Outside my window…… the world is flashing by.  I am in the car on my way to Syracuse to the hospital to get injections in my hips.  The sun is shining and the temp. is 41.  We are supposed to get a mixture of snow and rain today.

I am thinking…….  about all that the Lord has given us in the past 21 months since we lost our livlihood.  People comment so much about the economy being so bad.  The economy of the country can be the greatest and God can take it all away from you in a few seconds just to teach you that he can do that and that you can live without all the material possessions that you thought that you needed so much.

From the schoolroom…… all is in readiness for Matthew when he gets home from Mass.  Thanks be to God for my good friend Ellen who is giving him a ride home this morning.

I am thankful for…….. my loving husband who is taking time off from work this morning to take me this morning and for my children who are praying so hard.

I am wearing……..green flannel pj pants and a grey hoodie

From the kitchen…….. all is clean and neat and there are pork chops thawing for tonights supper.

I am reading…….. The Mark of a Man by Elisabeth Eliot

I am hoping…….. that I don’t embarass myself and lose all my courage this morning.

I am creating……….. nothing at this time.  The creative juices aren’t flowing right now.   They better start soon though.

Around the house……. all is order and cleanliness.  Mary-Kate and Matthew did the housework before they left for Mass and to go back to school this morning so that I wouldn’t have to when I get home.

One of my favorite things…….. my family.

A few plans for the rest of the week……. go to my holy hours and stay home the rest of the week.  That’s about it. 

Here is a picture thought that I am sharing with you………..

A picture that I took about two weeks ago in our back pasture.  This picture has been in my mind since then.  It is one of my favorite places to go on the farm and just think.  The leaves are now gone and the ground is wet and soggy but this particular day is still in my mind just as it is in this picture.

Matthew has two tanks with fish in them.  He is great about feeding the fish every day and adding water when they get a little low.  Every couple of weeks he transfers Mr. Suck-Man from one tank to the other to help keep the algae level down to a minimum.  The tanks are really nice to have around.  The only thing that he neglects is vacuuming the fish poo out of them once in awhile and changing the cartriges in the filters. 

So the tanks got a little nasty.  No, lets be truthful, they got really nasty.  Like in so nasty that the smell of fish poo in the tank in his bedroom was able to overcome the smell of teenage boy.  That’s pretty nasty.

Even Mr. Suck-Man was not equal to the task.  You cannot even see the individual leaves on the plants they are so covered with algae and fish poo.  It is a miracle that he only lost one fish to this disaster.

So the evil mother witch came to his house this past weekend and came down hard on him about the poo smell in the living room and the bedroom and made him clean up his act.  Now we have two very clean fish tanks and many smiling fish.  I burned some candles and the poo smell is gone too.

While we were at Roberts’ house doing the pig Matthew decided he needed to have his hair cut, by Mrs. Roberts.  He cut me to the quick.  Ever since his first haircut when he was a little guy he has always had his hair cut at home.  Now here he is asking someone else to do the job.  Actually I don’t particularly like to cut hair and I am definitely not good at it.  The only cut that I know is to buzz it all off.  So here he is getting his first haircut from someone outside of the family.

He’s a pretty handosme guy, I think I’ll keep him. (and he doesn’t look like Ian, he looks like himself)

The job is done!!!!  We took our pig from this.

To this.

To this.  The freezer is full.  What a great feeling.

Tomorrow I have to take these five bags of ground pork and turn them into sausage.  Then we’ll pack it into bags and get them into the freezer also.

Now is the time to take time off and just gaze at all this pork and wonder when my sons are coming home to have some. 

Before we could hang the pig we had to find the hooks that we use to fasten her to the bucket of the tractor.  As is usually the case around here, no one could find them.  Then after Mary-Kate looked (she is our seeker and finder) she was only able to find one.  So Matthew had to make one.

He found a piece of steel that is appropriate for the job and put it into the anvil.  Now comes the good part, the part where Matthew gets to use his massive muscles and brute strength.

(you can’t see the dirty look he is giving me through the blur)  First he puts one bend in the steel.

Then he has to bend it another way.  He just makes it look so easy.

I’m sure that if I had tried it would have been beyond my abilities, and I’m not just saying that.  When he got done there was another hook that was suitable for the hanging of a pig for butchering.  Now the only thing left is to make sure that when we are done today they both get put away where they belong.  (I think that is my job)

Today is the day that we butcher the sow that was not a good mother.  Nature has a way of leveling things off.  We cannot afford to feed all of the pigs all winter long and we need meat in the freezer to feed our family and anyone else who happens to come along who needs to be fed so……………   When the piglets came along nature provided us with a mother pig who just refused to mother her babies.  No need for us to even make a decision, it was made for us.

Ian called the friend who has the experitise and all of the equipment and made all the arrangements.  Last night they did the dirty deed and today Matthew, Mary-Kate and I have to go over and make decisions while he cuts her up and wrap all the meat.  Then the freezers will be full and I can enjoy my yearly feeling of contentment that goes will full freezers and a full pantry. 

I am never around when the shoot the pigs.  Now you know my awful secret.  I am not a sentimental person but I do raise them from piglethood and so I cannot be there when they shoot them.  But once they don’t look like a pig anymore then I can help.  Then Doug and Ian hang them from a tractor bucket.  This helps so they can skin and remove all of the internal organs.  The final decision about butchering is made when we get the chance to examine the liver.  Although we raise them and feed them pigs eat anything and everything (even their own manure) so we have to see that they have a healthy looking liver before we make the final decision to eat the meat.  This girl had a good looking liver (which is in the freezer now) so she is a definite go.

“You’re all heart”  Mary-Kate, Matthew, and Ian divided up the heart to be eaten for breakfast.  First they wash it inside and out to get all of the blood clots out then they cut it into two halves and remove all of the tough parts and then slice it up into meal size pieces and bag it up.  She had a good looking heart.  That is a measure of a healthy pig too.

“Stick out your tongue”  Mary-Kate likes the tongue too and she is the only one who is willing to do the work that goes into preparing that.  That needs to be peeled and the little bones at the back removed before it can be cooked.  She cut that up and bagged it to take back to school with her so she can cook it for some meals while she is away from home.

We try to use just about everything but the squeal.  Today we go over to our friends house and get to work cutting up the rest of the pig.  We have cleaned out the freezer and all is in readiness for the pig.

Direct, O Lord, all his actions by thy holy inspirations, and further him by thy continual graces. That every prayer and work may begin from thee and by thee be happily ended. Amen.

The phone is turned off to anyone who wants to call and grouse about the election results.  It is what it is.  God’s will be done and it is.  And if one more person accuses me of being complacent I think I will employ my not too inconsiderable right hook on them.  Just because I don’t volunteer my opinion to anyone and everyone who walks by.  Just because I didn’t blog all of my thoughts and feelings about the campaign and election didn’t mean that I wasn’t as passionate as the next person.  Considering my Italian and Irish heritage I’d say I was more passionate than most.  All of that aside, I have not only done my fair share of contributing to this country, in more ways than one, but I am still doing my fair share.  It is only for Our Sovreign Lord to judge each one of us and our efforts.  So, the phone is off and I am taking a day of down time.  The sewing machines are fired up.  Matthew is hard at work learning and I am hard at work creating.  There is smoke coming out of the chimney and all of the major appliances are quiet.  Due to  the indulgence of the master of the house I am on a one day vacation.

Matthew at work studying.

The results of my creative effort.

When genius burns it burns bright. 

Yesterday one of my second graders confronted me as only an outraged seven year-old can.  He came up to me with outrage written all over his face, arms folded across his chest, feet planted firmly and said “You told me that God answers our prayers, Mrs. K.”  I looked at him quite shocked and answered “Yes, I did indeed tell you that.”  Before the answer was completely out of my mouth he rebutted with the following, “I prayed for 100% on my math test and God didn’t give it to me. You were wrong!”  There goes the text of my lesson for the day.  I, of course, had taught them that God does indeed answer prayer but I had also predicated that with the fact that He answers with what He knows to be best for us.  I also used the illustration that if you pray for a 100% on a test and then don’t study for the test and count only on God and your prayers to get that good grade then God may not answer your prayer the way that you want because He is counting on you to do some work as well. (I know this boy well and I am willing to bet the rent that is just what he did)

This whole situation got me to thinking about the election.  Many, many people have been praying fervently about the outcome of the election.  This is a good thing, I am not criticizing or making comment about that.  But already I have heard sour talk about the outcome that we have realized and how “we prayed so hard” and “we didn’t get what we asked for” or words to that affect.  My thought is just this.  What work has been done to go along with the prayers?  And I am not talking about in the short term.  In the long term, what are the good people of this country doing to back up the prayers that have been said for the outcome of this election?  And why only the prayers for this particular election?  What about prayers day in and day out?  God is counting on us to do our best day in and day out is what I am saying. 

I have an exercise that I do with the kids in my class that is proving to be a good teaching tool.  Each week I secretly choose someone from the class to be my “chosen” person.  Someone who has to be good even though the rest of the class may is being not so good all around them.  Just like after the fall when God’s chosen people were supposed to be good while awaiting the Savior while everyone else was being bad all around them.  Sometimes they fell too and gave in to temptation and became bad themselves and God had to punish them.  Anyway, the next week the “chosen” person gets a reward if they succeed.  The people of our nation have to be the same way.  We have to be good as an example to the rest of the world.  It says in the bible that to those who have been given much much will be expected of them.  Much has been given to this country and, hard as it is to take, we are looked up to for that reason.  To pray only when the chips are down is not good enough.  To rally when we come under attack, like after 9/11, is not good enough.  We have to be united as a nation at all times.

So what do we do?  We have a new president.  You may not like him, so what.  You may not agree with his policies, who cares.  He is our leader.  You can rally behind him without compromising your beliefs and principals.  You can show unity without giving up who and what you stand for.  There are means and methods in place in our Constitution for showing when and where you disagree.  Do I sound idealistic?  Maybe it’s about time this country got a little idealistic and began to practice the principals upon which it was founded.

Keep praying!!!!  Start being the type of person and citizen that God wishes of us and perhaps He will again reward this country as He has so richly done in the past.

You know your son is maturing when he sucks up his aversion to something and helps you to get something done so you can crawl into bed to make the pain go away. 

Today is the day we were supposed to get all the little male piglets castrated.  Ian said that he would be here after work and to be ready for him when he got here.  This is not generally a job that any of the men in this family like helping with.  I of course love to operate on squirming, squeeling five week old piglets…….NOT.  My favorite part is when the sows climb onto the fence trying to get into the pen with us because their babys are squeeling so much.  I have visions of the finally breaking down the fence and tearing us to bits because we are making their babys cry.  I know that isn’t going to happen because my men built the pens so well but, well you know how it is.  Anyway, this morning I started to get a bad migraine.  Squeeling piglets wasn’t going to help or make it any better so Matthew suggested that we get the job done earlier, before Ian came so I could lay down and make the pain go away.  This suggestion is a big deal for Matthew since this is not a job that he particularly enjoys doing.  He usually volunteers to catch the piglets or to pour the peroxide on them.  Ian usually holds them and I do the cutting and give them the shots.  Today Matthew held them while I did the cutting and the shots.  Not a word of complaint or comment about how nasty the job is.  He even joked about how loud they were.

Definitely growing up and getting more mature.  Now he is downstairs working diligently on his schoolwork.  I’d say that he is growing up pretty well.