Jane and Her Lamb-A Poem

In the field I play with Jane,
Not a thought of worry or sting of pain,
Jane's blue eyes in her innocent face
Look at me with gentle grace.

When, at the smooth, strong fence
My dark yes would wistfully glance,
Jane's small, firm, leading hand
On my back would smartly land.

So in the pasture safe and free
Jane and I play happily,
Away from sin's dark dread sway
In the field I willingly stay.

Lauren Ashley

P.S. My Mom and I am taking Mrs. Morecraft's School of Elocution and Composition, a writing webinar offered through Vision Forum. We were asked to write a short piece about a picture of red-headed, blue-eyed Jane and her fuzzy black lamb. Mom and I both wrote poems, though Mom's poem is much longer and doesn't have an ending yet!

Surprise!

Shorn and Jack

Surprise! Jack and Shorn are my two year old Angora goats.

Instead of going to college, I will be staying at home and doing college online through College Plus. Two weeks ago Dad reminded me that I will have to earn the money for my tuition and that I will be starting college next year. Earning the money for a full college tuition in one year sounded like a fun challenge. The last couple weeks I have been pricing out animals. Dad and I were looking on Craigslist for goats, and happened to find these. I was only looking for milk goats, but I liked the idea of raising these for their fiber. After visiting a local fiber mill and doing some research about the price of mohair, I decided to buy them. This afternoon Dad, Thomas, Pierce and Lucas put up an electric fence for the goats in two hours. I decided to name the younger one Shorn because it was already partially shorn, and because there was a similar looking sheep in Wallace & Grommet named Shorn. I couldn't figure out what to name the older one, but after a little while I added a line to the poem This is the House that Jack Built about Here is the sheep all white and shorn. So I named the older one Jack. Jack has been pretty friendly, but Shorn doesn't let anyone near him. Shorn prances around, looks at us, and tosses his head as he runs away to a far corner of the pen, while Jack comes up to get petted and fed.

I wasn't sure what else to write about them, but then... we found that the goats walked straight through the fence. If you touch the individual wires you don't get shocked, but if you touch the two middle ones at the same time you get shocked pretty hard (I tested it out). Mom heard the goats making a lot of noise, and asked me to check on them. The noise was from when the goats got shocked going through the fence. When I went outside Dad was trying to get a hold of their horns, which they definitely didn't like. They ended up walking around our house, through the one cultivated garden, up to the edge of the pool. Dad was able to get Jack's horns, and I held Jack still while Dad caught Shorn. Dad ended up tying them to a tree in the middle of their pen for the night. 

We think that the wool insulates them, weakening the shock of the fence. Tomorrow we will attempt to shear them, so that they (hopefully) won't go through the fence again.

Shorn

Lauren Ashley

Catching Up

The sun set beautifully on our drive to TX

This move has been hard. Four years is just long enough to make some very good friends and leaving them is hard. As it got closer to the time to leave San Jose the move began to become real, not just something that we talked about. I began to push thoughts about what we were leaving out of my mind, replacing them with thoughts about what needed to be done once we got to TX. This only helped for a little while, but then the loneliness returned. In the middle of it all a godly woman called and told me to trust in the Lord, to not push everything out of my mind, but to praise the Lord for what He has taught me here. God provided exactly what I needed just when it was needed. 

Xiana loves being outside

The first week was extremely hard for me. We got into the house on a Thursday afternoon and Dad left before dawn the next day for a week long business trip. It was lonely with Dad gone and having no friends in this area. It made matters worse being deathly allergic to fire ants. I was afraid to go outside because their nests cover the ground in areas and wherever I walked big grasshoppers few up and landed on me. I was uncomfortable because of the heat and dirt. Just feeling generally ill about everything.

This sign was hanging inside the restaurant right above our table.

After the first week things have been getting better. We were told that a homeschool family owned a local restaurant, so we went there for lunch to meet the family. They told us that there are 40 more homeschooling families in our small town! We also were told about a church nearby (mostly homeschool families) which we have been meeting with the last couple weeks. 

A scorpion which Thomas captured

From the time we moved into our house we've been hard at work. Now I can understand the verse,

"...cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground..." Genesis 3:17-19.  I have been spending some time pulling up thorn vines, stinging nettles and sand burrs which are growing where I want to plant an herb and flower garden. Just this afternoon Thomas and I pulled up a wagon full of sand burr plants from our front yard. No walking barefoot here! Dad, Thomas and Pierce have also been building many things, including a pen for the guineas, a mailbox and a clothesline (Mom has pictures posted on her blog).

The butterflies are very tame

It is beautiful here. During the day you can just glance outside and immediately see dragonflies and butterflies everywhere. After it rains everything turns a beautiful bright green and yellow. You can see the milky way every night, though sometimes it is brighter than others. There are no street lights here, so instead of having an orange reflection in the sky all night the moon lights everything up in a pale white glow, just like in books.

Falcon, Thomas' guinea, died this morning

This place feels alive! If you go outside at any time of the day you can hear cicadas, grasshoppers, cows (from the neighbor's farm), the scurrying of lizards and calls of hawks and morning doves. Every morning we have to check our pool for critters which get in at night. So far we have found a turtle, toads, dragonflies, cicadas, scorpions, a mouse, a garter snake and even a rattlesnake in the pool. Deer and egrets are frequent visitors to our pond.

A Mediterranean Gecko

As for the intentional pets, we have 2 kittens and 10 guineas. There were 12 guineas, but this morning 2 of them died. My family is hoping to adopt a Great Pyrenees as a guard dog. Mom has never wanted a dog, but after visiting some friends nearby who have a Great Pyr and being told by multiple neighbors that there are a lot of coyotes around here, she decided that it would be best to get one to guard our future herds. The only indoor pets are Mediterranean geckos. We didn't mean for them to be pets, but they are cute and they get in the house anyway to eat the bugs, so why not call them pets?

A Great Pyrenees

There is also a surprise animal coming this weekend, which I am extremely excited about- you'll never guess... keep watching!

Lauren Ashley

Answer to the Poll

We didn't see a single rattlesnake on the drive from CA to TX!

Scorpions are found in our pool every other day.
Llamas and antelope are pretty common in TX farms.
While driving through Fredericksburg, TX someone had five camels grazing in their front yard.
Bison were also being raised in Fredericksburg.

Lauren Ashley