Welcome Spring!

Dear Friends,

Thank you for coming to our home today~ Do you like Liberty's new spring gown (He borrowed it from Elsie Dinsmore)? He does not appear to be too sure about it!

Saturday was such a sunshine-filled day, we thought we'd go down to our favorite pond (which was still ice) for a nature walk, and to see if the cottonwood buds were ready to pick~

Last year's cattails are still full of fluff!
If we'd remembered a shovel, we could have harvested their roots to bake like potatoes.

Although it was a little breezy, it was still perfect picnic weather (no yellow jackets, flies, or ants :) )!

The ice on the edge of the pond had formed many beautiful crystals.

Have stick will travel~

Watching the geese on the river~

Meanwhile, back at the cottage, the hens have been picking up on egg production, giving Frankie a chance to play Little Amish Boy :)~


And the packing continues, with no word yet on any new jobs (But still plenty of faith that we'll find something soon!). We're going through fabric and clothing, and really wishing that rag-pickers still existed~ We'd be wealthy, indeed! We can't help but think what the Ingalls family would think, if they were here helping us sort our possessions. Would they be happy for us that we have so many material possessions, or would they pity us for all the work we've created for ourselves? :) To think of not having cds, tapes, records or dvds, nor a computer, printer, and accessories, or boxes of family photos to organize and keep in a safe place! Nor all the appliances that they would not have known what to do with!

We hope in our move to be able to cut back on many possessions, as nice as it is to have them. We remember what Thoreau (or was it Emerson) said: "Our possessions possess us". It is so true, isn't it? It truly IS a gift to be simple and free!

We'd like to share this little bit of a story that we have been enjoying in the "Mother's Magazine", June 1879. It seemed to apply to us at this time!

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"On a lovely morning late in April, four Virginia children were out in the woods enjoying their Saturday holiday from school. Their mother, Mrs. Chester, sat at her sewing machine, looking through the open doorway at the hill-field . . .The balmy, bracing air was grateful to inhale; the singing of the birds, and the chirping of the frogs, combined to cheer and animated. But there were tears in Mrs. Chester's eyes as she gazed upon this cheerful scene. She was thinking how "the cares of this world" choke out the "good seed" scattered by the heavenly Sower in the human heart. Oppressed by the mountain of perpetual duties and wearisome tasks, which loomed up before her mental vision, she exclaimed in her depression, "I will look to the hills whence cometh my help," and added, in the exercise of faith and hope, "My help is in the Lord which made heaven and earth." "In Him will I trust."

. . . "She now reverted a little more courageously to the huge pile of outgrown clothing, which must be altered and handed down from the older children to the younger ones, and ventured to recount the whole number of new suits each would require, in order to be made comfortable for the summer. Though a delicate woman, Mrs. Chester possessed indomitable energy and a cheerful disposition, and it was her wont to look on the bright side of everything. So, cutting and basting, she sang, in a brave and hopeful strain;

'Do good do good there's ever a way,
A way where there's ever a will-- a will.'

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May we all be like Mrs. Chester today, and look to the Lord for our strength in whatever our cares may be.
Blessings to you all, sweet friends, until next time~

Love,

Marqueta