*strawberry fields

Our first spring here in Florida we bought and planted about 18 promising strawberry plants.  They produced very little that first year but sent out many runners which in turn resulted in many new plants for the following year.  Our small strawberry patch grew exponentially.   This second year harvest was better than that first year.   Late this fall, after having ignored the strawberry patch I realized that I had a LOT of work to do.  The strawberries had produced and each of the 100 plants  had sent out 4 or 5 runners per plant. OK. You do the math. Yeah, so we had 500 plus plants that needed to be transplanted into their new permanent strawberry patch.

This is the new location of the strawberry patch.  Grass and weed ridden throughout.  I started the work of getting the plot ready, and thankfully later in the month my mom came to visit.  She helped me finish it up! So grateful for her help, honestly I don't know if I would have gotten it finished without her. I was about to run out of steam. 

This is part of the area, the plants have taken well to the soil they are now planted in. Unfortunately this crazy warm weather (even for us here in Florida), has gotten the plants a bit confused. Over half of them are now in bloom. 

My beloved is awesome at getting things like the water sprinkler system done for our gardens.  I feel so spoiled by his awesome skills!   This year we will be making sure to keep the water on the plants as recommended, about 1 inch a week.  We will also be adding some of our organic  fertilizer (aka rabbit droppings and goat droppings) throughout the growing season. We plan to mulch the rows with straw, hay and a mixture of leaves to keep the moisture in and the weeds out. 

I am looking forward to picking strawberries for eating as a snack, making strawberry jam, strawberry short cake, and maybe even dehydrating some if the harvest is big enough.   We have along way to go before harvest.  I can assure you that much hoeing, weed pulling and watering will go on before I pull the first strawberry from a plant.

*sauerkraut update

Remember this, I wrote about our first time making kraut weeks ago.

 Beautiful shredded cabbage fresh from the garden, a little salt, caraway seeds and some water.... and time will produce a tangy delight!

 The crock has been placed in a cool area of our home to sit undisturbed until perfection is met!  If you like sauerkraut or if you have never tasted it.. you have got to make some. It is super easy!

The small glass plate you see to the left is what we put on top of the cabbage to push it down under the water in the crock.  You do not want any of your cabbage exposed to air, so this worked well. Look at the beautiful color that is part of the end product. We have already had some of this tasty kraut with several of our meals.  We have decided to just leave it in the crock and use it as we desire. The longer it stays in the crock, supposedly the tangier it will get.  In addition, canning causes you to loose some of the wholesome goodness that is available as it is fresh from the crock.  Freezing would be a better option, if we need the crock before it is all gone.   We do have several other cabbages that are almost ready to pick from the garden, so I will get another batch going in the next few weeks or so.   There are many sites that give more details on how to make the kraut, but it is so so simple. In the short this is how you make kraut: cut the cabbage thinly, put a layer in your container (non metal) sprinkle with some salt, add a layer of onion if you like, or a few cloves of garlic, caraway seeds, keep layering til you get to the top - sprinkling some salt on each layer, then add water until it covers the cabbage, put something on top to keep the cabbage submerged. Wait. Enjoy!

*and again I say rejoice?

There are few shows on TV that I give my time to, but one of the things I like to watch is Parenthood.  It is real.  Real life is acted out as if it might be in my home or your home, of course it isn't a real life family.

Today I want to share with you a "real" life moment in our family's lives.  I  normally share with you all quilting projects, farm related post or maybe a recipe but today will be a little different.  If you have ever been deeply hurt by a Christian friend this may (or may not) be helpful to you.

A few months ago our entire family was effected by the reactions, words and actions of a long time friend and several members of their family.  We have known each other for a long time and bonded in friendship years ago as well as attended the same church.  Christians are not perfect. Right? I am bound to Christ Jesus as my Lord and Savior but I know that I am a miserable sinner only saved by Grace.  As are my friends, I mean, I guess we are still friends.

Something happened between our families, something harsh.   I will not go into all of the details because that is not my purpose in sharing today.  I have loved these people for years. I longed for a friendship with this person for a while, and one day (many years ago) we did develop a friendship that ended up being very sisterly like.    Even though some very harsh things took place, accusations were spoken about one of my family members,  deceptive behavior that portrayed friendship, acceptance and egging on of a particular situation only to reveal later that it was all backwards and then later some very cruel accusations were spoken.  OK. I know all of that probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  Let me just say, my family has been effected by this in some most hurtful ways.  I decided early on that I still loved these people very much. After all, we are all fallen people saved by grace. First I was terribly confused, terribly.  My first reaction was that I wanted to forgive.  I forgave. I am continuing to work on forgiving.  Since I am being very transparent with you, I must confess that on some days I feel such hurt and pain as do my other family members that I am not sure how we will ever get past this.  I continued to send text messages and commented on FB post as I normally would have - until just this past week when I got an error message stating that I had been BLOCKED from sending text messages or calling this line.  I am sure you can imagine how heart broken I was.  I mean, if anyone should be blocking anyone it should be me - that is me just being honest.  Of course blocking never even occurred to me, never crossed my mind.  And since I have now been blocked  it is apparent to me that they wish to have nothing to do with me or my family and I can't imagine that they would be interested in reading our family blog either. 

I am a Christian and I am human.  I am sure you can imagine the pain and shock that I was going through when I sent a text that got a return message automatically stating my text couldn't go through.   I immediately chose to try and understand. I started to work out reasons why this might have had to take place.  No one ever asked me not to continue to converse with them.  I went from mostly being at peace, trusting God that He would work things out for the good of all involved to being confused, a bit angry - OK, a lot angry to back now trusting God in all of this.  I am even beginning to come to a place of praising Him in the midst, trusting that He has worked it out for the best of what concerns our family members.  It is not easy but I want to walk in peace, I want to give up trying  to figure this crazy mess out and on some days I do better than others.  It is a daily decision.

I will not lie, this dear family is on my heart and mind every single day. Some who read this may say, whoa, that is a problem.  Maybe.  I believe that I am called to forgiveness maybe reconciliation wont come- that I am not sure of just yet, but forgiveness is what I am called to and with me renewing my mind every day before Christ I am able. It is only when I get distracted, allow words I read or heard replay in my mind that I get off track.   One of these family members at one point during all of this told me that even believers would be at each others throats based on prophecy - well not this believer.   For me that is just not acceptable.

No matter how much pain, hurt, suffering we walk through, whether it be from an unbeliever or a believer the only way to make it through to the other side is with Christ by our sides.   How other do we get through such turbulent times? I ask you, how?   Find someone who you can count on to turn you back to Christ and His promises when you are in need of refocusing when you are struggling.  My someone has been an reflection of the Rock to me, encouraging me and pointing me back when I get off track. 

I suppose I find myself with a sorrowful heart but continuing to keep rejoicing in my spirit.   I have to believe that He (God) has allowed these actions to take place to reveal things that would have otherwise been unknown.  Honestly, since this family will not converse with ours, I have to really trust my heart to seek Him to understand.  I realize that hearts are deceitful above all and I also realize that understanding may never come.   I don't know how this part of the chapter in our lives will end. I can't begin to tell you what will change in our lives because we make vows  not to do.. dot, dot, dot ... based on our hurts. I can't being to tell you how it is that God will use this because we will choose well and not make those vows.   I would hope and do pray that at some point the wounds and scars that have been made will receive a healing balm to bring full cleansing.    It may be that an apology will come or  an explanation or it may be that neither will never come. Either way we have to choose for it to be well with our soul.

This is what I want me, my husband and two wonderful young men to experience....




I will not quote scriptures that have ministered to and spoken to our hearts during this time, for I know that as you seek God , He will be faithful to speak to you personally as well.  If you are walking through a similar situation, it is my hope that you too will be able to daily say, It is well with my soul!

*puuuurrfectly finished

 I started piecing this quilt together about mid August for my mother-in-love, she is a big cat lover! This pattern is simply adorable and  you can get more information on the pattern by visiting HERE.

The quilt turned out queen size and I have quilted a number of queen size quilts under the needle of my Janome 6600. However, I decided to take this one to a quilt shop in a nearby town, A Quilters Place.  You can rent one of Dawn's machines by the hour or by the day, I had a blast and I was done in an hour and a half- can't beat that. 

 The whole quilt top besides the borders is all done in batiks, which my mil loves. 

I didn't have the perfect match for binding and as I searched through my fabric I still could not come up with a fabric I loved to finish this up with.   I was in a crunch  and really didn't have time to drive to a quilt shop in the neighboring town to buy binding fabric.  I had to get creative.  I started looking at the backs of fabrics and I found one that worked perfectly.   So the binding is finished up in a lovely "gilded colored" fabric which is the backside of some yardage that I had on hand. 

This is the only picture that I have of Mom with her new quilt.  They have made it back home now and she said the quilt looks just lovely on their California King sized bed.   So glad for the way this project turned out.  This border fabric, that I found at A & E Pharmacy (which oddly enough.. has an awesome fabric selection)works PUUURfectly!

*better late than never, right?

It was more than a year ago that my dear father-n-love brought this awesome quilt to our house for some repair.  This quilt was originally put together, well many years ago, maybe even before he was born.  It may have been someone elses before it was passed on to him.  The binding was torn, tattered, and had been used until it was becoming thread bare all the way around.  When it first came to me this is how it looked.  The outside borders were made of a thicker greenish blue strip of fabric. But the center was covered with some thinner fabric that had began to wear through.

Last week when I was making our guest rooms ready for Eric's parents and our nephew I saw this on the shelf in the closet. I had not looked at it much since that first month that Dad had brought it.  With a week before Eric's parents were to be here for Christmas, I found myself sitting on the guest bed with this quilt spread out. Looking at it. Thinking. Trying to give birth to some awesome remedy.  As I shook it out so I could spread it on the bed, the lights over head shone through the quilt to reveal  that there was more than was meeting the eye. I could see patchwork, like a crazy quilt or scrappy quilt below that quilt top.
 

When Dad first brought it to me, I had no idea what to do with it. I love articles that have been passed down through the generations, I love the history that lies within, the memories that have been made with it and the love that was put into making it.  The idea of touching this and trying to repair it was more than I wanted to take on, because at first I had NO IDEAS at all on how to fix it. As I tossed it up by its corners to spread it out and saw the patchwork somewhere in those layers, Eric and I decided to rip the "quilt top" off. What was below was another quilt top. Many of the pieces had holes like the ones in the pics above.

There is a small hole in the stripped pink fabric that actually went all the way through to the other side.  I used one a small piece of fabric to make a patch over this area. It turned out great.

I have to admit that I love the way this quilt looks, as it is right now in this picture. I love the tattered fabric, the loose threads that are pulling away from the well worn fabrics in the quilt.  I love thinking about what the different fabrics might have been: drapes, clothing, cotton fabric from the fabric store, old clothes or feed sacks (which is what Dad said most of them were).

The quilt got an over haul. New top. New layer of batting. Totally new backing and binding. LOVE!

The quilt originally had a wide binding, which I fell in love with. I will be using this wide binding on some of my quilts in this future as well

This is the two pieces of fabric that was taken off the top of the quilt, which revealed the beautiful piecework underneath.  This is the fabrics that I used to make patches for the large and small areas that needed some mending.  This project was one of the most rewarding I have given my time to. We started just a few days before Mom and Dad arrived for the holidays, but I finished it in time to surprise Dad with it!

This is the finished quilt, everything on the front side is original fabrics. 

The backing fabric as well as the binding was some that had been given to me by Mom a few years ago as well as some from my stash.  It was pretty neat to add that fabric back into the quilt too.  I know this meant a lot to Dad, and it really was an honor to have been the one to add a little life back into this beautiful quilt!

*overload maybe?

So I was just looking in my album on my phone and um.. perhaps I have taken a few too many pics of the newest additions to the farm.

Can't imagine what it will be like one day when I have a grandkid, a real live human grandkid!! haha!