The Girls are a-layin'

Look at that! 18 eggs laid by our own chickens! Well, at least three of them. Leola (named after the children's book, Leo the Late Bloomer) is staying true to her name. I feel like a chapter out of Little House on the Prairie. We all have a definite fondness for "chicken eggs" as opposed to "store eggs". Friday nights have become breakfast dinner time.. a new family tradition.

So....what happened to that coffee house?

I'm sure you don't want to hear all the excuses...computer problems, school started, an experiment in community living, etc. We're still working towards the coffeehouse dream.
The last few months has been remarkably similar to the gardening process. Right now we are in the winter months of garden planning. We've been thumbing through the catalog pages of everything the coffeehouse could be: for profit, non-profit, small, large, a music venue, a meal-for-the- homeless site during off hours, downtown, ministry, etc.
We've sticky noted ideas we like. We have named the coffee house: Plowshare Coffee House (in reference to Micah chapter 4.) We have been roasting coffee in very small quantities from home. We practice our latte art. (This photo is one of my first pours!)
We've drawn up some plans in colored pencil. We are in the process of discovering how viable our hope of being a non-profit might be. Next week we'll be attending a meeting that might clarify some of that.
Soon, we'll need to put away the catalogs, sticky notes, and colored pencils, and actually commit to placing our order. So...pray for us as we get closer to that next season.

Story of Stuff

A friend sent this link to me today. An amazingly simple version as to why our economy & environment is where it is today. Yep! The two issues are connected! Although the movie is simple, the site goes very in depth as to what we, the little people, can do. http://www.storyofstuff.com/

The God of Sod

For the last few months we've been pulling up sod. I'm tired of the grass growing where it's not supposed to grow, and dying where it's supposed to grow. I'm tired of my water bill too. So I've been ripping it out. Then comes the dilemma, what does one do with dried out, heavy, dead sod? It fills the compost too quickly, plus it has this plastic netting that doesn't decompose. The yard debris pick up won't take it. It seems really wrong to put it in the landfill. So I've been lining the back side of my fence with it. There's a mostly unused irrigation ditch back there, 20 acres just sitting unused. Occasionally the owners burn the weeds out of the ditch. One year they told me not to put any yard debris back there. I was fine with that, I said, as long as the weeds were kept down. This year the weeds were taking over sooo....I figured if the sod doesn't grow in my yard while its being pampered, maybe it will at least keep the weeds down. I kind of sneak it back there. It has really done the trick with the weeds. But today, I learned another amazingly good thing about this yard waste product.

Dried up, dead sod is an amazing fire retardant. And the God of Sod is an amazing protector! He used all that dead sod as a fire break to protect our home during a grass fire right behind our house. This is truly an example of turning beauty from ashes...or keeping beauty from ashes ...or something like that. Or more likely taking what we think of as a total waste and using it for good. Thank you, oh God of Sod!

Chicken love!

I think that every organic gardener should consider keeping chickens! Just out of curiosity the other day, I did a bug-comparison test on my sunflowers. The sunflowers in the front yard, just like every other year were covered in aphids. The aphids attracted the ants, wasps and ladybugs. The whole sunflower was buzzing. (I love the ladybugs, but could do without all those wasps. My kiddos agree wholeheartedly!) After pulling a few weeds, I made my way to the backyard. I took a close look at one of my backyard sunflowers. NO APHIDS! And because there were no aphids, no wasps! The difference? Our little flock of chickies have made use of their free range privileges by eating up all the aphids!

Way to go, Girls!!

What's this about a Coffee Business?

Back in our college days, there was little (single car garage size when it started) coffee house just off campus. A great many of our getting-to-know-you conversations took place there. With a rasberry mocha in hand, I could tackle homework, deep philosophical conversations, and even throw in some quiet book reading, journal writing, music listening and dreaming.

Ever since, we've had this dream to provide a place like that for our local community. Really good coffee, a safe place for conversation, a venue for community to flourish. We see it as a way to combine our way to make a living with our desire to serve people. We're excited about the possibilities of not only reaching out to our local community, but also supporting our global neighbors. We will be making every effort to roast, sell, and serve only fair trade or direct relationship with farmer coffees.

We've been amazed at the way God has started to move us this way. Through many "minor" miracles, our garage is now filled with almost everything we need to start our coffee roastery/house, including a Probat L12 roaster. We're just waiting for a myriad of other details to fall in place. For example, what do we name this business?

That's where you come in, friends! Give us your leading by voting in our poll. (If I could do this in the good ol' Quaker way of consensus, I would. It's hard to "sense the Spirit" via the internet.

I guess I'll be adding a lot of coffee grounds to the compost bin!

Summer Reading

Yesterday, was our (usually) weekly trip to the library. Yet again, we dragged home a huge bag of books. As soon as we land in the living room, the bag is dumped out and the scurry begins. Every kiddo digs through the pile, searching for their own book treasure. (It looks a lot like the chickens scratching through their food plate.) And then .....peace settles over the household! Everyone in their little corner being transported to castles, barnyards, and pirate ships. Then I take a look at my books.....Which one should I choose to read for this moment?

My daughter and I are very similiar, in that, we both usually have 4-5 books going at a time. Here's what I'm reading:

Jesus for President by Shane Clairborne: Asks the question, "What would our lives as Christ followers look like if we truly let Jesus be our leader in all we do spiritually, economically, and politically?" Great words...but I love the scrappy art style too.

Keep Chickens! by Barbara Kilarski: My guidebook for raising chickens in a small suburban place.

A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'engle: One of my all time favorite authors. We've been listening to this one in the car as a family. I love the allegories that can be drawn from this book. If you've ever wanted another picture for John 15 ("remain in me," Christ the vine, etc), this has some beautiful thoughts.

Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast: The history of coffee and the world. My husband and I are in the early stages of starting a coffee roastery/shop, so this has been very interesting. More about that development later.

Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller: Good stretching-your-faith stuff.

DragonFire by Donita Paul: I need some sort of east fictional story in all of my spiritual, world politics, history heaviness. A allegorical dragon, wizard story with a strong female character..might be handing this one down to my daughter after I'm done....If she doesn't finish her list first and grab it from my pile!