Good Friday and Easter Keeping

See the land, her Easter keeping,
Rises as her Maker rose.
Seeds, so long in darkness sleeping,
Burst at last from winter snows.
Earth with heaven above rejoices...

-Charles Kingsley

I found purple, Easter-egg colored bluebells blooming just outside the garden this morning. 

Earth with heaven above rejoices. 

Because He lives, I can, too. Because He rose, one day we will, too. We are an Easter people and this is our song. 

Blessed are you, Jesus, for paying my debt. 

Wishing you all a special Good Friday and a joyful Easter. -Brin

He Still Gives Grace

From His fullness we have all received

grace upon grace.

-John 1:16

Haven't we? I mean, absolutely: life is tough now. Sin, sickness and Satan are having their way with our world and, to some degree, our very lives. But even through it all- especially through it all- His grace glitters. His fullness flourishes. God is on His throne and He still gives you and He still gives me grace upon grace out of His fullness.

Sometimes we just have to quit complaining and questioning and stressing long enough to see it....

Praying His front-porch-sitting grace and solace will fill your mind and heart today. -Brin

(And yeah... I definitely need to mop and decorate this porch. What can you see here? Tell me in the comments and look for the porch reveal in April!)

Perseverance

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=perseverance

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=perseverance

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/search_results.html?q=perseverance

Great works are performed not by strength

but by perseverance.

-Samuel Johnson

Oh my. You all should have seen the state of this third of an acre when we bought the place last May. Although there was evidence that someone once loved and doted on the old home and grounds-- i.e., the rose garden, the hidden path, the brick-encircled trees, the scalloped bed edgings-- that time was obviously long ago. Everything seemed choked with weeds and poison oak and invasive shrubs and murder vine.

But that is slowly changing. I'm making plans now to landscape the front and side of the house, as well as a (partially missing?) back brick patio. Such fun! A friend gave me a copy of an older edition of Texas Home Landscaping and I'm getting a LOT of good ideas from it. Highly recommend. Since my budget is limited, I'll be relying on plants I can start from seed, garage and junk sale finds, and plant cuttings from friends and folks about town. (And maybe a few roses from Antique Rose Emporium for my birthday. But that's just a wild thought I had. *cough*) Vicki mentioned over on Facebook that she could see ferns and geraniums on the porch. Absolutely. 

(Oh. And that reminds me! If you're on Facebook, don't miss the porch picture I posted last night. Such a relaxing and pretty spot to sit a moment...)

Won't this be a great project? 

For now, I start with a relatively clean slate. Check out the "Before" in the picture above and the "Now" right here:

Little by little!

Happy Spring, dear friend. Hope you are well and persevere today. -Brin 

This post contains an Amazon affiliate link for the purposes of sharing exact products I'm using and enjoying. You know the spill, right? If you click and buy, Amazon gives me a small kickback for the referral to their site, and that money helps me keep the blog going. It doesn't cost you or impact you in any way. Thanks!

Small Things, Diligence, Love, and B.E.D. Part III

A corner of Hedge House that I need to tackle this weekend. Hey: Better. Every. Day.

 Thank you all again, so much, for keeping the beautiful comments and messages coming. I've always thought this MMTL readership is among the most kind and thoughtful of all in blog land, and this week you all have proven that again.

Your comments resonated deeply with me. April was among those who came by yesterday, and I wanted you all to see what she said in case you missed it:

Oh, what a precious poem. I saved it to my file for our children to learn during our homeschool time. It's funny that you mention the laundry getting in the way of making your homestead better every day. I have struggled with that as well (oh the things I could get accomplished if it weren't for So. Much. Laundry!) But the Lord has been softening my heart and showing me that clean laundry is simply love made visible. Cooking is love made visible. And love always, ALWAYS makes things better. So, any act of love is so important and so valuable to God. Oh, I hear you...there are so many projects I'd love to get done and things I'd rather do than laundry, but seeing God in the piles of colors and whites reminds me that the work I do when I serve my neighbor (my children, my husband) is an act of faithfulness that doesn't go unnoticed in the Kingdom.

Love that, April. Thank you. And she's right, you know. It is the little things. It is all about the daily, small, little things. They add up. Maybe we've forgotten the impact of these small things. Maybe we needed to be reminded that oftentimes the people who make a difference... who achieve much... who live a life faithfully before God and others... are the ones who wake up every day and do it all one more day. They keep doing. They keep fighting. They start that washer one more time and head back to the job one more day and turn and face that project one more weekend. They see the purpose in small tasks and being diligent and giving what they can every day.

I think that's what God's saying to me this week. Shazza reminded us yesterday of the verse in Zechariah where the people were instructed not to despise the days of small beginnings. Absolutely. And the widow and her tiny/huge offering came to mind, too. Do and give what you can today, and it will matter. These things we do, every day, they mean something. They catch God's eye. They help build a home. They love-up hungry hearts.
 
Yes. If there's anything that matters- that really matters in this hour- I think it's diligence. It's love. It's staying the course and standing firm and resolving within ourselves to keep going, no matter how small or insignificant what we're accomplishing seems. That acorn will become the forest's pride. That tiny offering will be noticed by the God of heaven. 

So, as we head into the weekend, I just want to encourage you: keep going. 

Blessings in Jesus' name, and thanks for being here, friend. Have a great Palm Sunday weekend. -Brin


Also... as a weird aside, I can't get this song out of my head this week... especially that first line: God, I give you all I can today...

Better Every Day - The B.E.D Mantra, Part II

Thank you- each of you- for your kind comments yesterday. I read every one and every word, whether you commented or emailed or Facebook messaged me. Thank you, really. Thank you for being here. Thank you for taking the time to write back. It means so much to me, and to the others who come here looking for a little something heartening.

I wanted to make sure I didn't give the impression yesterday that my BED mantra always results in the accomplishment of something... dramatic... or significant. Some days, my Better Every Day is a tiny victory. Some days, it gets diminished by laundry and cleaning and my long list of To Dos. Some days, Better Every Day is just shredding an old stack of mail. Or organizing a corner cabinet. Some days it's making a decision on something I've been putting off, or buying something that will help with a project. Weekend before last, it was holding a yard sale and getting rid of some junk and unnecessary things the previous owner left behind. The point is, every night at bed I want to be able to point at some step I took or task I completed and say, Yes. That made this place and our life here better today. No matter how small or simple.

This attitude is especially important to those of us taking on big projects, I think, in our get-it-now society. I mean, one episode of Fixer Upper has the potential to leave an overwhelmed DIYer discouraged for days. You know? They have an all-in budget of what? Chip and JoJo presented them the perfect home in how long? And then we look around, bewildered and frustrated, at our own projects and get lost in the magnitude of slow progress and what remains before us. Yikes. I adore the Gaines family and thank God for their testimony and putting Jesus and His goodness on display. (I mean, truly. God is showing off with that family!) But let's be real: some of us are living in and through fixer uppers on tiny budgets or hard circumstances and tackling small projects as we learn the necessary skills on the odd weekend or week off, right? Better Every Day is just something that encourages me to be patient, trust God's heart, and be thankful in the midst of overload or overwhelm. After all, sometimes our miracles and transformations play out over years, not days.
 
Do you know the poem Little By Little? I had to memorize it when I was 9, and it hasn't left me. Here's the beginning:

 "Little by little," an acorn said

As it slowly sank in its mossy bed;

"I am improving every day, 

Hidden deep in the earth away." 

Little by little each day it grew, 

Little by little it sipped the dew; 

Downward it sent a thread-like root,

Up in the air sprung a tiny shoot. 

Day after day, and year after year, 

Little by little the leaves appear: 

And the slender branches spread far and wide,
 Til the mighty oak is the forest's pride.

So I just wanted to encourage you: You can do this. Not today. Not all of it. But today you can do a part of it. Little by little. Day after day. Do what you can, and one day you'll look back and realize you have your miracle. Your tiny acorn will be the forest's pride. Better every day.

I'm right here with you. -Brin

-     -     -     -     -

Not to bog you down with children's lit  today, but this is another (on topic) childhood favorite:

Do your best,

And leave the rest,

'Twill all come right

Some day or night. 

-Anna Sewell, Black Beauty 

Oh! And the reason for the strawberry picture is this: today my BED project is painting these strawberry stones.

My B.E.D Motto

So maybe, like me, you're dreaming of a place in the country where you can stretch out and have a flower garden, a mini milk cow, and some independence, but for now you must bloom where you're planted and such. Or maybe you're pleased as punch to be right where you find yourself but want to add a bit of the country life where you are. Either way, I think you might be interested in what I have coming up on the blog.

And what's coming up is this: putting a pretty, functional garden on a 1/3 acre lot in a busy city that makes you get a permit before you sneeze. We're going to have to be very creative while building this little urban homestead. We can't keep chickens here (although we've formed a coalition to overturn that ordinance) or keep bees here. Yet. I anticipate this changing soon. So we will prevail, and I will show you how as we go along.

I think I've spent several months being sort of let down and upset over this place, to be honest. (I've always been honest with you guys, I think. To a fault.) After all, I gave up my cute cabin to get married... with the understanding that a place in the country would be an option soon. But friends, as you probably know all too well, life usually doesn't work out as it does in our heads. A compromise means we bought an old house on this double lot in town. I must make the best of it!

Yeah. It was a difficult time during our 2015 house hunting days.

My first goal on this homeplace was to get a clothesline, stat. Not having to run the dryer all week saves me real dollars every month on my electric bill and, in turn, give me an excuse to slow down. Hanging laundry, for me, is therapeutic. Most days I even fold it straight off the line. For now I have this retractable clothesline running between the house and a nearby tree, and it's getting the job done until we can get a permanent one built. If you're renting or don't have a clothesline yet, I highly recommend going this route. Baby steps, friends. Baby steps.

The goal I'm tackling now is what you saw in the picture above: putting in a combo raised bed/in-ground bed vegetable garden. I'm making progress every day and can't wait to show you once I get it completed. I'm shooting for a completion date of my birthday, April 8. It's a big, big task, but I am determined. Today I'm preparing the second in-ground bed, Back to Eden style. I'm also getting some herbs in those well-used terra cotta pots you see in the picture above. Between the clearing out and the putting in and the garden bed making, I've come up with a motto for these challenging, early days. Better Every Day, is my recent motto. BED= Better.Every.Day. I ask myself each night as I get in bed, Did you do anything to make this place better today? Elementary, I know, but it helps. It really helps.

Do me a favor? Talk back to me: tell me what project you're working on or what you're doing around your homeplace. Help encourage or inspire me/us to keep going. I find it wildly heartening to see other women talk about their challenges, their projects, and their hopes for their homes. It sort of helps us chin-up and tackle our own mountains knowing that someone else out there is climbing hers at the same time, too.

Off to tackle that second garden bed before I ask myself my BED question at bed tonight. Have a good Wednesday! -Brin


This post contains an Amazon affiliate link for the purposes of sharing exact products I'm using and enjoying. You know the spill, right? If you click and buy, Amazon gives me a small kickback for the referral to their site, and that money helps me keep the blog going. It doesn't cost you or impact you in any way. Thanks!

Bees, Spring, and Allergies, Oh My!

I've just finished coating two hives worth of top bars with beeswax in anticipation of splitting a hive this afternoon. It's incredible, if you think of it: just before a colony of bees swarms, you intervene- taking baby bees, worker bees, and honey/nectar/pollen stores and making a new hive. Hopefully, then, the bees will raise their own queen, acclimate to their new digs, and establish a new happy and healthy colony. It gets technical and the failure rate is real and ugly, but it can happen. Hopefully, today, it will.

Due to a lack of information out there for beekeepers wanting to transition from a Langstroth hive to a Top Bar Hive without having to buy a new nuc of bees, I'm conducting a grand experiment. A video will be forthcoming, but for now, it's all very speculative and risky, this bee experiment I'm hoping to pull off. I'll update soon.

Otherwise, it's spring already here in the East Texas piney woods. Ugh. Pollen is everywhere and most everyone feels awful; our eyes are puffy, our noses run, our conversations are constantly interrupted with someone sneezing or coughing or blowing their nose or their kid's nose or asking if you need to blow your nose. Ha. This year seems especially allergy troublesome. I must find some raw honey remedies that cut down on the boxes of Advil allergy relief and trash cans overflowing with tissues. I know they're out there.

(To do: concoct raw honey allergy relief solutions. Noted.)

Anyhow... how are you? It seems as though it's been awhile. I've been struggling much with finding a rhythm and deciding on priorities and I know that's apparent here. I've missed you, though, and hope you're well as we collectively usher in this warmer, busy bee season.

Off to the hives now, but I'll be back tomorrow with some new pictures. See you then. -Brin

Back From the Fair (Sans Cow)

Oh friends. I have so much to tell you and so much to write down now that I'm back from my time at the Fair and visiting loved ones. So much.

Until I can sit down and get it all down, I thought you might enjoy seeing this sweet little Jersey cow. (Full grown! Is anything cuter than a miniature milk cow?) My Dad and I visited her several times during our days at the fair, and had she not been $3,000 and already sold, I know we would have tried to find a way to get her home.

Some girls buy shoes. Me? Coffee, books, plants, and now homestead animals and equipment, apparently. Glory.

Talk soon, promise. Happy March!