The Sifford Sojournal

Song – Whom Have I in Heaven?

January 7, 2026 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

Like most of the other animals the Lord has brought across our path, with Misty showing up came another inspiration for a song. 🙂

Her lyrics were these, since “Misty” and “miss thee” flow from each other 🙂 :

Misty, I miss thee
Misty, I miss thee
Misty, I miss thee everyday

And with them came the initial tune. For me, usually the lyrical rhythms lend to a tune coming out of them.

And with the tune, and since it didn’t really sound like a hymn, where in the past I would find hymn lyrics to use that I thought were good, I figured I would have to come up with my own. But, I don’t do well with that. Still, I looked for a theme, something like the idea to cover the names of Jehovah in “Jehovah is His Name!” that I put together. I did ask God for help too.

I thought then, what I’d really like to do is take some scripture sets that are special to me and that have been part of my life and use them, the main one being the following, which for me has become a set of personal life-verses:

Psalm 73:25-26:

25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.

26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.

Given that idea, I was able to fit them into the chorus part of the tune.

Then, it was to try to do the verses.

Here are the other scripture sets I wanted to use. This is special as I do pray my desire is to behold the Lord’s beauty, as He is most beautiful:

Psalm 27:4:

One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.

This next set is special because Sue sent them to me to encourage and exhort me after difficulties with the homestead, years of drought and lack of time (which partially stems from lack of financial resources), where many orchard trees have died, one of the gardens is ruined because the stray doggies we found need a place to run during the day, and things need repairs:

Habakkuk 3:17-19:

17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:

18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

19 The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. To the chief singer on my stringed instruments.

And this one is special too. A favorite preacher of ours, in encouraging one to pray, said that if you don’t know what to pray, pray the Psalms. Well, I adopted that, and it has been a blessing, asking God they would be praises from my heart, that He would cause me to do what are in the various Psalms, and that He would hear my cries when the difficulties and the like applied.

At one point, I was asking God for direction in a matter, to pursue a path or not, and the next day, I believe He directly answered my prayer with the prayer Psalm for that day, and it has become a personal mantra for myself since, keeping our eyes on Him. I was so grateful for this answer to prayer:

Psalm 123:

1 Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

2 Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

3 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

4 Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

And so, given each of those verse sets, I was indeed able to fit them into the verse melody.

Then, with the melody already in the composer, it was adding the lyrics, and then the harmonies.

And here’s the printed result. Note that I use the word “poor” as it is sometimes used in the Bible as being “needy” or “destitute of strength” or “destitute of spirit” (here’s Webster’s 1828 on the word “poor“):

And a PDF version:

Whom Have I in Heaven?

Here’s the audio vocal version with Sue graciously singing it with me:

Whom Have I in Heaven? – Vocal (MP3)

And here’s an audio instrumental version:

Whom Have I in Heaven? – Instrumental (MP3)

I thank the Lord for granting this little song, and for Him I believe even granting the melody and lyrics themselves. I pray it glorifies Him in some way.

— David

Introducing Misty

December 29, 2025 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

As sometimes happens around here, only a couple of years from when Sophie showed up, a young black cat and actually a couple of younger grey ones (we actually don’t know where those two are now 🙁 ) started hanging out here, mostly on the north side of the barn. Sue set up a little lean-to against its wall, and fed them.

And anyone who’s ever dealt with strays before knows what that means. Sure, enough, the black one became more friendly, then able to be picked up, and then introduced to the inside of the house…..then her movin’ on in. 🙂

With black cat’s attitude, we started calling her “Miss Thing” (because she thought she was an important thing around here), and then when looking for a name, if you abbreviate “Miss Thing” you can get “Miss T”, and there it was — we called her “Misty”. 🙂

She actually caused decent disruption with the other cats, and basically took over, even though smaller. She chased Leila on top of the cupboards one time, and they ended up knocking several pitchers and ornamental pieces onto the hardwood floor. 🫤 Interestingly though, Sophie, who is close to her size, has just stood and looked at her, and the black cat basically leaves her alone.

Over time, she’s gotten a little less aggressive with the other cats. Hopefully, the float is beginning to level now. 🙂

Here she is again apparently just movin’ on in at her leisure 🙄:

And here’s how she sometimes lets us know she wants back into the house 😲:

And here’s her video:

We thank the Lord for the little creature He brought along and for the resources to take care of her!

— David

Cattle Update – Late Fall 2025

December 19, 2025 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

We thought we’d catch everyone up with the herd since last year’s update.

We have continued to pare down the number of animals, and the video below is just before we started getting the last round of young ones to their new homes.

Sadly, over the past year since the update, we lost the last two of our remaining original Longhorns that we all started with way back in 2006. 🙁 Both were 20+ years old.

This is Rosa, who was ours from the beginning, along with her last calf, Rosalita from 2021, who is now the red cow in the video:

And this is Holga, who became ours over time, with her calf Natilla, from 2015, who is the cream-colored cow in the video:

We are thankful to God for all of the offspring He granted from them over the years!

And now, here’s the update video:

Again, we are grateful to the Lord for His providences in the Longhorn cattle!

— David

Goat Breeding Time 2025!

December 9, 2025 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

November came along, and it was that time to get the boy-goats and girl-goats together for breeding time this 2025! We wait until November to try to get any kid birthings to be in April, when it’s usually a little warmer.

With Shakespeare gone, this is our new buck Bixby’s first mating season, and it is Lida’s first time too (they’re both offspring we kept as part of an attempt at sustainability).

And here’s the video:

We are grateful to the Lord for the provision of the goats, and we pray He might grant offspring in due time!

— David

Goodbye Brodey

November 12, 2025 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

Sadly, it was time to say goodbye to our last border collie Brodey, following his sister Nessa 5 1/2 years ago.

He made it to almost 17 years old! His ability to walk, and even stand for very long, had been declining, although he would sometime show signs of doing a little better. I wondered if the heat was making it difficult for him, so I was trying to get him through the summer into cooler temperatures to see if that helped. But also, he had been having what appeared to be mild seizures every once in a while during this year, but they happened only every few weeks and seemed to not last too long.

And then, we think he got bit by a brown recluse, which ate a hole in the side of his back hind, where eventually you could see the bone. 😯 I try not to just put down an animal if it’s an inconvenience to care for it, so I set out on the project to try to keep it wrapped with antiseptic cream, and then open during the day sprayed with antiseptic, to give it time to heal. Plus, making sure to put him side to side and making him stand so his legs didn’t atrophy.

For the many weeks we did this, he seemed to just go with it — a great patient as I tried to keep the wound clean, and then re-wrap it again every day. While I assume he was in some pain, it just didn’t seem to be that bad. So I held out hope.

Well, the other week, because of the wrapping and moisture, his skin in those areas started to get sores. And he kind of took a turn where he actually did seem to be in more pain when on one side. And so, given it just didn’t look like the wound was going to heal any time soon, more irritations in the sores were occurring and there was nothing I could see to do about that, and then the apparent pain-factor increase, I made the tough decision it was time. 🙁

Here’s a video short of him the end of last year, his last video:

Here he is again, with his sister Nessa, in the beginning when we first got them:

And a video

And later on:

And a video:

And as with basically all the cats and dogs, inspired by him and Nessa, I put together a little song on the names of Jehovah (more details on how that all came about on this blog post):

I originally got the border collies to be herd dogs (here’s their introduction blog post), but just never had the time to train them properly. I will always regret that for them, since it’s their nature to want to do that. 🙁

Sue did use them on a leash though at times to help steer goats running around in our inner field back to their pen areas, so they kind of got to do what they were created to do, and Sue was thankful for the help! 🙂

We thank the Lord for the time with Brodey, and the patience we learned in caring for him here in the end.

Bye B-man, we’ll miss you…

Next to Nessa…

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2025 Turkey and Chicken Chick Gusher Group + 2

November 3, 2025 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

The Lord granted 3 more turkey chicks to be hatched out this 2025, I believe from different hens, but we had no room for a turkey mommy in the summer kitchen. And then, we were hoping a chicken mommy would hatch some out, and that we could blend the turklets in with her, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

But until then, we had a little scissor-beak chicken in a cage in there, so that little one ended up being surrogate mommy/cousin to the turklets. Sadly, one didn’t make it, but “Beaky” (as I called it) ended up turklet-sitting for a while.

But then, a chicken hen did hatch out some, so we moved her and her 3 chicks and her eggs into the summer kitchen. And then I tried putting the turklets in with her, and it looked great at first, but then I saw her pecking at one, so it was back to Beaky.

Time continued, and she hatched out 6 more, although sadly again, one of them didn’t make it.

So today, we still have the 2 turklets and 8 chicken chicks running around in there!

On a sad note, Beaky also didn’t make it. 🙁 Not sure what happened.

But now, here’s the video of it all over time:

On a final note: Some might have culled Beaky immediately because of its beak, and I understand that because it would always need a special situation to survive and probably wouldn’t normally be considered “productive.” Still, to me there’s always hope. 🙂 And sometimes things do end up not like they are perceived at first, and Beaky, despite it all, ended up serving a valuable purpose in its short little time alive. And we are thankful for God using it to contribute to our little homestead. (Gives me hope for myself, maybe someday…)

Thank you Beaky!

As always, we thank God for His continued provisions!

— David

Psalm Singing – October 2025

October 20, 2025 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

Sue and I finished recording the next set of Psalms from our psalter, Psalm 120-126B!

As always, we hope someday someone will find these helpful in learning to sing Psalms for themselves and their families too. 🙂

(If the above player doesn’t work, or if you would like to save any of the files locally to your computer, you can click the Download link below, or right click it and click Save As in the popup menu.)

Psalms 120-126B

Download

Psalm 105:2 – “Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him: talk ye of all his wondrous works.“

The Sifford Sojournal

Song – Whom Have I in Heaven?

Introducing Misty

Cattle Update – Late Fall 2025

Goat Breeding Time 2025!

Goodbye Brodey

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2025 Turkey and Chicken Chick Gusher Group + 2

Psalm Singing – October 2025

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