Hymn of the Month

I Need Thee Every Hour

Annie S. Hawks
Robert Lowry

I need Thee every hour, most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like Thine can peace afford.

Refrain

I need Thee, O I need Thee;
Every hour I need Thee;
O bless me now, my Savior,
I come to Thee.

I need Thee every hour, stay Thou nearby;
Temptations lose their power when Thou art nigh.

Refrain

I need Thee every hour, in joy or pain;
Come quickly and abide, or life is in vain.

Refrain

I need Thee every hour; teach me Thy will;
And Thy rich promises in me fulfill.

Refrain

I need Thee every hour, most Holy One;
O make me Thine indeed, Thou blessèd Son.

Refrain

In a Bloggin' Mood

Baseball is now over. Boo! Yay! It was a long weekend last week with tournaments. It seemed we spent all our time at the ball field. Actually, we probably did spend all our time there. We played a total of 4 games, 2 of which were postponed one day, and re-scheduled the next. So it was really like 6 games. Since we haven't had any practice this week I am revelling in all this new-found time. Every evening I get a little bit more caught up on dishes and laundry. I'm not there yet, but maybe sometime in the next week, I hope. Woohoo.

We have a varmint picking off our chickens one by one. (*gory details ahead - go to the next paragraph if you DON'T WANT TO KNOW*) Some skinny creature has been breaking into the barn and biting the heads off our chickens. Sometimes he (she?) bites all the way through; other times, the head is just left dangling. Not a pretty picture, I know. We think it is a weasel or another mink. A while back we had the same thing happen and it was a mink. Now, as my husband says, it is an ex-mink.

It was a long, long spring with our cow, Ruby. We were first-time cow-milkers, she was a first-time cow milk-ee. She kicked. We kicked back. She developed mastitis, we stayed up half the night doing things to a cow we never dreamed we would ever do. Now I'm going to be honest with you. We've been getting farmier by the day over the last 3-4 years, but this experience was the first time we ever thought to ourselves, "This is just too much. Where do we go to resign?" We were also thinking, "I wonder how a humungous miniature jersey would taste as hamburger?" OK, we're just as human as anyone else. It was TOO MUCH. But we stuck with it. My thought was, maybe the worst is behind us, and we would be fools to give up now. So, we still have Ruby and "Buttercup" (a.k.a. T-Bone). They're both quite healthy now. But I'm not milking Ruby, either. That's because once we got her better, the calf started taking all the milk. That was fine with me, too, I needed all the time I could get for other things. This is a drama still being played out. Stay tuned for further updates.

I am, however, still milking two of our goats, which is providing our family's milk needs right now. It is just barely enough for the kids to drink, and not much else. I did make some great ice cream tonight, but I don't usually have enough to do that.

In gardening news: my spinach and lettuce have bolted. I've pulled the spinach, and am in the process of pulling the lettuce. Having been so busy over the last two months, I only just now got out my tomatoes and beans, and still haven't planted any peppers or zucchini. I do have some nice looking beets and cabbage, though. And chard.

The new guys: we bought a beef cow this spring - "Blackie". She is an angus/jersey cross. We also have a dozen Red Bourbon Turkeys, which I love. They are a heritage breed. That means they aren't profitable enough for the industrial turkey farms to raise, so they are becoming rare. I am hoping they will naturally breed next spring so that we don't have to buy our turkeys from a hatchery any more. That would be really cool. Plus, we are helping a rare breed keep from going extinct. I just hope they're tasty too, or all will be for naught.

Hopefully more blogs will be forthcoming. Baseball season is over and I feel like writing.

Eat Your Greens

Love him or hate him, you gotta love this.




BARACK-OLI Green
by

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Ruminations on T-Ball Logic

Taking a break from my self-imposed blog exile to comment on the logic of t-ball. My younger son (7) is playing t-ball again this year. It's his third year. Next year he'll be too old. Before that, my older son was in t-ball, so I've had 4 years of experience in t-ball observations.

One thing that's great about baseball is that it's not a game of sheer strength and athletic ability. It also takes brains. You have to think about what should be done next. A pop fly with two outs is NOT the same as a pop fly with zero or one out. There are rules of logic that apply to each circumstance, and part of the game is knowing what your next move will be when the ball comes to you, and when you're running the bases.

Things are different in t-ball. The logic game is played by the coaches. The only thing the little guys and gals need to know is, I have to do whatever my coach yells at me to do. This presents problems when the coaches have conflicting points of view. The game becomes a shouting match of various coaches yelling for the kids to do different things, and the kids look around in bewilderment and just stand there holding the ball while the other team's players round third base for home.

Another thing the coaches must factor in to their yelling is the ability of the players. If the ball is not hit to the pitcher or to the right of the pitcher, forget throwing the ball to first base. Just throw it home and cut your losses. A good play is one in which the ball is not over-thrown. A great play is one in which the ball is not over-thrown and it was thrown to the correct person.

I love watching my boys play ball. It's one of my favorite things to do. But here's something else I've noticed. I need to exercise self-control at these games, at which I am not always succesful. How dumb is it to not only have your coaches yelling what to do, but also your mother. OK, I'm working on it. Mainly I just try to cheer. But my competitive nature (for which I blame my dad) bubbles up sometimes in the form of yelling things like "Go back! Go back!" and "Throw it to third! Throw it to third!" Sometimes I can't help it. But I'm trying. I don't mean to add my loud voice to the chorus of coaches.

Fortunately, I know this personal struggle is not because I'm not nice. I know I'm nice because my husband tells me I am. I return the cart even if there is no cart corral handy, and I don't pass with a vengence (and five dollars worth of gas) when someone cuts me off. I'm a mild-mannered person. All bets are off at the ball field. Don't stand in front of me when my boy's up to bat. You'll be sorry.