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: December 2017

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Trina’s 2017 Turkey Chicks

Trying to learn from my mistake of how we handled turkey moms wanting to sit out in the woods by just trying to put them in the barn at night but them going right back to their nests the next day, and us loosing one of our sitting hen turkeys earlier in the year because of that, this time when Trina our original turkey started sitting, we grabbed her and put her and her eggs in the summer kitchen.

Well, thanks to the Lord, that worked out much better! With those eggs and some new ones she laid, and hoping at least some of the eggs were fertilized, she indeed hatched out two new chicks!

Here are a couple of pictures of the turklets a couple of weeks old:

New Turkey Chicks 2017
Again, New Turkey Chicks 2017

They don’t always get very far, not even to two weeks sometimes, as we’ve had them die young in the past, but I also think some of that was due to me getting too close to the mama and causing her to panic and them maybe getting stepped on. And so, I tried not to do that as much, or much more slowly, and by God’s graces, the chicks are still going! Here they are just the other day:

New Turkey Chicks Getting Older
Again, New Turkey Chicks Getting Older

And here is the video of their life adventure so far. The introduction of them to the flock didn’t go so well, and Trina was picked on a lot, but eventually she apparently got tired of it and went on the offensive, and that helped back off everyone:


Also, the young turkey in the last turkey chick blog post mentioned above, which we called Halia, ended up being a tom. Ha! And so, we’re going to call him Halio now. 🙂 It seemed to really take him a long time before showing male characteristics — only recently have we discovered this.

He is on the left in this picture:

Tom Turkeys December 2017

And here is one of all of the flock minus Trina and her little ones:

Turkey Flock December 2017

Once again, we are very grateful to the Lord for these provisions, and the continued health and safety! We pray they go to uses that glorifies Him and benefits His Church!

— David

The Orchard – 2017 – Pears & Pecans

The Lord has graciously allowed our orchard to continue on, and we are very thankful!

The year started with my pruning the fruit trees. This year we had foreman Mimi supervising! 🙂

2017 Fruit Tree Pruning

More 2017 Fruit Tree Pruning

And here is the orchard mid June:

2017 Orchard in June

I think the mild winter last year affected our peaches and nectarines, as we didn’t really get any of those. And not many plums either. But God granted we had one pear tree do very well. Quite a few fell off in a storm we had, and we collected them but they never ripened. And apparently, pears don’t ripen on the tree, and you have to pull them at just the right time, when they easily twist off the tree, and then they ripen as they sit, but can only sit for so long before they over ripen.

However, we were able to enjoy quite a few of them from the ones still on the tree which did ripen fairly well! Here are the last several:

2017 Pears

And this year was our most productive pecan harvest! We had basically three trees produce this year, up from one last year.

2017 Pecans

More 2017 Pecans

Here is the first round from the two newly-producing trees. This sheller apparently works extremely well:

2017 Gathered Pecans

And then our big producer yielded a two-gallon bucket worth!

More 2017 Gathered Pecans

We are very grateful to the Lord for granting these provisions of food off of the land, directly from His hand. And we thank Him for the increase in pears and pecans He graciously granted!

— David

Goat Breeding Time 2017!

With Autumn upon us, it was that time of year once again to put our boy goats and girl goats together for goat breeding time 2017!

This is why we have goats, so they, Lord willing, will kid in the Spring time so we can eventually have milk. God has been gracious this year again as He has kept us in milk since we sold our 2016 kids earlier in the year.

As with last year, our buck Rocky still has that knot on the side of his back leg, which we have found out is an actual injury.

Our Buck Rocky

And wouldn’t you know, about a month before we’re supposed to put the bucks with the does, Shakespeare, our other buck, as the intensity of his rutting seemed to increase over early Fall time, ended up hurting Rocky more to where one morning Rocky couldn’t get up. We got him out of there and put him with the females, and graciously the Lord granted that within a few days he was at least able to get up by himself. He can still get around, although we’re just not sure he’s going to be able to get the job done with his set of females, so we’re monitoring, and if he doesn’t seem interested in one of his that’s in heat, we’re hauling her over to Shakespeare.

Our Buck Shakespeare

But, without further ado, here’s is the video of this year’s meet and greet! 🙂


We are grateful again to the Lord for this opportunity to breed the goats He has graciously granted us, and we pray He might grant kids and milk next year!

— David