Complications at the end of pregnancy caused Josiah Robert Alan Frazer not to wait for his due date to arrive. He was born the evening of December 12th and is doing really well. Erica also is recovering well, for which we praise the Lord!
Josiah Robert Alan Frazer – 6 lbs 10 oz
Congratulations David and Erica! May God give you His wisdom, grace, and strength as you bring up your son and daughters in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Anyone looking for a cute, friendly Christmas gift for someone?
Rabbits make wonderful little pets: they are soft, cute, friendly, quiet, inexpensive, and don’t require a lot of care!
Evelyn and I did some product/pet photography this afternoon. Often photographing rabbits can be a real challenge, especially for Evelyn doing the posing.
But this time we actually got an amazing number of great photos.
Part of the reason for this was that Evelyn had an assistant to get the rabbits to sit up and put their ears forward.
Somehow the cat always manages to get in there!
And now the rabbits are hoping to hop to new homes! Any buyers?
In the past few years, Elizabeth and I have been learning how to trim horses’ hooves. I felt like I was starting to really get the hang of it, when a friend asked us to do a new horse that she had acquired. Of course, I willingly said, yes, we would do it, but when we picked out the horse’s feet, we were in for a surprise. I have done several corrective setup trims in the past, but I had never seen hoofs like these before. The bars were so grossly overgrown, that the horse’s hoof was no longer being supported by the wall (which is how it should be), but the horse’s weight was being held up by its bars and putting a tremendous pressure on the sole.
I took an educated guess that all that bar was going to have to go, but having only a few times done a dramatic setup trim similar to this, I was a bit nervous to proceed without consulting a professional. So Elizabeth sent an email to a friend of ours who is does lots of hooves, and she graciously offered to come by and help us out. My gut feeling was indeed right and the horse seems to like his new “foot-do”.
As I was thinking over this situation, I thought about how we can have “over-grown hoofs” in our lives as well. If we don’t take care of the little problems right away, they will get bigger and bigger until they are ginormous. Then when God “trims” us it takes a lot of work to get us back to where we should be.
With all the snow that we have been getting, it has been starting to feel like Christmas! William has been busy decorating the house to give it a festive air and Christmas cookies have been being baked giving the air a festive smell.
May this season be a constant reminder of the reason our Lord came to Earth.
“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Mt 1:21
This past month, our family attended the 4th FEW conference of the year (if the QEW conference counts as one). On our way down to the conference, we stopped in West Virginia to pick up Michael. And for those of you who have been asking, yes, there is a real ring now.
The FEW conference was an encouraging time of listening to challenging messages and of fellowshipping with other like-minded believers.
“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” Psalm 133:1
Winter seems to have arrived early this year! Our first light dusting this year was October 18th.
Then November 13th saw the arrival of a good 6 inches of snow.
Three days later, another 12 inches or so fell…
The cat seems to enjoy it… (How does she so frequently get her picture on the blog?! 🙂 )
I don’t know when we last had such a snowy November! I’m sure some will disagree with me, but I think the more snow, the better! I’m looking forward to the snowstorm predicted for tomorrow! 🙂
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” (Isaiah 1:18)
Since, when we began raising livestock, we were not allowed to have pigs on our property, I never thought we would have any. But the zoning laws changed last year, allowing a maximum of two. Still, I was surprised when we received a call from a good friend asking if we would like a free, lame pig and even more surprised when Daddy and Mommy said, “Sure, if someone wants to take care of it.” So, Bacon took up residence in the old sugar shack. And his leg has vastly improved to the point that he now comes running if he thinks you have food for him!
Two other new barn tenants arrived even more recently, but they were neither free, nor unexpected: Honeycomb and Apple – two purebred Finn ewe lambs. Though quite skittish and nervous at first, it didn’t take them long to get friendly and sociable. Appealing to the stomach goes a long way with animals!
Honeycomb
Apple
And Bounty is growing by leaps and bounds – quite literally. She has already succeeded in jumping her stall wall which is higher than her back! And the photography session last week was an active one!
It was hard to get her not moving!
So far, Hershey has always calved early. Since her calf was due today, this year it looked as though she might not. But late yesterday evening she had a surprise for us!
Unlike last year, the calving went very quickly – so quickly that we missed the whole thing! When I checked Hershey at 6:30, she looked normal: eating happily. When, at 8:30, I heard her bell ringing continuously, I went out to check and found Bounty already trying to get to her feet.
Yes, Bounty is a little heifer! With a birth weight of 61 lbs, she’s one our our largest calves. And she has energy to match! A straw bale “fence” is easy to jump even at only 12 hours old!
Aren’t I cute?
We chose the name Bounty (the name of a chocolate bar) to combine her parents’ names: Hershey and Profit Driven. And after losing two calves last year, we feel bountifully blessed to have such a lively, healthy calf this year. Praise the Lord!
I’m not easily taken by surprise. I’m one of those people who is simply aware of everything going on around me. Generally, I’m either the first, or one of the first, to suspect and discover undercover activity. If I have reason to think that someone is planning a surprise for me, I simply close my eyes and ears and act unaware. But the truth remains that I’m simply one on whom it is very difficult to pull anything off. In fact, I thought it was next to impossible… until a week ago.
It was a Sunday and, as usual, David and Erica stayed for supper. While I was doing the early evening chores, the family started a game of Catan – a fairly long board game.
I was a little surprised at this choice since David and Erica usually want to get their little girls home and to bed not too late. Not being a game person myself, I didn’t join in, but spent a little time alone and talked on the phone with Michael until the line cut out.
After I while, I rejoined the others and began a game of bananagrams with Mommy and Evelyn. My mind was still on the cut off phone call and words like “beekeeper” and “drone” showed up on my board. When we finished the round, Mommy and Evelyn pitched in to spell other bee-related words…
All the while, I had no idea that my family had something up their sleeve… Then Nathanael’s truck pulled in the driveway at 9:30 p.m. Concerned that something was significantly wrong, I went out to meet them… and was amazed to see Michael walking up! I guess my family can actually succeed in surprising me!
It was an incredible week and the Lord truly blessed our time with Michael doing unique activities together and getting in a lot of talking.
We had a busy but wonderful time when the rest of the Staddon family joined us this past weekend. Our families enjoyed working together and the QEW conference was a great encouragement to many.
photo used by permission courtesy of James Staddon – Lenspiration.com
The Lord continued to guide our thoughts and the evening of August 26th was a memorable one, though most of the photos were taken the following morning.
Since Michael didn’t come up to Quebec thinking he would propose this soon, he made me a temporary engagement ring – humorously suitable given my barn attire! 🙂
The Lord has been so good to me. “I being in the way, the Lord led me…” (Gen. 24:27) The road ahead may be complicated with all the legalities of marrying across the U.S. border, but we trust His provision and His timing. Truly He does all things well!
We look forward to how the Lord will lead as He joins our lives together.
It came to light recently that two beekeepers we know have more interests in common than hives…
photo used by permission courtesy of Michael Staddon
honey…
or anything else bee-related!
It turns out that their more significant interest actually has nothing to do with bees…
Or rather it had nothing to do with bees…
Michael Staddon, Elizabeth, Sarah, Jérémie Rhéaume photo used by permission courtesy of Michael Staddon
Yes, in the past month, both of us began courtships with beekeepers! More coming soon!
~Elizabeth & Sarah