Rosy red apples....

This morning, Mother, the boys and I drove over to a "Neighbor's" place (about 10 miles from here) to pick apples. Their apples are very large and beautiful and they taste almost like pears--nice and sweet. :) As long as we had everything along in Andrew's pickup, (boxes, ladder, and the apple-picker Andrew built this morning) when we drove home, we kept on going past our place and headed up to our neighbor's place (half a mile up the road) to pick some of the apples from their tree. Those neighbors are hunters from out of state, so they were not there, but they had told us earlier that they'd like us to use the apples from their tree so they don't go to waste like they did last year. We are very grateful to oblige!

SO, we feel very blessed right now, and our kitchen smelled of apples all afternoon as a batch of apple sauce/juice simmered in our steam juicer on the stove. :)

Jacob and I spent some time hauling more pumpkins and squash in from the garden and down the steep steps into our basement for future use. We also found 2 large watermelons hidden in the greenhouse! Then, I dug out 6 largish pots from the shed and Jacob helped me puts rocks in the bottom of them before I transplanted my dwarf fruit trees inside. We loaded the pots into the little red wagon and hauled them to the house where they'll be safe all Winter, Lord willing---and providing I can figure out how to take care of them indoors....

My dad is going to be very busy hauling grain for the next 2 months, mainly hauling for one farmer---a long time customer/client. Today, Andrew started working for this same farmer, driving the grain cart back and forth from the combine to the semi, then back to the combine again, then to the semi to dump, then back to the combine to load............... I asked him tonight if he was bored yet? He said that, "No," he wasn't, but by the time he's done with this job (which could last 3+weeks) he's pretty sure he'll be ready to do something else!

We are nearly done with our own field harvest. The corn is left, but is too wet to combine currently. Every once in a while, a truck comes from down South for a load of hay, so that is a real blessing this year. We actually have 2 different people buying hay from us now, and we never even advertised that we had hay for sale! The Lord just opened the doors, and we feel blessed.

Yes, blessed is a good way to describe how I'm feeling tonight. :)

I hope you also are feeling blessed this Autumn evening!

PS. I was not feeling quite so chipper this afternoon, however, when I tried loading the 60+ pictures I'd taken today and somehow lost all but 3 of them.... :(

Sparkling diamonds, falling stars, and lasagna...

On my way home from work tonight, the snow on the road was sparkling so prettily that I felt like I was driving on diamonds. Then a star went shooting across the sky, and I praised God for His beauty.

It was kind of a funny thing today--for some reason this morning I thought about the nursing home, knowing I'd be going to work today, and wondered if they ever made lasagna for their residents. (Don't ask me why I thought of that, as I don't know.) Well, today at nearly 2:00, I walked in the door there; stomped the snow off of my boots; walked over to the dining room and read on the sign: "SUPPER~ Lasagna, garlic bread, corn, cookie." How funny is that?

Then, on the way home, I got really thirsty--for apple juice. (Every night at snack time at the N. H., we pass out fruit, pudding, crackers, etc... and apple juice, so perhaps pouring all that juice made me thirsty for it, I don't know.) When I walked in the entryway, I seemed to even smell apple juice, but realized my imagination was running away with me. I went further in the house then, but my Lady needed to go outside, so I headed back out to the entryway. As I was waiting for her to finish her business, I smelled apple juice again, a stronger scent of it this time, and then I noticed the steam juicer sitting on the freezer. It was still warm and contained a batch of fresh apple sauce and juice! Delicious! :)

I love God's sense of humor, don't you?

"Thank you, Lord"!

It's been a busy day around the house, filled with cooking, cleaning, and doing odd jobs that needed doing. What a blessing it is to have food to cook with and people to cook for; a house that needs cleaning and people to make it messy again; and odd jobs that need doing and to have the people to see them through to the end...


I received the following in an e-mail this afternoon and wanted to share it with you all, so you too can be reminded of some the very great blessings we have and so that you and I might think of (and perhaps share a little something with others, consequently?) those who go without.

Here is a piece to ponder:

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, ' This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received.

I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.

Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.

The angel then said to me, "This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them." I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth.

Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing. "This is the Acknowledgment Section, my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed." How is it that there is no work going on here? ' I asked.

"So sad," the angel sighed. "After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments"

"How does one acknowledge God's blessings? " I asked..

"Simple," the angel answered. Just say, "Thank you, Lord. "

"What blessings should they acknowledge?" I asked.

"If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world ' s wealthy. "

"And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity."

"If you woke up this morning with more health than illness .. You are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day. "

"If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation . You are ahead of 700 million people in the world.."

"If you can attend a church without the fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world."


"If your parents are still alive and still married ...you are very rare."

"If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you're unique to all those in doubt and despair......."

Ok, what now? How can I start?

If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you as very special and you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Have a good day, count your blessings, and if you care to, pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are.

ATTN: Acknowledge Dept.
"Thank you Lord, for giving me the ability to share this message and for giving me so many wonderful people with whom to share it. "

Out with the old and in with the new...

Well, my calves from last spring are all sold now. Jacob and I headed into town around 4:00 to see if they'd been sold yet and to watch the sale if they weren't yet. When we went into the main office and asked the lady there if "Cora Bornemanns" calves had been sold yet, she said, "Hmmm... I thought I saw a name like that come through here... Let me check."
She dug through some files and then pulled out a piece of paper that had a check attached to the bottom of it.
"Here it is." She handed the page to me.
"Oh, thank you!" I looked at the paper with baited breath--to see if the sum was enough to cover my operating loan payment that's due on Tuesday... Yes, it was enough--and then some. I'm praising the Lord so very much tonight!!!

So, that was the "Out with the old" part...

The "In with the new" came to me in a loader bucket this morning--a new black bull calf from one of my cows! He needed some warming up and, later, when we took him back out to his mommy, she was obviously not going to take care of him, so he ended up back in the barn and I bottle fed him his supper. Hopefully tomorrow we can get Mrs. Trouble in one of the barns and then hopefully she'll still remember her baby...

Enough cow talk for now though...

I heard a beautiful song on the radio when I was making supper and later looked it up on You-Tube. I'd like to share it with you now, if you have a few moments.~

"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run,
and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint."

Isaiah 40:31

Russian Tea cakes--amongst other things~

Today I tried a new recipe that I'd found on Miss Jen's blog a while back. They're called "Russian Tea cakes" and I liked them very much! You can go to Blessed Femina (Miss Jen's blog) and read a ways back to find the recipe if you like...


Mmmmmm...
Outside of eating cookies today, we also made some more apple cider vinegar; I canned some apple sauce and juice; a fresh batch of bread was baked; a home-made pizza was made; lessons were learned; grain was hauled; animals were fed; a cattle water-fountain was thawed; and holiday letters were read. Oh yes, tonight Dad and we youngsters also played 6 games of Foosball! Things didn't go so well for Andrew & I, so I won't tell you the ending score. :)

We have such a wonderful life! We are SO blessed...

Blessings!

(To the tune of The 12 days of Christmas)

~On the fifth day of blogging, my conscience said to me,

"You--are--so--blessed!

Will you share God's peace?

Can you share God's joy?

Are you waisting time,

And can you blog-and do it hum-bl-y?"

I just got back from my turn at walking through the cows. They were all lazily lying in the sun and didn't even stand up when I wove in and out of them, looking for any troubles. It looks like another of my cows is thinking about having her baby today, so I'll have to keep an eye on her. The last 5 calves we've had were mine--I am so blessed! The sunshine today is absolutely wonderful, as it makes our jobs as bovine-babysitters so much easier. Late last night, my dad & I brought one of my newborn calves into the milk room, as it wasn't getting going and the mother wasn't doing a good job of licking it off. I stayed out in the barn 'til 1:00, drying the little girl off and feeding her some colostrum. But you know what? I am so blessed! This morning, the little calf was up and was bouncing around--in a wobbly sort of way.

I thought I'd post a few pictures to show you some of the blessings God's given me...

Here are my parents, Robert & Dawn, enjoying the neighbor children at my birthday party...

My big, little brother, Andrew, on one of his projects. (You can visit his blog at: http://andrewbornemann.blogspot.com/.)

My other brother, Jacob enjoys wood burning and he and Andrew made me a beautiful flower-press for my birthday in March.

Kids are always a blessing, and cute little Mary is no exception to the rule.
My very first calf of the year--whom I named after my friend, Amanda, who was here at the time of "Baby's" birth.

Friends are always a big blessing and there were many friends to visit with at the North Dakota Home School convention a couple of weeks ago.

I hope you are counting your blessings today as well--naming them one by one.