With fewer people feeling well, we’ve been getting less done. We’ve been keeping our garden alive, but it is a weedy mess and definitely needs some fertilizing. Still, we were thankful to start harvesting squash, cucumbers, and plenty of peppers this week.

Earlier this week, we found out that our Uncle Tommy passed away. Our maternal great-uncle Thomas Akins has been a follower of this blog since it’s beginning, often cheering us on over on Facebook. While we’ve never lived near enough to know Uncle Tommy very well in person, getting to build a relationship with him online has been one of social media’s blessings. He was our grandpa’s oldest brother, so he knew a ton of family history. My mom and I often peppered him with questions about our family tree and Ozark history. The Akins family settled less than 10 miles up the road from where we live back in 1857. Uncle Tommy grew up in the Springfield area, and he was always full of stories about what the Ozarks were like back then. Uncle Tommy was a devoted Christian. As a young man, he planned to go into the ministry before getting married and entering the business world instead. Still, he carried his love of God with him throughout his life. It overflowed into a kindness for others that could be felt across miles. We miss him already, and we are looking forward to seeing him again someday.

In the midst of everything, we replaced our Mary statue this week. We had ordered one a couple months ago, but the paint had bubbled in the rain and a crack had appeared on her arm. Thankfully, we were still able to return it. After that experience, we opted to purchase a replacement locally. We visited Sunshine Hill Gifts near Willard, and found exactly what we were looking for.

We had a couple feast days this week as well. Since we weren’t feeling great, we didn’t do anything too fancy. We ate a Mohawk corn soup and boiled cornbread — both Native American recipes in honor of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. On the feast of our Lady of Mount Carmel — who gave the brown scapular to the Carmelite St. Simon Stock — we made caramel brownie sundaes.

As we were dishing up the sundaes, Bonnie-Jean announced that Tilde was finally having her puppies. Around 9 pm, she delivered a pretty little dark sable pup. We were all excited. It got late, and I went to bed — but I told my sister to wake me in the night if she needed an extra pair of hands. She woke me around 1:45 am. Tilde still hadn’t had another puppy, and she was concerned. I sat with her and watched. She was hardly having contractions, which can happen — dogs can take “breaks”, though it was unusual after only one. She started having regular contractions around 2 am, but she didn’t appear to be making any progress. There were no signs of another puppy. The later it got, the more concerned Bonnie and I became. We prayed. We researched. And we prayed. Once it was light, Bonnie-Jean, Jeremiah, and our Dad piled Tilde and her pup into the car and headed to Springfield. We hoped to take her to Bradford Park Veterinary Hospital, but Jeremiah called ahead, and they said they didn’t take dogs in Tilde’s condition. He called several more places before the Strafford Veterinary Clinic said they would see her.

Once they arrived at the clinic, the staff whisked Tilde right back for an emergency C-section. They tried to put the little puppy in a warm box, but it fussed so much that Bonnie-Jean just held it. Tilde handled the surgery well, but the other puppy didn’t make it. Tilde apparently only had a litter of two — which is why the second puppy couldn’t be delivered properly. Dogs her sized are designed for larger litters, and when there aren’t enough puppies, it can make their contractions ineffective. They were home with Tilde by mid-morning. The experience was a bit traumatic, but we all learned a lot through the process. We are thankful Tilde and her little pup are doing well.

As the week ended, more family members were coming down with fevers, and once again we are tired. I battled a bad headache (hence the lateness of this post), and Grace’s fever had returned. I noticed in my five-year journal that we were sick this time last year, too. I suppose that’s just life sometimes. I’m praying we can all feel better before my dad’s procedure next week.

“The whole world is theology for us, because the heavens proclaim the glory of God.”

St. Albert the Great

We spent several mornings in our garden, getting the last of our seedlings planted. As I stated last week, our young cucurbits are struggling under the July sun. The delayed planting strategy was worth the try to reduce our squash bug population. Unfortunately, the squash bugs found us immediately. We’ve already been pulling bugs and removing eggs from the bottom of the leaves. Still, I’m thankful the plants are finally in and we can focus more on keeping the weeds under control. They very much need it.

Our brother Levi has been enjoying using the new mower we ordered last week. For the last few years, we’ve been keeping the grass at bay with an Ryobi electric weed trimmer. We had always planned to mainly use our brush hog, but we’ve struggled to keep the tractor running. Even though it’s finally working, we realize there are still areas we don’t want to take our tractor. We finally invested in a Ryobi electric mower. At first, we were skeptical, as the batteries didn’t last nearly as long as they were supposed to. After a chat with Ryobi, though, they sent us a couple additional batteries. Now, we are loving what our new tool can do.

Midweek, we got some unsettling news. Our dad discovered an unknown cardio health issue which will hopefully be resolved in the next couple weeks. We are trusting God, but it’s difficult not to worry.

To top things off, on Friday, I got sick. The whole family has been dealing with severe allergies, so I’m wondering if my “germ” is just a secondary issue. It’s not so bad, but it slowed me down just when I wanted to be doing more to make life less hectic around here.

I write this post fatigued and tired. I know many family members are feeling similarly, after a rough couple of months. Nothing in life is so terrible right now. There are worries of course, but we know God is good. I’m hoping a restful and restorative weekend will put our minds to rights.

“Each of us is called to cultivate an inner garden in which the Divine Word may grow and flourish.”

St. John of the Cross

Throughout the week, our biggest focus was our garden. Now that it is July, we can finally get all of our cucurbit seedlings in the ground. Grace and I spent every morning setting up trellises, shaping rows, leveling and filling squash boxes, and planting seedlings. Bonnie-Jean helped with plant care, spraying neem, applying coffee grounds, and repotting tiny plants that aren’t quite ready to go to the garden. Our new drip tape arrived in the mail, and we rolled some out to all our new growing areas. We put out the rest of our cucumbers this week, as well as our pumpkins and most of our melons. We direct seeded some rows of corn within our pumpkin patch in hopes the squash will discourage the raccoons this year.

As I’ve written before, we waited until July to put out most of our cucurbits in hopes we won’t be as overrun with squash bugs as we were last year. I’m interested to see if it was worth the wait. It was so dreadfully hot that I worry about the newly transplanted plants being stressed. It’s also significantly less pleasant doing major dirt work by hand in July than it is in May. Granted, we ought to have had the garden done by now, but all the rain this year made that difficult. Still, we have just three trays of plants left, which is exciting. We should be able to complete the task in the coming week.

When we weren’t working in the garden, we were prepping for the next round of homestead insanity. Bonnie-Jean’s dog Tilde is supposed to have puppies this month. We plan for the pups to spend most of their time in the kennel, but when they are first born, they will be too young to regulate their own body temperature. After some discussion, we decided to let Tilde whelp in the bunkhouse like she did last time. We talked about making space for her in the living room, but since mother dogs can get aggressive with other animals, we opted to isolate Tilde in the space we sisters usually share. As we considered how to rearrange the room so that we could make a place for a whelping box, we decided to do something incredibly crazy — convert two of our beds into a “sectional” in the living room.

It was a good opportunity to do some deep cleaning — and to realize how much more cleaning we need to do. We spent one afternoon rearranging all of our furniture. Then the next day, we put together a very simple “back” for the “sectional”. The end result is fun and surprisingly cute. In the few days since moving things, the whole family has been loving the comfortable seating in our living room. When we put things back to normal after the puppies, we are already talking about building a custom sized couch to fit our space.

In the middle of our heat wave, one of our air conditioning units decided to quit working. We tried several fixes, but after a couple days, it quit completely. We ordered a replacement we hope will work better, but in the mean time, it was difficult to keep the bunkhouse below 80 degrees during the day. Thank goodness for fans — we’ve had them going all over the place.

The week ended with the United States of America turning 250 years old. Fan fair flourished throughout the country, as we all celebrated in our own individual ways. I had wanted to go to our local celebration this year, as I always enjoy Dadeville’s parade and picnic. After spending so many days out working in the sun this week, though, I just didn’t feel like it. Instead, I opted for a quiet day celebrating at home. I hoped to just sip a cool drink, sit by a fan, and enjoy time with my family. As so often happens, however, reality turned out differently. Our new air conditioning unit showed up early, which was a huge blessing — but it required some assembly and installation. So, Grace and I grabbed a drill and went to work.

It turned out to be a rather anticlimactic holiday for us. And really, I didn’t feel ready for our America’s big 250th birthday anyway. I had wanted to take some time to reflect on our history as a country and research our ancestors that fought in the revolutionary war — including our supposed distant cousin, Gen. George Washington (Ancestry.com suggests the connection on both sides of the family, which is news to us). Instead, I’ve been busy living in the present. Part of me was a bit disappointed yesterday, but the other part of me felt like it was rather fitting. Our founding fathers were normal people. Many of them were farmers and homesteaders themselves. They didn’t set aside time to make history — they simply lived it in their daily choices. I may not have watched fireworks or attended a barbecue this year, but I was thankful for the freedom I had to just live the life I’ve chosen. And once we fired up the new air conditioning unit and the bunkhouse started cooling down, I felt quite celebratory.

That is, until our other main air conditioning unit started to smell like burning plastic. I have a feeling we’ll be in for another round of attempted repairs after Mass this afternoon. Such is our stressful, blessed, chaotic, beautiful life.

“Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love.”

Saint Therese of Lisieux

The loss of electricity was the latest effect of the barrage of yet more thunderstorms we had this week. They culminated on Thursday, dumping between 3-5 inches of rain in our area. Our dry creek rushed with water, but we didn’t have nearly the flooding of more low-lying places. As we read reports of water running over Highway 160 in multiple places, we wondered if our dad would make it home from work Thursday night. But by the time he drove home after 8 p.m., the water had receded enough for the roads to be passible.

In the days that followed, the wet weather creek kept running — and the spring was full. The dogs loved it.

Since our house is on an electric well, an unexpected power outage always gets almost immediately annoying, as we don’t have water. Thankfully, we had already planned for a low-productivity Friday. We had a crazy first part of the week, as we worked as hard as we could between rounds of rain to get more of the garden weeded and planted. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we planted more than 100 cucumber plants (both slicing and pickling varieties), along with about 20 melons. We have more melons along with summer and winter squash we will plant next week -- after the first of July. We had planned to wait to put out all of our cucurbits as a method of squash bug prevention, but our cucumbers just grew faster than we expected them to. Along with the cucumbers, we transplanted some tomato seedlings to replace the swath of ours that were eaten by rabbits earlier this year. We also transplanted some dill, parsley, and marjoram starts.

On Wednesday, after a particularly long day of planting, we celebrated the feast of St. John the Baptist with some low-carb grasshopper pie. The dessert may be a bit on the nose, but it sure tasted great on a hot summer day.

We are hopeful that the worst of the summer storms are behind us for awhile. This weekend, we picked up the first round of supplies for our porch cover — cardboard concrete tubes, rebar, and anchor bolts. We plan to get the concrete locally as needed, since we didn’t want to haul all 16 bags out here with the load of lumber. Jeremiah picked up some decking to fix our nieces’ and nephew’s tree house, as the floor needs replaced. We also got lumber to create a more sheltered area in our kennel for puppies this summer. Bonnie-Jean’s German Shepherd Tilde is due to have puppies next month. While we plan to keep the puppies indoors for the first few weeks, they will be spending the majority of their time in the kennel once they are bigger.

On our drive to and from Springfield, I got to soak in the emerald June landscape — more lush and green than we are used to this time of year. All the rain has made life more difficult, but it has also made it more beautiful. When the power was off, most of the family escaped the humid, sticky house, fleeing to the outdoors even though the ground was mushy and we knew it would rain soon. I took a slow walk to the spring, which was deeper than normal. A few of us sat by the Mary garden, which I’ve hardly stopped to enjoy since planting it. In all directions, wild blackberries, gooseberries, and mulberries are ripening. With all the cloudy days this month, I’ve been especially thankful for these sweet moments of silver linings.

“Creation is a bible whose letters and syllables are the particular aspects of all creatures and whose words are the more universal aspects of creation.”

St. Maximus the Confessor

On top of the weird weather, I’ve been dealing with unusually bad allergy symptoms — to the extent I wondered if I had caught a cold. After a couple days, I decided to slow down a bit lest the allergy fest turn into a sinus infection. I spent a couple afternoons fine-tuning our porch plans among other computer projects.

One of those days, my laptop finally came back from the repair shop. I was so thankful to have it back — until it started having the same issue I’d sent it in for. For whatever reason, it disconnects from Wi-Fi and won’t reconnect without a lot of finagling. I’m going to have to contact Allstate again (that’s who my protection plan is through) and find out what to do.

And along with these personal annoyances, my whole family has been dealing with life. I’ve written about it before, but it bears repeating. We are having this crazy homesteading adventure in the real world, with all the same ups and downs we have always experienced — family drama, job crises, relationship foibles, health issues, and so much more. There are weeks we feel victorious, and then there are weeks where we are just tired.

This week, I have felt unusually worn out. I’ve done my best to stay positive, but I went into Saturday feeling demotivated. I had planned to take it easy, but a look at all the upcoming rain made me want to spend some time in the garden while I had the chance. Grace and I spent a couple hours installing the last of our tomato cages. Our dad and brother Levi have been making the cages out of field fencing — a method we used years ago. They don’t have all the cages made yet, but we had enough to go ahead and support our largest tomato plants which were leaning. We had been waiting to install the cages until the drip system was in place — and we couldn’t put the drip system out until the pumpkin hills were shaped, and the rain made that difficult. Thankfully, Bonnie-Jean, Grace, and I accomplished all three tasks this week.

Our dad and brothers spent Saturday trying to get our old Ferguson TO-30 running, as we finally had a sunny day to install the axle our mechanic repaired. Unfortunately, the bolts had become bent while off of the tractor, and the guys spent hours trying to remove them so they could reinstall the axle — all to no avail.

Before I went inside for the day, I walked down to our apiary to look at something Grace had found. Each week, Grace takes walks around our property, looking for fodder for her Homestead Sissies Photo Friday series. Because of her slow, intentional observation, she has made so many fun discoveries — most recently, a white mulberry tree fruiting across from our apiary. You have to climb through a tangled mess to get there, and it’s wrapped around a dead tree, but it’s lovely. I walked down with my dad, who was discouraged after yet another day of trying to fix our tractor. We talked about how, had we had our brush hog working, we would have mowed down so many of Grace’s finds over the last couple years — from the wild phlox patch, to the wild plum field, to our favorite blackberry spots, to a thriving persimmon tree, to this mulberry tree — which we might have cut since it’s right in the area we planned to mow.

As we talked, my brother Jeremiah walked down to tell us he and Levi had gotten the bolts out and axle back in place. It was a small victory, but the moment was an encouraging reminder that no matter how many set-backs we seem to have, God is working out his plan for this homestead. As I walked back up to the house, I took in the shimmering leaves of the poplars and pecan trees. I thought about how much I’d always wanted a mulberry tree — how I’d read about them years ago and was fascinated. We’ve lived on this piece of land for three years now, but I still feel like it’s a gift I’m unwrapping. There is so much of it we have barely even explored. And just like that, the wonder and beauty of God’s earth lifted my spirits and reoriented my thoughts toward simple goodness.

Our human understanding, which shares in the light of the divine intellect, can understand what God tells us by means of his creation, though not without great effort and only in a spirit of humility and respect before the Creator and his work. Because creation comes forth from God’s goodness, it shares in that goodness - “and God saw that it was good. . . very good” for God willed creation as a gift addressed to man, an inheritance destined for and entrusted to him.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 299

Human sin has corrupted so much of the lives we live. Turning on the news or scrolling through social media fills our minds with so much to grieve over. It’s important to be informed; knowing what is going on in the world helps us know how to pray. And yet, the large and small burdens of living too often blind us from the living victory of creation itself. There is primal encouragement in it’s persistent beauty of wild flowers, in the insistent movement of the seasons. In my own life, it has become a recurring solace, an inheritance for which I am so very thankful.

“June is the pearl of summer, shining with warmth and joy.”

L.M. Montgomery

Thankfully, the softened earth made for easier than normal weed pulling. Tearing down the unwanted jungle became our morning routine all week. One person (mostly our brother Levi, but Grace helped as well) ran the weed trimmer. The rest worked in the garden -- spraying for pests or pulling weeds. It was monotonous but satisfying to get things looking better. What is more, the rain has caused our garden plants to grow visibly almost daily, so that has been exciting.

When it rained or got unbearably hot in the sun, we moved under canopies to work or came into the bunkhouse. Our brother Levi, his wife, and his daughter have been sanding floor boards for their suite of rooms. We sisters have been busy with too many small tasks to list — from taking care of our seedlings to dealing with tech issues (two laptops had to be sent in for repairs this week).

We transplanted our cucumber seedlings into pots this week, as they are growing much faster than I expected. We are hoping to delay putting them in the ground until the first of July, as we read that can help with squash bug prevention. I’m not sure these plants will wait, though. We finally seeded our pumpkins and winter squash this week. We are hoping for a September/October harvest rather than an August one this year. I also seeded summer squash -- again, as only two of our old seeds sprouted.

I finally serviced our KitchenAid mixer -- a project on my to-do list since April. It’s always been an overwhelming task, but after learning how to build a house, I’m more confident than I used to be about these sorts of things. I watched a YouTube video, ordered the appropriate grease (food grade designed for mixers), grabbed some tools, and went to work. The most difficult part was removing the snap ring. I had ordered a special tool, but I made the mistake of picking the cheapest option I could from Menards. It was clumsy, had obviously misshapen parts, and just wouldn’t work. After struggling for a good while, Grace and I improvised -- using wire and a pair of scissors. It didn’t work great, but it did work. Once the mixer was taken apart, cleaning the old grease was simple enough, as was reapplying the new. Certain areas had very little grease left, so I felt like my efforts were well placed. I hit another snag trying to reassemble the mixer, as the planetary shaft (the central piece things rotate around) had developed microscopic burs that had to be sanded off. Once the mixer was back together, I turned it on -- and I was so pleased about how much quieter it was.

On Friday, a new stray kitten showed up on our homestead. So far, it seems very wild — no one has been able to get very close to it (aside from when it cornered itself in our old cat house. We have been meaning to make a better cat habitat in our garden, in hopes of having a couple garden cats to reduce our rodent population. Grace fixed up our old pet house, using a section of my old doll house to make a smaller door (it had an open front for our dogs). We located it in the garden, but we have yet been able to entice the stray to visit it.

On Saturday, we were forecasted a day of storms. Midmorning, the weather dried up for awhile -- in time for us to check our package box and find our grapevines had arrived. We planted 10 seedless concord vines last year, but by this spring only a couple showed signs of life. Since Stark Bro’s guarantees their vines for a year, I contacted them a few weeks ago and let them know our vines didn’t make it. The replacements finally showed up today. The forecast was still calling for storms, but a whole bunch of us ran out to the garden to get the vines in the ground.

After planting our vines, I took advantage of the cooler weather to teach my niece how to make caramel corn. Oven caramel corn was a childhood favorite of mine — my mom often made it for camping trips and holidays. We have talked about making some for my brother’s kids for ages, but for some reason we just haven’t done it. With the oldest getting braces next week and having to give up popcorn for a couple years at least, I realized it was now or never. We used the recipe I grew up with — from the old Betty Crocker cookbook my mom always used (it’s the second one we’ve had). We laid our popcorn out on cookie sheets and mixed up our caramel in saucepans. After it was coated, we baked it for an hour to crisp. It was as delicious as I remembered it, and the kids were instant fans.

With so much catching up, the week felt kind of chaotic. Thankfully, we are going into the next week feeling like we have a much better handle on our yardwork. We are hopeful that we can finally get back to working on our kitchen shelving, which we have completely put aside over the last several weeks. Since next Saturday has decent weather, we would love to take advantage of our brothers both being off work to get the tractor repaired and hopefully running again. The cucurbit sections of the garden still need prepped, and I need to get the rest of the drip system installed. That’s all next week, though. Today is Sunday — time for worship and rest. I’m looking forward to meeting Jesus at Mass, then spending the afternoon eating cold sandwiches, drinking home brew, and recreating.

“How the waiting countryside thrills with joy when Bluebird brings us the first word of returning spring. Reflecting heaven from his back and the ground from his breast, he floats between sky and earth like the winged voice of hope.”

William Leon Dawson

"Now my dears, you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor."

Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Peter Rabbit

I thought of Mr. McGregor this week as I stood surveying what was our pepper plants. What were once neat columns of serranoes and jalapenos were now two rows of mostly stems. The bell peppers and tomatoes had also both been pilfered. I pride myself on being a woman that “has it together” emotionally. I’m not one to give into tears unless they are truly warranted. As I stood there, though, looking over the absolute carnage, tears pricked. I’m used to the ups and downs of homesteading, but sometimes — things just hit harder than normal.

Now that summer is here, I’ve been starting most of my days in the garden. Usually, it’s one of the best parts of my day. This year, it’s been — difficult. It started with all of our plants simply refusing to grow. I don’t know if it was the potting soil (which sprouted mushrooms immediately) or the heirloom seeds, but our plants are small compared to last year. Then, we made the mistake of planning to pick up our cucurbit seeds at Walmart when we were ready for them — only to discover Walmart had already literally thrown them away for the year. We ordered some, but we are starting weeks behind. Next, all the rain we’ve had has set us back on soil prepping while causing the weeds to grow at what seems an almost unnatural pace. Pests seem worse than normal. We lost all of our okra awhile back, which I’ve since reseeded. Cutworms got to a bunch of our peppers earlier this week, inspiring me to use diatomaceous earth for the first time. Something has been eating our green beans, and I finally figured out its rabbits. And then came Thursday with the great pepper apocalypse.

As I stood, looking around me — at the weeds, the broken trellises and squash boxes needing repair, and the rows of stems — I had a moment of wanting to throw up my hands and give up. There is so much needing done on the bunkhouse still, and the garden has been taking up so much time. I wanted to scream at the thick grass and brush just outside the fence, “Fine. Take it. You win.” I wanted to sit on the ground, put my head in my knees, and surrender. Instead, I took a deep breath, pulled out my phone, and started looking for solutions to the rabbit problem.

Last year, we had zero issues with rabbits eating our plants. Now I realize why our old cats, Gandalf and Arwen, used to spend so much time in the garden. Gandalf started spending most of his time away last fall, and we rehomed Arwen, as we didn’t want her wintering alone without a heated home (we used to have a little cat house on our covered tent porch near our wood stove). Since then, we have suddenly run into issues with mice getting into — everything. And now, rabbits are terrorizing our garden.

I did a little research, and I decided the quickest deterrent would be to add a 2—foot layer of chicken wire along the bottom of our garden fence. The rest of the family jumped in to help. My dad called around, then decided to run to Menards in Springfield. The kids started pulling the rock border away from the bottom of our existing fence. Bonnie-Jean and our brother Levi quickly got to work digging a 2-inch trench beneath the fence we have, so that the chicken wire could be slightly buried. Grace attacked the giant wild rose bush that took up a good 10-foot section of the fence. I worked inside the garden, moving squash boxes and piles of detritus that could be harboring rodents. The weather was calling for afternoon storms, so we worked quickly hoping to finish before the rain.

The weather was supposed to hold off until later in the afternoon, but since we live in Missouri, it started thundering a couple hours earlier than we initially expected — just as our dad pulled in with the fencing. We considered putting the project off another day, but we didn’t want to lose the rest of our plants. So, with one eye on the ominous black clouds drifting in from the south, I grabbed our pneumatic stapler. Levi grabbed the fencing, and we got to work. Bonnie-Jean and Grace worked behind us, burying the wire and adding a rock border to discourage animals from digging. Our sister-in-law Erin came and helped them as well, along with one of our nieces.

We got two 80-foot sides of the fence done when the rain started to fall. It wasn’t too heavy, so we grabbed an old trash can to put over the air compressor and kept working. While the rain fell steadily, thank God, we didn’t have a true downpour. I’ve never seen a fence go up so fast. We finished attaching the wire just as the rain started to worsen. We ran around getting all our tools put under cover, laughing with exhilaration that we had finished something that felt impossible.

Thankfully, our fix worked. The rabbits haven’t been back to wreak any additional havoc. More importantly though, the experience of all jumping in and pushing ourselves to our limits as a group was rewarding. Life is busy and often we are all going in different directions. It was a gift to come together and show ourselves how much we can accomplish when we act like a team.

The garden was our biggest focus this week, but we did spend some time creating two flower beds for all the zinnias and cosmos we planted this spring. Grace, Bonnie-Jean, and I constructed two simple wooden frames. We used scrap wood left over from our interior siding, and we coated everything with Eco Wood Treatment. Bonnie-Jean dug 13 wheelbarrow-loads of dirt in the woods to fill the beds with. She and one of our nieces planted the flowers Friday evening before the rain hit on Saturday.

That night after dusk, our brother Jeremiah and I suited up to do some beekeeping. We’d seen we had a new swarm in our trap a couple weeks ago, but we’d been too busy to move them. Our niece Chloe came along to hold a red flashlight so we could see what we were doing. When we opened the trap, we were impressed by the six large Layen’s frames already full of comb with visible brood, bread, and honey. It was the most advanced looking swarm we’ve ever caught — probably because the trap had been stocked with comb from previous hives.

After a crazy week working outside in the heat, we all enjoyed our rainy Saturday. It’s our week to provide treats after Mass today, so after a morning spent deep cleaning, we baked more than 100 muffins. We did four batches of the recipe our mom developed for the coffee shop our folks owned when we were kids — blackberry crumble, cappuccino, cranberry orange, and banana nut coconut. It was a nice moment to slow down, connect, and prepare ourselves for church.

Thursday night, after our long day throwing up our rabbit fence, I stepped out after dark to look for possible Northern Lights in the post-storm cloudless skies. While the Aurora Borealis didn’t make an appearance, the fireflies were so spectacular, they left nothing wanting. I stood on our deck looking out at a sparkling world — from the stars twinkling across the sky to the lightning bugs twinkling from the treetops to the earth. It was nature’s fireworks at their best, and I stood soaking in the beauty.

The next day, when I visited the garden, I noticed tiny new leave on many of the chomped pepper plants. And just like that, hope unfurled — tiny and stalwart.

“I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear:
This year the summer will come true. This year. This year.

Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees
This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas.

This year time’s nature will no more defeat you,
Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.”

C.S Lewis

Even though the rain has been incessant, we made the most of the good weather when we had it. On Wednesday, Grace, our brother Levi, and I spent almost the entire day in the garden along with Levi’s kids. We loosened soil, formed 14 18-foot rows, and planted nearly 200 seedlings (peppers, tomatoes, basil, and cilantro).

Later in the week, we started more seeds indoors — cucumbers, three types of summer squash, six varieties of melons, and some more herbs. We plan to wait a week or so to start the winter squash, as we prefer our pumpkins to ripen closer to fall.

We still have a bunch of flower plants waiting to go in the ground. Now that our vegetable starts are planted, we can work on the lower priority flower bed. The cosmos and zinnias need full sun, so they couldn’t go in the shady flower bed we made a couple weeks ago. We are planning to construct some simple raised beds near our homestead entrance.

Aside from our gardening, we’ve been in survival mode this week as Grace’s mini-Aussie Milly has still been in heat. With all the rain, we’ve had three male dogs in the house with her — and it’s not been fun for anyone. Grace did find a stud for Milly, and he came over to our homestead for a couple visits. Unfortunately, Milly didn’t accept him this time. She is very shy, and while she liked his owner, she was wary of the unknown dog. Grace hopes they can try again next time she is in heat.

May is nearly over, which means our days are getting hotter. After a little trial and error, I found a rhythm of slow-rise sourdough proofing that allows for early morning baking. A morning bake when it’s cool outside allows us to run the whole-house exhaust fan while using the hot oven. After baking a rather flat couple of loaves followed by some rather small ones, I was thrilled to achieve two nice sized loaves yesterday morning — and then again today. While we don’t eat a lot of bread (most of our family tries to avoid gluten), we have all been loving Sunday afternoon sandwiches with slow-fermented sourdough. This type of bread has reduced gluten content due to the long ferment time.

And this week, we had Saturday evening sandwiches as well, in honor of the Feast Day of Joan of Arc. At the suggestion of Kendra Tierney’s book, we made Croque Madame sandwiches. It was a delicious (if darkly humorous) choice. Right during dinner, severe thunderstorms in the area knocked out our power for about an hour. We went ahead and finished the last few sandwiches in the warm oven — even though they are supposed to be grilled and then broiled. They were still very tasty.

It was a long week of rain and fussy dogs. I’m thankful the dog drama is almost over, and from what the forecast says, we should be able to work outside most of the week. We have so much to do in our garden. We are itching to start on our flower beds. We have a honeybee swarm we need to relocate into it’s proper hive. The world is perfectly green, the Black-Eyed-Susans are blooming, and I am so ready for June.

“Let my teaching fall down like rain,
and my words descend like the dew.
Like rain upon the sprouts,
and like showers upon the grass.”

Deuteronomy 32:2 NCB

I woke up tired this morning. I took my coffee and walked around on the dewy grass, barefoot. It’s Pentecost — the day Christians remember the coming of the Holy Spirit. I learned this year that walking outside in the morning dew is an old Christian Pentecost tradition, connected to the scriptural and theological association between the Holy Spirit and the dewfall. The sun was shining over the misty Ozarks, and I felt thankful for God’s presence, even during hard seasons.

It was a rough week, but we made it. I’m very ready for today’s sabbath rest and reset it always provides.

“Earth her joy confesses, clothing her for spring; All fresh gifts returned with her returning King.”

St. Venantius Fortunatus

The week began with our Mother’s Day celebration. After Mass, we went with our mom to Big Rock Gardens and Produce in Lockwood. We had heard it was a good, semi-local place to buy plants, and we weren’t disappointed. We plan to detail our visit in a stand-alone-post, but suffice to say — we were impressed with their selection, and we quickly found everything we needed.

We came home and planted the new flowers in the flower bed we made last week. Since the month of May is dedicated to Mary in the Catholic Church, it felt like a fitting time to place and crown our new Mary statue. While we spoiled our own mother, we enjoyed the opportunity to reflect on Mary’s motherhood of Jesus and the Church (Revelation 12:17).

While we were at the nursery, we also picked up a couple hen-and-chicks. They always remind us of our Memaw. Bonnie-Jean repotted them on Monday, which felt fitting, since it was the third anniversary of her passing.

Our main focus this week was our garden. Most of our energy went to breaking up soil and weeding. It’s long and tedious but also satisfying. Our brothers joined in on Saturday. The guys doubled our progress, which was amazing.

When we weren’t working on the garden this week, we were busy with plenty of indoor tasks. We bottled the St. Paul Porter we started on our dad’s birthday in March. We had planned to bottle our cider on the same day, but we ended up short on bottles. Bottling the porter went smoothly — we think the beer is going to turn out well. We are hoping it will be ready to drink by Father’s Day. We ordered another box of bottles so we can finish up the cider in the next couple weeks.

We also did some meal prep for the following weeks. After our dad picked up a large Walmart grocery order in Bolivar, Grace and I prepped 36 pounds of chicken for grilling. We made seven different marinades (most from this blog post), poured them over the portioned frozen chicken, and put the bags in the freezer. We did this a lot when we were camping, but we had gotten out of the habit once we were moved into the bunkhouse. I have to say, the task was much easier in a kitchen with an actual sink.

We also celebrated two different Catholic feast days. Wednesday was the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, so we whipped up Portuguese food — chicken quarters, tomato rice, and green beans. For dessert, we tried milk tarts.

That was the only festivity we planned for the week, but when I woke up Friday, I realized it was the Feast of Saint Isadore. He is our youngest brother’s confirmation saint, and it seemed wrong to let the day go uncommemorated. Since it was raining, Grace and I decided to try our hand at some rosquillas de San Isidro — a sort of Spanish donut. The end result was more like a biscotti than what we would call a donut, but it was still tasty.

It was a productive, multifaceted week. We made lots of progress inside and outside, and we took time for some fun and celebration as well. On one particularly nice afternoon, we ladies spent some time sitting at our spring, soaking our feet in the cold, clear water. It was peaceful and restorative — states we have to be intentional about cultivating around here, with so much always going on. Next week will be as busy as always with the added concern of a possible surgery in our family. We are thankful for God’s continued blessing and presence in our lives — especially when things aren’t easy.

“I was sad one day and went for a walk; I sat in a field. A rabbit noticed my condition and came near. It often does not take more than that to help at times—to just be close to creatures who are so full of knowing, so full of love that they don't—chat, they just gaze with their marvelous understanding.”

St. John of the Cross