A Time to Sew and a Time to Reap

Dear Readers,

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

~J.R.R. Tolkien

How blessed we are to have you here with us, praying and loving us, wherever you are. It means so much to all of us!

Strawberry "mice" a kind neighbor brought over with a meal.

Autumn is swift approaching, although we've had very summer-like weather lately (for which we are grateful, as the garden would usually be frozen by now).

My mom (who is seventy) came out and helped put up this bamboo fence.

Enjoying a snack of Nanking cherries

I have not been able to do any heavy work, so have turned to the sewing that I could not do very comfortably during my pregnancy. As I was doing the mending, and making aprons for the girls, I was surprised at how healing the process was. Even winding the bobbin was a meditative practise for me, somehow. I was reminded of a section written by Maryjane Butters in her "Ideabook", called "Stitch and Mend". She talks about re-creating a doll that had burned in a house fire. She had made the doll for her daughter several years earlier, and re-stitching the doll was to her "fixing a hole in my heart." It is amazing to me the healing power of doing one's duty, of doing that which is close at hand, of doing the seemingly small things, when we can't do anything "big".

The girls modeling three of the aprons I made.

AnnaMarie and Audrey have been entertaining themselves while I was recuperating by making paper doll families and paper houses, which have become very elaborate. It's amazing what children can come up with when left to be creative. They learned a lot about working on a project together.

Here are pictures of some of the other things we've been busy with lately:

Audrey planted a potato that was sprouting and harvested these beauties!

You never know what is lurking under the earth when you harvest your carrots!

The girls (and Frankie) have been taking over the ironing for me.

What would I do without all my helpers? (Of course the iron was not plugged in at this point!)

While I was in labor, my mother taught AnnaMarie and Tasha how to cast on (Audrey is left-handed, so we're still figuring out how to teach her).

Who says wigs are just for grandmas?

Some of the "fun" that Victoria will get to miss out on:

Ken: "Tasha, will you let Evangeline sit there so she won't be sad?"

Tasha: "Sure, and I'll even take her place on the ground!"Marqueta: "Here, Tasha, come sit on my lap."
Evangeline: "Hey, I want to sit on Mami's lap!"

The girls at the fair, "Where a kid can be a kid."

I'd like to leave you with a quote from one of my favorites, Laura Ingalls Wilder, on "Challenges".

"A difficulty raiseth the spirit of a great man. He hath a mind to wrestle with it and give it a fall. A man's mind must be very low if the difficulty doth not make part of his pleasure." By the test of these words of Lord Halifax, there are a number of great persons in the world today.

After all, what is a difficulty but a direct challenge? "Here I am in your way," it says, "you cannot get around me nor overcome me! I have blocked your path!" Anyone of spirit will accept the challenge and find some way to get around or over or through that obstacle. Yes! And find pleasure in the difficulty for the sheer joy of surmounting it as well as because there has been an opportunity once more to prove one's strenngth and cunning and, by the very use of these qualities, cause an increase of them.

The overcoming of one difficulty makes easier the conquering of the next until finally we are almost invincible. Success actually becomes a habit through the determined overcoming of obstacles as we meet them one by one."

Until next time,

Love,

Marqueta