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.

Page 23 of 93

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: Goat Kids of 2019

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

Garden – Winter 2018 & Spring 2019

Just a little catch-up on garden events…

Winter 2018

Late last year near the end of December, with the milder weather up to that point, we had an extra squash plant just start to grow from seed planted in the Spring, and after keeping it covered with blankets when necessary, the Lord graciously granted a few squashes, and we thank Him:

Winter 2018 Squash Plant

Winter 2018 Squash Plant

And He granted a turnip to grow too, for which we are thankful as well! Some time ago I just threw down a bunch of turnip seed, and every once in a while a turnip just shows up! 🙂

Winter 2018 Turnip Plant

Winter 2018 Turnip

Spring 2019

We planted garlic at the end of last year, and recently it was time to go get them!

Here is how the area looked in March…lots of weeds, but garlic growing too:

2019 Garlic Garden

2019 Garlic Plant

We pulled one up back then, but there was no bulb on it, so we realized we were still too early. I did put that one garlic back hoping it would continue…

The prickly lettuce that just grows natively here really took over our gardens this year, I believe especially because of the many rains God has graciously granted, so I went into the garlic area and cut everything down that wasn’t garlic, to try to give it all some sun:

Weeding the Garlic Garden

But then about a week and 1/2 later, the garlic plants started looking like they were maybe dying, and we had more rain coming, and I was worried they would start rotting, so I decided to start digging them up…

2019 Garlic Area

This is a planted garlic:

Garlic Plant

I cleared the mulch around it:

Garlic Plant with Mulch Cleared

Dug down the full hand-shovel length at 4-5 points around it, several inches away from the plant, and lifted slightly each time:

Digging Out Garlic Plant

More Digging Out Garlic Plant

And then when the ground around the plant was loose enough, I gently pulled out the bulb:

Dug Out Garlic Plant

Interestingly, some of the garlic plants started to bolt what looked like a new bulb! I wonder if over time that would have planted itself…

Bolting Garlic Plant

I don’t know, but here are some of the harvest results! Not that every plant that sprung up made it up to this point, but after pulling up that one early with nothing on it, and with what I thought was going to potentially be a problem with any garlic bulbs already starting to rot in the ground, the Lord graciously ended up granting that every single plant have at least some bulb on it, including that one I replanted!

Harvested Garlic

More Harvested Garlic

Harvested Garlic in a Bucket

I made a meat dryer some time ago, which is perfect for hanging garlic to dry and cure. Here is after the first part of the garlic was gathered:

Harvested Garlic Hangling in Meat Dryer

And then the rest of it:

More Harvested Garlic Hangling in Meat Dryer

And finally with the meat dryer’s screen panel in place:

Harvested Garlic Hangling in Closed Meat Dryer

We are always very thankful to God for His gracious provisions, and the miracle of taking a seed, which appears dead, and burying it, and then life coming from it, and growing and multiplying itself and being fruitful according to the Lord’s providence alone (ie. I can’t make a garlic bulb just appear), like His word planted in the hearts of men and His Spirit bringing forth new life as He wills, and like His Son, the Lord Christ, dead and buried, but miraculously raised out of the ground again to life! We are eternally grateful to God for the salvific life He brings through Jesus Christ!

— David

Providence’s Perennial Provisions: Pink Primrose

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

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

Community Singing – May 2019

For singing time during our Lord’s Day Church fellowship gatherings, for part of that time we sing from the psalter from Crown & Covenant. Well, to help us learn them better, and for anyone else who might be interested in learning them, every so often we record them, and this past Lord’s Day we did so again, Psalms 72A to 76B.

Here are the latest:

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

Psalms 72A-76B

We pray the Lord teach us His ways through the Psalms and the rest of His Word, and may He write it on our hearts that we might not sin against Him!

— David

Previous Psalms singings:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

Psalms 19A-22E

Psalms 22F-24C

Psalms 25A-27F

Psalms 28A-31G

Psalms 32A-34D

Psalms 35A-37F

Psalms 38B-40F

Psalms 41A-44F

Psalms 45A-49C

Psalms 50A-53

Psalms 54A-59B

Psalms 60A-65B

Psalms 66A-68E

Psalms 69A-71D

David’s Digest: As a Child

Matt 18:3-4 – “3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Christ said one does not enter into heaven unless they become as a child. Very serious! But what does that mean?

Puritan Thomas Manton gives what I believe is an insightful examination of this, based on Psalm 131, the full text of which you can read here:

Psalm 131

1 Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.

2 Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.

3 Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever.

From Thomas Manton:

Now let us open the similitude, and show wherein it holdeth good. David behaved himself, and quieted himself – (1.) As a child ; (2.) As a weaned child.

1. As a child. A child is not troubled with ambitious thoughts: Mat. xviii. 3, ‘Except ye be converted, and become as little children,’ etc. A little child knoweth not what striving for state [status] meaneth. The inclinations and desires of carnal ambition are very contrary to the christian temper, namely, seeking after dominions, dignities, and honours.

So Christ would confute his disciples’ pride; as if he had said, You strive for worldly greatness and preeminence in my kingdom; but my kingdom is a kingdom of babes, and containeth none but the humble, and such as are little in their own eyes, and are contented to be small and despised in the eyes of others, and to look not after great matters in the world. Thus would Christ take them off from the vain ambition and pursuit of esteem and worldly honour, and the expectations of a carnal kingdom.

And is it not necessary still that we should become as little children? A great part of the work of grace is to take down our pride, and make us little in our own eyes. We should all prove ourselves to be children of God by the lowliness of our hearts and sobriety of our carriage, and submission to all God’s dispensations, and desire no higher condition than God would bring us into by the fair invitation of his providence. We must put ourselves into the posture of a feeble impotent child, without ambition, without covetousness, looking wholly to be directed, supported, and enabled by God.

2. Why as a weaned child.

[1.] A weaned child is taken off from the breast and its natural food; so when the Lord is pleased to withhold from us what we expected, and to keep us in a low and afflicted condition, we must patiently submit to God’s will and pleasure, and be contented to be what God will have us to be. Oh, how well were it for us if we were weaned from the world’s breasts! Certainly then temptations would be plucked up by the roots. How easily should we please God, and press on to everlasting glory, worldly and fleshly lusts [desires] mortified! By some bitterness or other the weaned child is driven from the breast, and it useth it no more.

Oh, that a christian were as soon weaned from the world, and might grow dead to the honours, riches, and pleasures of it! and could say with the apostle, ‘I am crucified to the world, and the world is crucified to me,’ Gal. vi. 14.

Few are taken off from the dug [udder, teat] by the bitterest wormwood that can be laid upon it; they are still sucking here, though they suck but wind; and, after many disappointments, still return to the love of the world, as their natural milk. It is a prodigy for a child to keep sucking till thirteen or fourteen years; we are as greedy at fifty or sixty years as we were before. The world by nature is sweet to us; the bitterness of affliction doth not wean us from it; and after all the warnings that we cannot love the Father if we love the world, 1 John ii. 15, yet we love the world still. In death it is made bitter to us, for then the world passeth away, and the lusts [desires] thereof; then we cry out on the world, how it hath deceived us, and tempted this rebelling flesh to neglect God and higher duties. But then it is questionable whether we are weaned or driven from the dug [udder, teat]. Surely it becometh us to be weaned sooner.

[2.] The weaned child can do nothing for itself, but is provided for by the care of another; so should we look upon ourselves as a most feeble and impotent child, able to do nothing of ourselves; but after we have weaned ourselves from our natural affections and desires, wholly be sensible of our necessities, emptiness, and weakness to shift [move, even slightly] for ourselves, leaving all to God: Ps. xl. 17, ‘I am poor and needy, but the Lord thinketh upon me.’ We may be despised of the world and contemned of the world, but that doth not make us loathsome to God. Yea, the lower we are brought, the more is his care engaged for us. The empty, the destitute, who have not the dug [udder, teat] to live upon, are devolved upon the Lord, that he may take care of them.

[3.] Though the weaned child have not what it would have, or what it naturally most desireth, the milk of the breast, yet it is contented with what the mother giveth; it rests upon her love and provision. So are we to be content with what providence alloweth us: Heb. xiii. 5, ‘Let your conversation [behavior/life] be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have;’ and Phil. iv. 11, ‘I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.’ Whatever pleaseth our heavenly Father should please us.

The child that is put from the breast to an harder diet is yet contented at last. The children of princes know not what the swelling of pride, the honour of the world meaneth. The child doth not prescribe what it will eat, drink, or put on. They are in no care for enlarging possessions, heaping up riches, aspiring after dignities and honours, but meekly take what is provided for them.

[4.] The child, when he has lost the food which nature provideth for it, is not solicitous, but wholly referreth itself to the mother, hangeth upon the mother. So for everything whatsoever should we depend upon God, refer ourselves to God, and expect all things from him: Ps. lxii. 5, ‘My soul, wait thou upon God; my expectation is from him.’ With such a simplicity of submission should we rest and depend upon God.

Let us take heed of being overwise and provident for ourselves, but trust our Father which is in heaven, and refer ourselves to his wise and holy government.

Thus you see here is a perfect emblem –

(1.) Of self-denial; for the child is weaned, taken off from what it most affects [fancies]. So we must not look to be satisfied in our childish will and appetite; we must be weaned, and put from the breast to an harder diet.

(2.) Of humility, or a sense of our impotency and nothingness; for the child cannot shift for itself, so neither can we. We are weak and witless all of us, as are little children, and know not what is good for us, nor how to provide it, but are merely cast upon the care of another.

(3.) Contentedness and resignation to the will of God, who is our provider. The more impotent, the more entitled to God’s care.

(4.) Of dependence and quiet recumbency [leaning/resting] on God in any state or condition whatsoever; for we must cast the whole care of affairs upon him.

Oh, happy we if we could thus be children!

May God grant us this child-like humility; may He wean us from and change our desires for the dainties of Vanity Fair — the useless and time-wasting (Eph 5:16) carnal and sense-driven pleasures and riches of the world; and may He grant us resignation, contentedness, thankfulness and trust in Him for how He providentially brings our lives forth during our time here.

Ps 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.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face;
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.

If you’re interesting in going deeper on this, we invite you to go through some series we’ve recorded on YouTube during our holy reading times on Lord’s days:

— David

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