Music to My Ears

One of the most beautiful sounds a mother can hear...

A steady heartbeat.

For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise thee: for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.     Psalm 139:13-14

Strawberry-Rhubarb Hand Pies

A crisp dough with juicy filling with the taste of June. Delightful!



Dice 3/4 cup strawberries and 3/4 cup rhubarb.



Toss the fruit with cornstarch and sugar.



Mix up your favorite pie crust or use the recipe below. I like a little sweeter dough so that it has a crisp sugar cookie taste.



Roll out the dough and cut with a biscuit cutter (about 2 1/4 inch).



Spoon a teaspoon or two of fruit filling in the center of the dough circle. Dampen the edges of the dough with water and top with another dough circle.

 

With a fork, crimp the edges. Cut a slit on the top.

Bake until lightly browned.

 
Strawberry-Rhubarb Hand Pies

3/4 cup diced strawberries
3/4 cup diced rhubarb
1 T cornstarch
2 T sugar
2 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup lard or shortening
3 T cold water

Toss the finely diced fruit with cornstarch and 2 T. sugar.
Mix flour, salt, and 1/4 cup sugar. Cut in butter and lard. Stir in water. Knead slightly. Roll out the dough and cut with a biscuit cutter (about 2 1/4 inch).

Spoon a teaspoon or two of fruit filling in the center of the dough circle. Dampen the edges of the dough with water and top with another dough circle. With a fork, crimp the edges. Cut a slit on the top. Optional: You may brush tops with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Eat warm or at room temperature. These are best eaten in a day or two.

In July I want to try these with blueberries and rhubarb - or maybe even raspberries!

Abundance

Is there any month better than June?

Especially in the garden.

Asparagus, broccoli, and spinach have ended.

But taking their place is red beets,



strawberries,



and sugar peas.

Thank the Lord for His abundant gifts.

Priority

"Having a heart of sympathy for your children will mean, by necessity, choosing a less busy lifestyle. It will mean lowering your expectations about what can and must be accomplished in a day. If it means winning your child's heart, though, the trade offs are well worth the results." Sally Clarkston

You may have guessed that life has been busy here. I didn't plan to take a blogging break, but somehow writing has fallen to the bottom of the list. Some day I'll be back, but I'm not making any promises of how soon that will be.

Hope you are taking time to enjoy your children today. 

The Lord is Good

Thanks so much for praying for our daughter's eyesight.

On Friday we visited the eye specialist again and he was impressed by how much better it looked in 24 hours. He said that she will probably have permanent scar damage. I asked him how the scar will affect her eyesight. He said that since it is not affecting her eyesight now, it probably won't ever. But if it was a couple millimeters higher, closer to the center of her eye, it would be completely different report. "She is blessed," he said.

I was so glad the doctor said "blessed" and not "lucky" because we truly do feel blessed by God.

Today (Saturday) her eye looks even better than yesterday. She can open it wider and she doesn't shield her eyes with her hands when she walks into a bright room. The doctor said that light sensitivity is common in eye injuries. Yesterday she didn't want to go outside, even with sunglasses on, but today she has been running in and out almost like normal.



It is so good to see our cheerful, bright-eyed daughter return! I admit that my faith was rather shaky this week. When Ed walked out the door with a sobbing child with swollen eyes, I wondered if she'd ever see again. I thought over all the things I could have done differently to avoid the accident. Definitely a "bad-mommy" moment.

I had to cling to the knowledge that God is sovereign and always good. He loves Brooke even more than we do and can take anything that happens to her and work it out for His glory. The life of Fanny Crosby, the blind lady who wrote so many beloved hymns, came to mind. I'm so glad we can trust God to bring healing, or peace, whichever He has for us.

Thanks again for remembering us.

The Precious Gift of Eyesight

It was one of those days (and weeks) when I didn't think I could be any busier.

But within a few minutes, everything grinds to a halt and nothing on my agenda appears important.

Our four year old was playing out in the woodshed when she came in screaming with her eyes squeezed shut. I tried to pry her eyelids open and flush out the dirt she apparently got in her eyes. After a few minutes I could see that there was still some white matter on her iris. Her eyes were swelling and she was obviously in pain. Ed came home, took her to ER, and spent the rest of the day at the eye doctor. Today he took her to visit a cornea specialist.

  
Returning home from the ER. She was so happy with her little hospital gown that she was given when her dress got wet! 

We still don't know exactly what she got in her eye, but apparently it caused a chemical burn. An abrasion is on her left eye. The good news is that she has vision in both eyes. Praise the Lord. We don't know yet how it will affect her future vision but we are praying for complete healing of her eye.



Today she is opening her eyes a little. Yesterday she would not open them unless the doctor put drops in her eyes. She squints at bright lights but I'm so relieved to see her blue eyes again!

I know this isn't my usual blogging material, but right now I'm not feeling up to sharing recipes. Will you remember our little girl in your prayers?

Make Your Own Tomato Cages

I like to use tomato cages. They are much easier than staking tomatoes and keep the plants off the ground to avoid disease and make the tomatoes easy to pick.

When we married, Ed's parents gave us some of their tomato cages. (Since I married their youngest child, their garden was downsizing the same time ours was expanding!) They are so much better than most of the cages that you can buy at the garden center. I have no idea how long they used the cages but we've used them for eleven years. They have served us well but are now starting to rust out.

Time to make some new tomato cages.



Ed had a roll of concrete reinforcing wire left from another project. It is an inexpensive way to make cages. The children helped unroll the wire and cut it into lengths with metal cutters. (Someone had to sit/stand on both ends of the wire because it wanted to keep rolling up!)

 

We cut the wire in three different sizes in hopes that we can store the cages inside each other to save space. I'm not sure if it will work since they were only a tiny bit larger, but we will try to combine them in the fall!



We cut the wire next to a "block" so that the long end of the wire could be used to attach the two sides together. We just bent the wire to connect the two sides.



In less than an hour, we had a dozen new cages for our garden. Since our tomatoes usually grow huge (apparently they like our soil) we like to use strong metal  fence posts to tie the cages to. We can get high winds at our place and a full grown tomato plant combined with some wind can pull a little stake right out of the ground. I still have some of my tomato plants covered with milk jugs because they were so little and the winds last week were terrible!

Do you use tomato cages? What kind do you like?