December 4th

Weather

No rain and milder temperatures made it a beautiful week. The leaves have all been off for a week or so now, which dramatically changes the landscape: greater visibility and a wintry feel.

Down On The Farm

More wood splitting, with Paige being the first kid interested in the task. It is one of our priorities here in TN to see our children learn skills along with us, including things that involve some risk. This tests my cautious nature, but is good for all of us.

We are building shelves in the mud room this week to house our future bounty from the farm. We have quite a few canning jars, but we need more. It’s satisfying to build these basic shelves and fill them with our empty jars in the hope of being well provisioned here someday. This good feeling of having plenty of food put up is central to our view of being deeply nested.

Best Thing We Ate

John makes breakfast on Fridays, and this week he made (with just a little help from Mom) sausage biscuits, which we all agreed were very good.

From Family Worship

After family worship in the evening I have started reading aloud John Paton’s autobiography. John was raised in Scotland in the mid-1800’s and spent his life as a missionary in the South Pacific. Of the missionary biographies I’ve read, his stands far above the rest. To me, the best parts aren’t the harrowing tales of his life in Vanuatu as a missionary, but the early chapters recounting his upbringing in Scotland. His retelling of his father and mother’s love for Christ and their humble Christian home is alone worth reading the book.

Other Happenings

We ventured out and visited a nearby Amish community just over the Kentucky border that we had heard much about. It fascinated us to see how they live, and we admire much about the way they farm and raise their own food. The have a market open to the public and we picked up a few items including honey with the honeycomb, cracklings, popcorn and coconut cookies.

Payne Hollow Journal is Harlan Hubbard’s account of living a homestead life on the banks of the Ohio river in Kentucky with his wife Anna in the 1950’s and 60’s. His daily journal entries have fascinated and influenced me for a long time, and I realized last week that I ought to share this with the family. So, I have started reading that day’s entry each morning at the breakfast table. Their weather and seasonal changes largely follow ours and hearing his observations on weather and nature help sharpen our senses to better observe our place.

Homeschool is back in full swing now that we are settled in. It’s been good to get back into that rhythm and see how the kids take to different areas of the house or property to get their work done.