Meanwhile, back at the farm: Journal of a Milk Maid Day 3 {and thoughts on Nahum}

(Daylight and Daisy) 

(Daisy, the more timid of the two doelings, warming up to me and my hat)

(Daisy and Darla (the momma goat) 

(Daisy) 

I thought it was neat that both my doelings have these pretty markings on their backs.   They both have a black strip down their spine and star of white on the black stripe.  

(Daylight)

OK, I know this isn’t my usual form on this blog.  Actual this blog has been anything but usual, regular, for a long time so I guess anything goes.  If you’re over me and my goats already you might wanna avoid this blog for awhile.

I’m in caprine school.   And I’m loving it!

This is my third day milking Darla.  I’m finding that from the moment I wake up at 5:45 to milk her, my mind is on the care of these beautiful, fun creatures God has blessed me with, which are now producing a high quality whole food product for me and my household.  Bonus!

Last night I separated the kids from Darla, putting them in a large dog kennel.   You’re supposed to keep them separate for 12 hours and then milk the doe.  But my girl doesn’t last for 12 hours.  I pen them up at 8 pm and by 5:45 am she’s screaming for relief.  Yesterday I milked her first while the kids screamed for breakfast.  This morning, I let them nurse for a few minutes (Actually only about a minute… that’s about as long as Darla will let them go for before she seems annoyed and jumps over them.  But that’s another subject I’m investigating.) and then took Darla to the milk stand.

I’ve put my milk stand (which my very nice neighbors are lending to me since they no longer have goats in milk) in our garage.  It’s the most dust free area we have on our little “farm” aka dustbowl. (We are in the middle of getting the property laser leveled so that we can put up fencing and irrigate, so for now we have an acre plus of fine dirt blowing around.)  Walking Darla to the milk stand is not too much work although she is still a bit reluctant and not used to me handling her on a lead.  Getting her up on the milk stand is still slap stick comedy.  Picture a six-foot-tall, just-out-of-bed, blonde woman trying to hoist her black, dusty, protesting, approximately-100-pound Nubian onto a milk stand.

Once I get her up there though everything is just fine.  The kids are playing around at my feet, exploring the garage, my morning playlist is singing to me in the background and Darla and I start the milking process.

I did quite a bit of research about how to milk, when to milk, how often to milk, what equipment to use, etc.  As I said before, I was getting too perfectionistic about it and finally just went to Walmart.  This woman’s blog was/is very helpful and is the model I’m using for my first time dairy goat raising experience.  Folowing her lead, and the info I got from Fias Co Farms on cleaning the udder and teats, my morning milking is starting to take form.   If you happened across this blog and you’re looking to find info on raising a dairy goat or milking a goat I highly recommend The Prairie Homestead and Fias Co Farms.

This morning I got a little under a quart of milk.  I think for one 5-10 minute milking a day we’re doing pretty good.

I am finding that there’s definitely a widespread thought that goat milk is gross.  And I get it.  I really thought it would be off tasting myself.  I guess I figured I’d make cheese with it so I wasn’t too worried if I didn’t like the taste of the milk.  I so wish I could give out a sample to all the skeptics in my life.  My son Ryland, who is one of the biggest food/flavor/texture critics I know, loves it!  It’s sweet and creamy, but not too creamy.  It has the consistency of whole cow’s milk and leaves no funny aftertaste (which cow’s milk does for me).  If you like milk at all I guarantee you would love fresh goat milk.   I’m sure the goat’s milk you can buy in the health food store has a funny flavor because of the process and time on the shelf.  But the stuff in my fridge is delicious!  And it’s good for you!  Seriously.  Have you ever read all the health benefits of goat’s milk?

We aren’t big milk drinkers in our family, but having a source of milk in our own backyard where I know what went into the milk and exactly how it was processed makes me feel really good about the milk we will be drinking in the future.

So today was a productive day and it’s only 1:40 in the afternoon.  A quart of milk.  Hooves trimmed. Coat brushed.  Tail cleaned.  Underside and udders got a haircut (I’d rather not have falling hair in the pail of milk).  Pens cleaned.  Un-used pen measured for feedlot panels to go up to make room for mom and her growing doelings.   An hour’s worth of research on breeding, registration, record keeping, grooming, milking, milk handling, cheese making,  ear-tatooing and feeding done.

I read Nahum today.  Have you ever read Nahum in the Bible?  Take away:  No one can stand before God and withstand his rightful indignation against evil (which every single one of us are infected with).  But God has provided Himself in the form of His Son to be our refuge.  We can’t stand before his wrath but we can run to him and hide in him from it.

If this rubs you the wrong way, if you have a hard time with the thought that God has “indignation” towards you because of your sin, think about how you would feel towards say, your spouse, if he/she took your money, betrayed your trust, was unfaithful, was irritated by your presence and then was offended at you for being angry with them.

God is the perfect spouse.  He’s the perfect person.  He’s good.  Always.  He is not in the tiniest way perverse or unjust or corrupt or selfish.  He is love and he is just.  He created us and we are made in His image to display His character and magnify who He is. But instead we pervert His image in us.  We malign His character.  We putrefy who He is.  We perverse His goodness.  And then we deny that He even is.  We elevate ourselves as god and have not the least bit of desire for the One who made us and loves us so much as to not just wipe us out and start over, but rather send His own Son to bear all the weight of His indignation in our place.

God, of all people, has the right to be angry about the state of the human race and human heart.  Just one glimpse at the news, one sampling of history at any point in time is enough to make any one of us shake our heads in despair at the terrors of the world we live in.  Is there good?  Yes!  Oh yes!  Neighbors helping neighbors, friendships, the love of a husband, the joy of children, the taste of a good meal, even goats.  But these are the evidence that the good grace of God is preserving and keeping us from total rottenness, like salt keeps meat from decay.   These are graces to be thankful for and enjoyed, but they are not the diagnosis of our condition.  A person with terminal cancer may have flawless skin, a beautiful body and disposition, but inside they are dying.  Their condition is deadly even though they enjoy good things.

Our condition is deadly.  Running from God will not get you an escape from his rightful wrath.  Run to Him.  There you will find refuge.  A sure, safe place and healing from all your decay.

Quieted,
Sheila

I need a Leak Healer

 

Periodically I’m reminded…

I’m leaking
Out my eyes
Out my mouth
Everywhere
I can produce nothing without the miracle of God.

I’m like a bucket full of holes
I can’t hold water
I can’t achieve my sole purpose
Fill me!
Fill me!
Fill me!
I want to be filled.

But I keep dripping
Pouring
Leaking

I’m an ancient city, strong walls breached and broken down.
Build me!
Build me!
Build me!
I want to be strong.

But I keep being found weak
Compromised
Penetrated
Ruined

I need a Leak Healer
A Wall Builder
A Life Giver
A Living Water Springer
Aw, forget the bucket
I need a spring in me!

And each time I look square in the mirror at the reality of my inability
Just when I seem most hopeless, or most aware of my hopelessness
Just then I’m most hope filled
I hope like good-as-dead Abraham hoped
In Him who calls into existence the things that do not exist

 

Quieted,
Sheila

The earth is full of His heaviness

I’m beyond tired.  The Music Man and I were up with Ryland from 2:30 am on.  He woke up with a stridor, which is a very scary sound!  We took him out into the cool air and he was able to breathe much easier.  It’s croup.  Croup = No fun, sleepless nights and prednisone wired days.  Booo.

So I’m off to bed early tonight, so is the croupy boy.

Yesterday at church we sang a line:  The earth is filed with His glory.

Glory is a word and half.  It holds a lot of weight.  It is a lot of weight.  It comes from a word that means heaviness.   It’s substance.  It’s evidence.  It’s presence.  It’s what represents.  It’s what makes one revered, honored, great, majestic.

(I didn’t make it to completing this post last night.  So continuing this morning…)

When I sang, “the earth is filled with His glory,” a theme filled my heart.  What is the earth full of that is the heaviness of God?  What is the earth filled with that makes God revered, honored, great, majestic?  I turned away from the screen filled with words and looked at the Imago Dei ones standing all around me.  I thought of everyday I drive to and fro, and yes, the creation, yes, the eternal blue sky, and the pillars of clouds (God’s water storage that looks like a dream), yes, the blazing sunrise and the purple hewed mountains, but even more all those busy people, moving in cars from here to there, bearing the image of God broken by sin.  There’s His weightiest heaviness.  There in those blue eyed and brown eyed and fair skinned and dark skinned and male and female and tall and short and heavy and thin and variously gifted, there lies the greatest evidence of God’s majesty.

The earth is filled with people God made in his image.  And oh how very fallen we are!  The greatest evidence of God’s glory has become the greatest perversion of God’s glory.  And we are twisted and broken and perverse and no longer reflect His image.  And He knows this and has given us a sure and great hope.   The Image of God Restorer.  Christ in us, the hope of glory.  The very Image of God Himself, taking on our brokenness, dying our destined death, satisfying God’s right to reject everyone he created- we perverts of His image-  and rising as proof and promise: He will raise all the Christ-hoping ones too.

I don’t know how to put words to this theme really.  I lack the ability to grab hold.  But when I sing, “The earth is filled with His glory.”  I drink living waters.  And I realize how very treasured every soul I see is.  Worth the only One who ever was full of His glory dying for.  And I want to treat each one with the honor He deserves. And I want to work out my own amazing salvation with fear and trembling.  Christ in me, the hope of glory.

Quieted,
Sheila

"Mom, how do you know you’re going to heaven?"

The other day my 5 year old son asked me, “Mom, how do you know you’re going to heaven?” (oh if we would only ask like a child!)

I prayed quickly to myself to find help to explain and answered, “Because God can’t lie son. And He said if I just put all my trust in Jesus for my goodness, and don’t trust at all that I’m good enough on my own, then He’ll save me and take me to be with Him forever.”

Hmm. Okay.” He answered satisfied.

I prayed more and thought of how simple it really is, yet how it’s the most attacked, most impossible choice to make. Apart from the Father drawing us we will always defend ourselves or feel sorry for ourselves, but if He draws us and we simply look believing upon His cross… “the old life is gone. A new life has begun!” (2 Cor.5:15-17)

This was in my inbox from Elizabeth Elliott this morning. And I’m praying for that laying down of his burden, that simple believing look at the cross this morning for one that I love. My husband is having surgery this morning, and if you’d join me in praying, I’d be so grateful! All hell fights for the ones I love to keep a believing look towards the One who hung on the cross for them from happening. It seems this simple little surgery has one facing the reality that death is a very real possibility. Oh Lord help him to look to the Cross believing! Help him to see the High Priest who shared in his humanity to free him from the power of death by His own death!

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so
that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death–that is,
the devil– and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their
fear of death. – Hebrews 2:14-15

Surprising it will always be to those who come to that Cross, and foolishness it will always be to those who don’t. Rest comes by His sorrow, life by His death? Yes. “His purpose in dying for all was that men, while still in life, should cease to live for themselves and should live for him who for their sakes died and was raised to life. With us therefore worldly standards have ceased to count in our estimate of any man…. When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world (or a new act of creation); the old order has gone, and a new order has already begun” (2 Corinthians 5:15-17, NEB).

That new order is a far cry from the notion of self-acceptance which has taken hold of the minds of many Christians. Any message which makes the Cross redundant is anti-Christian. The original sin, pride, is behind my “poor self-image,” for I felt that I deserved better than I got, which is exactly what Eve felt! So it was pride, not poor
self-image, that had to go. If I’m so beautiful and lovable, what was Jesus doing up there, nailed to the cross and crowned with thorns? Why all that hideous suffering for the pure Son of God? Here’s why: There was no other way to deliver us from the hell of our own proud self-loving selves, no other way out of the bondage of self-pity and self-congratulation. How shall we take our stand beneath the cross of Jesus and continue to love the selves that put Him there? How can we survey the wondrous cross and at the same time feed our pride? No. It won’t work. Jesus put it simply: If you want to be My disciple, you must leave self behind, take up the cross, and follow Me.

George MacDonald writes, “Right gladly would He free them from their misery, but He knows only one way: He will teach them to be like Himself, meek and lowly, bearing with gladness the yoke of His Father’s will. This is the one, the only right, the only possible way of freeing them from their sin, the cause of their unrest.”

Redeeming the time,