By Cory Mentink

So why do we homeschool? That is a good question and one with kind of a wide and varied answer to it.  Martin Luther King Jr once said “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and critically.  Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education.”  We haven’t always homeschooled our kids, we started in the local government school, then to a wonderful K-8^th Christian school that was near us, and then progressed on to homeschooling which has been working for us ever since.

The most important reason we homeschool is that God has put it on our hearts to teach, train, and disciple our children.  Deuteronomy 6 shows us that we are to diligently teach the commands of God as we “sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”  This seemed very hard to do if we were sending our kids off somewhere else for 8 plus hours a day.  Being able to incorporate God’s word and principles in our curriculum and learnings is a huge advantage as far as I’m concerned.  We know that homeschooling won’t save or children, but we are trying to be faithful and trust that God will do His work in His timing.

I shared in a previous post about how Cory healed four cavities several years ago here. A few months ago, a new friend shared how she healed her son’s cavity when he was two. The dentist discovered a small cavity during a regular checkup, and the mom did not want her two-year-old to have to sit through the procedure of filling the cavity. She did some research and learned about healing cavities with cod liver oil and high vitamin butter oil. She gave him this for a time and when they brought him back to the dentist, she discovered that the cavity had healed.

The dentist asked her what she did, and after she told her, the dentist was excited about this, but said that she couldn’t recommend it to her patients because of the regulations in place. This story was really encouraging, but also made me so sad that this dentist who witnessed this amazing healing, will not be able to share this story.  Drilling and filling are their only plan of action. I realize this may not work for everyone, but imagine the pain and suffering from dental work that nutrition could possibly solve for many people. The health of our teeth are also a good indication of what’s going on in the rest of our body.

When we look to the past, it’s easy to see that people that wanted to control other people’s speech generally were not good people, and while they made it look like they had everyone’s best interest in mind, the reality was that they only cared about themselves and what they could gain from silencing people that didn’t agree with them.

Recently I heard from Melissa K Norris, a homesteading guru, that she had created a post a few years ago that she shares every year about this time on how to grow enough food from your garden to last a year. She recently posted this to Instagram, and while she has been very careful not share anything controversial, she had this post taken down twice. In her own words, “I share this information every single year, but this year I shared about my dad’s upbringing during the Great Depression and how, if they didn’t grow their own food and preserve it they would have gone hungry. But because of the skills his mom had, they never went hungry, and that’s why these skills are so important, even today.

For some reason, Instagram decided to take down not only my post but also my IG Story where I shared the link to the blog post.

Now, I tend to be very careful when it comes to “trigger” words that social media would remove. But never would I have thought that homesteading and growing your own food would trigger my post to be taken down.

This brings me to my next point of why it’s important to have access to information outside of social media and even blog posts where you can get teachings. . . We should all be able to hear information and then make decisions on where we stand on our own, never forced due to censorship.”

I couldn’t have said it better. I don’t know about you, but this is even more motivation for me to pray more (even for God’s grace to save the wicked men of our day), to continue to grow food for our family, and keep learning skills that have been long forgotten. Does this motivate you too? I would love to hear from you!

“Those who begin by burning books will end by burning people.”

Heinrich Heine

Raw cream from cows on grass is loaded with valuable nutrients that are easy to digest and also contains the Wulzen Factor, referred to as the “antistiffness” factor. When talking about this factor, Sally Fallon said, “It protects humans and animals from calcification of the joints, hardening of the arteries, cataracts, and calcification of the pineal gland.  Calves fed pasteurized milk or skim milk develop joint stiffness and do not thrive.” Amazingly when the calves are given raw butter fat again their symptoms are reversed!”

Dr. Price described a tradition that he witnessed in each Swiss valley or village where athletes would feast on dairy products to help them to prepare for their competitions. “The athletes were provided with large bowls of cream as constituting one of the most popular and healthful beverages, and special cheese was always available.

“A high-sugar diet is particularly damaging for children as it displaces nutrient-dense foods like meat, butter, eggs and cheese, which children need for optimum growth. High sugar consumption during childhood sets children up for serious diseases in adulthood, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer and depression.”

Getting off white sugar can be difficult, because it’s in almost everything, including many organic products, (organic white sugar is better, but it’s still highly processed). White sugar is cheap, fun, highly addictive, and hard to avoid, but the great news is that we have healthy alternatives that we can use to replace white sugar, and make delicious healthy creations for our family that they will love. Sometimes change is hard, but our taste buds adjust, and we start loving how we feel and wonder why we ever consumed so much white sugar. I write this to encourage you to keep going. It’s worth the extra effort!

Our two feel-good, very satisfying, favorite natural sweeteners are raw honey and maple syrup. Do you have a favorite?

You can find the quote I mentioned above on the Sugar Alert brochure. You can find that helpful brochure here.

Have you ever tried a pasture raised, naturally cured, smoked ham? It’s phenomenal compared to what you get in the store. What’s more exciting is how many people have reported to me that conventional pork upsets their stomach, but they can have ours. Since these hams are naturally cured, maybe it will be a good option for you. I read a research study done by the Weston Price Foundation that suggested that pork that was naturally cured or fermented was easier to digest (according to some blood work they observed in participants). I found that very interesting! I have had several requests to share how we make our naturally cured ham, and I’m always happy to share what we are doing.

If you are struggling to digest raw, pastured, organic, or even cultured milk you might have a beta A1 casein allergy. Traditionally all cows were A2, but at some point, there was a switch in the genetics of many of our cows. Most of the milk for sale today is actually A1. If a cow is A1, it is said to have mutated genes and some people believe this milk is harder to digest. Many people have found that switching to A2 milk helps them to nourish themselves with dairy (especially raw milk) without any issues. It is interesting to note that human breast milk is A2.

Until today I always assumed that Valentine’s Day was a holiday made up by the candy industry to sell more white sugar/high fructose corn syrup laden, artificially colored (from petroleum or crude oil), unnaturally flavored, and harmfully preserved candy that has little or no nutritional value. We heard this today on the World View in 5 Minutes below, and it completely transformed the way I think about Valentine’s Day. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!

Emperor Claudius II, called Claudius the Cruel, ruled the Roman Empire with an iron fist during the third century.  He was having difficulty recruiting soldiers and believed Roman men were unwilling to leave their loved ones because soldiers were required to fight for at least 25 years.  Therefore, Claudius banned all marriages and engagements.

Kailey tanned another hide recently (which meant buying some store eggs). She suggested that we take a picture and compare our eggs from the chickens in the hoop house to the eggs she bought. I was surprised to see that our eggs were much more yellow than the store bought eggs, despite the fact that our chickens are protected in our hoop house and not on grass at this time. The picture of the eggs before cooking doesn’t seem to contrast the difference that we saw, but the cooked egg picture was a little better.

The honking of the goose can be heard from far away. The goose in this picture is a male, White Chinese goose which is a descendant of the swan goose. They are prolific egg layers and have a great personality. They are great at weeding and they are perfect for alarming when they feel threatened. We used a male goose because males are better at protecting their friends, in this case our female chickens. It doesn’t matter what anyone says or does to him, when he feels threatened by vicious intruders, he just won’t stop HONKING! We need more protectors like this!