonda and her fiance, Neal.

In December she was surprised with an engagement proposal from the love of her life. We are all so happy for Rhonda and Neal! Rhonda is an example I am proud to have my children watch first hand. You see, Rhonda has been a Godly young woman. She has waited on the Lord to send the right man into her life. She has been patient and the wait has seemed endless and very lonely at times. But God is faithful and in His timing He has allowed two of His children to meet. They even lived a few states apart and their paths still crossed thanks to some very dear friends.

And Rhonda was quick to tell me that this wonderful man was worth the long wait! What blessings the Lord has for his faithful followers. This brings to my mind an old hymn, "Trust Me, Try Me, Prove Me saith the Lord of Hosts and a blesssing, unmeasured blessing I will pour out on thee. I think that sums it up nicely.

These two will have a private, small ceremony on April 4th. Then at a later date they will have a larger gathering for the renewal of their vows. I am so excited as I watch to see what the Lord has in store for these two! I love you Rhonda and I can't wait to meet Neal.

Aunt Pam ;-)

Room For One More

We have another addition to our little farm. Isn't he just the cutest little guy? We named him Little Bit. He needed a home because he was born with a defective front leg. He would have never made it out on the open pasture with his herd. He wouldn't be able to keep up with all the walking and grazing so our dear friends/ranchers asked if we would take him in.

He was quite the topic of conversation with all the "Moms" around our place. I have found that cows are very curious creatures! I think this picture is so funny! The cows on the other side of the fence belong to our neighbor but they all came to visit the new addition.

Here you can see that front leg at what I would call the knee joint. See how it is going backwards? Looks like he is double-jointed. Missy and MerryBelle, in the background, are not so sure about their new companion.

It took a couple of days for him to learn to take the bottle but finally we succeeded! I thought this was a very creative shot taken by Brandon.

Parker wanted to pet the new baby. He loves to go to Nanna and Poppa's and see all the animals. As long as Little Bit has a bottle he is very calm. I have fed him so much that anytime I go out to the pasture he runs up to me and starts bumping me. He has come a long way. When we first brought him home Monroe had to practically tackle him to be able to feed him. Finally he figured out that we were there to help him. Now he thinks I am his MOTHER!

Broken Arm

There has been plenty of excitement around our house the past few days. Unfortunately, it has not been an enjoyable excitement. Rather, it has been very stressful! The scripture "All things work together for good for them that love God and are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28" has been going through my mind a lot. I am reminded that the Lord is in control of ALL things and I am very thankful for that.

First of all, Thursday afternoon Bryce and Brandon were playing on the awesome fort (justly named Fort Knox-I'll blog about that soon) that their dad built for them. On the fort they have a rope that they would swing on and climb. On Bryce's turn he swang out higher than usual. When he dropped he landed on his arms. I happened to be watching from the back porch and heard the "pop"! Okay all you Moms out there, don't judge me too harshly because I sort of lost it. I ran out to help Bryce but when I saw his deformed arm I ran back to the house, ran in circles, basically I was NO help!! Wait, I did somehow have the sense to pray. Anyway, thankfully Brooke and Brad were home to help me....errr....Bryce!

We called Dad at work. He came home and we rushed Bryce to the ER. Dad was a bit calmer than me and had enough wits about him to get a picture on the way to the hospital with his phone. That is the reason the pictures are smaller than normal. It looked like he had an elbow at his wrist!! Too much for this mom to see in one of her chickadees! I must say, inspite of his mother, Bryce was a very brave young man! He was crying, of course, but remained calm.

I don't know if you can make it out in this picture of the ex-rays but he broke both bones in his right arm just above the wrist. The big bone was completely displaced causing the deformed look....gulp! The Dr. admitted Bryce to the hospital and put his arm in a splint. The next day the Dr. realigned the bones. Bryce was put to sleep for this procedure. The Lord answered our prayers and no pins were needed. This picture is just before the surgery.

He was released from the hospital the next afternoon. He had a pretty painful weekend with the swelling and throbbing. Can you see the difference in the size of his fingers on both hands? I am happy to report he is doing much better now. Slowly getting around. Does anyone have a remedy for itching....Karen???

Another bump in our road of life happened during the time Bryce was in the hospital. We lost our pregnant goat, MilkyWay. She had some complications and we had been working with her doing all we could to help her but it just wasn't enough. It was very hard for me to take and for a time I felt like I am not cut out for this type of life, having so many animals and getting attached.

And yet another bump. Brooke, who is due in June with our first granddaughter : ), has had some problems with her rib-very, very, painful. It was getting much better but a couple of days ago she sneezed and heard the "pop" again in the same place. She has all the symptoms of Slipped Rib Syndrome. The Dr. has another name that I don't recall. Because she is pregnant there is not really anything she can do to help this condition. She has been coming over so I can help with her boys. She cannot lift or pull on anything. Please keep her in your prayers.

Well, that pretty much sums up life at our house these past few days. We still have so very much to be thankful to the Lord for. Bryce's arm and Brooke's rib will heal! As I looked around in the hospital at the other life-long diseases and sicknesses, I realized how very blessed we are. God is good-All the time!

Have a blessed day!

Bees For B

For those of you who may not know, Brandon's nickname is "B". Thus, the title Bees For B. This nickname goes all the way back to when he could barely talk. Someone would ask Brandon what his name is and he would reply "B-man". It stuck.

Anyway, Bran has been wanting to start his own bee hive for about a year now. We have dear friends that have several hives and graciously agreed to teach Brandon about beekeeping. We had to wait till the spring to start because the bees have plenty of pollen and nectar to keep the hive healthy in the spring and summer. Brandon was patient but regularly mentioned the bees during the fall and winter months.

Finally, the long awaited day arrived. Ethan, our beekeeping friend and teacher, delivered the bees and taught Brandon all about the hive. I watched from a SAFE distance!!

Ethan taught us so much about beekeeping. He has a passion for bees and it shows! We are so very thankful for Ethan and his willingness to help our family! What a science lesson we had that day for school. I don't think we could have ever learned that much from a science textbook!! Yes, we all got our science lesson that day. Before Ethan left, he made sure Brandon knew how to check his hive for pests and to check on the progress of the honey. He also has to monitor the hive for over-crowding which would lead to a swarm....yikes!

Well, today was the day Brandon had to check on the bees by himself. Once again, I watched from a SAFE distance. As I was watching, I began to think about just what I would do if he ran into trouble. I don't think I would be much help. I would probably just scream and tell him to "RUN!!" as I would head for the back door.

Thankfully, we had no problems. In fact, I was very proud of my son. He just went right out to that hive and worked like a pro. Here are some pictures.

First Brandon must smoke the hive to calm the bees so he can take a closer look.

Here he is inspecting the frame for hive beetles, one of the pests a beekeeper must keep a close eye on or they can destroy a hive.

Next he takes the super (top box where the honey is stored) off of the hive and smokes the lower section of the hive before removing another frame.

Once again he removes the frames and takes a look at the bees and looks for any signs of beetles or ants. He also must make sure the comb that the bees are making is smooth and even so that the frame can be lifted out easily.

Wow our bee population has certainly grown in the last 2 weeks!! EEEETTTTHHHAAANNN!!!

Yes, we will be calling our faithful friend, Ethan!

We are looking forward to some wonderful orange blossom honey! Yummy! I have to ration it with my boys. They love it so much! I'll let you know if we are successful this season.

A "Honey-Do" Done

I am so excited to finally have my garden irrigated the right way! My hubby has had this job on his "honey-do" list for a long, long, time. I can honestly say that I have not nagged him to get this project underway. You see, my husband is ALWAYS busy about something around our farm. In fact, I would encourage him to take a day off and relax. That, however, is not enjoyment for him. So I have just kept quiet about the watering situation each growing season with my garden. The boys and I would diligently go out and move our water sprinkler to different spots on watering day. But in my heart, I couldn't wait to be able to simply turn on the pump and be done with it! The problem making this project so dreaded was poor planning on our part. When we had our shallow well dug, we did not anticipate having our garden on the opposite side of the property. Therefore, a very long trench had to be dug for the pipework.

One day, out of the clear blue, Monroe came home from his 8 to 6 job and decided to irrigate the garden. Well, I was beside myself with excitement and offered to help in any way I could. Thankfully, my awesome son-in-law, Ricky was over so he helped out with guiding the half-working trench digger. As you can see, they had to use the four-wheeler to help out. Hey, whatever works!

Saturday we got most of our garden planted. There were a few veggies that should have been planted in February but our busy schedules and extra long cold weather this winter prevented us from planting. Hopefully it will not be a problem. I just love getting out and working in the garden! Unfortunately, for some reason I can not tolerate the really hot weather we have in FL. I get so sick if I am out for very long so I am trying to get as much done as I can while the weather is just perfect. That will not last for long and we will soon be smothering in the hot, humid weather I am all too familiar with!Drink up little seeds !! I am looking forward to trying some new ideas on this spring garden. I had the privilege to talk with a gentleman on the phone a few weeks ago. He has a USDA certified organic garden in Plant City and he talked with me for over an hour about organic gardening in FL. I was writing as fast as I could while he gave many different tips. He gave me a recipe for a spray to battle all the bugs we get with spring/summer gardens. So....get ready all you bad bugs. This time I am armed and dangerous!! I'll keep you posted as to who wins this battle!

Happy Birthday to Brandon

Before I begin, let me just say two things. Number one: No children were harmed in the making of this party. All children were volunteers ;-). And Number two: I apologize for so many pictures...they were so funny I just couldn't choose!!

So, we now officially have another teenager in our home! We have only one child left in the single digits. This is not something I am very happy about. Thanks to Brooke and Ricky for keeping my arms filled with babies. I love you guys!!

Now to explain this birthday party. Brandon has been asking for a "Fear Factor" birthday party since we gave one of his older brothers this type of party a few years ago. The kids absolutely loved it and I recently heard it STILL being talked about. Well, now they have another "Fear Factor" party to talk about. Here is how it all went down.

The first round consisted of eating cold clam chowder with no fingers and no spoons. In the bottom of the bowl was a piece of bubble gum. The first four contestants to successfully blow a bubble proceeded to the next level. They all did pretty well with this round so we moved everyone to the next level.

This challenge was a type of relay race. Each person had to get a mouthful of rotten goat's milk (my recipe-fresh cow's milk, cottage cheese for texture, vinegar for taste, water and a few drops of yellow food coloring) and race down to the other table and fill up a small glass. The first four to fill their glass moved to the next round. This is where we lost the girls. Brooke, shown below, gave the boys a run for their money but in the end the guys won. I guess one could assume they have BIG MOUTHS??!!

Our four winners for the Goat Milk Run progressed to the third round. This round was two-part. First, a ball was tossed into the bucket of choice to determine which scrumptious delicacy awaited our tough guys!

The easy bucket's reward was a kabob of boiled, unsalted chicken liver. The next bucket would bring the lucky winner a kabob of boiled, unsalted chicken gizzard. The final and hardest bucket was simply a kabob of avocado, lime and fresh onion. Oh, one more little detail. If the contestant missed all three buckets he had to eat all three kabobs!

The final results were....Josh had the best throw and he had to eat the lime, avocado and onion kabob. The other three boys missed the bucket and had to eat a little of everything! The first two to finish moved to the final round.

Josh and Brandon ended up in the final round. In this level, each boy had to bob for...no, not apples....boiled chicken feet or I should say a boiled chicken foot. You see, they had to find the one chicken foot that had painted pink toenails! To add a little excitement to the game, the water was ice water! After bobbing for the foot, the contestant had to crack and drink a farm fresh raw egg. Whoever completed this challenge in the least amount of time was the winner. Our final winner was birthday boy, Brandon. He won a grand total cash prize of $10.00. Truth be known, these kids would have played this game with no prize.

Here is the happy Fear Factor Bunch!! I think they will remember this day for a long time to come!

I love you Brandon and I hope you had a wonderful Birthday!!!