Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.
Once again, the Lord graciously granted new kids to be born to one of our goats Betsy, who’s full Nubian; and with our full Nubian billy Shatner, the kids are full Nubian as well.
And here they are: please meet Rhett (on the right) and Scarlett (on the left):
Here is some live-action resting 🙂 . And actually, as of this video, we had 15 goats:
We are again very grateful to God for allowing us these provisions, and pray these kids become productive members of the herd.
— David
A few months ago we did a blog post about our goat kids graduation, where we put all the does with the bucks we had planned for them, the first generation offspring does to be with a buck for the first time. Well, a couple of days ago, the Lord graciously granted our first second generation kid, a buck, to our Nubian doe Marie. His sire was Eastwood, who I recently mentioned had died during the winter. But, he apparently helped bring along Marie’s first kid; and in honor of him, we’re calling the new kid “Woodrow.”
He has his father’s colors; and he sure seemed large for a new-born; but I have a feeling we’re used to twins and triplets, who probably end up a little smaller than a single kid might, although I can’t be sure. It appears he’s doing pretty well:
Here he is in action. The whining goat in the background is Pammy, who recently gave birth as well:
We are thankful once again to God for His graces and mercies in granting this healthy new provision to us.
— David
I was looking out our camper this last week into one of our fields, and saw something black behind one of the cows. I wondered what it was (and thought maybe it was a plastic bag…or maybe even a new calf!). Sue and I slowly made our way toward it, still trying to make out what it was that was behind her. Well, we got within 30 feet or so, and finally realized indeed it was a new calf, and that the cow was Rosa, one of ours. We hadn’t noticed Rosa showing signs of immanently giving birth, but there it was.
And so, after discovering it to be a little bull calf, and continuing with our Spanish naming convention, Sue was looking in Spanish for things black, and looked up the word “crow.” And with that, we decided to name him Cuervo:
Here are a couple of pictures:
And a video:
The larger bull we show in the video was not the sire, even though he has the same colorings. We think one of the other younger bulls, which has black and white colorings, and is penned away elsewhere right now, but happened to get out for a few days some time ago (9 months perhaps?) might have gotten to Rosa; although there was another bull, a grullo (grey) one, running with the herd at the time, but he would have had to have gotten to Rosa right around the time he was removed from the herd; and even then, Rosa was a few days late in delivering beyond that. At any rate, I guess we’ll have to see how Cuervo’s colors end up, although evidence is pointing to the younger black and white bull.
Also, even though in the video he isn’t doing much, and he typically doesn’t move around a lot during the warmer days that have been occurring lately; but at night, he’s literally running circles around his mother.
We are thankful to the Lord for granting this provision of the calf, and we pray for God’s continued guidance with the animals.
— David
For our breeding scheme this year, we previously discussed our separating out our older does to be with our main buck Shatner, and the younger does, his female offspring, to be with Eastwood, a goat we traded one of our triplet bucks for. Well, there have been a couple of updates: first, Eastwood died during the Winter; so we borrowed a buck from our neighbor. He’s apparently pure Spanish, and we call him John Buck (think what you might call an unknown female goat 🙂 ) :
We had put the bucks with our does in the beginning of November so they would give birth no earlier than April, where they should be mostly out of the cold. Well, Sue was out near the goats the other day, and she heard a very young sounding bleat. Umm…huh? She went to see what was going on, and lo and behold, our doe Pammy had given birth to twins! While quite surprising, we were both very thankful to find out God had granted us two new goats — a male and a female. We decided to call them George and Gracie, and here is your introduction to them:
And here is a video:
As I briefly mentioned in the video, last year, when Winnie had her triplet bucks, the middle one, Porthos, seemed to often have physical problems, from pink eye to swollen front knees. And he was smaller than his brothers, and so we kept him with Winnie much longer than we did the others, so he could continue to have her milk. Well, apparently we kept him in too long, as nearest we can figure, he is the father of the new kids. Porthos has grown up to be about as big has his younger brother now, and seems to have also matured normally. 🙂 Even though this is a possible situation of some in-breeding, which we were trying to avoid, since it’s Pammy it’s not too bad as the worst Porthos might be is Pammy’s nephew; with Betsy, she’s of a whole different line, so if Porthos got to her as well, it’s fine. However, he may have gotten to his mom, Winnie; we’re hoping not, but I guess we’ll have to see what happens. And now we know better for the future.
We are grateful for the Lord, in His graces and mercies, granting us these new provisions; and we pray that He might grant they be productive members of the herd, according to His will.
— David
Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines the word “provider” in the following way:
PROVI’DER, n. One who provides, furnishes or supplies; one that procures what is wanted.
I’d like to ask a few questions:
Who or what is the provider of our water? If we pay to get our water piped into our house, the company that does that is our provider.
Who or what is the provider of our food? If we go to a grocery store, the grocery store is (along with every part of the chain involved in getting it there).
Who or what is the provider of our clothing? If you get it from a retail store, the store and the manufacturers are.
I could go on; but if we’re paying someone or some entity for us to have the necessities of life, then by the definition above, they are our provider.
If we’ve placed a middle man between us and God’s direct provisions, then in reality we no longer look to God for His providence — we look to the middle man. Don’t believe that? In a town, if our water stopped flowing from the faucet in our house, what would we do? We’d call the water company — our water provider. If we would starve without the nearest grocery store having food to buy, then it is our provider.
To whom we look for your life provisions, they are our provider.
Gen 22:13-14 – “13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. 14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh [the Lord will see/provide]: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.” (see John Gill’s commentary on vs. 14)
God provided the ram for the sacrifice, and we are to look to Him alone as our provider.
Spiritual Provisions
God providing temporily is really a “type” of His spiritual provisions (we eat bread — He is the bread of life (John 6:35); we drink water — He gives the water of life (John 4:14); etc.) In the same way God provided the ram above (also as a type), He provided a Sacrifice, a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, for His people; and we are to look to Him alone for salvation.
Further, God is the only source for all other spiritual provisions, such as spiritual graces, as the heart of man is desperately wicked; and everyone is dead in their sins until God, by His own sovereign will, graces and mercies, breathes new life into them. Did we conjure up our own free-will faith to believe in God, and that’s why He saved us? Then we were the provider of our faith (and thus our salvation?!) Do we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, have “power thoughts” for courage and strength, and declare we’re going to be meek and humble and not let the things of life get us down? Then we are the provider of our Christian graces.
The Bible says otherwise, and prevents any man from boasting of providing his own faith and spiritual graces.
And so, in the end, who is our provider?
— David
This Winter has gone on a bit longer than usual, at least from what we’ve experienced in our time here so far; and it’s also been wetter and colder than normal. With that continuing, yesterday, the Lord brought a decent amount of the “white stuff” to the land.
This was how things were first thing in the morning:
And this is how it was in the early afternoon:
We once again thank God for His mercies in the weather, the provisions of warmth and shelter He has allowed us, and for the provisions of the moisture for the ground.
— David
It gets cold here in Texas, relative to what Sue and I were used to in California. The last couple of Winters have been mild compared to second year we were here, which included an ice storm. We’ve had a couple of Winters where there were extended periods (three to four days, and eight to nine days) where it remained under freezing.
Well, this Winter so far started early in November but hasn’t been too drastic. We’ve had at least one or two nights in the teens Fahrenheit, but haven’t had complete days under freezing…yet. 🙂 However, it has snowed here a couple of times, one accompanied with quite a bit of wind, which caused some snow flurries.
Here are a few pictures of that. I know it’s a little difficult to get the effect, and I should have taken a video, but the white fuzziness in them is the snow blowing around:
Even though I’m not a fan of the cold and snow — in fact, I have a pretty strong aversion to cold — snow is good for soaking the ground and healing the land. Also, out of the Winter, which is a time of death, for plant life especially, comes Spring, and a time of new life — just like out of Christ’s death comes new life for His people.
Learning to live in colder weather has taken some time to adjust to; but the Lord has granted us better attitudes about being more uncomfortable; and He has allowed us resources for things like polypropylene thermal underwear, which helps immensely; and we have learned to layer and bundle up. Also, we are grateful for the shelters He has allowed us all in the community to have. He has graciously seen us through, and is gracious in helping us continue to learn how to live out here in the country, quite a bit more exposed than we were in the too comfortable city, where the conscience is numbed and heart condition is hidden. You learn a lot when you’re uncomfortable, about God’s providence, His sovereign will, and your true trust and faith in Him.
May God use whatever means He sees best in His goodness, gentleness and firm hand of love to make us more obedient servants of Him; and may we see His glorious attributes in His workings.
— David
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