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Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kids “Desi” and “Lucy”

August 10, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 4 Comments

Our goat Minnie (see Minnie in the middle of this blog post when she was first born) didn’t get pregnant when she was with our buck Eastwood during the Winter (Eastwood died during that time). And so, we borrowed a buck from our neighbor Chris, a Spanish billy (see him at the top of this blog post); and lo and behold, new kids!

Please meet Desi and Lucy (we named them that because Desi Arnaz was kind of Spanish-ish 🙂 ):

Here they are just shortly after birth:

And here they are today, three weeks later:

We are grateful to the Lord for the increase of the herd.

— David

Goat Shed Redesign

August 3, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 5 Comments

In my initial design for our goat sheds, I wanted to be able to enclose the goats in the shed if necessary for protection, especially for when a doe might have new kids; but I wanted to be able to have the door completely out of the way during the hot months to allow as much breeze in while offering shade. And so, I made the front door completely removable. Well, that became somewhat difficult in having to pick up the door and maneuver it into place. Also, strong winds would blow the sheds over backwards, so we strapped them to a ground hook. Over time though, I thought of a different way to accomplish the same thing while keeping the current general design of the sheds but making it easier to manipulate the doors.

So the idea would be to have the entire door on a hinge while having another smaller door cut out of the big door, allowing the main door to be closed while a portion of it remained open to allow for the goats to move in and out. This would allow for the shed to be more enclosed when it is cold, or completely when necessary, and would also allow the entire door to be completely open during the hotter days, as before.

Here are the shed and door originally designed:

I cut off a part of the big door:

Added the missing piece of the frame onto the smaller door:

And attached the hinges, joining it back to the main door:

I attached 8″ hinges to the shed, using 1 5/8″ deck screws through #8 washers, the hinges, the siding, and into 2×4 blocks behind the siding. I then did similarly to the door, making sure it was raised up 1/4″ so the door frame doesn’t sit completely on the shed frame, making it difficult to close:

Here are the 2×4 blocks:

I then installed a 2×4 the width of the shed just above the door frame on top, to keep the top of the door from pushing in:

And then I installed two bolt latches, top and bottom, to the door frame. The bottom one uses the latch receptacle provided with the hardware; the top latch latches straight into the 2×4 above it:

Finally, I added a small hook and eye latch to the little door to be able to keep it held open; and installed a larger one to the side of the shed to keep the larger door latched. I drilled appropriately sized pilot holes for each before attaching the latches; and also, for the main door, I had to put a 2×4 block behind the hook latch that was attached to the siding:

Here the shed is completely closed:

Here it is with the small door open only:

And here it is completely open:

This redesign has made things much easier to handle when dealing with the sheds in various types of weather. We’re thankful to the Lord for granting us the land, goats, sheds, and ideas to be able to husband animals, we pray, for His glory.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Nohemi”

July 28, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 3 Comments

Our last cattle update mentioned our new heifer calf Celestina. Well, we recently saw all of the herd together, except for her; and we’ve come to realize that she is probably gone. We don’t know what happened to her, but the Lord in His wisdom and of course since they’re His anyway (Ps 50:10) determined He would have this one removed. But we praise the Lord for His infinite goodness!

And He continues to be gracious and merciful, and has granted us another calf, a heifer to our cow Catalina. We don’t have a story for the name on this one — we just liked the name itself: we decided to call her Nohemi, which in Spanish means “my pleasantness, my delight.”

Here are a couple of pictures:

And here’s her moving picture:

Here is a little something we thought you might like on what is apparently herd culture:

We thank the Lord again for His perfect wisdom in all things, and for granting the provisions of this new heifer calf.

— David

Community Singing – July 2010

July 21, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 9 Comments

In a past blog post about fellowship activities around here, I mentioned the singing we do together on the Lord’s Day. We had recently gone through our “hymnal” (which is just a collections of hymns we had put together) and removed probably 2/3 of the hymns as they were either doctrinally incorrect or just fluff pieces with no real spiritual meat; and now, it seems over time we’re leaning more toward the singing of the Psalms from our psalter as our preferred song choices, given that they are based on God’s Word, where we believe God has dictated how He should be worshiped (see the regulative principle of worship).

In our singing of the Psalms, we’re also trying to learn them by heart so that when the Psalter is not around, either at times during the day now, or perhaps if we’re ever prohibited from having it, we will be able to continue to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.

We’ve recorded our Psalm singing a couple of times now (which we hope to continue to do), and since some of you might be learning from the same Psalter we are, or even if you’re not, I wanted to share them with you. I look forward to listening to them myself as hearing songs repeatedly helps me memorize them:

Psalms 1A-12B (minus 4B)

Psalms 4B & 13-18L

(This is not the performance-oriented “worship” that occurs in most “churches” today; it is just simple a capella Psalm singing.)

It is our prayer that God glorifies Himself through us, at times of singing His praises, and throughout our lives in any way He might.

— David

William of Orange

July 12, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 3 Comments

Recently, the our neighbors captured a garbage bandit in a live trap they had set. The culprit was an orange tabby cat, a male. He ended up being quite friendly, and some of their children wanted to keep him, but the decision was made against that, and he was offered to us actually.

Sue had been wanting a cat for some time, but we really need things to have utility value around here. We have had some mice problems in our barn; and so, I decided that he could be beneficial to have for our barn; and I could do a little something for Sue as well, especially given how friendly he seemed.

So, we decided to take him; and here is how we decided on a name:

On March 17 of each year, we have a tradition around here of having an orange party, with orange being the somewhat official color of Protestants, in protest of the Roman Catholic St. Patrick’s Day and their green color. Some time ago, Protestants in Northern Ireland and Scotland took the color orange in honor of William the III, also known as William of Orange, and for his stands against the Roman Catholics, especially on this day, July 12, where he defeated the antichrist Roman Catholic forces at the Battle of the Boyne (see the “Antichrist” section on our “Soul Info” page regarding our belief that the Pope and Roman Catholic Church are the Antichrist and religious system of Antichrist).

And so, since orange, being the color of Protestants, was derived from William of Orange; and since our cat is also “of orange” — of orange color, that is — we decided to call him William.

Here are some pictures:

Cats apparently like to lay around a lot it seems, especially during the day — at least, this one does:

Also, I must say that he is the friendliest animal I think I’ve ever been around. We keep him inside with us during the day, unless he wants to cruise around outside; and he really likes to just hang around people:

But, here he is earning his keep:

William’s fun to have around; and he seems to be doing his job, at least to some degree; and he doesn’t cost too much to maintain.

We’re thankful to the Lord for granting us this living mouse catcher, and we pray God grant that William fulfill his duties. We’re thankful for this friendly gift of creation, but we pray the Lord grant us a continued proper perspective on animals without sinning by having inordinate affections. Also, we stand with our Protestant brethren throughout time who have been faithful to Christ against Antichrist, even to death: see Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

— David

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Piglets

July 8, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 6 Comments

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve had some piglets born; but the Lord has graciously granted a litter to our gilt Missy. She was one of two that survived her litter, and was the smaller of the two, but was a fighter. She had a fairly large gash on her leg when she was young, but God granted her healing. Also, she got caught in a hail storm some time ago, which we believe was the cause of her ears swelling up like pillows. In researching the condition, there was basically one remedy suggested: lancing the ears.

That was fun. I took a folding disinfected razor blade knife out there with some hydrogen peroxide; and being this was the first time I had ever done something like that, I basically just poked it in. It burst, shooting out blood and fluid, which surprised me probably more than her. Sadly, that didn’t do the trick; so over time I had to go at it again a couple of times; but I modified my technique by poking it in and slicing down. That sure got it bleeding all right. Also, each time, I chased her around until I could pour that hydrogen peroxide on her ear. In the end, that worked much better; and her ears haven’t been swollen since; but they are somewhat deformed now.

Missy also took a long time to get pregnant. I believe we had her with two different boars, and several months with this last one; but after many estrus cycles, which we were able to track, they finally stopped.

Here is Missy (left) with the second boar Wilbur (right), borrowed from the Bunkers:

And here they are again, opposite sides:

And sure enough, almost to the day (which is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days for gestation), 11 piglets were born, all alive. This is the largest litter we’ve had; and at this point, only two have died:

Here is their introduction video, taken around the time they were born:

And here they are two and a half weeks later:

We thank God again for His gracious granting of these piglets, a healthy delivery for their mother, and for granting her a good motherly instinct.

— David

Providence’s Perennial Provisions: Agarita Berries

June 29, 2010 / David & Susan Sifford / 8 Comments

In trying to live off of the land, we have learned to consider ways that God via the land already provides. There are quite a few native edibles out here, one being Agarita berries. They are small, red berries that ripen around this time, and can be fairly sweet if gathered at the right time. Even a bit tart, they’re not too bad.

And so, we decided this year to pick a few, to take advantage of the gift off of the land the Lord has granted.

This is a picture of a some Agarita berry plants with fairly ripe berries:

And here is Sue gathering the berries. The Agarita plant leaves have very sharp points, and will stick you and stick in you; and so, she is wearing gloves:

When we picked the berries, we tried different methods, including using a fork to pluck them off, but decided to try to just grab as many berries as we could, which seemed to be the quickest way. However, when it came time to clean them, Sue had to go through the lot of them pulling out those prickly leaves; and in the end, it might have taken just as long to pick and clean them as it would have to just pluck them cleanly in the first place. Thanks to Sue for her patience in somewhat painfully going through all of those. Gary marveled at her patience too 🙂 :

And here are the results!

Since it’s only Sue and I here on our homestead, we have to make a lot of priority decisions as to what we spend our time doing. Because of how long it takes to collect them, we didn’t spend much more time doing that, although I went out one other time to try the fork-plucking method. And, to save time in the processing, and to continue to practice not relying on the world’s fuels, we put them in our solar food dehydrator to dry them:

If you’re interested, here is a link to some details about the Agarita berry plant (it may take a moment to open as it is the archive page). And here is the Wikipedia entry for Agarita berries.

We are grateful to God for His provisioning of these perennial berries here growing natively off of the land.

— David

The Sifford Sojournal

Page 75 of 93

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Kids “Desi” and “Lucy”

Goat Shed Redesign

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Calf “Nohemi”

Community Singing – July 2010

William of Orange

Providence’s Perpetuation Provisions: New Piglets

Providence’s Perennial Provisions: Agarita Berries

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