Big Steer

This beautiful steer caught my eye the last time I was at Mr. Webb's farm, but it was so far away, I had no idea of how large it was.
I believe there is a distant picture of him somewhere in the blog.

I turned around and this big animal was less than ten feet away from me. The suddenness of the encounter triggered my fight or flight instinct. I turned to face him square on and said "Oh! This big guy is coming up fast!" I realized at the last minute, it was fairly tame and probably looking for a treat. You can look into its eyes in the first shot and see it did not mean me any harm. It just took me a second to recover from his size and realize that.

A man who was there to work his dogs heard me and came to stand by me when I got the first picture. After I snapped the picture, he and I petted the massive bovine on the nose while it sniffed my camera. This truly is a gentle giant! In the last picture, Mr. Webb is saying the animal's name and is telling it to leave. It obeyed by voice command alone and never came back.

I can not imagine how much he eats, but I'd love to have him around. Large, gentle animals have a calming affect on the people around them. Hmm, I guess that means I like cows too, huh? :-)

Now, I have to go check on the "girls" for Clint and make sure they have cool, clean water.

I just love this calf's sweet face.

Mr. Webb and Clint waiting on the cows to finish the grain lure they put down before separating the ones they need.

Our calf from this bull is due in April.

Last month, when we dropped our cow off to be bred, we had a rare treat of sitting down to talk to Mr. Webb.

I like Mr. Webb a lot. He's a decent man who cares about his livestock and is willing to share his knowledge. He's has some difficult things happen to him along the way, but he has not let it make him bitter. He's become a stronger person instead. Every single time we have met with him, he has treated us fairly. When the calf was missing, he came to our place to see if he could round her up. He was genuinely concerned for the calf's well being.

It was time to pick our cow up last Sunday morning. Now, we have had all sorts of critters on our farm over the last 15 years and Clint's barely blinked an eye at them. The cows have him waking early to check on them. He throws them grain and/or hay every morning and is often calling the house asking that someone refill their water. Clint likes the cows and was ready to get "his girl."

Clint had to make some modifications on the "new" truck so we could pull the trailer so we were up at 4:30 a.m. Turns out, we didn't need the hitch anyway. Mr. Webb had planned for Clint to go with him to Mathews to drop off a cow and a calf to another person and was going to take the cow to our house for us. Since I was there, I messed up his plans. Mr. Webb's truck is full of his farrier gear and only two people fit. He told Clint and I to find something to do for an hour and then he let us drive his truck, with the trailer already on it, to our house. I felt bad for going because I knew Clint would have enjoyed the time with Mr. Webb. By the way, I love Mr. Webb's truck! :-) We filled up his tank, washed the truck and the trailer and wiped down the dash to show our appreciation of how he's looked out for us.

Mr. Webb is a farrier and has some cows, calves and horses for sale and rents horse trailers. He also currently has some land listed. If you are interested, drop us an e-mail at contentmentacres@yahoo.com and we'll put you in touch.

Horses

Mayor Toddy

These pictures were taken on Mr. Webb's farm.

Mama bears are some of my favorite creatures because of the lengths they will go to in order to protect their young. This video offers a great example!

Update on Flor de Maria

From Compassion International: Flor was feeling bad and was admitted to the hospital. She was diagnosed with Left Ocular Herpetic Cellulites and was treated for six days. This is not a chronic illness and she has fully recovered. She continues to attend school and all of her normal activities. The project helped with transportation and some other expenses while she was in the hospital.

This is much better than what we concluded from her letter where she stated she had been hospitalized for herpes. Praise the Lord!!

Spontaneous Helping

Emily begged me to let her help while we were cleaning over the weekend.
I was a little wary of letting her have the spray bottle* filled with homemade window cleaner, but did not want to hinder her helpful spirit.
Emily did manage to get some fingerprints off, but I had to go behind her.
The important thing at this stage is to take time to foster that sense of responsibility and team work in caring for our home.
If you work hard with your first two children, it is much, much easier to teach the rest.

*When I need new spray bottles, I buy the window cleaner from the Dollar Tree. I get a spray bottle and ready made cleaner for a buck. I use to buy nicer spray bottles, but they did not last any longer than the ones from the Dollar Tree.

VBS

Joshua, Caleb and Bethany enjoyed VBS!
They all did well.
They all had perfect attendance and won awards for that.
While Bethany knew her verses, she was too shy to say them in front of the class, so she did not get awards for those.
She did overcome her fear and say the one for Friday. She told me "I finally found my voice!"
Joshua and Caleb said their verses every day and won awards for that.

Large Family Dessert Tip

I love these custard cups I found at the Dollar Tree four for a dollar.
The cups are perfect for serving desserts and keep serving sizes down.
I also use them for condiments and sometimes vegetables.
This is the children's snack today.

False Impersonation Phone Calls Harassing Homeschool Families

We received this in an e-mail:

Dear Homeschool Group Leaders:

It has come to our attention that multiple homeschool leaders have received phone calls from a person falsely saying he is from the Home School Foundation.

This caller, who is believed to be male but identifies himself as a woman, will often claim to be calling from the Home School Foundation and indicate that you have been nominated for a grant or award of some sort. This individual usually states that “she” has 10 children and a degree in psychology, before proceeding to ask questions about your family’s homeschool practices to follow up on the grant/award that you have been “nominated” for. The questions quickly get around to your disciplinary methods and practices. Please note, HSF has no need to ask you about your disciplinary methods with your children!

If you are ever on the phone with someone saying he or she is from HSF and you become even slightly suspicious, or if the questions don’t directly relate to the work of the Foundation (i.e. helping families homeschool through hard times), please ask for a name and number and offer to call back. The Foundation’s number is (540) 338-8688. If you are given a different number and/or receive a call from an individual who fits the above description, please alert us immediately!

We are trying our best to find out who this caller is and stop him from harassing homeschoolers in our name. This is not actually a new issue; we had a similar situation many years ago and came close to finding the caller before he went underground. This may be the same person.

If you receive such a phone call, write down the date, time and as much information as you can about the caller. Personal information disclosed by the caller and the questions he asked would be helpful. Also collect any information displayed on your caller ID or obtained from tracing the phone number (often by dialing *69). Contact HSLDA or HSF with this information and we will collect it to help authorities in their attempt to track this individual down.

If you have any details that may help us find out more about this caller, please email them to info@homeschoolfoundation.org with “impersonator” in the subject line.

Also, please forward this email on to other homeschool leaders you know—if people are aware of the issue ahead of time, we are more likely to stop it.

Thank you,

Mike Smith, President

What Works for Me

I have tried many of the time management systems and none seemed to work well for me. I found many required more of my time to use than most of the entries! Some were complicated requiring multiple entries for one item. Others were pricey and required me to continue to purchase their product, which is good for their sales and bad for my wallet.

So I created my own system. I've used it successfully for many years. I have separate clipboards for each type of list that holds not only the list, but any instructions, recipes, charts, etc I need. I have different places in the house I hang them, but most are kept over my desk.

I have clipboards for: groceries/shopping/errands, livestock/pet care, homeschool, gardening, household to-do, goals, a daily school checklist for each child (slid into a page protector and marked off each day with a grease pencil), etc. Many of my clipboards have a note on the metal clip reminding whoever finds it to hang it. "Household To-DO List: Please hang over my desk~Love you, Mom." These little notes have helped me keep track of the clipboards, even when I can't keep track of them. :-D Hanging them up keeps the lists in sight as a reminder and also keeps them out of reach of the babies.

This is what works for me. It's cheap, simple to use and effective at reminding me of what needs to be done in each area of my life. It's easy to restart if I get off track for a little while.

Btw, I found clipboards for a $1 each at Roses.

We use Cozi.com for a family calendar and reminder service.

I hope this blesses someone!

A Picture of Flor de Maria

Flor de maria showing us the items she bought with our financial gift.
In the bottom photo, she is shown with her grandmother who is her guardian.


She says in her last letter that she purchased "...milk, cereal, sugar, rice, soups, oil, cookies and a lot more. Also products for personal hygiene, clothes, blouses, skirts, underwear and shoes and sandals too. And a wardrobe to keep my clothes in too. Everything is very pretty. I will be praying for you and you pray for me. I love you. Sincerely, Flor"

Compassion International is a worthy organization to sponsor a child through. When Flor was learning her letters, we did not hear from her as often, but we would get a card or a note from her teacher at least twice a year. As she learned to write, we heard from her more often. Through the mail, we have been able to watch her grow, learn and develop her artistic ability. We have learned about her country's customs as well as the heavy rains and flooding they have had over the years.

Please join us in prayer for Flor de Maria's spiritual, emotional, mental and physical well being.

Miss Hannah

My little girl did not make getting this picture easy, but here you go!

Her hair curls after a bath and we wanted to remember that, so we didn't comb it out.

Last Night at Yorktown Beach

She spoke to everyone. Nearly everyone looked away or hurried by her. A few muttered "Hi." Maybe it was too painful for them. It was her big, beautiful, brown eyes that stopped me. "Hello!" she said with a loud and cheery voice. Her quarterback sized daddy watched my reaction carefully. Loving a child is something I know how to do. "I have this covered!" I said to him with my eyes. I kneeled down and asked her "Are you enjoying this beautiful night?" She nodded tiredly. I rubbed her hand. It was under-developed and slightly twisted from the defect having its way with her body. "It's so beautiful out here, but I see someone more beautiful than this beach and the river." She tried to move her head to look around. "It's you! You are more beautiful than this night!" She smiled big. Her daddy nodded at me and whispered "Thank you!"

Fifteeen years ago on this day, I lost a child.

When I went to the doctor for some light spotting, he could not find a heartbeat. The doctor had not turned the screen away for the ultrasound so when I saw the lifeless form, I told him what we both knew. "My baby is dead."

While we don't always share it with others, Clint and I remember our three miscarried children every year. We think of them every day. We speak of them often. Time and the promise of Heaven has made most of the sadness fade, but there is still a touch there. A tear still leaks now and then. We would rather be tender to it than calloused. We'd rather be sad for a brief moment as we remember and reflect than to forget our children existed.

http://contentmentacres.blogspot.com/2006/07/our-first-miscarriage.html

http://contentmentacres.blogspot.com/2006/08/rebecca.html

http://contentmentacres.blogspot.com/2006/04/last-year-on-this-date-we-lost-our-son.html

If you lost a child, I am praying for God to give you peace and comfort today.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Inexpensive School Supplies

I use to make most of my own school things like flashcards, posters, tapes, etc. With five students of different levels and two babies, I do not have that kind of time any more.
Last night, I stopped in Dollar Tree and found many school supplies that are not usually on the shelves.
For many of these, I would have to visit a teacher's supply store where the prices are much higher.
I could not fit everything I purchased into the picture, but I found over 40 items I can use over the next year with my children.
Most of them are nonconsummable so I will get my money's worth out of them and hopefully be able to pass them along to another family one day.
If you need homeschool supplies, it is a good time to check the dollar priced stores.

Update: I checked two other Dollar Tree's in my area. At each store, I found items not carried by the others.

Books to Iraq

A few years ago, we answered a cry for someone to save books from the dump by a local church/school. I called Clint and he told me to tell the lady we'd take them. I told the lady that we'd give as many as we could away, but that I wasn't sure exactly how we'd use all of them. I told her that we did sell books and that we also ran a ministry where, when we could afford it, we mailed books to those who needed/wanted them. She said she did not care what we did with them, just so they did not end up in the dump.

Clint, Brandon and Amanda loaded a full truckload of books into the back of our van and brought them home. I was expecting at the time and on bedrest for the vomitting I deal with. Rough estimates put the number of books at more than a thousand. That's a lot of books!

We were selling books at the time and we were also giving books away to people in need. We mailed out many textbooks to help homeschool families affected by Hurricane Katrina. Several of the church's books were stained, so we had to throw those away. Then we mailed out many of the church/school's books to those who needed them at our expense even though we had many bills of our own. We did this as a ministry.

The books were so numerous, I had to get creative in how to place all of them in homes. Besides mailing them, I opened my home and had people come pick them up. I made several packages up for specific needs and left them out for appointed pick up times. We delivered them to people who could not get here. We took out advertisements all over the country and offered them free but people had to pay the media rate shipping on them. I mailed boxes to soldiers through various military charities. We saw many of the books fly out of here. We still had a lot left.

I listed them on message boards and our blog (since removed due to the heavy e-mail). I put fliers offering them in with textbooks I was selling. Needing to clear out the room they were in, I listed them on eBay for 99¢ (the lowest price you can list them for in a store) and that found many more homes. Many pastors thanked me for listing them because some were hard to find books that others were selling for $50 and $60. I often included extra books of the same topic at our expense. I also listed them on Paperbackswap.com and when I could, I included "like" books with whatever I shipped out. I still had scores of boxes of books left over.

In an attempt to encourage others affected by this sort of thing, I share that early on rumors started flying that our family was selling the books for high profits and making tons of money and living the high life. It's normal. When someone is trying to do good, someone else has to criticize and tear it down. Most of the time, those people doing the tearing down are people who call themselves Christians and have not put their hand to the wheel in front of them. They have the time to cause trouble. If someone would have come to us and asked what we were doing with the books, we would have happily told them. We probably would have also asked them if they knew of a need the books could fill! We prayed about it and left the lies and ugly behaving people to the Lord's Hand. Even though it stung to hear the nasty things being said, we just kept working to find the books homes.

Just a few minutes ago, I boxed up another few of dozen books to send to our soldiers at Freedom Chapel's Red River Place in Iraq. When I finished, I realized we only have a few more of these books left! Wow, what a journey! I wonder how the books, now scattered all over the world, have blessed the lives of those they touched. May God have the glory!

Miss Bethany

Bethany just lost two teeth! Our family celebrates lost teeth with a box of donuts!
Her brothers were asking her to work that last one out. :-)

Cleaning Motor Oil Out of Car Upholstery

The truck we recently purchased was a work truck and it looked like it inside. Today, you can not even tell how bad it was. The carpet was nearly black with motor oil in most places. It was filthy. Clint said he'd pull it out and replace it with new if I didn't want to bother with cleaning it. As a mother with seven rough and tumble children and one hard working man, I have tackled my fair share of stains so I saw this carpet as a challenge!

I wish I had taken some before pictures because the results are truly amazing!!!

Rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) took the light and the very heavy oil stains out of the truck carpet very easily. In the second picture, the entire area was the dark color you see at the top. A little more elbow grease and alcohol took care of the rest of it. The carpet looks very close to new in that spot now.

For the lighter stains, I poured the alcohol on a cloth and just rubbed/blotted.

For the many, many, many heavier stains, I just poured the alcohol on heavy and blotted it up. The center console area of the carpet to the right of the 4WD stick looked like they had poured dirty motor oil onto it. It was BLACK and sticky to the touch.
See the yellow stains left? As the alcohol evaporated and pulled more oil to the surface, I had to keep blotting/rubbing. After it dried, that yellowish staining was left. Applying the alcohol to the cloth removed the rest.

This technique also removed some stubborn coffee staining in another vehicle. I had steam cleaned it and the yellow color kept coming up to the surface as the area dried. It has worked on almost every stain I have tried it on so far.

Do not get the alcohol on the molded plastic door panels; it will leave stain marks. Use the tips in our blog at your own risk.

Jake,the former owner, if you are seeing this, you probably don't recognize the truck!

Little May Still Kicking

This is Little May watching the activity as we move chickens to their new, larger pen.

After years of battling predator birds, raccoons, opossums, weasels, foxes, feral cats, neighbors dogs and etc, we found a way to stop predators from getting our poultry.

We have three 10 x 10 dog pens. The middle pen has a solid top on it. We keep dogs on either side of the chickens and that has stopped all problems with predators. Our dogs initially chase the fowl through the fence, but grow bored of them after a few days. The predators do not like the smell or noise of the dogs.

Barn Swallow Babies

For the past 15 years, we have been delighted with the acrobatic flying routines of the barn swallows who nest every year in our big barn. These babies started flying not too long after I took these pictures.

Matthew 6:26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

4th Weekend

Our 4th didn't happen as planned but we had a good weekend anyway. After working on it for a while, Clint discovered my pickup had a blown head gasket. We need a truck to haul things for our farm and so I will have a vehicle during the day. The shuttle bus (picts: 1, 2, 3.) is still in the shop waiting on the needed parts to arrive. So, we took a trip and bought another truck. It's a 4x4, but I am not even sure I will need it. Although, I can probably find a reason to use it. :-)

Please say a prayer for Jake, who sold us this truck. He lost his job when International Paper in Franklin folded due to the economy. Like many of our friends, he's having a hard go with things.

Jake, I hope you drop by the blog and know we are praying and hoping things get better for you! That carpet you left in the back of the truck for us is going to become a rug for dirty little feet. We really do have seven homeschooled children and rugs are useful tools in keeping the dirt out! I'll take good care of the truck and appreciate the deal you gave us.


Psalm 46:1
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

Oh yeah, the good thing about this truck is that many parts from my old truck match it, so we should save money on repairs.

Prayer Please

While I was nursing Hannah, Emily climbed over the baby gate, snuck upstairs, climbed the toilet and got into the child lock on the medicine cabinet. She opened a bottle of aspirin. She says she didn't take any. There are less than 10 pills unaccounted for and Clint and I are pretty certain we took those. I feel 98% certain she didn't take any. Because aspirin toxicity is so serious, we called poison control and she is going to the hospital for observation. Clint is going to take her while I care for Hannah. Please keep Em and our family in your prayers.

UPDATE: Emily's blood results showed no aspirin. PTL! The doctor, nurses and an EMT agreed with our line of thinking that she probably did not ingest any, but it was better to be safe than sorry in this kind of situation. The doctor said her age group is very determined to get into things and had some hair raising stories to tell of determined preschoolers! The ability to thwart child safety measures is quite common among her peers. We are going to buy or construct a better "child proof lock" for the medicine cabinet because the Safety First one we have isn't cutting it.

Thank you for your prayers!!

Emily Turned 3!!!

The moment she first saw her cake!

When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said "Um, Hello Kitty, My Little Pony, Clifford and my cake!" Hello Kitty and My Little Pony were easy requests to fill. We looked in Target, Walmart, 2 Kmarts, Dollar General, Toys R Us and a few thrift stores for Clifford.....nuttin'!! Clint checked another thrift store on his way home and found a like new Clifford storybook for .25! She was tickled with it! Good thinking Daddy!

Daddy helped her blow out the candles. I can not tell you how many times she asked me if I was going to bake her a cake for her birthday! Little ones are so much fun!

Emily is wirling in her favorite dress after her party.

The cake was simple enough to make, but turned out to be very difficult. My middle's fingers found my cake decorating supplies and I was missing bags, tips and etc. On top of that, we had a hard time locating the cake pan Emily requested for her birthday. Thanks to Brandon and Clint, it arrived at the house around noon yesterday (the day of her party)! Brandon and Clint had to make trips to the store to get the tips I needed. Amanda mixed up the frosting. It was a comedy of errors, but our Family Team conquered each obstacle to reach our goal. Emily LOVED her party and her gifts. Thank you to everyone who made it a special day!!!

A New Way to Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

Hannah 18 months