Hanley Farm

We had a fun evening visiting the Hanley Farm run by the Historical Society.   They had this beautiful gentle man wandering around.  He was molting so Mary got some beautiful feathers.

 

 

We took a tour of the house.  It was full of fascinating things and the gal giving the tour had a wonderful presentation that painted such a great picture of the local history here.  Mary loved it!

 

Rich talked to the director about harvesting the acorns from the Oak trees on this hill.  He wants to process them like the Indians did and make some Indian dishes for Mary to try.  The director thought it was a great idea.  This year in homeschooling we are starting a unit in Native Americans.

 

 

They have a wonderful working farm here with a no irrigation garden and they have chickens and other crops that they sell at a local farmers market.  The historical society has done a wonderful job keeping this all up.

 

 

We talked with this gentleman for a while.  He is a native American and weaves these beautiful sashes.  He knew a lot about the local Indian practices here and we learned a lot from him about all the oak trees in the valley and the grass lands that the Indians were stewards of, as they thought of themselves.  Hanley Farm has an open house once a month for the summer and fall.  We look forward to seeing more the next time we go!

 

The Beauty of Creation

I was out in the garden this morning picking tomatoes and I snapped a few pictures of the butterflies, bees and flowers.  I put this collage together of the pictures I took plus the one of our wedding rings I took yesterday.  I just love not having to travel far to enjoy the Lord's beautiful creation.  I just stepped out our back door and was so blessed by the beauty around me!

 

I am my Beloved's and He is Mine

I have been doing a study of the Hebrew month of Elul as it leads up to the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana. So much beautiful imagery. Though I don't believe we have to keep the feasts, it is so great to see all the symbolism that the Lord used in them. Elul is a month of introspection, repentance and drawing near to the Lord. It makes me think of revival coming! The Song of Solomon and Psalm 27 are read during the month of Elul and up to Yom Kippur. When I was looking at our wedding bands I remembered that on the inside of Rich's ring I had engraved the scriputre reference Psalm 27: 13 -14 and Rich put Song of Solomon 4:10-14 in mine, from the very books that are read in Elul.   I love the simple but beauiful imagery that my husband saw in these rings and bought for us.

 The engraving on Rich's ring.  After 13 years it is getting a little faint.

 

 

In the picture below are the verses I so loved and had put on his ring.  I found out another neat thing in my study of the month of Elul.  In the Hebrew the first word of verse 13 is "unless" instead of "surely".  The Hebrew word, unless is lulei, it is spelled just the same as Elul in the Hebrew letters only in reverse.

 

 

I took this picture the other morning on our garden fence.  I just loved the two morning glories with one heart shaped leaf.  The place I lived in Oceanside when  Rich and I first started dating had a beautiful wall of morning glories.  They always remind me of our courtship.

Summer Dresses

I have been having fun making some summer dresses for Mary.  Our local fabric store had a big sale on fabric.  I made Mary this simple dress and had some left over to make her Barbie a matching one.

She wore it for our family photo shoot in our garden.

 

The second dress I made, had her favorite cartoon character on it, Snoopy.  So we went to JCPenny's and had a patriotic photo shoot.  She had a blast and so did I. 

 

Sunflower Cookies

Mary and I finally got around to making the sunflower cookies that we had said we were going to make on the post at the beginning of this month.  We have been enjoying our sunflowers so much!  Here is a photo collage of our lovelies this year.  We grew a dozen of them.  We just love seeing them peek over our fence as we drive up our drive way when we come home!

 

 

 

I made the cookie dough the night before and put in the fridge over night.  I had never used this recipe before.  I was so pleased how it turned out.  It was easy to work with, kept the cookie shape when baked and was very tender to eat.  I plan on using this recipe for our Christmas cookies too!.  I put yellow food coloring in it, to make the sunflower pedals.

 

 

 

Mary had so much fun rolling out the dough and cutting them out.

 

They came out so pretty right out of the oven.  We dipped the centers in chocolate frosting and used chocolate chips for the seeds.

 

 

They turned out so pretty and Mary had a blast.  She did most of the decorating.

So happy with her sunflower cookie garden.  The recipe made a lot.  So we had plenty to share with friends and family.  Rich also took a plate of them to work and shared them with his co-workers.

 

Here is the recipe we used that came with the cookie cutter set.

These are a Few of my Favorite Things...

One of our favorite things to do is to go out to 7 Oaks Farm in the summer time when their sweet corn is ripe.  We love the fresh produce, locally grown.  The farm is only 10 minutes drive, if that, from our house.  Mary is growing so quickly, she is not 5 foot yet, but almost there.



 

 

Not only do they have wonderful produce

they have a beautiful flower garden. 

Here is a passion flower.

 

 

Zinnias and a pine cone!

 

 

I loved this with peach glads and purple morning glories.

 

 

Lots of cone flowers

 

 

Mary really liked the little windmill

 

 We also have some wonderful black berries growing over our fence in our back yard.  I had picked a big bowl the day before.

 

 and the farm had local peaches for sale

 

So I made a blackberry peach pie and it was delicious.  I learned a new trick that if you make an egg white and water wash and brush it on the pie crust before you put the filling in, it will keep the crust nice and flakey and not soggy and it worked.  I just bought some store dough and just used a black berry, peach pie recipe from the internet for the filling.  Pretty easy and yummy!

Lunar Landing

Three days ago was the 47th anniversary of man walking on the moon.  I remember the day well in my childhood.  I was 9 years old, listening to the news on TV about it and I remember going out to our backyard and looking up at the moon at dusk and thinking to myself, "Wow, there are men up there!"  It was a very profound thing and something that has always stuck with me.

Well this year, on July 20th Mary was 9 years old.  So after dark we went outside and looked up at the moon.  She loves going outside and looking up at the night sky.  That is one of the reasons I am so looking forward to camping this year as up in the woods away from all the city lights, the night sky is so brilliant and we have so much fun looking at the stars!  Anyway I told Mary the story of my memory at 9 and how the United States was the first nation to put man on the moon.  She enjoyed that piece of history and mostly loved running around in the back yard in her night gown, enjoy the warm summer night and gazing at all the beautiful creation that is spread out like a canvas on the sky and thinking of the One who created it all.

 

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

Psalm 8:3

We Found It!

We found our camping spot for this year!  We will be going to Rogue Elk park on the upper Rogue River.  It is such beautiful place right on the river with fishing and boat and raft launching.  Nice lawns and bathrooms with showers.  We went there for a pic-nic last week and fell in love with it.  It is so wonderful to have such beauty only 1/2 hour away from our front door.

 





Rich was in heaven!

 

 



We reserved this camp site for 2 nights!  We are so excited!



Mary showing points of interest

 What would a trip to Shady Cove be with a stop at Phil's Frosty!