a time of reflection

On the way to worship, (our new term for church) Ildi and I were having a converstion AGAIN! :) about where we wanted to live. NC, TN, OH,... We were reminded that God had given us a plenty choices in our lives so far, and it seems this question of where to buy a farm is another one of those "choice" factors. It has been a huge responsibility to decide where to live and to narrow potential living situations. We are not taking this decision lightly.
For so many years in our early married life we lived circumstantially. Living paycheck to paycheck and not faced with the questions we are faced with now. Our choices back then, in comparison, seem quite easy to the ones we a working through now. For those of you who know us and have heard us harp on the strings of family mission, vision, and direction, we have been going back over those same things on a regular basis. It seemed like it was going to be clear once we got here, and our decision to buy a farm was already decided before we left California. However, it has opened our minds and hearts up to more questions about where we are going and what we want to spend out lives doing.
In our reflection we were reminded that we bought our first house in 2000. In September. It was today that we realized that we got into house debt seven years ago and that now (seven years later) we are at the point were we are a few days, or months, away from buying a piece of land with a house, COMPLETELY debt free. That means, no loan, no mortgage, no payments. What a testimony to God and an example of His goodness in our lives. What a way for Him to bring Glory to Himself. It is truly by His grace that we have arrived at this point in our lives.

back in time...

Today we stepped back in time and visited the Old Salem Fall Harvest Festival. We filled the afternoon with watching churning butter, weaving baskets, decorating pumpkins, and making corn husk dolls. The Festival is a one day event that attracts visitors from around the state, nation, and world.

The sisters who were helping the children make were surprised when they started making accessories for their dolls. Seems juxtaposed. Corn husk dolls with accessories. :) This activity only inspired them more to get creative at home! Oh no..........

all together

This is one of the first pictures that we have had in a long time where I am not taking the photo. Here we are in Ohio visiting friends of ours. We are on our way back up this Friday to go to a farm auction. Who knows, we might find ourselves in Northwest Ohio by the summer. The auction is a foreclosed 22 acre farm that has a half-finished, restored brick home. It has several buildings on the property as well. Friends of ours visited the house and took about a hundred pictures of it. When we see it I'll post some.

weekend "to town"

Tomorrow is another busy Saturday. Not really busy as much as eventful. It has been fun to weekly go as a family shopping at the Farmer's Market and then to a couple of other stores to pick up odds and ends. This time we are adding a little bit of city history to the daily agenda. The FAIR!

The Dixie Classic Fair has been here in Winston for many years. A cute little fair with the charm of a smaller city. I had to put some artwork up from my school students so I got a sneak peek at the fair this year. It's to the market early, then off to the fair in the afternoon. Sounds like a small-town type of day.

The more Ildi and I talk about the future farm idea, the more solidified we get on what we want. We have decided that we definately want snow now. Snow was out of the picture earlier when we decided to move to the east coast. But being here in NC and hearing the report that it hardly ever snows here has been a little dissapointing. So........ :)

a city with history

Saturday I took the children to Old Salem. It's a historical part of the city that was started by the Moravians. The south side (Salem) and the north part (Winston) joined together to make the larger city of Winston-Salem. We went to the Children's Museum that houses toys from the early inhabitants of the area. Lot's of Folk Art! As well as the museum, we visited only a few of the 100 plus original homes located in the historic Living Museum district. They call it a Living Museum because people live in the area, and while working at the place dress in period costumes.

The Dixie Classic Fair is in town. We are planning to attend this next weekend. We also have some plans for some friends in Ohio to come down and visit for the week. It will be exciting to have 12 children in the house! I love having people visit.

Today after church we drove around in the country to look at the farm area of Rockingham County. It's a might pretty place (hee hee) and there are some "parcels" for sale. Ildi has been looking in Kentucky at farms. She's gotten the "Amish farm" bug and wants to buy a house and convert it. The crazy part of it is that she found a house today that is only a 7 hour drive from us, and I am half tempted to go there jsut to look at the house!

The children have been making some more Lego art. You can see them on our school gallery at Artsonia.com

aound the house

Just a couple tid-bits of the "happenings" around the house. The children are having fun being creative as usual. Here are a few costumed as clowns.



and the creativity with LEGO's has reached a new plateau. Flat tw-dimensional scenes!



and the rainy days that are hot.



and did I mention the frogs that are on the house?



And lastly, from August 15th to September 15th we ran the air conditioner almost all day and night. We were slightly concerned that we would have to take out a loan in order to pay Duke Energy for the wonderful service of air during the record heat out here. I got the bill today....including all electric, running the air....my entire bill was $141.00! What in the world is that! I told Ildi she could run the air as much as she wants and turn a few extra lights on while she's at it :)

You may be wondering.....How did their big adventure to Tennessee go? Did they like it? Was it pretty? Are they going to move there? Follow along and I'll give you the shorter account of our weekend (really only Sunday)in the Appalachian Mountains.

Sunday morning we woke up at six. We planned on leaving at half-past the hour but didn't roll out of the barn until seven. We spent some time feeding and milking the chickens (all six of them) and had to spend a few minutes pumping the hot coffee into the tank for such a long trip to "church" We headed North through the upper part of the state and passed Pilot Mountain.



We then traveled up into Virginia and over to the western most part of the state. It was there in the corner that we found Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee. Church started at ten, and we went to an all church picnic after. If you want to know more about the church you can visit http://saintpeterpresbyterian.org/, and if you want to know what we thought about the visit you'll have to call us.

The picnic was a great way to actually meet and talk with the church members. Here's where we spent the afternoon.



Looking back down at the road...



And then leaving for the day...



Finally, we got home around 9:30. Made for a long day just to go to church!

tennessee

Today was the usual Farmer's Market run. Ildi got some Kombuca mushrooms so we will have some tea shortly. In the morning, we are leaving for Tennessee for the day. 6:30 AM is going to come around real soon! It should only take us around 2 1/2 hours to get there. The children are excited to go on another road trip. It has been a couple months since our trip across the nation so they have forgotten what it is like to sit for long periods in the van. I don't think I will EVER forget.

it's beginning to feel a lot like.....

HOME! Not really. However, we are starting to feel a regularity with what we are doing. The schedule is as follows. Monday through Friday I go to work (school-pretend work) and the children are at home studying. We are getting out of the habit of calling what they do here at home school. Saturday we go on the shopping trip. It consists of late morning trip to the farmers market, and several little stops to local stores in Greensboro. Saturday evening working around the house still putting things away from the move. Sunday morning back to Greensboro (it's only 20 minutes :)) for church. Back home and relaxing by playing outside, reading, or watching T.V. Oops, no watching T.V. Since we left Los Angeles we haven't had a television. We did watch some when we stayed in hotels until we got here, but since we've been in the house, we haven't seen any. I have one in my room at school and I am not even tempted to turn it on.

This weekend is going to be an eventful one. We are going to visit a church in Bristol Tennessee/Virgina. It's a city that borders both states and is only two and one half hours away. This will be the first of many visits to neighboring places to scope out the land for our future farming needs. Kind of sounds like Future Farmers of America huh? Which is an organization that I would have greatly benefitted from had I been involved in it earlier in life.

The children are working hard at studying and are developing nicely into fine young ladies and gentlemen. They still squabble a bit but are working hard on honoring me and their mother, and treating each other with kindness, truthfulness, and helpfulness. (thanks Sara fro your input....it stuck!) I am reading another parenting book that is challenging me to be more involved with the implementation of scripture in the "milieu" of life's situations. Milieu being French for middle of life's circumstances.

The weather has been a little nicer lately. Two nights ago I went to the store later in the evening and it was around 88 outside. I laughed at myself when I said to myself that it felt nice outside! This morning it was actually chilly outside on my way to work/play.

Ildi has been making homemade ice cream in the evenings for us from her raw milk. It is DELICIOUS! I have actually been drinking the milk "naked" as well. The first taste if cow and I am finished though.

updates

Today was another day spent in Greensboro. We went to the Farmers' market again and along with the usual pickup (eggs, milk, grain) I made a great contact with a local agrarian farmer. Sort of a Bohemian kind of man who has lived in the area for years and has grown sustainably for 18 years. "Growing for the table" as he put it. :)

Here's a shot of the place.

It's an indoor market that has been running for over twenty years. What's great about it is that most of the people who are selling products are local farmers who sell out of "excess" and they are extrememly knowledgable and helpful when asking questions about information relating to providing for your family by growing your own food. We have had two men invite us to visit their farms. One has a dairy farm (the man we are getting some of our milk from) and the other tends bees. The children hover around and ask lots of questions because he has a live bee display for everyone to see.

On our visit to Costco, we began talking to a women who had many small children. Long story short, their family seems to be just like ours and we struck up what could be our first friendship in NC.

The children have started studying for the year as well. Back to the math in the morning, and the usual thousands of hours of reading. Books on milk, caring for chickens, and books of God's grace are on the top of the list. We are starting a "farm" notebook that records the valuable information we are getting here about how and what to do in order to buy a farm. We are looking online at property in many areas of the south. It is difficult to narrow the search but we are working on ways that we can limit it so that it makes it easier to find a place. The children are crawling out of their skin in anticipation of actually owning animals.