A Son Honors His Father

Here.

Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.
Ephesians 6:2-3

Bryan

Well...

We hauled 200 gallons of water from Pekin tonight. The load of water completely filled our reserve tanks in the basement. Still praying for rain...

Bryan

The Battle for Iwo Jima

I recently finished Robert Leckie's book The Battle for Iwo Jima. I like the blend of documentary and story that the author displays. He gives many facts concerning the battle of Iwo Jima. Some statistics included are numbers of hills taken and how many casualties per day. The book contains many real life stories of men who did heroic deeds during this strategic battle in the Pacific theatre of World War II. I would recommend everyone read this book because it reveals the story of the men who died to preserve our freedom.

(Available at The Vision Forum)

Samuel Logan

Private Property II

"The Lost Liberty Hotel"

I have five bucks to spare for this project...anyone else?

Robin Hood

The version of Robin Hood authored by Paul Creswick is very interesting . I enjoyed this story because Robin was portrayed as the son of the ranger of Loxley . When his father was killed the king placed another as Ranger of Loxley because he thought Robin too young. This plot adds excitement and adventure as Robin goes to the forest and becomes an outlaw after attempting to rescue a friend from the king's men.

The illustrations are very life like. I enjoyed looking at them. I think this is one of N.C. Wyeth's best works.

I would recommend this book to young readers like myself who like adventure and action. My father bought this book from Vision Forum.

Jacob Allen

Well...Keep Praying

We are not really sure (could be all the people who are praying) why we still have plenty of water but we are very thankful.

A week ago today, when the roofers were working on our house, they used all of our water to cool the shingles on the roof. So, that evening we drove to Pekin to get 200 gallons of water which we put in our storage tanks in the basement. At some time Wednesday our storage tank filled to maximum capacity (400 gallons). Remember, it hasn't rained here in central Illinois in months!

Thursday morning before I left for Wisconsin I hauled in 400 gallons of water from Hopedale and put the water down in our well.

Kim just finished her shower this morning and our tanks are still full!

So, we praise God our Provider (Jehovah-Jireh) for supplying our need for water! And we would like to say, thank you, to all those who are faithfully praying for our water situation!

Bryan

Our Favorite Two Year Old

Draper Wedding

This is Our Family taking part in a recent wedding.

Private Property

Quotes...blog posts...online articles...

As long as Property exists, it will accumulate in Individuals and Families. As long as Marriage exists, Knowledge, Property and Influence will accumulate in Families. -- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 16, 1814

Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent. -- John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

"The congress of the United States possesses no power to regulate, or interfere with the domestic concerns, or police of any state: it belongs not to them to establish any rules respecting the rights of property; nor will the constitution permit any prohibition of arms to the people;…" -- Saint George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries (1803), Volume 1, Appendix, Note D

"Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature." -- Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists, The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, Nov. 20, 1772.

"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."--Thomas Jefferson

Who Owns The Cattle on a Thousand Hills?

Communist Judges Destroy Property Rights In The Name Of Community

Legalized Theft

So the question is...where are we now in America?

Gardening

Considering the lack of water here in central IL these are some fine looking beets. (We're rather fond of the little girl too!)

New Roof

After several storms damaged our roof we made the decision to have it replaced by professionals. We contacted King Construction in Tremont and they did a fabulous job! They completed the job in three and a half days!

Quotes We Like

Why is this thus? What is the reason for this thusness? - Artemus Ward

We Love the Country

This is Josh. We buy our animal feed from Josh at the local feed store. We also buy fresh free-range eggs from Josh (at the local feed store, I have a funny story about an egg purchase I will have to write up sometime) when our chickens are not keeping up. We also get our internet sevice (DTN SpeedNet) from Josh.

These pictures are of Josh mowing, raking and baling the hay in our pasture.

Trying to Catch Up

Our family has been very busy the last couple weeks. We had a great board meeting in Colorado. The meeting was very productive and the fellowship was great. After arriving home on Tuesday we celebrated Kim's birthday on Wednesday (the 15th). Starting Thursday we had lots of help getting ready for TJ and Rachel's wedding (I was best man). We had the rehearsal Friday night with the rehearsal dinner Friday night at the SMI building (mmm Monical's Pizza). Saturday was the big day! Everything went great! It was an honor and a privilege to be part of such a God honoring wedding! Saturday night after the wedding we had TJ's church family (from Tennessee) over for dinner, that's right, we had 84 people in our house for dinner. The weather was perfect, the food was great, and it was a real pleasure getting to know the folks from Tennessee. We hope to form stronger bonds with this church in the future. Sunday morning the folks from Tennessee joined us in our worship. It was great to have that many like minded families in our worship service. After the service we had a wedding feast, this also took place in the SMI building. However, we set the tables up in the "great hall" and it worked out really well. I hope to have pictures of the feast on the blog soon. It sure was a very nice couple of weeks!

Bryan

Colorado Springs

Our Family is off to Colorada Springs for the next week of so...we love Colorado Springs!

Babies Don't Keep

Babies Don't Keep
By Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due,
Lullabye, rockaby, lullabye loo.
The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo,
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo,
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs;
Dust go to sleep!
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Vegetarians vs. the Rainforest

Vegetarians vs. the Rainforest

Lee Shelton @ 10:44 am

Environmentally conscious vegetarians could soon be facing a dilemma. It just so happens that their curious culinary customs may be destroying the Amazon rainforest.

According to a recent report, entire sections of the rainforest are vanishing to make room for the vegetarian’s best friend:

In the past year, almost half of the total deforestation was in the state of Mato Grosso on the forest’s southern fringe, where huge areas have been flattened to grow soybeans. Last year Brazil earned about $10 billion from exporting soy products, exceeding its income from coffee and sugar, the country’s traditional export crops. Mato Grosso’s governor, Blairo Maggi, is also its soybean king-his family’s farms are the world’s largest single producer of the crop.

Is a meat-free diet really worth the cost to the ecosystem?

Think about that the next time you bite into a thick, juicy steak. That succulent slab of animal flesh on your plate is a sign that you’re doing your part to save the rainforest.