In Loving Memory Of Tom

,Today is June 6th, 2012 and our Tom's birthday.  It's been a year now since we lost him in the April 27th tornado, and we want to honor him on this day.  Also, we wish to thank God for His comfort and for what He has done and is doing in our lives.  We're including some pictures of what life looks like for us now and of what's been going on in our lives of late.  The above picture is of a couple of the boys and their pony and cart.  They hitch him up early every morning and load the wagon with feed and such for the animals they are responsible to feed.  I'm so very thankful for the example of hard work their father set before them in word and by example and very proud of them for the hard work they're doing here on the farm and ALSO for how they've been teaching their six year old brother to join them in getting the job done and of taking it seriously!  They are quite a team:)

This fella has a very tender heart and has a love for drawing, just as his father did.  He's been drawing pictures of buildings and animals on the farm and of people.  

She has such a love for animals and sweetens our lives with her laughter, stories, and the many and frequent bouquets of wildflowers she brings into our home.  She's also becoming quite the cook and an expert southern cornbread maker and farm girl.

Everyone works in the gardens, but I believe Abi loves it most.  She can often be seen working in and planning the gardens while Bethany loves planning the fruit orchard.  They've especially missed their dad during gardening season as he so loved planting and tending things and spent many a happy hour with the family there.

Jordan cut hay this month with Jim and Jack, his Percheron horses.  Everyone loaded the loose hay onto the hay wagon with pitch forks and the younger children stomped on it in order to press it down.  The wagon is being pulled by Tom's truck.  The truck was totaled in the tornado as were all our vehicles and was scheduled to be picked up by the scrap yard. Dear friends of ours asked if they could try and crank it.  They tried.  It cranked.  They drove off with it.  We had no idea what they were doing, but we assumed they'd installed new glass and maybe replaced some plugs and maybe beat out a few of the dents.  We expected it to look pretty bad but thought it would be wonderful to have to be used as a beat up farm truck, and the vehicle was special to us simply because it had been Toms. Instead, approximately nine months later, we were presented with the most beautifully restored truck you have EVER seen. A team of WONDERFUL volunteers made it look better than it did the day Tom purchased it at an auction:)

This is just part of our crew.  Other family members and visiting friends were busy preparing food and drink for the hungry.

They are storing the hay loose.

This is a picture of the hay being cut with a horse drawn hay mower by my oldest son.  I found myself in tears last Sunday as I observed him with his youngest brother so contentedly sitting on his lap during church.  Tom was so often seen with a little one at his side or sitting on his lap, and I can't tell you how thankful I am as I see my older children *being there* for their younger siblings.

There's always lots of weeding to be done in the garden and so many spiritual lessons to be learned.  After all, our lives and attitudes require frequent *weeding* as well, and isn't the Master a merciful and tender *Gardener* of our souls?

Libby took a break from loading hay and used creek water to give Little Man a new hair style. :)

The girls are back to making weekly batches of butter from all the milk we're getting, and we are grateful to be settled again and back to some of our old routines.

Found a little snapping turtle and wasn't sure how to hold him:)  He brought him in to show everyone and then let him go.

Tom's sister (my sister-in-law) and brother-in-law came for their first visit and to see for themselves that we are settled in a good place.  We had a wonderful visit and were very happy to see them!  They were actually here on the date of mine and Tom's wedding anniversary, and I was very happy to be busy on that special day and in such good company:)

My seventeen year old son made the trunk in the above picture as a gift for me on Mother's Day and one of my daughters painted it a distressed white.  I LOVE it and was so surprised!  Tom loved making furniture for our home as a hobby, and I didn't realize how much Jacob and others had learned from him.:)  Do you find yourself knowing less about where you're going when riding as a passenger in a vehicle rather than when you're doing the driving?  Well, when building furniture, Tom was usually the *driver* and the children assisted him and were more like *passengers* and pupils.  They made smaller pieces on their own and with his assistance, but never larger pieces of furniture.  Now they are showing themselves to be *drivers* and I'm realizing that they were really paying attention to their teacher:)

Life without Tom this past year has certainly been different for us, and we miss him greatly.  My friend Darby describes this past year as a time of bittersweet memories that come with the realization that it has been a year of difficulties and trials mixed with God's abundant blessings, and a year of lives changed in a multitude of ways.  She expresses her thoughts beautifully and is more articulate than I can ever hope to be.  I'd like to quote her.  "I have thought a lot about the Passover and how it relates to April 27th (the day of the tornado).  Remember that part of the Passover Seder when you taste the horseradish-the burning that brings tears, and choking?  The bitter taste that lingers in your mouth after the pain diminishes?  Sometimes, thinking about the tornado and all that the Lord brought about through that-losing Tom, starting over, y'all moving, changes, stresses, etc.  It was painful and brought-still brings-tears, and for a short time may even leave a bitter taste in our mouths, (not bitterness as a character quality, but bitterness of experience).  But the next step is to taste the horseradish with a little bit of Charoseth (the sweetened apples and cinnamon mixture).  You can still tell the horseradish is there, but the bitter taste and the tear producing root is overpowered by the sweetness of the apple mixture.  The Charoseth to the Jews represents the "hope" of freedom.  For us, it represents our hope in Christ, our final deliverance from the bondage of sin, and the resurrection of our bodies.  In the same way, looking back to April 27th, to me, is like the horseradish-it brings tears and sadness.  But remembering the hope that we all have in Christ and how we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good over this past year.  Well, that is like the Charoseth apple mixture that sweetens our experience and eliminates the bitter taste.  Our hope is in Christ, our taking refuge in Him, our tasting and seeing that He is good-enables us to look back with praise for His mighty working in all our lives".

As the days have worn on and the weeks have turned into months, we've found comfort.  First of all from the Lord and His people.  But also from the awareness that our God is sovereign and in control and that Tom lived the exact number of days ordained for him.  Psalm 139:16 says,  "In your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me".

My family and I are the recipients of a Godly legacy which is a wonderful gift to be treasured and passed on.  While our Tom is now with the Lord and we rejoice in that, we want to be mindful of the fact that those who've gone before us can still teach-even from the grave. As a mother, I want to keep alive his memory in the hearts and minds of our children.  Especially the younger ones.  The legacy he left of serving the Lord.  Not perfectly.  None of us can.  But with gladness and from a heart very grateful to God for His amazing grace in forgiving him.  A prodigal son.  His living and being an example of laying down his life for his wife and children.  Not just on the day of the storm, but as a way of life.  His transparency in sharing his struggles and weaknesses with his family and his ability to communicate to us that we are a team.  Not in competition with one another.  Pilgrims traveling to the celestial city together and in need of the encouragement and loyalty and prayers of one another.  Those are memories I want to keep alive.

I recently read Proverbs 31 and verse 12 stood out to me.  It says, "She does him good and not evil ALL the days of HER life."  It doesn't say that she does him good and not evil all the days of HIS life, but all the days of HER life.  My life isn't over yet, and I want to be loyal to the memory of my husband and to be used of the Lord in continuing the passing on of a Godly heritage and legacy, just as Tom would have wanted.  My children's desire is the same, and we covet your prayers.

I'd also like to add, as I know many of you ladies are married and have children, that I hope you will enjoy the moments.  We all experience, at some point, a final parting.  But when the time does come, our God is a faithful husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless.  I share my concerns with Him, and He always listens, and He never even falls asleep from exhaustion.:)  He alone is worthy of our praise, and He alone can enable us to leave a God honoring legacy, and He alone is ENOUGH to fill the longing of our souls.  He is ENOUGH!  Amen!

In honor and in memory of Tom.

Blessings from the family...

Springtime On The Farm !

The beautiful spring days have been very busy and filled with new life and lots of work here on the farm.  I don't know if you can see the gingerbread trim on the house or the new shutters, but the fellas made them from wood my husband had collected and stored before the tornado (it wasn't blown away) and hung the gingerbread, and the girls painted everything white.

There are two big clothes lines on the property and both are full most of the time!

There are wildflowers and streams everywhere.  This stream is very tiny but some are wider than the house.  Also, the house is on spring water.  We DO NOT have a water bill !!!  And there is a LOVELY spring house here which was probably built in the 1800's and used to keep food cool.

Not sure what these flowers are called, but they are very pretty, and they are very beautiful when dried..

Don't you just love all the spring colors?

My daughter tells me that the above is a type of honeysuckle!

Does anyone know what these are?  They are shaped like an almond and kind of soft.

Pretty:)

I think these are my favorite.  We've kept a bouquet on the table all spring!

The guys are cooking our dinner:)  Little Man needed the glasses to keep the smoke out of his eyes. Johnathon is doing a good job cooking the meat and keeping the fire going.:)  Wish I'd included the picture with him wearing the sun glasses AND the coon skin hat!

They cooked the food and the little girls helped set up camp.  They wanted to sleep under the stars in a lean-to tent they had made with quilts and such.

I love the beautiful fields.  Oldest son plowed with his Percheron horses.

Little Man feels pretty big as he gets to sit on the Sulkey plow while big brother walks behind him.

Seventeen year old son won a turkey at the local shoot held at the volunteer fire department.  He and his older brothers joined the department recently.

This is Duck Duck.  He is Judson's duck which he purchased with money he received for his sixth birthday.

The little bull calf was born just as we were busy unloading the u-haul moving truck.  So glad his momma waited until we were able to get her to the farm.  His momma survived the storm and is now giving us a LOT of milk each day which is being used to make butter and cheese again. 

We have some Nubian goats and many have had kids recently!

Above is one of the garden spots and the hoop house.  Jordan built it with help from the others, and I am so thankful for all the work they have done around here.

Josh led in building the chicken houses for the meat chickens.  Soon he will be building a "Chicken Concern" like the one he built before the storm.  Johnathon takes a little work brigade (Jeremiah and Judson) down early each morning to move the pens (they follow the cows) and to water and feed all the hungry chickens, pigs, and cows.

We are so very happy to be getting settled here on Leegacy Farm.  I especially love to sit on the front porch with my Bible and my morning cup of coffee.  The dew on the fields is breathtaking, and we thank God for His blessings each day.  Oh, the name of our farm is from a dear dear friend of ours.  He and his family and several other families collected pictures they had of my husband and our family.  Because they thought we might not have many or maybe any family photographs after the storm, they combined what they had and surprised us with a beautiful coffee table book.  The cover has a wonderful picture of my husband who is being followed by our dog.  He has on his farm clothes and a straw hat.  This friend named the book Leegacy.  We asked him if he'd mind if we named our farm the same name.  He didn't mind at all!:)

There is much work left to be done.  Jacob and others are re-building a little outbuilding which was built in the 1800's, and everyone is working on a storm shelter.  They dug it ALL by hand and it is as big as our dining room and about 9 feet tall!  The little ones run around bare foot and play in the creeks and help with whatever work needs to be done.  Hannah Joy has built a VERY nice rabbit hutch for the bunnies she received as a gift.  And the barns will eventually be repaired.  They remind me so much of their father as I see them working so hard at repairing, planting, and building things. There is much to learn, but everyone is working very hard and loving it.  Many of you have asked about the farm and whether or not we'd moved from our temporary home, so we wanted to give you a family update and include some pictures of our new place.  May God bless each and every one of you!
 

Sunday Praise

Wash your face every morning in a bath of praise.  ~  Charles H. Spurgeon

Psalm 33:1-9

Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous!
For praise from the upright is beautiful.
Praise the Lord with the harp;
Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings.
Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy.
For the word of the Lord is right,
And all His work is done in truth.
He loves righteousness and justice;
The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.
He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap,
He lays up the deep in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the lord;
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
For He spoke, and it was done;
He commanded, and it stood fast.



Blessings!

Learning to Farm With Draft Horses

Farming with horses, or any draft animals, is something I have been very interested in learning more about for many reasons. August of 2010 I purchased Jim and Jack, a team of Grey Percheron geldings, to use on our Sorghum project and for various farm work. Over that summer, before I bought them and as I was trying to decide if I wanted to get a team, I thought I'd be the only person trying to farm with horses or mules, other than the Amish. I quickly found out that I was very wrong. There are quite a few people, all over the country, using animals in harness as motive power on one level or another. It has been an interesting experiment, but up to this point, especially with the disruption of the storm, I haven't been able to work my horses nearly as much as I would have liked. It looks, however, like this may be the year we really try this horses in harness experiment. With that in mind, I went to Mississipi this February 23rd,24th and 25th to take a working horse school that Kenny Russell and His wife Renee have hosted for years. http://www.russellsworkhorsefarm.com/

Kenny's name is one that you'll hear highly spoken of sooner or later if you have any involvement in the Draft Horse world. His dad farmed with horses so he's worked with Drafts for most all of his life and is very highly spoken of. Another instructor was Jimmy Klein who used to run a large dairy and power the farming with horses. He farmed hundreds of acres with his teams and has worked for most of the big hitches at one time or another. The third instructor was my friend Carey Fulmer who runs his farm with three of the nicest black Percherons you'll every see and has Fulmer's General Store where he sells many old time items and horse drawn equipment. He and Jimmy have helped the Russells with this school for many years.

I really liked the laid back format to this class. The first morning we covered safety and then harnessing and after that the three instructors would take a team of two or three horses and hook to some implement which gave lots of practical, hands on teaching opportunities. The students could move freely from group to group based on what they wanted to work on and learn. We got lots of practice driving and harnessing and had plenty of opportunity to ask any questions.

We were able to try different equipment too, like the Disk, Wagon, Pioneer Spike Tooth Harrow, Pioneer Footlift plow, a walking plow and one of the most interesting pieces, the newly released Pioneer Homesteader that Carey brought. It worked really well and I think will be a very useful and versatile tool for many farms.

Here are some pictures and captions...


Carey on a New Idea manure spreader.
Glad to be turned out for the night.
Hitching to the hay wagon.
There were at least 12 really nice (and really big) horses for this class.
A very cool ground driven baler built on the gear from a manure spreader. Totally ground driven. This is what the Russells bale all their hay with.
Getting some of the Belgians ready for the harness. Each student was able to get a good bit of practice harnessing and unharnessing the horses.
Jimmy Klein and some students on the wagon. Jimmy spent most of the three days on the wagon helping us with our driving and telling stories. He was hilarious! One of a kind.
Carey with a Pioneer Spike Tooth Harrow and a Pioneer Harrow Cart behind his fine Percherons... Duke, Mike, and Bonnie.
Kenny giving some instruction on the use of a disk harrow behind three of his Percherons.
I really enjoyed driving so many great horses during this class.
A powerful three horse hitch
Kenny and a student on a disk.
Plowing with the walking plow behind Mike and Duke. I really like this plow. There's a lot of skill involved in plowing well with a walking plow. Those who are good make it look so easy but it's really an art and takes lots of practice.
Getting harnessed up for the day.
Jimmy going over how to attach the lines correctly
Turning them out for the night.
Big Belgians...
Taking Duke in after a good day.
The class.


I really enjoyed those three days at the Russell's farm. It was a real confidence booster and learning experiance just watching the instructors and how they interact with their horses, and also getting lots of time on the lines ourselves. It was great to be able to ask questions about specific problems I've encountered and get solutions from people who know so much about working horses. I came home really excited about working with my team and implementing the things I learned. Hopefully I can go again in November, Lynn Miller is going to be there doing a class on the McCormick #9 hay mower!

Jordan