A small miracle happened here tonight...

Today was the day I've been looking forward to for a while now--the day when the FedEx website said that my new camera would be delivered to our front door. As the FedEx man usually goes past our place around 11:00AM, I was keeping an eye out for him about that time. But, the morning went by and no FedEx man showed up.

Mother, Jacob & I went about our work of getting garden produce picked and carried into the house (there's a possibility of frost tonight...) and worked all afternoon at it. Still, no delivery man pulled in. By that time, I figured that the tracking information must have been off and that my camera would come tomorrow.

Well..... I had just taken a load of squishy tomatoes and onion tops over to the goat pen, when a bright red pickup pulled in the yard. As my parents headed toward the vehicle, I knew that whoever it was would be taken care of, and headed over to see how Andrew was coming along with getting the electric fence put back up (he and dad had cleaned out another lot this afternoon.) As it was very still out though, the sound of a familiar voice drifted over our way and Andrew & I recognized the voice of some of our "Neighbors". (I say, "Neighbors" because they live about 8 miles away and I don't know if they'd be considered neighbors--being that far away?)

Anyway, my brother and I headed up toward the pickup and it was then that I noticed that Mother was holding a small cardboard box in her hand... As I got closer, I realized that the box must be my camera--and it was!!! The amazing and miraculous part of this story comes in now, when I tell you how our neighbors got to be in possession of the small cardboard box......

There is a small farmstead up the road half a mile from us that is now owned by hunters (who are only here about 2 weeks out of the year.) All during this Summer, these hunters paid someone to mow the yard and all last Winter, they paid us to check on the place once a week to make sure the furnace was working. Other than the lawn-mowing guy; the owners during hunting season; and us, nobody is ever up there.

However, these neighbors decided to pull in there this afternoon and see if there were any apples that had fallen off of the trees. (A little strange, I know, but that's what they did...) When they drove past the house, they noticed a box on the cement in front of the door. As they were wondering who had bought the place, they decided to look at the name on the box. It read (yes, you guessed it!): CORA BORNEMANN. (It had our correct address on it and everything!) Hmmmm.... As they knew that I didn't live up there, they were very kind and decided to deliver the package to me. :) What a surprise!!! It makes me wonder what all I would have had to do tomorrow to try to find my package, had not God worked all these things out for good! "Thank you Lord!!!"

So, my brothers and I've been having fun trying to figure out my new camera...
Here's a picture I took with it of the box it came in:


There's this fun feature called "Panorama" where you take a picture, then aim a little more to the right and snap another picture, then move once more and take that picture. You end up with a very wide picture like this: If you don't hold the camera straight though, you come up with some very interesting pictures--where things are all smudged together!

Andrew took this picture (using the Panorama mode) of me in my room, checking my e-mails. :)

Just a few minutes ago, I went out to the entryway and took some pictures of our harvest of the day:

Our little muskmelons~
Northern Arizona melon--a new variety to us~

Sugar Baby watermelon~

A few more Sugar Babies and some Honeydew~

I planted a gourd mix this Spring, but pretty much the only gourds that grew were these Bird-House gourds. It's kind of funny though, because a few years ago, we tried growing these and nothing happened, and now God's blessed us with several. :) Has anyone ever actually made a birdhouse out of one of these and do you have any tips on how to do it?

Jacob & I pulled all of the onions, but I don't have a picture of them yet, as they're in the shop for the night.

We picked one of our tomato patches and got about 30 gallons of tomatoes! Want to come help process them, Kimberly? :)

I took several more pictures, but I don't want to bore you with them, so I'll just wish you all a good nights rest and call it a day... And what a wonderful day it was!