Hand in Hand with Jesus

The quote in this email—She is clothed in strength and dignity and she laughs without fear of the future—I have pasted on the wall in the room I do most of my writing in. It’s a paraphrase of a verse in Proverbs, and I need that daily reminder. I had a few funny stories in […]

Climb that mountain!

I’ve been trying to figure out where to start this story. Sometimes it’s obvious, but with this story… First, let me tell you about our cow, Cutie. She’s a sweet little Hereford – orange with a white face and white legs and brisket. She’s not very big, but she has a gentle personality and is […]

Auggie the calf

This spring, Jules and I were checking on the cows, and we came at just the right time to see Auggie be born. He came out the way he was supposed to – with nose lying on front feet first – but his mom was standing up. Now, this isn’t too uncommon, but I’ve not […]

Our dog, Rocker

We have five dogs here in Virginia. Two of those are Julia’s and she takes care of them herself.  I’ve told stories about Ethyl, our man-eater who adores Watson. We also have a Newfoundland mix and a Great Pyrenees named Rocker. Great Pyrenees are livestock guardian dogs. They’ve been bred to be independent thinkers and […]

Trials make us stronger.

I was looking for the story about #16 but I found the one about 122 that I told early this spring instead, so I’m going to paste that one in here today: I talked last week about how slippery it has been in our pasture – especially with a skift of snow on top of […]

We have a cattle drive

Okay, so not long ago we had a cattle drive… We moved about fifty cows and their calves out of the upper field, down our driveway and into the lower trail fields. But first, I need to preface this story by saying that the night prior to us moving the cattle, Julia was in bed […]

I use soap.

Sunday we had to vaccinate our fall herd and treat a few cows.  We did that last fall and I talked about it a little. I was chasing cows, got knocked around a bit and at one point I was pinned against the fence and ended up pretty sore with a lot of shades of […]

Grace and peace in the middle of life’s storm.

Alright, I promised I was going to tell you what has been going on with me. Some of you are like family to me, and have suspected that there was something going on. I wanted to tell you, but…let me start with a little story. I can picture Chasidi in preschool – bouncing pigtails, sweet, […]

I’m gonna talk about my boys today.

Anyway, last week I told the story about the bees in my jeans in the berry patch and this person read the email, then, the next time he saw Watson he said, “Did you know your wife was running around the berry patch with her pants off?” Gah. So, the next time I saw Watson […]

Fireworks!

One of my brothers-in-law has a thing for fireworks. Usually, he puts them off in the church parking lot, but at this time—years ago—he and my sister had just moved into their new house and wanted to have a get-together. Since it was close to Fourth of July, they decided to do fireworks at their […]