This is our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life (Hebrews 11:8-10) along the narrow way (Matthew 7:14), even the old paths (Jeremiah 6:16), submitting to the Bible as a light unto both (Psalms 119:105). It is our prayer that these documented moments in our earthly time benefit whom God might choose to edify, but ultimately that God glorifies Himself through them.

Month: February 2013

Community Singing – February 2013

After our last fellowship time of recording Psalms from the psalter we use, we recorded the next set earlier this month, again so those who might be trying to learn them as well might have something to help them if needed.

And here is the next set:

Psalms 22F-24C

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

Psalms 19A-22E

We are eternally grateful to the Lord for His word and the opportunity to sing it, learn it this way, and sing together in praise of His gloriousness, His mighty works, and His protecting hand. We again pray He glorifies Himself through this, and that He benefits and strengthens His Church through it.

— David

A House – Update XXI – The Bedroom

In continuing with our house we’re working on, back in the fall, I was hoping to be able to start working on finishing the bedroom so that we could be at least sleeping in there for the winter, with maybe even a small wood burner in place that we plan to have in there. But, resources didn’t really allow for that to come about, although we are grateful to the Lord for allowing us start to make some progress on the bedroom.

I believe it was back in the fall when I was able to get the insulation required for the walls, and here it all is installed:

This is the south wall:

House Bedroom Insulation South Wall

And the west wall:

House Bedroom Insulation West Wall

The north wall:

House Bedroom Insulation North Wall

And the east wall:

House Bedroom Insulation East Wall

And then, just this last community work day (which are the first Wednesdays of each month), the men came over to help put up the ceiling material, which was next on the agenda. I spent some time trying to price out the best deal that also might look kind of nice, and that could be installed fairly quickly; and so, I decided to go with what’s called “rough shod” plywood, which is a less expensive form of “T1-11”-looking siding.

It took three of us on ladders, with two helping below to hand us the plywood and screws (I decided on tan-colored Deck Mate screws, so that they would hopefully hold better than nails and would also blend in color-wise).

Here is the first row done. We decided to starting in the middle and work our way toward each side, in hopes any error in the squareness of the room would show less than if we started on one side, which might cause gaps between sheets and between sheets and walls to become cumulative as we went along. It’s actually kind of hard work holding up that sheet while trying to place it properly:

House Bedroom Ceiling First Row

And here is the ceiling after the day’s work, facing southeast. You can see that we got everything done except that last row to the left:

House Ceiling Facing Southeast

And facing southwest:

House Ceiling Facing Southwest

And then one of the men graciously offered his time on the next Lord’s Day community visitation day to help me put up the last row (which included much smaller pieces width-wise, so just the two of us were able to handle it):

House Ceiling Complete

Much gratitude to the community work day ceiling crew!

House Ceiling Community Work Day Crew

And then it was time for the community work day fellowship meal. Everyone says “hello”, by the way: 🙂

Community Work Day Fellowship Meal

We are once again very thankful to God for granting progress on the house. He’s gracious and merciful in allowing it to continue, and for allowing us the fellowship of the brethren here, in general, in serving one another. It is Sue and my prayer that she and I especially (and of course all of us) grow more in servanthood to Christ and His people.

— David

Pebbles Pork Chop Party

In our last round of pig breeding, we decided to keep, raise and eat the offspring of our sow Pebbles, and breed her again because she had a good disposition and because we had a soft-spot for her, given she was the lone piglet from the difficult birth her mother had, and we had bottle-raised her on goat milk ourselves. But, as the piglets eventually turned into decent-sized pigs, and with the possible difficulty of finding a large enough mate for Pebbles, I decided to change the plans and revert back to the old way of doing things, where we process the mother as well and keep an offspring to continue the pork perpetuation.

Here is Pebbles and most of her offspring before taking Pebbles in (she’s on the left, one female had already gone to the Bunkers as a next breeder for them):

Our Sow Pebbles and Her Offspring

And this is Pebbles next to the offspring we are keeping for the next round of breeding, which we decided to call Lulu. We decided to keep her because she has more of the Duroc characteristics:

Our Sow Pebbles and Our Next Breeding Mother Lulu

With these previous blog posts, you can follow Pebbles’ interesting story from the beginning:
Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Piglet “Pebbles”
Animal Update – Pebbles and Fred
Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Piglets of 2012

And so, we took Pebbles and two of the males in to the butcher (two other of the offspring also went to the Bunkers).

Once getting the meat back, we wanted to continue to practice preserving without canning or freezing, so we had some strips of meat cut from one of the younger pig’s hams, and put them in the salt brine:

Brining Pork Ham Meat

And then I hung them in the meat dryer:

Drying Brined Pork Ham Meat

Then, it was time for the Pebbles Pork Chop Party fellowship meal! We held it on a Lord’s Day fellowship time, so every household contributed to the meal.

Here is all of the eating goodness:

Pebbles Pork Chop Party Dinner Meal

And the group communing together around the table:

Pebbles Pork Chop Party Communing Around the Table

And young Annabelle enjoying the time:

Pebbles Pork Chop Party Young One

We are so very grateful to the Lord for His provisions of the pig meat, and the opportunity to gather in His name and share His beneficence together.

— David

Community Singing – January 2013

It’s been quite some time since we posted the recording of our first sets of Psalms we sing from our psalter, and recently we thought we’d continue on to the next set of Psalms, for those of you following along at home with your own psalter.

Psalms 19A-22E

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

We are thankful to God for His word and the opportunity to sing from it and learn it in this way, and we pray He glorifies Himself through this singing, that it might be of benefit to His Church, and that by it His word is hidden in our hearts that we might not sin against Him (Ps 119:11).

— David