The last week on the farm was a little more restful than we have had in a while. We enjoyed a little more time in the pool, along with some fun activities to celebrate the 4th.
The week started with intense heat that caused many to come to the house looking like they had just taken a full shower. While it would have been nice to wait for better weather to do the work, there’s always work that needs to be done on the farm in order to produce the food that our family and customers desire. I have learned that if we don’t do the work at the right time, (which happens more than I would like to admit) we either lose some, or all of our harvest, or the task takes much longer to accomplish.
On Monday, our baby, Zacharia, had a fever. When this happens with our babies, I will hold them and feed them as much as possible. I have found there’s always plenty of work I can do while I hold them and monitor their temperature closely. I was able to catch up on bookwork, posts, and extra reading/school with our younger kids. I believe a fever is our body’s way of helping us to get over something, but I also don’t want it to get too high. I monitor fevers very closely (especially at night). I used to give my kids Tylenol for a fever, but I haven’t done that in over 12 years. After dealing with the fever for a time, I remembered that I should try taking fresh garlic. Once I did that, his fever went away quite quickly, and as long as I kept taking the garlic every few hours, the fever stayed away. Isn’t it amazing that free garlic from the garden took the fever away? Praise the Lord! Thankfully nobody else got sick.
We ended the week by celebrating the Fourth of July on Friday, since we didn’t want to stay up late on Saturday night. Celebrations on the farm are not very fancy. We spent the morning doing routine work and planned it so that we would have the afternoon and part of the evening to relax and celebrate. The younger kids did fireworks after lunch and the older kids put on a very small firework display after dark. Our natural swimming pool was a popular place in the afternoon. We prepared most of the food beforehand so we could relax and enjoy ourselves.
For lunch we had a heart casserole made with the heart that we had pickled and cooked the day before, homemade pasta, and other ingredients from our farm. For supper we had pastured, grain free roast, mashed potatoes from our garden, gravy with the stock, homemade sourdough bread, and strawberry cheesecake for dessert. You can find the recipe for homemade graham crackers here that we used to make the crust and a video here. Since we love to grill on July 4th, Cory used our fire pit to grill some pasture raised steak and potatoes the next day. That was delicious!
The farm and all of our activities have a humbling way of exposing areas where we need to grow and make changes. Alena and I had a great visit last week about how thankful we both were that we’ve done so many hard things. Our conversation was the perfect reminder that the more we do things that scare us and are hard, the less power fear has over our lives by God’s grace. It’s about balance: pushing through the hard things to grow, but also stepping back to rest, laugh, and celebrate the journey with family and friends.
“. . . “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing…”
-Pele
Disclaimer: Sharing quotes that I like does not mean I agree with everything this person says. 🙂