Returning.....

It has been many months since adding a new post.  With the passing of my Father, family needed to come before blogging.  It still does, however, with time comes healing and an ability to not only get back into life again, but to also take the time for the little things that take quiet concentration like this blog.  

Much has happened on our homestead since my last post and God has truly walked beside us every step of the way, picking us up when we stumble, dusting us off and pointing us in the right direction again and again as often as we need it.

Our little homestead has dove deep into the fun adventure of really raising rare breed poultry and all that it entails.  We have completed a few construction projects along the way and added on to the house structure too.  Currently we are working on another building to house many of the poultry breeds we have fell in love with and are working diligently to improve on by extremely selective breeding and hard culling.  

In the midst of all of this, we were blessed to be able to attend some fun fiddle events with our daughter who competed in several contests last year and did extremely well.  In her Junior division, she is now second in the state of Missouri, second in the state of Oklahoma, second in the Grand Lakes National Championships, third in the Mid-American Fiddle Championships and fifth in the great state of Texas.  She also came in first in many local smaller competitions.  Not too bad for her first real year of traveling to these major events.  The young man that actually placed first ahead of her in several of the competitions listed, was the Grand Master Fiddler in Nashville and plays a mean fiddle, guitar and banjo.  We are friends with that family and that's the wonderful thing about this circle of musicians, it is never truly a "competition" when your heaviest competitor will set down his fiddle to pick up his guitar to back you up when it is your turn.  We love the incredible network of the "fiddle family" we have been adopted into that is nation wide.

Today we have been house bound due to the ice and snow for almost five days.  It is beautiful and I am not sure I ever get tired of being at home.  The past few days we've had chicks hatching and have also been kept busy filling the bird feeders outside. 

In my absence, I have continued to take pictures constantly of everything we are doing, including yummy recipes that are irresistable!  So stay tuned!