In the last few weeks, the young men in our house have been filming their engineering creations and posting them on YouTube.

13-year-old Oliver is really going places on his cabin. These unseasonably warm February days have really moved this project along!

*2-21-26 update – some inside footage featuring the woodstove up and running and warm!

11-year-old Walter did many trial and errors with his drill powered, 3D printed snow blower. He recently bought another part for it so it runs independent of the drill….but these unseasonably warm winter days with a very speedy melting of the snow haven’t done much for letting him try it out. 🙂

With either of their projects or just other fun things they’re doing, they post videos on YouTube and then I hear regular updates the number of views and who’s currently in the lead. 😀

Want to check it out?

Here’s their YouTube Channel. Click on a few videos to “vote” for who’s the most popular. Haha!

No video on this one, but to keep up with the general creativity of the family, here’s Lindsey with his recent headgate reconstruction project that he did for a local dairy. 🙂 The years and years of being exposed to cow manure has left this very rusted out…I’ve seen cows run right through it, when, in fact it’s supposed to do just the opposite.

(If you’re not familiar, a headgate will harmlessly hold a cow in one place, between their head and shoulders, to be able to be able to work with them for breeding or herd health improvement tasks.)

Here is the newly fixed up gate welded in place!

This week has brought a 3 day long fever for several members of our household.

Ick. I didn’t truly appreciate my body’s ability to regulate temperature until last week.

(You’ll notice a break in videos on the YouTube Channel too….Oliver’s cameraman (Walter) was down for a few days in there….)

One day I managed to get off the couch for a few hours, with the help of Ibuprofen, and made split pea soup.

I thought this one turned out especially beautiful with the white carrots, purple potatoes, orange squash, pink ham, and green peas.

Rainbow soup!

And so tasty!!

This week’s spring-like weather made me think of Isaiah 40:6-8:

All flesh is grass,
    and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
    when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
    surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
    but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah 40:6-8

The beautiful white snow always hides the dead of fall, but with the melting of all the snow these last weeks, the world has turned into November brown again. Or late March mud.

Nothing in this world lasts forever. It’s easy to be reminded of this right now.

Last summer’s grasses have gone.

Last spring’s flowers are long gone.

But there is one thing that is ALWAYS there. Forever.

The Word of God.

When we’re sick, God is there.

When it’s winter, God is there.

When there’s been a car accident, God is there.

When there’s a birthday party, God is there.

The Word of the Lord is always there, timeless and applicable to Isaiah a couple thousand years ago and to us now in a “modern” age.

What joy to remember this!

I think it’s easy to see God in the new little grasses and flowers coming on in the spring but he’s here right now too in the brown.

How lovely that he never grows old or outdated or fades away.

Blessings to you this weeks as you remember to see Jesus in your life.

(From The Flanders Family)

Silly Cheddar…I was trying to get a pictureseque view of him silouetted in the sun but he turned and did this:

And Meatball….hard at work building a cabin.