Sennacherib

This morning's life journal reading selection was really an awesome reminder of the battle belonging to the Lord. Often we miss God in our lives because we don't read the Bible for ourselves and have no understanding of His character. As my daughter read IS 37, the vision of the Lord putting a hook in the nose of someone just came to life, having raised pigs last year, I saw all those with ill-intent towards the Body lined up awaiting a ring in their nose!

A common way to control Bulls or pigs from rooting where you don't want them to is to put a ring in their nose. I could digress here about the idoacy of people now doing this to themselves...but that's another post.

Psalm 76:6
At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep.
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Thou, [even] thou, [art] to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?

Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared, and was still,
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When God arose to judgment, to save all the meek of the earth.

When I read this I'm again awestruck and humbly grateful that my redeemer is so ABLE and MIGHTY.

May my focus always be where it should be.

1 Peter 24-25 For all flesh [is] as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

Where's the Food?

A few days ago I needed to get something from Wal-Mart -- a store I normally avoid like the plague, but given the choice of driving to Tulsa or getting it there, I went to Wal-Mart. Since I was there already I thought I'd just go ahead and get the few other items on my list...

what a shocker. I wanted black-eyed peas and almost never buy canned, so went to the dried beans isle, where much to my surprise there were NONE. There were also no chickpeas, and very little of anything but pinto beans. The space for the dried beans also seemed much smaller.

Next shocker was the search for black olives and green chilis, only 2 brands offered (now I've heard for years, that canning companies typically use the same shipments of food for multiple labels, so I wasn't that surpised initially). So, I started looking around and realized that there were much fewer brands on the shelves, generally one 'store brand' and one name brand of many items and of those, the shelves didn't seem to be stocked nearly as full as what I remember from years ago.

By now, I was feeling very un-settled but wanted frozen peas to go with the new potatoes I had just bought from a local farm. Wow, was this sad to see, the frozen veggie isle was greatly reduced down to like 4 doors of stuff and very little was there in terms of variety. If I wasn't a longterm gardening catalog fan, I might not notice this as much, but if a person was to compare the number of veggies offered in the store to the vegetable seed varieties, and understood the limited nutritional options in the store, they might just get as upset as I was by that point.

It was a great reminder of why I want to garden in spite of the longterm comittment and day to day work involved. I want my kids to know what real food is and I want to nourish my family well for longterm health. Now back to working on fall gardening plans!

Basil

Ok, there's no basil in this photo, it's just pretty and I'm trying to blog about my garden and couldn't find the photo of the bed with some basil in it LOL! The plants are from left to right: monkey grass, dusty miller in bloom, and celery.

Back to Basil, while lots of people enjoy basil and pine nut pesto , my family doesn't care for it. I think it tastes wonderful! My family did fall in love last summer with a get this, drum roll please: Basil cheesecake!! Evidently the recipe was printed in an herbal magazine and some friends of ours latched onto it and shared one with us at a potluck. It's their basil that's blooming and going to seed in one of my flower beds right now, they grow some from seed everyyear in their greenhouse.

In Raindrop Technique, it's the Methylchavicol chemotype of Basil that is used and until tonight, I didn't know there were so many chemotypes of basil. This is important to know when buying and using essential oils the different chemotypes do not have the same therapeutic properties.

Echinacea

Something I like about echinacea is how tough the plants are once established. These just shot up out of the midst of a stand of peppermint and bermuda grass with no special care. I brought them from the other house 2 years ago and just stuck a shovel in the ground, dumped them in the hole and covered them up.

I love planting and growing plants with multiple uses, and while I've not used echinacea from my own garden yet for ailments, there is quite a list of common ailments that it can be useful for.

Ginger Ale

From the recipe in Nourishing Traditions, last night we (as in dd#2 and I) assembled fresh grated ginger, sea salt, lime juice, filtered water, and in the cup/funnel/coffee filter is kefir letting the whey drain through. Using whey from kefir, yogurt, or buttermilk drops the acidity of your ferment, offering preservation while the veggie components have time to get culturing. It's been a while since we made this and I've been missing it. A few weeks ago, I did a wonderful tasting batch of ginger carrots. The carrots are wondeful to add a few tablespoons to a bowl of salad.

I attribute part of my own health recovery from systemic candida albicans and mold to the addition of lacto-fermented foods to my diet. This process is how people lived healthily without refrigeration, preserving and improving the nutrition available in the foods they had. And, it's actually a lot easier than modern canning methods.

The essential oil of ginger is also available through Young Living. Steam distilled from roots, it's great for arthritis, digestive difficulties, respiratory infections,/congestion, muscular aches/pains, and nausea (from EODR 4th edition). It doesn't smell nearly as good as fresh ginger, like you might expect, but has a rather more earthy aroma.

Last year I potted up a few fresh roots from the grocery store that had promising buds on them, and sure enough they grew lovely fronds. I brought them into the garage for overwintering, since our OK winters are a bit too chilly for ginger. At one point I thought I might have killed them, but the tubers were hard, fresh and had long fleshy roots extending downward into the potting soil. I moved the pot out of doors after the last spring frost and had almost given up hope, but there is growth again! I'll try to get a picture of it to post.

New Seasons

Psalm 104:1 Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.
2 Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:

As my youngest turns 11 in a few days, I'm mulling over motherhood and the ups and downs of giving children a peaceful home, while trying to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I've been distracted so many times from my work, by worldly stuff, by other people outside of family (we've practiced hospitality housing families often for months), by family tragedy (6 years of trying to keep a child alive and still meet the 3 other children's needs), by my own shortcomings, etc...but here I am after 16 years of choosing to be a homemaker first, still thankful to have a husband who wants a wife who makes a home, and still thankful that I've been able to raise my own children.

One of my favorite Charlotte Mason quotes is something like: "Mother sets the attitude of home" or the man's version "if momma ain't happy, nobody is"


I've found the only way to not grow weary is to Seek the Lord always, putting on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, and rejoicing in the name of the great I am, who forgiveth all thine iniquities: who healeth all they diseases (psalm 103:3) and enjoying watching His wonderous works:

John 7:38 (King James Version)
38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.