A Running Collection

Let’s face it. We live in a google world. Google has placed information at our fingertips. Google can answer almost any question. As a home school mom, I am a big fan. We google everything. Recipes, stories, math problems, science inquiries, historical facts, music, news, weather, anything.  Recently Hannah asked me about panda bears. My google history followed her string of questions:  What does a panda bear’s teeth look like? What does a panda bear eat? What does a baby panda look like? What do other bears look like? What does a black bears teeth look like? What do they eat? How do they catch fish? Why do they like to eat fish? What else do they eat? Where do they live? Why do they like honey? Can I see one getting honey?  For every question, we got a solid answer, pictures, video footage, graphs, charts — you name it, we got it. Google has helped us on the farm. When we brought home baby calves, I spent an hour watching videos on bottle feeding a calf. The...

Good Friday. Our mother had us sit out the noon hour in complete silence. Alone. We always dreaded the hour. It felt like a forever sixty minutes. I’m pretty sure we didn’t eat lunch either. To my mother, this hour was the most precious hour of the year. The most important hour to pause. The most meaningful moment. The one hour since there was evening and there was morning that counted. And, it wasn’t actually awful. It was peaceful. It was an hour I wasn’t going to get into trouble for abusing a sibling or getting into something I shouldn’t. Because, I think,  we actually understood it. Understood that across time and space and eternity, there was a man that dropped every last drop of his blood and let out a last breath -- for me. For Me!  He took all the disgusting mess that I am and absorbed it --along with the mess of every other human -- on that cross. In that hour, the earth lost hold. It fell apart. It was dark. There were earthquakes. Weird stuff happened....

It was a craigslist find. Last summer, Amelia was hoping to add a few chickens to her menagerie. We did a little hunting on craigslist and made a few calls. When we finally found what we were looking for, we started discussing, with the friendly voice on the other end, where to meet. He suggested I bring the children and plan to stay. He thought it would be worth their time to check the place out. I didn't really register what he was talking about...                                               The next afternoon, George headed out with the kiddos to collect chickens. They stayed gone for quite sometime. Five hours later they returned with piles of stories and excitement galore. They had just visited Patrick's Hobo Camp. There was tomahawk throwing, archery, blowguns, rope tying, gardening, and supplies for whatever project you might want to try. In every directio...