my psalm

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.
You know when I work and when I tarry
You perceive my thoughts from your throne
You discern my industry and my relaxation
Before an idea comes into my mind you know it completely, O Lord.

You see my past and my future;my hopes and my dreams.
I cannot fathom it all.
Where could I go that you would not be with me?
You know me completely, O Lord
You know my fears and what brings me anxiety.
You know my greatest joys, and you smile to see them.
For you created me completely; every detail.
You know me intimately and love me perfectly
I praise you for being

Righteous.
Just, yet
Utterly full of grace.

For you, alone, are good
and fully compassionate.
Search me, O God.
Teach me, grow me.
Make me wholly pleasing to You.

local fare

Today I'm posting about something that has grown increasingly important to me. Eating locally is something I had literally never thought of before last summer. Even then, it didn't really click until a few months ago. Then I read Barbara Kingsolver's nonfiction book, entitled "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." It completely changed the way I look at where we acquire the food we eat.

Oxford University Press puts it quite succinctly: "The 'locavore' movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better." Locavore. I like that.

A major factor in this issue is the use of fossil fuels in transporting food to your local supermarket. According to Locavores.com, most of our nourishment makes its way "an average of 1,500 miles before ending up on our plates."

Consider this:

Transporting a single calorie of a perishable fresh fruit from California to New York takes about 87 calories worth of fuel. That's as efficient as driving from Philadelphia to Annapolis, and back, in order to walk three miles on a treadmill in a Maryland gym.
--Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (page 68)

This is hardly necessary! Throughout our country (nay, world), wonderful, fresh foods are cultivated. Yes, every area has it specialties. Oregon is famous for its berries. Washington, it's apples. Iowa, corn. And California...well, California is famous for just about everything. Even so, there are many common foods which are grown all over the United States. To me, it makes so much sense to shop locally.

It makes no sense to transport food over so many miles, when it's often grown nearby. And I believe that it's important to support small farmers, and to cultivate relationships with them. I'd hate to see the craft of farming be taken completely over by big business.

Still, the thing that appeals to me the most about local food is the freshness and flavor. It simply cannot compare with bananas which are packed off long before they are ripe, and hauled halfway around the world.

Local food was the norm for so long. People ate seasonally, enjoying fresh fruits and vegetables after they were harvested, and preserving them for the winter and spring months. Then it occurred to someone - probably for the novelty of it - to transport food thousands of miles, to where it was not in season. I imagine that it was for a dinner party, a fancy reception, or some such thing. "Amazing! Artichokes, at this time of year! How brilliant!"

Except that maybe it isn't so brilliant, after all.

Here's an aspect that Barbara Kingsolver mentioned: we don't know how to wait for seasonal food anymore. We as a culture are so accustomed to getting what, whenever we want it. Tomatoes in December? Of course! Strawberries in November? We'll just bring them from California - which may not be a huge haul to Oregon, but what about New York?

I'd like to suggest that the payoff might be in the waiting. In choosing not to eat mealy, pale tomatoes in the winter, but to wait for red, juicy ones at our local farmers' market in summertime. In being patient, remembering that there is indeed a time (and a season) for everything.

Does this mean I'll never buy another banana again, unless I move to South America? What about avocados? Fresh pineapple? Honestly, I haven't figured all the details out yet. I know that I will continue to have at least a handful of exceptions: olive oil, coconut oil, coffee. Maybe the list of exceptions will occasionally include tropical fruit, too.

My point is that we need to consider the cost when shopping for food. The cost to our community when we give our money for exotic items, the cost to the planet when we burn untold amounts of fuel to transport out-of-season food. And the cost to ourselves, when we lose touch with the natural world and its seasons ~ the way the great Gardener planned it, Himself.

***This post is part of Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade. Click on the link to learn more.

the moment you've all been waiting for

As you may recall, last week I teased about some upcoming news. I'm sure you've all been tossing and turning at night, trying to work out just what that news might be. My first bloggy giveaway? A happy twist in our real estate fiasco? Is my kindergartner reading Shakespeare? What could it be?

Of course, some of you have guessed. That will happen, I suppose. It's just the way of it....the way people's minds work. At any rate, I suppose I'll come right out and say it. If you insist.

It would seem that we've managed well enough to keep this crew fed, clothed, and relatively clean...



...that the Lord is growing our family! That's right.....I'm pregnant!


We are, all of us, entirely thrilled. The older boys love being big brothers, and I know Owen will be a smashing older sibling, too. We're looking at a mid-February arrival of the wee one. Yes, we're hoping all the details will work out for another homebirth, and no, we likely won't be peeking at the baby's gender before the big day. So yes, it looks like a bit more waiting is in order....

...just thought I'd share our happy news!

the perceptions of a 3-year-old

Yesterday evening, Kyle came downstairs to visit with his dad and I; he should have been sound asleep. This is what followed:

Kyle, calmly: I'm getting kind of disturbed in my room.
Dad: Why's that?
Kyle: Because. I keep hearing what sounds like chickens?
Dad: Really....?
Kyle: Yeah.
Dad: Do they sound like "chirp chirp chirp"?
Kyle: No, they sound like "COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!!!!!!!"
Dad: Ok...
Kyle: And they're on all the chimneys.
Dad, stifling laughter: Ok, well, it's time to go up to bed now. You can turn on your CD to help drown out the chickens...


And then last night at 3:45 AM, Kyle came bursting into our room, very upset. He must've been really agitated because I went to turn on my lamp, which I don't usually do when he comes in at night.

This move brought on screams of horror-movie quality. He really let loose. I thought he had a mouse in his hair or something! Talk about adrenaline ~ my heart was really going after that.

It turns out that when he saw my arm reach for the lamp, he thought there was something flying. It really scared him; he even mentioned that it was going to get Ben. After Jeff got him calmed down a bit, the three of us lay there, trying to return to normal breathing. Then we heard a soft knock on our door. It was Ben, and we called him in.

Me: Come in, honey. Was that loud? Did you the noise scare you?
Ben saunters over to my side of the bed, glancing around casually.
Me: That was pretty loud, huh? The noise?
Ben, wide awake, calmly: What noise?

At this point Jeff and I just lost it. The thought that he hadn't noticed the blood-curdling screams, when his door and our door were opened was just too funny. Besides, we had more than a bit of built-up tension from the incident we'd just endured. It took me some time to get my giggles under control, I just couldn't stop....

I'm sure the screams did wake him up, but that he just didn't consciously hear and remember them.

After getting the boys resettled, we received a few more visits from Kyle, who announced that he was "feeling startled." The night ended with both Ben and Kyle bringing their sleeping bags & pillows into our room and camping out next to the bed.

It was the only way Jeff and I could hope to get any more sleep!

how we use raw milk

Aside from drinking, that is? The truth is, we do drink a lot of it. Most notably, my 3-year-old. That child would chug raw milk all day long, if I let him. My husband and I would like to drink more than we do, but it seems that we're always really low by the end of the week, so we save it for the boys. We just increased our weekly purchase from 2 gallons to 3 gallons, and we'll try to make this work before we start buying even more...

Allow me to back to the subject at hand: how we use raw milk in our household. Once a week I make a quart of yogurt using this method from Michele at Frugal Granola (she's something of a genius, in my opinion). I then use this yogurt for my husband's lunch, recipes (such as our favorite crackers), and even for soaking grains. This summer, I hope to work out some berry/honey combinations which will reintroduce the joy of yogurt to our children. I'll also use it in smoothies.


My husband uses the milk to make kefir. I don't care for kefir, personally, but I wish I drank it. It's absolutely wonderful for one's health. It's a cultured, probiotic milk product, and it very much reminds me of drinkable yogurt.

I also pour off most of the cream from our raw milk these days, to put it to other uses. Raw cream makes scrumptious ice cream: so creamy and delicious! Also, I recently read of a simple method which uses raw cream to make creme fraiche, and I am so excited to try it sometime soon.


My favorite use for cream, though, it in making butter. We do have the butter churn which belongs to my husband's parents, and we do use that at times. However, I recently discovered that I could make butter in my KitchenAid Mixer (using the whisk attachment)! I was so thrilled to let it do my work for me, while I go about other business. If you're interested in the instructions, click here. I use Method A. This is another stroke of brilliance from Michele at Frugal Granola.


Naturally, making butter produces buttermilk. I use this by-product in recipes, and in soaking my grains. I must say, it makes the most delicious whole wheat pancakes I've ever had!

We love using raw milk. To read more about why we choose to consume it, click here and here. My next big adventure? Cheese! I have a book, a recipe, and a plan. I can hardly wait to see what develops.

***This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, hosted by CHEESESLAVE. Click on the link for more real food posts!

the now & the not yet

(*Title inspired by a song of the same title written by Pam Mark-Hall)


We put in a garden yesterday.

I suppose that the term "garden" by be a bit of a stretch. Our plot contains two tomato plants, a single cucumber, and a lone red bell pepper. I admit we're not terribly ambitious. But as our gardening efforts have had somewhat mixed results in the past, it seems like a good start.

I'm glad, I guess. I had been feeling sad that we hadn't put any plants in...actually I had just decided to do it back in March, when we got the offer on our house. So at that point we nixed our plans and started preparing to move. Obviously that hasn't panned out, and our garden has sat ~ lonely, neglected, barren save the weeds. It's been a sore point for me. I had really wanted to give a vegetable garden another try this year, and I felt cheated out of the chance to that by this whole "house thing," as we refer to it around here.

So now, it's in. Hopefully, as long as I remember to water our handful of plants, we'll see some progress, and production. It seems good. Like a step of hope, accepting our circumstances, blooming where we're (still) planted.

But it also makes me sad.

I hadn't expected to spend enough time in this house to eat from a garden this year. And we might not, still. But it's impossible to know, isn't it?

Something that I've been struggling with for a while now is the phrase "we were supposed to be..." We were supposed to be moved by the end of April, then by May 15th at the very latest, and then the end of May. It was supposed to be just fine to pack flip-flops, shorts, the pool, big pots, etc., etc., because we were supposed to be closing in two days. It's easy to feel bitter when I think about how it was "supposed to be."

But over the last few weeks, something in my thinking has shifted. I'm learning to see those things that I used to say were "supposed to be" as our former expectations. Yes, it's hard to let go of expectations. It's hard to accept that we're back to square one with this business of finding a buyer for this house, and a new place to live. It still smarts a bit to think of the dreams we fancied would come true.

But maybe it wasn't supposed to be, after all.

Here's the thing: I'm not a huge believer that"God causes everything." I know that He is over all, and has created this whole big world and everyone in it. I believe that He works, oh yes! But I don't necessarily think that He causes every single event. In fact, I think there's a lot of yucky stuff in life that just simply happens, as they say. It's a consequence of sin in the world, the fall of man. Stuff happens.

The Bible says that "in all things God works for the good of those who love him,^a]">[a] who^b]">[b] have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28) And I believe that as we receive what life hands us, remembering that it comes through His filter, it can and will become a beautiful thing. Maybe not just when we'd like to see the transformation ~ no, it may be a good deal later. Still, God is faithful, operates on his own timetable, and his ways are infinitely "higher." (Isaiah 55:9)

And yet...and yet I can't shake the feeling that God's hand is in this. When we first realized that there may be problems with the sale of our house, I prayed that God would close the door if it wasn't his will for us. The door seems to be clearly closed. While that could just be something that happened, I don't have the sense that it is. I'm not sure what God's doing through this, but I choose to believe that He can create something amazing from what seems to be a mess.

Although we have no idea what the future holds, this is a promise: "^'11 For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" (Jeremiah 29:11)

He has a plan. So whether this tiny garden brings fruit in the edible sense, increases our house's attractiveness to another buyer, or has merely built us a bit more character, I'll take it.

Whichever it is. As if from His hand.

"Not me!" Monday

"Not me!" Monday is back on this fine Monday, as created by MckMama of My Charming Kids. For an enjoyable read, as well as some amazing photos, hop on over to her blog today!

Today is definitely not my brother and sister-in-law's wedding anniversary, and I didn't totally forget to buy a card. Not me! I definitely have not gotten bad about cards and such since my last child was born...and I always make sure that the cards I send arrive with the utmost punctuality. For sure!

Speaking of (theoretical) forgetfulness, the other night I certainly didn't forget all about a pan of Cottage Potatoes in the oven, until dinner was over. What?! That would be just silly. And I for sure didn't decide that if I had only left the potato-prep detritus in the kitchen sink...as a visual reminder...I wouldn't have had such a sad problem...

I absolutely did not force my faithful readers to languish, for more than a week, without posting a single photo. I mean, that would just be inhuman. Deprive these fine people of the cuteness that is my children? The beauty that is our weather? The food which graces our table? Not me!

And I didn't totally have a great time at the first cooking class put on my Kimi Harris at The Nourishing Gourmet. I didn't happily lap up not one, not two, but three delectable desserts at the unreasonable hour of 8:45 PM. No way! And I didn't utterly dig the Brownie Pudding Cake (think Chocolate Lava!), Roasted Banana Ice Cream, and Tangy Lemon Curd (served with wonderful scones). It wasn't a completely delightful experience, and I am not totally excited to be going back the next two weeks!! (*cough*) Not excited at all.