Uncharted Heritage

For years John and I have built and decorated a gingerbread house together as one of our Christmas traditions.  This year was the first time we decorated gingerbread as a family of three.  Sera was very excited to be involved.  We picked out a train this year, and though it never actually went together exactly the way it was supposed to, we all had a fun time together getting messy with icing and candies. 

We hope you all had a very merry Christmas!

Our baby girl is quite the ‘little helper.’ She is so eager, insistent really, to be involved and to learn. And I want to take the time to make the learning fun for her, to cause her to want to continue to be involved and helpful. And while I am taking the time to teach her, I also want to take the time for myself, to enjoy these moments that will become cherished memories in my own mind. It too often is these simple moments of chores or other usual daily activities that we tend to just take for granted. I don’t want to take these moments for granted - the time is going by too fast, and my baby girl is growing up!

Did you enjoy the [Geminid] meteor shower last night? It was a first for us. I cannot remember ever seeing anything of comparison. Dozens of ‘shooting stars!’ It was absolutely amazing. If you have never taken the time to look to the heavens during such an event, I would urge you to! (The news has reported that you may still see some showers tonight, even though the peak was in this morning’s early hours.)

“…The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” ~Psalm 19:1B (KJV)

We wanted to share a link with you for a documentary that was a blessing to us.  Mr. Gautschi causes you to really think about gardening differently, both physically and spiritually. 

"BACK TO EDEN shares the story of one man’s lifelong journey, walking with God and learning how to get back to the simple, productive methods of sustainable provision that were given to man in the garden of Eden." 

So, if you are interested and haven't already seen it, you can click on this link to see the documentary free. 

From one season, to the next. It seems like just yesterday we were entering the fall season, and now, already, winter is only weeks away. The time has gone by so fast. And in such a blur.

Since the seasons have changed [in our personal lives] we have seen the persimmons ripen and the leaves fall from the tree. We anticipated the ripening and harvest of our pecans and walnuts, but unfortunately with everything that happened we missed the gathering. We ‘forgot’ about our small garden and in our absence it seemed to flourish on its own with some beautiful greens. Since the loss of John’s Dad we have had to re-organize the family business and we have been busy taking care of some land that his Dad had in Tellico. We have celebrated Thanksgiving with family, and now preparing our hearts for the upcoming Christmas. We have many blogging plans that we hope to bring to you in the coming weeks and months. Thank you for sticking with us and for your patience. Sorry it has been a bit crazy around here.

Firstly, I want to apologize for our absence.  It feels like it has been so long since I have been here.  So hard to believe that a month has went by!  It isn't that we haven't had anything to blog about.  There have been posts swimming around in my head for a while, but the timing hasn't been right. 

When John's dad passed away, John and his brother were left to take over the family business.  There has been a lot to figure out and still some hurdles that must be crossed.  I have been back to work, helping at the business as much as I can, so I haven't had as much time to work on blog posts, and neither of us have even had much of a chance to think about all of our homesteading projects that were started months ago.  We are just now getting some of our focus back, along with some new ideas because of our new circumstances.  Truthfully, we have been so busy and so rushed lately that I haven't even had a chance to walk to our little garden in a couple of weeks.  I finally got out there today, just to check on things, and I was excited to see how well our lettuce and spinach is doing.  

We want to thank you all for your prayers and understanding.  We miss being here, and are looking forward to getting back on track.