Jake & Rana visit the Bauernhof

We had such a WONDERFUL time with our friends from Turkey here. Rana is Turkish and her husband Jake is an American. They met and fell in love in Turkey. She is from a Christian Turkish community. When we left Turkey, they did too, relocating by Jake's family in Minnesota. 

It was SOOOO wonderful to catch up with them here. Jake has a keen love of permaculture, and Rana, who is not an outdoor gal by nature, truly loved the farm.

AND SHE COOKED FOR US!!!!!!

Going to get eggs

Mia with a baby lamb

Aksel with a baby lamb.

This age boy just LOVES farming! Any 9-13 year old boy on our farm BEGS me to put them to work.

We spent an afternoon at Yoder's Country market where they were selling handmade donuts and ice cream outside. YUM!

Rana cooked for us! Manti and Lahmachun -- my two FAVORITE Turkish meals!

Rana speaking in Turkish for us on camera!

Tuesday Truth

It is Well With My Soul

We Bought a Farm: Happy Easter from the Kitsteiner Family!

What a beautiful Easter day we had here at the farm. Even better? Our friends Jake and Rana were here with us! (I'll include more pictures and video of them in an upcoming video.) For now, here were some quick pictures we took after church. We generally are not a "dress up for Easter" family, but somehow we pulled off something semi-dress-up-able.

Hannah has been BEGGING me to wear a dress. She's become obsessed with it. I actually didn't own a dress until the end of last year when, in preparation for a friend's wedding, I found this dress in EXTRA TALL! (Dresses are always a problem for me because they always hit me in a place that makes the dress look like it doesn't fit me.) We had to not go to the wedding because of Isaac's hospitalization, but I finally wore the dress! I wish I could have captured her fascination when I she saw what I was wearing. She was so excited!

On the way home from church, we found a field a few blocks from our house that was just too pretty not to try to snag a few pictures at. This was our attempt at a picture of the sisters. (The sun was posing a problem for my light-eyed children.)

Sidge has ALWAYS had trouble with the sun. In the Azores, our eye doctor (and friend!) told us that he has a high number of cones or rods (can't remember each one) with translated into sun issues. Anyways, check out this series of pictures. Specifically, keep your eye on our Sidge (yellow shirt.)

A semi-decent family photo. Although Sidge opened his eyes the MOMENT the picture was taken which left him looking like this:

Hannah eating some toast with jam after we got home.

Stepping away from Facebook: How I did it

Last month, I wrote about my sphere of concern and my sphere of influence and my desire to make these align.

I wanted to touch base and let you know how I am doing with this goal in my life.

The BIGGEST thing that I have made it a goal to change was my Facebook usage. I really am not on any other forms of social media regularly. I have a Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter account, but I rarely use any of them.

I vowed to stop going to people.com (because seriously -- what is the point?) and also vowed to stay off of all news outlets unless something has happened in the world that my husband said I need to know about.

I understand some people may feel like I am putting my head in the sand. And I really don't care. I really feel that all I need to do is show Christ's love.

But Facebook was a problem for me. For some people, they can just decide to get off of Facebook, however, that was not an option for me due to the fact that I use Facebook quite a bit for our farm and homeschool and especially for the Schoolhouse Review Crew that I write for. I also use messenger to communicate with a lot of people that I sell eggs to or work with at church or in our homeschool group.

So how could I step away from Facebook and not really step away? I think I actually found some very good ideas due to brainstorming with a number of people. And I wanted to share those here.

1. Firstly I removed the Facebook "app" from my iPhone. Yes, you can technically still get onto facebook.com from the browser on your phone, but I'm not tempted with that.
2. I added the "Facebook Groups" app to my iPhone. This allows me check in on my groups but not get on Facebook. 
3. I added "Facebook Messenger" to my iPhone. This allows me to continue to send messages to and from friends which is a huge thing that I do on Facebook. 
4. I removed anyone from my Facebook feed that was negative in anyway. Anyone who posted things that caused me any anxiety or stress is removed. Note that I did not remove them as a friend. I simply "hid them" on my feed. They do not know that they are hidden, and I can always unhide them at a later date. This actually includes people who are posting things that I agree with. However, the things they are posting make me jump into a line of thinking (especially politically) that causes me stress. 
5. Because when you open up Facebook on a desktop computer to send people messages, you automatically see your feed, I purposefully picked a few positive places to show up at the top of my feed. (If you go to someone's page or a group's page, you can choose to "always see this first" in your feed.) This means that if I do scroll my feed at all, it is all scriptures and devotions, and really happy stuff. And it gives me a few seconds to remember my rule and stop scrolling!
6. I have decided not to post any personal updates on my Facebook Feed directly. Instead, I do my Blog. I do link from my Blog. But not going and just quickly saying something keeps me off as well.

Okay so that is what is working for me. I have decided that I want to "think on what is lovely." I want to be positive. I want to be focused on what I believe is my job: to share Christ's LOVE with everyone. That is my job. And that is what I truly feel called to do.

I am "prone" to anxiety and depression. I should probably say I am "slightly prone." I am a deep feeler, and I want people to be happy and enjoy each other and love each other. I have to be purposeful in not complicating my life more than I need to. 

I want peace. I want happiness. I want joy. I want Christ. 

I feel like I am making good strides to narrow my "sphere of concern." 

I'll keep you posted!

I am so excited about these weekly Blog post from Amanda -- our chaplain's wife when I lived in Turkey. These"Military Moments" posts allow her to discuss and share ideas and stories from military life. 

My parents are visiting us in Spain this week. They've only been here three days and we've gone to another continent, ridden camels, a ferry, and in the back of a police car.  We are heading off on another adventure today, so I'm leaving you guys with a quote I recently read.  

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." -- Ambrose Redmoon

We are going to Normandy next week. I have been reading about the invasion and  trying to understand exactly what happened there and exactly what that kind of courage looks like. I saw this quote and it seemed to fit. They judged that stopping the evil was more important than the fear they had to have been feeling. I'm trying to prepare myself for the emotions right now, but I'm sure there will be a lot of crying.

Well, I'll be back next week with some of what we've experienced in Spain this week with Semana Santa (Holy Week).  Cultural differences I'm so blessed to be able to experience.  Have a great week!"

Opinions expressed in guest posts are not necessarily those of the station manager (i.e. Wendi!)

Saturday Smiles

I think a child telling me "Mom, I'm old enough to wipe my bottom by myself now," might truly be the most beautiful words I have ever heard.

Saturday Smiles

Joia and her brood visit the Bauernhof

Joia became my friend when we were stationed together on Eglin Air Force Base in 2007. I actually looked back, and Joia has been featured (or at least named) on 330 posts on my Blog since 2003. Pretty impressive. (It is especially easy to check this since her name is so unique to her!)

This was the first post I ever mentioned her name on. At this time, we were still childless, and Joia's Keenan (who is now 10) was just 3 months old!

Joia was always a "steady" friend for me. I realize I need one of those everywhere I go. She is so loyal and so easy-going, and so comfortable to be around. She just fits like a comfy pair of pajamas. She also truly tried to understand my infertility even though she hadn't experienced it and was really there for me during one of my most difficult years. (This was the year that followed our fourth failed IVF attempt and before we adopted Isaac.)

Anyways, here is a link to the post Joia did on her week here. I didn't want to recreate the whole visit, but I will share a few pictures from her time with us. (These are ALL stolen from the almighty-picture-taker-Joia.) 

This is Caleb who is a little bit younger than Abigail (5).

Moriah is 8. She was born six weeks before Sidge when we lived on Eglin. While Abigail is only 5, these two were TIED AT THE HIP the entire visit. They absolutely loved being together.

Going to get eggs!

Moriah is such a fun girl. She even handled connecting with a fence on a bike incredibly well.

Arabelle is doing SO GREAT off-leash on the farm. Ritter can't be out like she can yet, but this dog is proving to be one amazing specimen.

The boys got along fabulously and played a ton in the house on board games and outside on the farm.

 I took Joia and her three kids and my Hannah on a hike t the top of the ridge.

Joia and me.

This was Hannah's first time making it to the top of the ridge. While she complained most of the way up (and down!) she was incredibly proud that she managed the 400 foot elevation change to the top.

Making grilled cheese for an army.

John made this!

My husband isn't in the kitchen nearly as much as I would like anymore :)

Teaching Keenan piano maestro. Joia's two oldest children are taking piano too!

Checking on our three sheep that we have had to section off due to misbehavior. :)

Our WWOOFer Amy taking Keenan and Moriah to help move sheep.

Our group by the chickens.

Cute pic!

Love this pic!

Mushrooms

Love this pic of Moriah and Abigail hanging out on our landing upstairs.

Another GREAT farm picture.

We Bought a Farm: Piglets, Piglets EVERYWHERE!

This week, BOTH of our pot belly moms had babies. One had a litter of SEVEN. (We originally thought it was four, then we thought five, but it ended up at seven. The other mom had FIVE. We are going to be eliminating the pot bellies from our pig production after these litters. Mainly because our pig "brood" has just gotten too large. Very fun to see these litters born within one day of each other.

We Bought a Farm: Easter egger with NEW friends

I'm so excited about a new family that we've connected with here. Their daughters were in ballet with my girls, and when they decided to homeschool, they reached out to me for some direction. They are finishing out the school year but will then be joining our homeschool community! We've now had them out to our farm two times, and Abigail just absolutely loves to play with both of them. We had a little easter egg hunt in our yard after dinner. Here are a few pics of our evening:

As I've discussed on my Blog previously, I use any excuse I can to have an Easter Egg Hunt. My kids love them, and you don't have to put candy in them to have fun.

May I just say that easter egg hunts in the south are very different from how I experienced them in previous locations?! When we did easter egg hunts in other locations they actually hid the eggs. Here they usually just spread them out on a grassy place and you race to get as many as you can. 

So when we do egg hunts in our yard I really HIDE them. The kids end up finding them around our three acres of fenced yard for days and weeks to come :) It's a ton of fun.

And I'm actually going to, some day, do a BIG hunt on the farm. I mean I couldn't do it on the whole 100-acres, but definitely on a bigger section. It would be a blast!

We are excited about our friends Jake and Rana joining us for the Easter weekend. And yes, we plan on doing another egg hunt (and eating some delicious Turkish food!)

We Bought a Farm: In one of our 'hollars

Beautiful morning on the farm. Listen to the Carolina Wren. And check out the Red Buds blooming away. Spring is on the way!!!

We Bought a Farm: Lamb Update

My husband posted this on Facebook, and I wanted to share here: 

So excited to see that the smallest of our lambs still falls within expected weights of conventionally raised Katahdin lambs... and we are producing a healthier, grass-fed animal with no antibiotics, dewormers, or vaccines... and our small section of Earth is being healed in the process!

Just under a year ago, our ewes had their first lambs on our farm. Today I'm taking the smallest ram lamb to a new butcher to be processed. This Katahdin Hair Sheep lamb weighs 97 lbs. He is 99.9% grass fed on our rotationally-grazed pastures. They get a small bit of fermented grain to help lead them to a new paddock and to keep them friendly. They also have a free-choice, kelp-based mineral supplement.

If the butchering goes well and our tastings pass the test, we will soon be able to start selling USDA-approved, locally-grown, beyond-organic lamb!

He received a question from a fellow doctor about vaccines and our sheep. The question was: "What's the difference between vaccinating kids and vaccinating sheep?"

Besides the fact that a sheep could be a kid ... ha ha ha .... here was JB's answer. Thought I would share it here for any of you who are interested:

Seriously, great question, and there are a number of reasons...

First, the few universally recommended sheep vaccines are for infections which are significantly mitigated with our method of rotational grazing.

Second, we want a very strong flock. If we lose a few "weaker" animals, the "strong" survive and pass on those genetic traits of natural resistance and resilience. That's not a management strategy I'll partake with my children. 

Third, eating the meat of an animal that has been vaccinated is almost definitely not an issue, but if the other reasons for avoiding vaccines are sound, then this is another risk avoided (even if it is tiny).

Fourth, and this is much less of a rationale for us, but truthfully, it is a selling point. I've got solid reasons for managing our flock this way, so I have no problems promoting this aspect.