So exciting – this week brought the first of the fall piglets!  10 piglets!

The mama is Lilac, a fabulous sow who is wonderful with laying nice and still and letting those babies get in all the wonderful nutrients within hours of birth.

She was due on Thursday, but waited until the wee hours of the morning of Sunday before the babies came.

On Monday morning, Poppy had hers too! Usually we separate litters to make sure everyone gets food, moms and babies can bond and there aren’t confused an stressed moms who step on babies, but these two ladies are so calm…I’m going to leave them together at least for now. We’ll take it a day at a time and see how they do. 17 babies total now!

We are thrilled they’re thriving and good sized. It’s so much easier on the babies when they’re born into an 80 degree day and not a 10 degree one!

What’s in the farm kitchen this week

At our house, Arthur is our Dutch Baby maker.

Have you ever had a Dutch Baby?

It’s kind of a mix between a pancake and a popover. 

It’s a puffy sweet breakfast treat made with basically eggs, flour, butter and a little sugar and salt.  Right when it comes out of the oven, it’s large and light and airy…as it sits, it “sits” down, but it’s still good. 

We do a double recipe in a large cast iron pan but even that size is gone within a short time. 

Try this on your next relaxing morning!  So good! 

(Here’s Arthur buttering the cast iron pan just before adding the batter. Yum…..the smell of hot butter….)

Bible inspiration this week

This week I saw these verses from the end of the book of Hebrews.

The last chapter of Hebrews is a lot of final words between the writer and the readers….one thing after another of encouragement and “remember this” and “do this”, etc. And he quotes from two different Old Testament places:

God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
    never will I forsake you.”

So we say with confidence,

“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
    What can mere mortals do to me?”

Hebrews 13:5-6

The first one is from end of Deuteronomy. The Israelite nation is getting some last instructions from their leader Moses before the Lord takes him to heaven. God is speaking through Moses reminding the people that God never will leave them, even when they enter the strange new land ahead of them

What a wonderful reminder!

It’s interesting that basically the same words are spoken again a couple verses later as Moses is encouraging Joshua, the new leader.

What a great reminder for him too! He isn’t tackling the uphill battle of leading 2 million people into an unknown land all by himself…the Lord is with him!

(And reading the following book of Joshua, that is obvious over and over again!)

The next quoted verse is from David in Psalms. David struggled with many challenges before he was king (having your father-in-law and king of the land out to kill you most of the time is no picnic!) and after he was king too…all the battles between Israel and the foreign nations.

So just as those words of comfort were brought up again to the readers of the Hebrews, so they can be brought up to us again all the time…the reminder of an all-powerful God who is with us always…we are never alone to fight our earthly battles.

Encouraging you this week to cling to those Bible reminders of a Lord who helps us in battles, leading a nation, getting to work in the morning or comforting a sick child. He is there in big things and small.