Sunday Celebration

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. And this is the condemnation, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light...

But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God." John 3.

The words of Jesus as recorded by his disciple John. John loved to refer to himself as the disciple that Jesus loved.

It is so good to know,
that you know, without doubt;
that you know, signed sealed and delivered,
that Jesus loves you and you Him.

God has so many mysteries and for the heart that loves and accepts, they just go from
deep unto deep.
How great is the mystery that God would so love mankind.

We Went Adventuring!

Yesterday we took a ride out to the country, just 30 minutes from where we live. We made new friends, 4 legged ones and two legged ones. The ladies who manage this goat farm are lovely women a mother and daughter team. The daughter is a spirited woman who wrestles with an awful disease of degeneration; but she has spirit and uses her energy to create goat soaps and work her farm. Joy in adversity, what a testimony of the power of God's grace.

These little ladies are so tame. They are just precious, they know their names and love to be petted. We met them to purchase their milk. We brought gifts of bread, hoping that in the future we might trade baked goods for milk. We will have more time now and plenty of wheat.

Hello ladies. Their milk is very good. I never drank raw goat milk before and it's delicious. Kayla loved it. Our next adventure will be learning how to make goat cheese and also some yogurt. For now we are just drinking it up. I would love to have a barn of my own with some of these lovelies in it. If we ever do I know where I am going to buy my goats. These girls barn had a nice nutty earthy smell that I have always liked. We talked together for several hours the women are so knowledgeable. They let us taste the cheese they make and gave us a sample of their soap. It was a lovely outing.

We took the back roads home and stopped at this veggie market. It's one of my favorite places in Mississippi. They have great produce, local honey, homemade jams, molasses, sorghum syrup, and fresh boiled peanuts every day. This is a place we can't just drive by, must stop. Car turns by itself and knows the way.

See what I mean? This is just the parking lot. I am after some of those peaches from South Georgia. They are scrumptious. Kayla eagle eyes some swan necked gourds. She got one and she'll cut it to get the seeds for next year. I have been cleaning up our garden, a little at a time, and what a mess it is. Nope no pictures of that, it's embarrassing.


Yum, a little green but they will ripen up. My last basket was perfect.

Somebody is getting cute with the camera. We are going to drive across the reservoir to go home and it's going to be great. I love to look out there and pretend it's the Monterrey Bay. Yep, I know it's a stretch but I did say PRETEND.

A boater having fun and my passenger is a pretty good shot with my little camera. It's really pretty don't you think? One of Mississippi's best features is the reservoir it's huge.

Kayla was having fun snapping different shots for you.

There is some pricey property over there. That was our afternoon. We came home put up our produce and cold milk and had some supper with Pa. After all that fresh air and sun I was ready to relax so I turned in early and continued reading "My Antonia," by Willa Cather. She is an excellent writer. I picked up this pretty red leather copy for $1 at the thrift store. I'm combing my book shelves for unread collections and am hitting the jackpot.

What have you been up to with this fine fall weather?

What a Great Weekend!

If I was a good photographer like Sadie, who just disappeared from blog land without even a good bye, Sadie I miss you. It's sad when folks just delete their blogs and leave. I am digressing right off the bat!

IF I was a good photographer then I could capture this beautiful sky at twilight, the hour of magical beauty.
You would be able to see the real colors that I didn't capture of gourds gone a muck. We have a wonderful neighbor he loves all of our rowdy plants growing over into his yard. He has 7 large gourds hanging on his side, and he won't mind when Kayla comes to harvest.
These beauties are on our side, in the main garden bed which is now overgrown in gourds.

She is going to have plenty of them in all different sizes IF we dry them correctly and they don't suffer any mishaps.

The garden has petered out. It is in the "clean me up," mode. It is technically fall but it is still hot. 90 degrees is too hot for me to go out there and pull up plants. We had a lot of thunder and clouds this weekend but no rain. We call those dry storms. A good rain would soften everything up to pull it out and then I would brave the heat. I am a wimp, if it's hot, and I need to step on a shovel I find something else to do. A pioneer woman I am not.

Isn't this beautiful? I braved heat and mosquitoes because It was so worth it just to be outside and soak this up. I love this magical light.

We had company too. There is nothing cuter in this world than little nekkid buns. We let him play with the garden hose and he had a great time. You know kids still enjoy cheap entertainment. Mud pies, garden hoses, pots and pans, I have all kinds of great stuff for kids here!

Welcome to lunch. Danish smorgasbord style. I had some home made soup for the first course, and then all these very nourishing good things to eat. It was so satisfying.


Cheeses, meats, pumpernickel and home made sour dough rye, with home made pickles and beets. Nobody left the table hungry. If they did, it wasn't for a lack of bounty. We had fresh warm apple pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert with coffee of course.

The twilight deepened. the magical hour only lasts for a little while, but it gets prettier as it leaves. There is nothing quite so lovely to encourage good conversation as perfect evening weather and a spectacular sunset.

The sunset continued and we sat out and savored the night for a long time. There is still so much to see as the evening becomes dark, and so much to enjoy before it's time to go in and say good night.

It's A Mystery. Who Painted It?

This is an original oil painting by a California artist. All I know is that she signed her first name. Esther.



It's a huge painting. 51x63. I bought it when I had a vaulted ceiling and it was proportionate to the room. I have no place to hang it now. When it was in our home we liked to talk about what kind of house was in the garden. We used to argue about if the gate was on the inside of the garden or the outside of the garden. You know how husbands and wives are. I said it was from the inside. I had a cottage with a thatched roof from the old country, my husband had an English Tudor. We actually had fun talking about this painting. It went in the house where we lived very well.



I have been searching on the Internet this morning trying to find the artist. I wondered what price she would place on her work. I am going to put it on Craig's List. What do you think? If I can't find her what price should I put on it? The frame is white washed oak.

I'm going through the house with a sellers eye. I have a bunch of stuff I can turn loose of. TV cabinet, musical instruments nobody plays, chairs in the shed because there isn't any room since the girls moved in. I kept it because they would eventually move out, right? One did, and her room is now a utility room. I am not seeing any of the pieces in storage coming back inside. They are too good for garage sales, so maybe Craig's List. Are any of you a whiz at marketing your used items that are good?

What do you really think of the painting? Is it out of style or would it still be something someone might like?

Tell the truth.

Easy Peasy Bread Baking

Ew what's that? That is my bin of refrigerated dough from the "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day" cookbook. I loaned it to a friend and the author escapes my memory but it's in previous posts. I have been experimenting with this technique. My friend Kerry Swan has been telling me a few tips as well. I spilled a little flour in there while cloaking the other day.

Basically any dough you make with this technique is going to be 6 cups clean filtered water room temperature is fine. 3 TBS dry active yeast, 2 TBS Celtic gray sea salt, 12-14 cups of flour. How is that for bulk dough Becky? The flour is about a whole 5 lb bag if you don't have a mill. If you buy flour Hodgsons Mill is good or King Arthur Flours, please use a whole grain. Even unbleached white is still white. Basically you mix the water, salt and yeast into the storage bin and add the flour, it's easier if you don't dump it all at once, but add larger quantities than a cup, how about a 4 c measure? Use your big wooden spoon and stir. Do this until the dough is thoroughly moistened, it will look like a muffin dough, stiffer than cake batter. That is it! Let it sit out for 12 to 24 hours to sponge. After that put it in the refrigerator. I have not tried baking it at that point I let it age a few days.

See, we didn't even mess the kitchen up. If I can do this in my little kitchen you can do it too. Now here comes the fun part. We have been experimenting with the baking process. To achieve an artisan style loaf you need to let the dough warm up about 40 mins out of the fridge. A handful about the size of a grapefruit is pulled off and cloaked with flour. It is STICKY! Your oven is set on 425-450 and you have a broiler pan in it ready to receive some water for steam. They recommend a baking stone. I have found that to be a hassle because I don't have any thing to slide the dough off on to the stone with. So I pulled out my thin dark pizza pans. Wallah! Success. I can use those pans sprinkled with either flour or cornmeal or for an even browner crust, greased! I let my bread rise on the pizza pan and stick it into the preheated oven and add the cup of water for steam. It has turned out just as pretty and actually my crust is a bit nicer on the bottom. Don't forget the slits on top.

And we have more! I have a young friend who really wants to bake bread and doesn't have a mixer or a mill and she has 3 very little children, who take up a lot of her time; this required me to think even harder. I have been shaking out the cobwebs lately. I encouraged her to try making muffins with the bread dough. Her kids didn't like the chewy crust. If the crust is created by the baking techniques lets bake it at 350 in muffin tins and see what happens. It worked! She had soft muffins and her little children ate them and enjoyed them. Spray your muffins tins with a good spray or grease them with coconut oil. Spoon the dough in and bake them. You do always need to let the dough warm up. You can take an approximate amount out of the tub or just let the whole tub warm up. I don't think it hurts it. One tub can last for 2 weeks. It gets a more sour taste as days go by. If you don't wash it then the next batch will have a bit of "starter" in it already. I actually use 2 c of rye starter in my dough. The dough she used was all whole wheat. We did not add honey or oil to the dough and she found it to be quite tasty. We are going to try the recipe that calls for honey, oil and milk as well. I'll let you know how it works.

There's more! If you want a regular loaf of bread you can grease a bread pan and scoop out some of the dough and bake it at 350 for an hour and you should have a regular loaf of bread. It will be denser. If you try this let me know about your results.

A little up date on the purged pantry. My virgin coconut oil is in the kitchen. Coconut oil is one of the most superior oils you can use. You can cook with it, eat it, put it in your bath water, rub a little into damp hair for a beautiful shine, and rub it into your skin. As we age we get oil dryness and our hair gets frizzy and fly away. If you add a small amount to your hair after you have washed it while it is still wet, you will be amazed at how soft and nice it will feel. If your hair is really dry it will suck it up.

No more Ritz crackers, yes there are still some canned things but you know with the economy like this it doesn't hurt to have a few rations on hand. Don't you say anything about my Smuckers strawberry jam. If my hunny is going to live with me I have to take it easy on him. All these changes to a family are best accepted if they aren't too drastic.

Here is the tub in the refrigerator. Since I don't have a bunch of junk food in her it fits OK. I store my flours in here to keep them from getting rancid. I keep a small amount of wheat on hand and the rye I have to buy. When I bake bread I grind that fresh.

The proof is in the pudding. This is a loaf of the artisan bread half rye and half wheat, baked in a 400 degree oven for one hour because the cornbread was cooking too. It will bake at 350 also, take your pick. The loaf in the back is Kerry's breakfast bread made in the Bosch Universal Mixer, which is still in my opinion the best kitchen appliance you can own. So are you ready? It's fall and pretty soon the soups, stews, and breads will all be gobbled up as fast as you can produce them with your talented hands and loving hearts!

PS go over to "paint splashes" off of my blog roll and check out her fermenting veggies post!!! She is the one who really got this started and she is a very knowledgeable woman! Go look.

What Do We Eat?

I hope that I don't sound as bad as a person who quits smoking. I know there are a million plus folks out there who study diets and the relationship between food and disease. I am not sure how I missed the work by Weston A Price. I have certainly heard of a plethora of diets. There are all kinds of ideas out there. We have the grapefruit diet, the watermelon diet, the low fat high carb, diet, the Atkins diet, the Weight Watchers diet, the liquid diets, the vegan diets add on infinitude.
So what sets this work apart from the rest of the pack?

Do you know what the people who are trained in recognizing counterfeit money study? They study real money. They study the real thing until they can spot a fake a mile away. There is something to that, a premise on how to recognize the real deal. In 1930 Weston A. Price DDS. began to hunt for people groups who exhibited good health and were free of dental carries and degenerative disease. He studied for over 10 years and paid for all of research with his won money. No vested interest groups. He studied healthy people, and he took lots of pictures of them.
In his life time there were still small pockets of native "stock" as he referred to them who had not yet incorporated any civilized foods. He studied 14 people groups from the Swiss mountains to the equator. There were a few things these groups had in common. None of them practiced food combining, none of them were vegetarians, all of them ate some type of raw animal products, milk, cultured milk, cheeses or fish and meat. The other things these people had in common were wide full faces with plenty of room for all their teeth, including the wisdom teeth. Teeth that were amazingly straight, white, and free of disease, even without brushing! These people groups also shared robust strength, some men could easily carry 100lbs in each hand. They had strong physiques and energy, keen eyesight and he found very little if any degenerative diseases.

As he studied he noticed a relationship between dental carries and the increase of tuberculosis infection. He took multiple photographs of each group. He followed up with the groups and studied them when they adopted "civilized" foods into their diets and quit eating their traditional foods. Within one generation mass amounts of dental decay were noted, also changes in the entire structure of their faces. Narrow faces with pinched nares and crowded mouths with high misshapen dental arches were noted. People were committing suicide because of abscessed teeth and they could not stand the pain. Another change occurred in energy and motivation. These same people who were still located next to the rivers they once fished from would not fish. It was difficult to get people to work or get up and do anything productive. There diets were now white bread, sugar, syrups, and canned vegetables. They had adopted the SAD diet, standard American diet.

I am not going to get into the "goodness or badness" of these events. I don't think there was an evil plot to wreck health. During the industrial revolution we as a society exchanged our home fronts for the modern age, and we still do. I don't know anyone who has a Jersey cow that eats bright green fresh grass and is hand milked each day. Yet that very thing could change American health. Raising animals the way God intended them to live makes sense. Locking them up into cramped unhealthy conditions feeding them what they were never intended to eat, and treating them with huge amounts of drugs to keep them alive long enough to kill is poor stewardship. It might be profitable but it is a sin. Man was given dominion over the Earth to CARE for it, not exploit it. The law of sowing and reaping is a law. It is as much a law as the law of gravity. We have sown in a spirit of greed for wealth, and we are reaping disease. We are going broke as a nation with disease. We are addicted to the very foods that are killing us because they have addictive chemicals in them, over 2200 in fact. Chemicals that have an additive effect in our systems. The latest I have read is that almost 80% of our children have to take some kind of class 2 regulated medication in order to participate in school. Why?

What do we eat? Why do we eat it? How many women still know how to cook, other than cookies and a slather of canned frosting on a cake mix cake? How many families even cook? Here where I live the houses have the most incredible kitchens you have ever seen. All Viking appliances, spikets at the stove to fill pasta pots, restaurant quality stoves and huge stainless refrigerators and freezers; with all of this wealth the average family in the South anyway, eats out or buys take out, almost every night of the week. If you cook what do you put into your food? Do you use hydrolyzed animal and vegetable proteins? They are full of MSG. MSG is a potent neurotransmitter and it will MESS UP YOUR HEAD! Let's not even start on the glucose, fructose, corn syrup, pesticides, formaldehyde's, additives, preservatives, refined toxic salts, etc. etc. etc.....

Are you depressed yet?

What can we eat? Can I ever again put anything good into my mouth? The answer is yes. The answer is that you can learn to cook wholesome foods, that take some planning and preparation but are satisfying to the body and the palate. It can be done. Simple changes one at a time. The first one is label reading, oh gah, no, if you read the labels on the things in your pantry you may freak out. When you get to the words that you can't pronounce and you don't know what they are, well that's because those are the chemicals you really would'nt want to eat if you saw them on a counter top some where.

Margarine is the grossest "food" ever devised, throw it out. Don't even feed it to a pig it is garbage. Eat real organic butter raw if you can get it. Breakfast cereal? How about the word "slurry" doesn't that sound good? Let's make a highly processed liquid out of these flours mostly white, "wheat" just means it once was, at the beginning, lets add some chemicals to make the slurry taste good, bake it in sheets and then bust it up to call it flakes. Now that is nutrition! It would be better to have a slice of chocolate cake, like Bill Cosby said when he gave it to his kids for breakfast, there is eggs and milk in the cake.

I have discovered something else. I have yet another new book. This one is titled"The Fourfold Path to Healing," by Thomas S. Cowan MD. He has some far out ideas in here, in terms of his sources but I am still willing to listen. God rains on the just and the unjust, His blessings fall on all people even those who reject him, because He is love. I can read these ideas that don't come from my theology and make an application to it. When he talks about life energies I know where it comes from and who it is. What has interested me is that the very foods that I need according to this doctor are the foods I crave. I have always loved beets, meat, cheese, milk, eggs, creamy sauces, creamy salad dressings, liver pate, salt, butter, and yogurt. A person with adrenal gland exhaustion needs these foods. Wowzers, my body is asking for the food that will heal it. Personally I think that is a big deal. What is your body asking for? Can't hear anything? Get off of sugar and soda and see what it tells you. The good news is that when you get rid of the toxic stuff what is left is really great, really delicious decadently rich food! Cream, butter, cheese, meat milk, fish, vegetables, fermented veggies like saurkraut, whole rich grain sour dough breads, oh and that's just the start!

Are you still there? This has become quite long. Tomorrow I'm going to tell you a super easy way to make bread, you won't believe how easy. We can talk about substituting out healthier ingredients in your favorite recipes. Don't give up on me Cathy! I have now been completely off of sugar for several weeks and some good things are happening. I can taste food better. I am calmer and more relaxed. I can have Celtic sea salt and all that I want too, last night I even chewed up a chunk to see what it tasted like, it's good. I am on a quest for bones but that is another topic and I'll save that one for later. Ya'll have a healthy day!

Busy on the Homefront.

It's a whole new world, this adventure we call life is happening at such a pace I can barely keep up. I have plans to revamp my blog. It's going to take some work since I'm not going to hire it done. I need to set up categories for easier browsing. Gardening, baking, health and wholeness, holistic remedies, pets, projects, and just fun stuff. At home we are making big decisions. I am going in to resign today. I have been searching the Internet and I can become a certified holistic practitioner. There are tons of courses to do from home. I am feeling excited and at the same time still sick. I am beginning to think that this "virus" was the swine flu, with it's lingering respiratory problems. A month is a long time to be sick. I am improving, but it's one day better and then relapse, so it' still a struggle.

Now I'm learning about essential oils and aromatherapy. Concerning nutrition, I have plans to write about butter versus margarine and several other topics, but these are more like papers that require work and research, not just my usual chatty style. I need some time to get it done. I am so eager to share what I am learning with you. You see I have a talent for taking complex information and translating it into easy to understand information. I have been doing it for years. We all have something we do well and mine is making things simple. There are others out there that will get the prize for their brilliant expose, not me. I want the cookies on the bottom shelf where every body can reach them. So forgive me for being brief, there is a lot on my list today to accomplish. I had a regular plethora of daily activities yesterday which would have made wonderful blog posts but the time was just not there. Soon there will be a whole new depth to Fresh Fixins; for now just a brief hello, and I have big plans just you wait.