Beep, Beep...

A cold hand shakes me. It's still dark.  Jacqueline's voice practically yells in my ear" Wake up! It's almost time."  Hard to believe that Jacqueline, affectionately known as "Sleeping Beauty" for her late sleeping hours, is the one waking me up.  I roll over.  My alarm clock says 5:11.  I quickly put both feet on the floor and wrap my bathrobe around me.  Down the stairs.

 Jacqueline has come back from her waking rounds and has reseated herself on the couch.  I plop down in the chair as Mom emerges to sit on the couch.

Why are we all in the living room at this time of day?

It"s the Royal Wedding, of course!

As Jacqueline and I are second generation Americans on our mother's side, her mother having been born in England at the close of World War II, we're  very proud of our heritage!

This auspicious moment demands a cup of tea. It IS a British Royal Wedding, after all!

  Pray for us as Jacqueline has been up since 4:15 and I have been up since 5:11 and we have Guild today! ( Guild is this really scary piano competition where you play most of your pieces from the year and every scale known to man in front of a judge! )

Babies!

If you look carefully out the two tiny windows next to our front door, you might see something that looks like this...

The nest of an Eastern Phoebe with three baby birds! They are fairly big, big enough to crowd each other in that tiny nest.Their eyes are open and we can watch them preening themselves sometimes.

Definitely one of my favorite things about spring..baby birds!

Why Women Should Read

    

Over the past few years in trying to understand my role as a single young woman, and God willing a future wife and mother, I have read many popular books that seem to encourage girls to put scholarly ambition aside and focus on a domestic role.  I believe this to be true- although the authors of these books would probably disagree- because of what I read on some blogs. 

     For example, I recently read a post that recommended a reading list for girls.  The list included books on feminity, child-rearing, waiting for a husband, domestic skills and general Biblical instruction.  While these are valuable, nowhere did the author encourage girls to study deep subjects or push past the fluffy literary junk food.  I thought this was very sad, not only because of what wonderful books those girls will miss out on, but also because of the children those girls will rear. 

      James Madison stated

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

     When we aren’t well educated and when we rely on others to do our thinking for us, we are easy targets to have our freedoms taken from us or to be controlled.  The current state of our government illustrates this perfectly.

     I am sure that I am not the only who can see that our country is in trouble.  Unlike most people, I don’t believe that we can change the country by who we vote for.  The change must come from within.  One aspect of this is education.

     Our country desperately needs a generation of men like our Founding Fathers.  Their method and philosophy of education promoted Biblical thinking and equipped them to fight for the principles they believe in.  They were men of convection and integrity. 

     As a woman, how would you cultivate this type of a man if you are not well educated yourself?  Children learn from the example that is set before them; and as the primary educator in a home school setting, a woman should posses the skills she is trying to instill in her young men.  Therefore boys and girls should receive an equally rigorous book education. 

     So along with your cookbook and vacuum cleaner, pick up something that will make you think… like Shakespeare or Augustine.  Later generations will thank you!

He is Risen

 

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified. He is not here for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

Matthew 28: 5&6

Planting Season!

The garden finally went in last week!

 The garden plan

Mom and Jacqueline planted carrots, radishes, watermelon, pumpkin, cucumber, peas, tomatoes, corn, sunflowers, and green beans in our experimental garden. We haven't ever had a garden, so it was decided to grow just a few of everything so that we could get some experience and something to eat off of. Mom is hoping that next  year will find us down the hill with a larger garden that could be canned off of as well as eaten .

Planting

Watering

 The poles for the green beans and the peas

Mom also got her potatoes in their bags.

In total there are seven bags of Russet  potatoes with a lot more Butterball left to plant still! 

I can't wait until we get to taste, literally, the fruits of our labour!

Home Thoughts from Abroad

Sweet Solitude

Edmund Blair Leighton

by Robert Browning

Oh, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wake in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinchsings on the orchard bough

In England- now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds and all the swallows!

Hark, where mt blossomed pear tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops- at the bent spray's edge-

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

the first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew

All will be gay when noontide awakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower

-Far brighter then this gaudymelon flower!