The Sifford Sojournal

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.

Category: providence (Page 8 of 24)

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Goat Kids of 2019

July 8, 2019 / / 2 Comments

After putting our does with our bucks for 2018 goat breeding time, the Lord graciously granted 2019’s kid crop!

It was a bit of a rough year this time. Lucy delivered very premature kids that didn’t make it, and then Marie’s triplets got stuck, and by the time we got her to the vet and the vet pulled out the dead kids, they had already filled her with bacteria, and she died later that night. Marie was our last full Nubian female. We are grateful to God for the time He granted Marie to be with us, and for the many kids He granted from her:

Marie 2018

But, again God was gracious in granting kids from the rest of the group, and all of them were healthy and made it to new-owner day.

Here are the daddies — Shakespeare first, and then Elvis. After the difficulties with Elvis from breeding time and him using his horns as a weapon, we have since had them removed, which appears to have helped his aggressiveness:

Shakespeare

Elvis

And here are some sights of the kids:

2019 Goat Kids

2019 Goat Kids

2019 Goat Kids

2019 Goat Kids

2019 Goat Kids

2019 Goat Kids

2019 Goat Kids

Interestingly, Lucy here who lost her kids ended up being something of an aunt to some of the kids, with them often following her around as they browsed the field:

2019 Goat Kids

This is new home day!

2019 Goat Kids

2019 Goat Kids

And this is the kids video, including bottle feeding one kid who had trouble getting on her mother’s teat, and sending them on to their new owner:


However, there was one little exception to all the above: Hannah didn’t get pregnant for several months into breeding season, and so she just recently gave birth to this little buckling. He has probably the sweetest disposition of any goat we’ve had, and will follow us around like a little puppy-dog. Anyway, we have to wait a bit now before he can go to his next home:

2019 Goat Kids

2019 Goat Kids

And so, we are always thankful to the Lord for His provisions, and we pray the kids bless someone, and we thank God for bringing the buyer, and the health and safety He granted for the ones to which He decided to give life!

— David

Providence’s Perennial Provisions: Pink Primrose

June 6, 2019 / / 0 Comments

While our work for our provision requires the sweat of our faces (Gen 3:19), in God’s glorious creation and graciousness, He has provided some things to just grow naturally as edible for humans. We here are always looking out for those kind provisions, and we’ve talked some about them in other perennial blog posts, and so we have another one we have discovered on the land — Pink Primrose.

Recently I was mowing the orchard area. With the gracious rains the Lord has brought this Spring, this is what I was mowing down…many of the weeds half the height of many of the trees!

Orchard Spring 2019 with Lots of Weeds

… and during the mowing, I came upon a pink primrose patch that the honeybees were making great use of, and so as to not take away their food supply (we do whatever we can here to help the valuable honeybee!), I left the patch. If you look closely, you can see some of the bees busy working:

Pink Primrose Flowers with Bees
More Pink Primrose Flowers with Bees

We had learned about pink primrose in the past, but I thought now would be a good time to do this blog post. Here’s a patch of them:

Pink Primrose Patch

And this one shows the leaves well:

Pink Primrose Plants

And here is Foraging Texas’ article on pink primrose. You can eat the leaves before flowering, and you can even eat the flower petals! The plants apparently provide vitamin F and some fatty acids. You just have to be careful about how much of it you eat, although the leaves are pretty small, so it takes a bit of work to collect much of it anyway.

But, once again, we are thankful for this free gift from God in graciously granting something He is singly growing for us!

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2019’s 3rd & 4th Chick Hatchings

May 23, 2019 / / 0 Comments

The Lord graciously granted another couple of chicken hens go broody this 2019, and here are the results!

This mama hatched out 8 as our 3rd group this year, and all 8 are still going strong, thanks to God. I’m guessing all the eggs under her were hers as every chick basically looks like her…I don’t remember something like this happening for us before. 🙂

3rd Hatching of 2019 Chicks

And this mama hatched out our 4th group this year, 9 this time, and all 9 are still alive and healthy too!

3rd Hatching of 2019 Chicks

And here is their video:


As always, we are thankful to the Lord for His continued provisions. May we look to Him for ALL things, in every spiritual and temporal matter!

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 2019’s First Chicks

March 14, 2019 / / 0 Comments

We recently had one of our young hens from last year go broody early this year. Usually if they go broody late in the year or during winter, we just pull the eggs so we don’t have to deal with trying to keep a place warm for new chicks during very cold weather.

But I decided to let her go this year, and she hatched out 7 new chicks! And they are all still alive today and doing well, thanks to the Lord!

We did run the heater in the summer kitchen a couple of nights where they were when it got down to 20 degrees F outside, and it all worked out just fine.

On an aside, this mama had a pal hen that was part of the clutch she came from, and these two hung around together. Her friend was white colored, and I called her Nilli (for Vanilla). And so with this one being grey, and them being friends, I call her Granoli (for grey-Nilli 😀 ). Sadly though, Nilli was killed by a predator late last year, but God is granting her friend make up for her loss with the new chicks. 🙂

And here they are:

New Chicks of 2019

More of New Chicks of 2019

Still More of New Chicks of 2019

And here’s their video:


We are very grateful to God for His graciousness in granting these new chicks! We pray they, and our entire homestead and community, are used by Him for His glory and the benefit of others!

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: 5th & Surprise 6th Round of 2018 Chicks

November 12, 2018 / / 0 Comments

The Lord graciously granted another hen get broody this 2018, and she hatched out our 5th set of the year! She hatched out 4 with 1 sadly not making it more than a day, but the other 3 are still doing well as of today!

5th Set of 2018 Chicks

And then one day, Sue was taking the dogs up to their goat field for their evening running around, and lo and behold, there was a hen walking around with 5 chicks following her! Wow! We eventually tracked down that she had been sitting in a pecan tree fenced-in area. Thanks to God for allowing her to sit out there for at least 3 weeks without being eaten herself!

We gathered them up and got them into the summer kitchen brooder building, and here they are. She had 5 with her, and they also are still all going as of today!

6th Set of 2018 Chicks

And here is the video for both groups:


As always, we are grateful to the Lord for granting these provisions, and His extra graciousness in preserving the mama and eggs outdoors for all that time!

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Olivia’s 2018 Turkey Chick

October 11, 2018 / / 0 Comments

With us not really having a great way to manage the turkey flock we have now, after a rogue Black Turkey heritage breed hen just showed up at our homestead one day, it becomes difficult when the females start getting broody. They often find quite remote places to nest, and sometimes just hide in the grass somewhere in a field. Although we have lost one to that situation, the Lord’s been gracious to allow us to usually track them down as they perhaps come back in the morning to eat or drink or what have you before returning to their nest, and then we can follow them.

Now though, we try to make sure to collect any turkey eggs we find, and then, if we find a turkey on a nest, haul her in and any eggs in the nest, and put them in the summer kitchen, and add any other eggs we have.

Well, we did that this year with Olivia, the female from last year’s hatching, who had quite a few of her own eggs.

And while she had 5-6 under her, only one hatched out, but by God’s graciousness, this little turklet (I call them “turklets”, like “chicklets”) 😉 made it all along, is still going today, and is almost adult size! We believe now it is a “she” turkey, and she is our first grand-turklet!

Here she is with her mommy back in August, obviously a little older than just a hatchling by this time:

Olivia & Her 2018 Turkey Chick

As you can see, the turklet liked to walk all over Olivia 🙂 :

Another of Olivia & Her 2018 Turkey Chick

One sad note: we did the same “grab and put in the summer kitchen” with one of our other hens, Tasha, and she hatched out 2 turklets, but not long after they were born, each disappeared. We assume a snake got them, but I never found the culprit in there, and often we do. It’s still a mystery, but it was not the Lord’s will they continue, and we agree whole-heartedly with Him in His sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness!

Tasha & a 2018 Turkey Chick

And here is the video of Olivia and her hatchling, which progresses from the pictures above to when we permanently let them out of the summer kitchen to just this week! The video does include the other mama and one tiny little turklet that was left at the time:


And as always, we are very thankful to the Lord for His graces and mercies and the perpetuation of the animals!

— David

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