Renaissance Mama

Sep. 3, 2006

Time is still flying....

I cannot believe that I am one of those people that got carried away and wrote in their blog nearly every day and then------ missed a couple of entries and somehow the time flew by and it has been a LOOOOONG time between entries. What can I say? We had a summer full of goat shows, and endless projects. I swapped horses, sold goats, traveled to shows that I normally consider too far away and bottle fed all kinds of critters. I can't remember how many bottle calves we have done this year. Somewhere over a dozen. A couple litters of pigs and a Tennessee Walker colt. We named him "Bingly" after one of the characters in Pride and Prejudice. Right now, we have a litter of 5 kittens on the porch that Sis is bottle feeding. The weather was deadly hot this summer and now it has cooled off and the whole farm is rejoicing. Now-- we are preparing for school. We've been plugging away at rounding up things to get more organized. I get quite a chuckle out of the spring cleaning post because now we are doing a fall cleaning. I swear that I am cleaning the same stuff!! We plan to start on Tuesday. This is a bitter sweet time of year for us. On Labor Day, six years ago, my husband had a heart attack. There are times in your life that are mile markers.... you date things according to whether it happened before or after that event. Life for us, is dated as "before the heart attack" and "after the heart attack". Neil survived and is about 95% of what he was "before". In a sense, we lost that whole year. It was almost as if we hit a pause button and lived in limbo. I was pregnant with our 4th child and I really can say that I just endured that pregnancy. I don't remember much about it before the last month. Majormom was a major lifesaver for us during that time. We have no family in this area and she took on three extra kids for long periods of time during hospital stays. Bless her heart--- she cleaned my house..... not a job for an amateur. The funny thing is that she cleaned and organised for me. My MIL came to help during another hospital stay and she cleaned and re-organized my kitchen. Then at Thanksgiving, my mom and aunt came to visit and also cleaned and re-organized my kitchen. In April, a midwife friend came from Ga. to help me have the baby. While waiting, she cleaned and re-organized my kitchen..... To this day, I cannot find the beaters for my hand held mixer or the potato masher....... No longer in limbo! Tana Mc

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May. 1, 2006

Spring Cleaning

We are having a rash of visitors for the next month. We love to have company but unfortunately, we would rather skin a live cat than do housework. So sometimes, it gets pretty bad around here and I just pray that the health department doesn't give us a surprise, random inspection.... This past weekend, we had company from up near St. Louis. A couple of friends came to spend the night and we all went down into Oklahoma to a goat conference. It rained cats and dogs the entire time but we had a pretty good time anyway. The kids and I hustled around last week and had the house in pretty good shape except for the ever present "Laundry Monster" that makes his lair in the back room with the washing machine and dryer. We are a family of six working on a hog farm. We tend to change clothes a couple of times a day depending on how dirty we get or if we make a trip to town. We do 2-3 loads of wash a day and it just isn't enough..... Sometimes, it just gets too far ahead of me and I fill up the mini van and head for the laundry mat. I am thinking that I will probably have to do that by about Friday at the rate we are going. It doesn't seem to matter how much I clothing I cull through and get rid of, we still have enough to clothe several small countries. My husband's parents are coming sometime late this week so we will be working hard to keep the house in good shape. They live in South Carolina and will stay only a few days. The following weekend, my mother will be coming to stay about a week. Her sister and her hubby, my aunt and uncle, will be making the trip with her on their way out to Washington state. Now that we have it all tidied up around here, my hubby is trying to figure out who we can invite out each weekend for the rest of the year so that we will keep the house cleaned up! Now that the house is beat back, we need to start on the yards. The middle son has graduated to using the riding lawn mower this year. That is a big step because it is the pre-curser to driving the farm trucks and then the tractor. I am beginning to wonder if I will even plant a garden this year. The bermuda grass and johnson grass are so thick already.... Tana Mc

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Apr. 21, 2006

The sweet life.....

Our days are so busy. My oldest is working hard to finish up his schooling for the year. The other kids and I are working hard to fit school in with all of life crowding in on us. Luckily, we have found that schooling all year with a lighter summer schedule gets it all done. My alarm clock is named Seth and he is 12 years old. He faithfully shakes me each morning at a little before 6:00 am. Sometimes I am up before he is and sometimes he is taking his life in his hands when he wakes me up after a long night. His reflexes are pretty quick after all these years of Tai Kwan Do. Seth takes great delight in waking up his sister. It is his only chance of the day to boss her around for a change. We set goals each day for us to get accomplished. We dash around in the early morning to get all of the outside chores done and be back in the house by a little after 8:00am. We do about 45 minutes of housework and then school until lunch. After lunch, it is farm work and projects. On Friday, we do not even attempt to do any school but call it an extra work day. This is the day we try to get all the stuff finished that we haven't managed to get done during the week. Since it has warmed up, the number of outside projects keeps getting bigger. On Wednesday, I was working in my little orchard spraying bermuda grass. I have some old bee hives nearby that died out a couple of years ago. The guy who farms the land around us had hired a crop duster for his sunflower crop. He forgot about my bees and wiped out about ten hives. While I was working, I kept hearing bees buzzing. I glanced up into a dwarf apricot tree and there was a BIG swarm of bees hanging from a spindly little limb. What a blessing! I had planned on trying to squeeze enough money out of the budget to buy a few more hives and now I had one for free! I quickly found an old bee box with some frames in it and put the swarm in it. There must have been 2000 or more bees in that clump. I didn't have my veil or bee suit handy so I just worked slow and easy and got most of them in the box. I left the box under the tree so that the stragglers would find thier way in. I walked off very pleased with myself because in all the years I have done this, I have rarely been stung while catching a swarm. Pride goeth before a fall....... I got to the gate of the orchard and turned around to take one last look and a stray bee popped me on my left eye lid. I got to the house and put a cold cloth on it but it was too late. I have been walking around for the last two days looking as if I have been in a prize fight. We are members of the Southeast Kansas Dairy Goat Club and this year, I am the show chairman. That means that I have been absolutely crazy trying to get things ready for a two day show on the first weekend of June. I have never done this before. The kids have been helping me oragnize and plan things and we got the contracts back from our judges yesterday. We may actually pull this off! Our club is also doing a calendar for a fund raiser. You guessed it! I am the chief calendar girl! The kids have been helping me sell ads , design pages, and take pictures. Today, we are taking the first part to the printer. We are very excited. I guess this would be our version of a yearbook! Some have accused me of not doing "enough school" with my kids. I really scratch my at this. My kids have more life skills than some adults that I know. More improtantly, they are able to set goals and accomplish them. If they don't know or understand something, they know how to go about finding out the answers. They all have a confidence that sometimes gets a little scarey. What ever they want or want to do, they really think that they can get it or do it and are willing to save, work or struggle to make it happen. Sometimes it makes my mother's heart quiver with dread, fear, weariness and pride. Yesterday, the clan voted for us to begin working on getting ready for a 3 day trail ride from Caney, Ks to Pawhuska, Ok. It covers about 70 miles of tough riding in July. My daughter and I did it last year. This year, the plan is to take and ride the green broke colts and Seth gets to go along. What a goal! I hope I live throught it! LOL!! Recently, there was some conversation with some one outside of the family. I don't remember exactly what it was about but the other person was lamenting that whatever the problem was, it was going to be too much work to fix. My 15 year old daughter rolled her eyes and retorted," Hard work doesn't EVEN begin to scare me!". It was a sweet moment for me.... Tell me again what it is that we don't do enough of..... Please Lord, temper my pride. My cup runneth over......

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Apr. 13, 2006

Cow pasture ballet

We have spent a lot of time in a vehicle over the last few days. We just had deliveries and errands that took up our time. So school has consisted of Spanish lessons, reading aloud ( by the kids --not the driver!), time tables, and spelling bees. I am continually amazed at how quickly my middle son, Seth, picks up Spanish. My kids have been quite surprised by just how much Spanich their old Mom knows, too. Today, our road trip took us towards Wichita on Hwy 400. Since the last time we went that way, someone has erected several "wind farms". I had heard that there had been some controversy about this kind of power generation. So, on our way home, we had a kind of impromptu field trip. I turned down a road and just kept going until we found ourselves right in the middle of about 200 windmills. I stopped the truck and turned it off. We rolled down the windows to see if there was any noise. All we could hear was ---- THE WIND!!! They were so tall and rather alien looking. Seth just kept saying how really cool this was...... I think that I can see a science project in the making! Cows were grazing all around them. It was a little scarey for Adam ( 5) but as we were leaving, he said, " They look like ballet dancers." This is why I love homeschooling. Tana Mc

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Apr. 12, 2006

Redneck Saturday Night

It has been a few days since I last posted but this time of year doesn't leave me much spare time. I wanted to get this experience down before I forgot the details. Late last summer, I finished up with my EMT classes and passed the boards. I didn't do this to start a new career but to help fill a gap in the community. In rural areas, quick medical help can make a big diference in an emergency. Since moving to Kansas, I have found myself in situtations where I really needed more medical training, so I went back to college. It was HARD being the old lady in the class. Anyway, last Saturday afternoon, my former instructor called me up and asked if I would like to fill in on a EMT job. I didn't really understand what the job was since we were both on cell phones but I jumped at the chance to get some much needed "real" experience. Turns out, they needed an EMT to be at the racetrack just in case there was a serious accident. This is a car race-- not horse racing which I would know a little bit about. Quite frankly, if you had asked my to watch mold grow, I would have been more interested. I met the other EMT and rode with him to the speedway. He was a former driver so he filled me in on how things worked. We started at about 6:30 with "Hot Laps" or to us laymen, fast practice. I was horrified at the noise level. I was even more horrified at the number of very small children running around with no hearing protection. When I mentioned this to the other EMT, he just said," We are a bunch of hillbillies around here." I thought to myself, " A bunch of DEAF hillbillies!" As the evening wore on, we sat in the truck with the windows rolled up to protect us from the sound and I literally quivered from the vibrations as the cars made each lap. I probably have the record for the longest praying EMT at a race track to keep the drivers safe. We were stationed in the "pit". I had a radio so I had the inside scoop on how it was all working and a front row seat tot he action. I got to know the "handlers" or the guys who directed the drivers into their proper places. Each time a car lost a piece of itself on the track, someone spun out, stalled or wrecked, the yellow light went on and the clean up crew, push trucks, wreckers rushed out to do their jobs. In the begining, I thought it looked like total chaos and I was sure that someone would be killed before the night was over. As I got used to the action, I began to see just how well orchastrated it was. I learned the sign language and signals. I must have seen a hundred wrecks and myheart went to my throat each time. They only called us out on the track for one guy who hit the wall really hard. By the time I got to him, he was out of the car and thought that I was some kind of crazy woman. OF COURSE he was alright. I still can't tell you different classes of racers or how long they run or which division or any of the technical stuff. But something began to happen at about 8:30 pm. The blood from my long dead moonshine running ancestors began to stir in my blood. I began to recognize different body styles of cars. I began to recognize "good" driving skills and stradegy on the track. By 10:30, I was cheering for number 8 in the blue Camaro just like a seasoned NASCAR fan! The highlight of the night was the last race. I tell you that you have not lived until you have watched souped up Chevy Cavaleirs and Ford Escorts race.....They sound somewhat like crazed bumble bees. What a night -- and I got paid for it!

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Apr. 1, 2006

Spring with a vengeance

While I am very happy that spring is here, it does come with a mixed bag. The weather is so unpredictable and the spring storms are often very violent. On Thursday, the weather forcast gave us a pretty good chance of rain and thunderstorms. We very badly need the rain so we had our fingers crossed. I had ordered a load of round bales of hay that should have been delivered last week but he was too busy to get it here. Of course, the hay guy shows up just as it began to storm. We are madly rushing around with the tractor trying to get those round bales into the barn. As soon as we finished, the rain stopped ,too. We were standing there admiring the rainbow when my daughter rushed out of the house with my walkie talkie. The power had gone out and my alarm had also gone off. I am an EMT but I do not work for a service. I am just on the local volunteer fire dept as a first responder. My hubby is on the volunteer fire dept and my oldest son is begining. I turned on the radio and we were still standing there talking about the clouds. The radio was chattering about nothing in particular. Being the homeschool mama and a weather spotter on occasion, I began to lecture the hay guy and the kids about the clouds.... "See that dark cloud? That is called an anvil and those are the kind that spawn tornados...." Suddenly , the weather spotters on the radio began to yell about a tornado and we watched as our cloud changed shapes..... Guess what? My lecture turned out to be a little too well illustrated. It was well behind us and moving away but heading for friends homes and farms. The spotters on the radio were highly excited and telling just where it was headed. We were able to make a call and get folks to take cover as I shrieked for my kids to hit the cellar. The hay guy jumped in his truck and took off...... The radio alrams went off and all medical personel were activated. I grabbed my clean shoes, my hubby grabbed my EMT bag and we hit the road. After some heart wrenching moments, there ended up being very few injuries but several home damaged. We got back home and tried to settle down. Even though our farm got rain, most places north and west of us did not so the land is dry and a tinderbox. Just as we sat down for a sandwich supper. The alram went off again. This time a brush fire north of town. After a couple of hours, Neil dragged back home. We made it until lunch time yesterday. The alarm went off for an out of control grass fire west of town. Neil took off again. After about an hour of listening to the radio and hearing how big this was, I decided to go to the fire barn. I tool a lunch along just in case i could pass it to Neil. After an hour at the barn, it became apparent that they were running out of water. So I hopped on the tanker truck and rode out. My job was to work on the tanker refilling the small grass fire units so that Neil could man the big hose on "Bertha". I called my oldest son and told him to go to the fire barn as someone as to be on stand by there in case there is another call. The only other guy available was 76 years old. After two hours of refilling trucks, we ran out of water and I rode back into refill. It was getting late and I knew that my younger children would be trying to get chores done so I swapped out with another fire fighter and my son went out on another grass unit to help "mop up". When I got home, my three youngest kids had milked 15 goats, bottle fed about 20 kids, fed 8 finishing floors of hogs ( about 250 hogs per barn), and hand fed the farrowing houses that contain 48 sows with pigs. They were bottle feeding the calves and haying the horses when I drove in. WHAT A GANG! They are getting bonus's in their paychecks this week! So-- within 24 hours, we had a tornado and 2 fires. We are all praying for rain so that we can have a break! Tana

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Mar. 28, 2006

Heart blessings

This past Sunday, I had to miss church so that I could take a trip down into Oklahoma to check on my aunt. Aunt Sue has had a long list of illness's for the last 15 years. Now, it appears that she has had a severe bought of shingles and is beginning to suffer from Alzheimers. Her husband, Wayne, has long been a favorite of mine. He is a quiet, and gentle man who loves animals. He has a very tender heart and is totally devoted to Sue --- probably a great deal more than she deserves. I hate to admit it but Sue and I are very much alike. Strong willed, opinionated and very used to getting our own way. We didn't get along too well when I was younger. Then, I mellowed with age and she began to take Prozac. I usually don't see her more than once a year but this time her illness was serious enough that her brother, my Uncle Tommy, wanted me to pick him up in Tulsa and drive down to just see what was going on. It wasn't good. She is in a nursing home for physical rehab. For some reason she has lost the use of her legs. Frankly, I do not think that she will ever get to leave. I would say that she is in her right mind about 2/3's of the time. The other 1/3, she can really spin some wild yarns! I came home with a renewed determination to get some weight off and to make sure that the important things in my life don't go undone or unsaid. Before I left on this trip, my family all agreed that if my aunt and uncle were willing and able, I should try to convince them to come up and live in our small town so that we could help take care of them. I know that is a big responsibility and involves a great deal of time and effort. I was touched and humbled because not one of my kids or my husband hesitated to invite this difficult woman to come and be a part of our lives. It is just understood that we have more than enough of everything material and plenty of love to spare..... it was a good and right thing to do. This trip also gave me time to spend with my father's older brother. My father died over 20 years ago. My uncle told me many stories of their childhood and frankly shared some painful memories and explained many of the tensions in the family. Mistakes and heart aches. Proud achievements, disappointments, and sage words of advice. By the time that I got home, I was worn to a frazzle both physically and emotionally. My prayer life has not been what it should be for some time now but I really felt God's leading this whole weekend and got a glimpse of the past as well as the future. I am so glad that He is in control and know the plans that he has for me.....

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Mar. 23, 2006

Kitchen madness

Something happened yesterday evening. I sat down after supper and chores to cuddle in the recliner with my baby boy -- who will soon be five. I had quite a lapful of squirming boy with a cold-- and the next thing I know, he is patting my face and telling me not to snore so loud! Silly child--- Mama doesn't snore! The rest of the family all snorted with laughter and I took myself off to bed at about 8:00pm. \ Of course, that meant that I woke up at 2:30 am instead of 5:30 am. I didn't feel the leat bit guilty rolling back over and sleeping until 6:00am. When I did get up, I had quite a surprise when I looked out the windows to a dusting of about an inch of snow. My shriek of surprise woke up the rest of the clan. The middle two kids and I struggled into our coveralls and cold boots ( they had been out on the porch-- yikes!) and headed out for morning chores. The goats were all hanging out at the gate and eager to get into the milk barn for their breakfast and a drink of warm water. It's those little luxuries in life.... After the rain and the little bit of snow, the mud is everywhere and very sticky. We literally slogged around getting it all done and back to the house. While we are outside, my oldest son is taking "care" of the five year old, making breakfast, and tidying up the kitchen. I had made goat milk soap yesterday so we had lots of extra stuff in the kitchen. After we ate, I assigned household chores for the other kids while I got ready to make a double batch of soap before lunch. Yesterday's batch was ready to be unmolded and cut into bars. That means it gets to move from the kitchen to the dining room and we will be eating sandwiches on a TV table until I around to re-stacking them somewhere else. By the time I got everything measured out and started, the boys began to bicker and phone began to ring and my hubby came to the door to wish me a happy anniversary. Twenty one years this poor man has put up with goats on the porch, a big mess of some kind in the kitchen, and general chaos threaded through the rest of our lives. Bless him! Despite much teeth gritting, and threats to kill my offspring, the soap turned out beautifully and was in its molds by 10:35 am. Then hubby and I zipped over to the neighbor's farm to buy his used cow chute. We have heifers that we plan to breed artificially in May and we must have some way to confine them during this "up close and personal" experience. The whole family plans to go to another neighbor's yearly cow sale right after lunch and then someone has to get my daughter to piano lessons by 4:00pm. Not every gal gets a cow chute and an afternoon at a cow sale on her anniversary! Blessed indeed! LOL!! Tana Mc

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Mar. 20, 2006

Crazy goat lady

This past weekend was action packed and hectic. Friday, my one and only daughter ( aka my right hand man) hurt her ankle. I was off farm at the vet's office picking up some shots for a couple of sick goat kids. My daughter had decided to go up to the horse pasture and work on some fencing. She stepped up onto the bumper of the truck to reach over into the bed for a piece of wire. Her foot slipped off the slick bumper and she tried to "catch" herself with the other. She landed wrong and wrenched it very badly. She was lying on the grass with all the horses looking at her and she realized that no one would come looking for her until lunch time--- two hours later. She dragged herself to the truck and drove to the house using her left foot to work the pedals. My hubby called me on my cell phone as I was pumping gas into the van preparing for the return trip home of about 20 miles. He really thought that her ankle might be broken so I made a mad dash home. I had to make myself pull of my "mom hat" and put on my "EMT hat". I looked at it and grabbed an icepack from my bag and decided that it wasn't broken, just severly sprained. She can hobble on it but we have relegated her to the couch and asigned her the job of laundry folder. After checking her over this morning, I have made an appointment for an Xray this afternoon. It is not any worse but not getting a whole lot better either. With her out of commission, all of her chores have fallen to my middle son. He is begining to appreciate his sister much more than he did! LOL! He now is helping me with all of the milking, kid feedings and feeding her calves and pups. Then he has to go and do his chores. If all of this isn't bad enough, this was our milk test weekend. I had decided to go on DHIR to verify the milk records for my goats. I have some really good milkers and wanted to get "official" credit for them to increase their value. Sunday was the first scheduled test. I had several sheets of paper work to fill out ( not my forte`), we had to have a starting weighed milk out on Saturday night, Sunday was our monthly pot luck dinner at church, and it began to rain. Rain means mud and lots of it on a farm. Somehow, the door mat just doesn't seem to work when it is raining and the cold wind is blowing. It either has blown out into the yard or people are too busy trying to rush into the house to use it. Shoes and muddy boots pile up at the door. The laundry room begins to over flow. With sister on the couch, the kitchen chores are piling up. Here is how it went: Saturday evening we rounded up al 12 of the buck kids that were out with the herd still nursing their mothers. We penned them up seperately so that we would get an accurate measurement of milk the next morning. Then the noise level rose very noticiably. Goats and kids crying and calling to each other across the distance all night and all day. My neighbor who is my official tester arrived and we milked out each doe individually and recorded her milk weight. My oldest son left for an evening out with one of his friends. The rain began in earnest. I sat down with all of the paper work involved in getting this milk test started and ended up staying up half the night trying to get it all figured out as well as keeping a motherly ear out for when my son came home. Sunday began at 5:30 am. Sunday morning, we slogged thru the mud, got the milking done with each goat's milk weighed and sampled. We got all of the goat kids bottle fed. It was cold and drizzling rain. We got our food ready for lunch at church. During church service, our pastor asked us several times to close our eyes in quiet reflection...... each time, I had to FIGHT to keep from meditating right off into dreamland. The pastor then asked if ther were any birthdays or anniversaries to be celebrated this week. I noticed that my family was all looking intently at ME. With my frazzled nerves I sharply asked, "Why are you all looking at me like that? " in what I hoped was a soft voice but actually came out loud enough for several rows around us to hear. My hubby shook his head and announced that we had an anniversary this week! He stood up and dragged me with him and the whole church got quite a laugh out of the fact that I had forgotten our 21st anniversary. I assigned housework to the three boys and took a nap. Not a very long one because my boys can't seem to be in the same area with out fighting about something. Usually, it is something totally insignificant. I have the most trouble between the 18yo and the 4yo. By the time we got the evening milking done and weighed, it was cold, raining and very dark. Of course, I didn't have a flashlight with me when I went to open up the gate to let those poor bellowing buck kids back in with their mothers. I groped my way around in the dark barn looking for the right gate and handle and nearly knocked myself out on the hay moving dolly. I let them out and all but one rushed out to find his mama. This one went all the way to the back of the pen and refused to come out. His mother wouldn't come out into the rain to get him and stood in the other barn and screamed. He screamed back at her not seeming to care that this sort of situation is just what a hungry coyote is looking for on a cold, wet night. I could hear him, but I couldn't see him. I felt my way around until I accidently brushed up against him and caught him in a death grip. After they were all reunited and safely penned up, I made my way to the house to finish up the paper work. My hubby made us burritos for supper and I collapsed into bed so glad that Monday -- even a rainy Monday was coming. We have decided that even though there is a chance of snow tonight, we are officially on Spring Break from from school. It may take the whole week for us to recover from this past crazy weekend.

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Mar. 18, 2006

Best time of the day....

I am not a native Kansan or even from a prairie state. As a child, I traveled all over the world following my Air Force father. We always considered home to be south Georgia where my mother was born and raised. When we retired and settled down there, I was about twelve. South Georgia is a sultry place with large pine trees, swamps, flat land and lots of sandy soil. Even though the land is flat, you cannot see for great distances because of the dense vegetation of the woods. I know that the sun sets there but somehow, I just never really noticed it.

Our family moved here in the spring of 1999. Not because of Y2K, despite what my friends and family in Georgia thought, but because of a better job. My husband is an extroidinary hog farmer. I know doesn't sound very glamorous but-- it is his calling and passion. We were moving to Kansas to manage a hog farm for another family. As part of the deal, they allowed us to bring along the rest of our homestead of goats, horses and dogs. I don't think that they knew quite what they were getting into. My husband is a work-a-holic. This job allows us to live on farm and work with Dad. He is able to earn a living and still be very much a part of our day to day lives.

The whole move brought big changes. Over all, we were thrilled with our new home. This area is just on the edge of the Ozark foothills so we are not into the hard core prairie but just enough to give us magnificient views for miles. The best part of the day for me is sunset. There is just nothing to compare to a Kansas sunset. The sky colors of deep orange and pink/purple hues just touch my soul. Make no mistake, our days are long and full but each evening, I try to find time to just pause for a moment to let the peace of the sunset seep in. Often as we are finishing up the chores of feeding calves, milking the goats or gardening, the kids and I will stop and admire the sunset and it just seems to end the day in just the right way....

It reminds me of a time before I was saved. I was searching and restless. A friend had given me a Bible and I admit that I had not read it. At one particularly lonely time, I picked it up and somehow found Ecclesiastes. Almost 25 years later, I still remember reading it and relating to the author in a mighty way. Chapter 9 verse 9 was a kind of eureka moment for me.

"Live joyfully with the spouse whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do,do it with all your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going."

Sounds kind of grim to some but for me it is a very comforting verse. At sunset, when I am weary from the day, the beauty reminds me that the days are fleeting but so very good.

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About Me

Farm, home, and family