The New Proverbs 31 Woman

That Proverbs 31 Woman of the Bible- boy, she's a piece of work, isn't she?

Think you've got some pretty big shoes to fill?

Ever feel like just giving up because you think you'll never measure up?

Sweet friends, click here to read my take on her and God's message to us through her.

It might change your outlook....it sure did change mine.

Easiest.Crisp.Ever.

This recipe will totally make your life easier. I promise.

Picture it, Sicily, 1942- you are on the meal train at your church and need to add a dessert recipe to your dinner offering. Or a new neighbor moves in and you'd like to welcome them to the area. Or a last-minute potluck lunch comes up with your homeschooling group at the park.

I'm not even kidding when I say this crisp recipe has the potential to change your life.

Ready? Set. Go.

Preheat oven to 375* or 350* if using glass baking dish.

Spray your baking dish. I use either a 9x9 or a 9x13

Put a thick layer of any type of fruit in said baking dish. The most recent two times I made this, I used frozen apples. Ahhhmazing.

In a medium size bowl, combine equal parts brown sugar and rolled oats (I use Wheat Montana's 7 Grain Cereal which I have a certain affinity for, as discussed in this post) and half of that amount of whole wheat flour. With your fingers, blend in that same amount that you used for either brown sugar or oats of real butter. (Spelled out: example- 1/2 cup of brown sugar, oats, 1/4 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of butter) Add a healthy sprinkle of cinnamon, ginger, and a 1/4 tsp of baking power, and a pinch of salt.

Sprinkle on top of fruit. Spray top with baking spray if you like it super crispy, like I do.

Bake until fruit is tender and topping is browned.

Viola.

As my daughter says, "easy peasy, lemon squeasy"

Trust me: you cannot screw this up.


Some fruit combinations that are a big hit around my house:

You can use frozen, fresh, or canned-
Apple- add nutmeg into topping
Apple and cranberries-
Pear
Pear and raspberry
Black raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry
Peach- add nutmeg into topping
Peach and raspberry
Peach and pear
Rhubarb and peach

You can totally make this with gluten-free flour and certified gluten-free oats.

Enjoy!

Keeping it All in Perspective

Well, friends, we are almost done with school for the year. ALMOST. But not quite.

Son has finished his Healthy Choices/Healthy Living class and Science. He's almost done with Math- only 5 lessons left. He has a few more History/Geography lessons left in the book. Then we will be focusing on writing for the summer for him. Prayers would be appreciated.

Daughter is done with Science, Healthy Choices/Healthy Living, Wordly Wise, Writing, Botany, and Ancient History. She's got 20 lessons or so left in her current math curriculum and will be doing another entire year of math this summer so that she can take Physics class next year.  Again, prayers would be appreciated.

So, in rereading what I wrote in the first sentence, I think I may have been lying.

In the grand timeline of childhood, we're almost done with schooling. But considering the fact that learning is life-long, education is never-ending, and my motto is that it's a wasted day if you don't learn something new, schooling is a blip. A necessary blip, but a blip nonetheless.

But it's not the main thing to focus on. Love, kindness, compassion, serving others, hard work- those are things that I really want the kids to remember and learn. I desire that they keep the Main Thing the Main Thing. 

I deeply desire that they grow to love the Lord and develop a heart to follow hard after Him and what He wants from them for their lives. He will make a way for them. He IS faithful. He IS all-powerful. He IS so worthy of all our love, adoration, praise, and worship. He IS the only one who IS.

So, yes, schooling is necessary. But it's not all there is to childhood, or teenager-hood, or adulthood, for that matter. 

Can I get an amen?!

It's All Good

We have kids!

The four-legged kind!

The cute as a button, jump like popcorn kernels, lanky, leggy kind.

Check out the video of their first time seeing grass. As my Amish friends say, "Joomba!"  It means "jump."

And do you know what that means? It means that we have to redo the inside of our barn. Oh joy.

These next few weeks will be filled with pounding posts, building stalls, putting up tin, and generally making our barn more of a safe haven for our little animals from the big, bad, wiley coyotes that live very close by.

While we're at it, we're building a bigger and better chicken run for our hens, too. For as much as I love having them forage through the property for their daily intake of bugs, worms, grubs, and so much more, I don't love them digging up the garden once it's planted or laying their eggs under the raspberry bushes. So, we have to corral them for a few months while we grow and harvest the food I'll can and preserve for our family. They'll be let back out to roam once the last of the potatoes have been dug early this fall.

I was talking with someone a few weeks ago and they had mentioned how as their kids had gotten older (mid-teen years) their farm  had gotten smaller. I thought: how nice. The older our kids get, the bigger our farmingness (<--is that a word? It is now) gets. The older they get, the more things they get interested in. Rare breed pigeons. Meat goats. Milk goats. Turkeys. Chickens. One current steer with another one coming to our farm soon. A rescue horse. Two dogs. Two children. One cat. All kinds of love I tell ya. All kinds. 



Life.is.so.good.