The wonder of unfailing love.

Posted on by Melissa

(October 2015)

The wood clears
making room once again
for time on the log
just past our line down
the hill in the holler
next to where the barely creek
trickles by.

The outside world is nonexistent
in this place,
deafened by the hills and the trees.
Or so I thought, until the
voice of an announcer at a
nearby park trickled in.
Oh well.

I come here because I am
anxious and this seems like
the best self care for me.
A pen, paper, and the quiet.
Nothing can distract me but
God’s glory- and Harvey’s crunching.

Plagued with indecision and
the inability to stick to
a path and just be content.

Should I? Should I? Should I?

So I try and rest.

I leave the dishes.
The boys watch TV
and I walk.
Walk past the toys that need
picked up.
Crunch through the leaves
that need raked.
I come to the place where the leaves belong to, even benefit,
the earth and the toys don’t need put away.

Back up I sit on my knees
looking at the sugar maple next
to the house.

How far God went to fulfill
His promise to us- He even
threw in the deep desires of my
heart. A sugar maple that
will blaze a fiery orange
every fall.
A reminder of His unfailing love.

 

Theo’s Story

Posted on by Melissa

**Theo started building this fort in the spring and worked on it all summer.  He will be taking it down in the next few days so he wrote a story and took some pictures to remember it by.**

 

Theo’s Storrey

I bilte a fort and it wuse garart.
I bilte it bi my slof.
I had deun it garart.
It wouse the beste.
Sind by Theo

 

Theo’s story

I built a fort and it was great.
I built it by myself.
I had done it great.
It was the best.

Signed by Theo

 

Dreaming.

Posted on by Melissa

I wanted to eat at The Bridge for lunch today.

A wave of heavy grief rolled in. Sadness that it’s over, relief that it’s over.

Over the past year I’ve slowly shed parts of my former life. I told myself that homesteading wasn’t important, that vacations weren’t for us, that sewing and the creative life aren’t necessary.  We had to be able to do The Bridge with all our hearts.

But, I am beginning to realize some of these things are important, and are us. The values of tending the land and of creating new things are integral for our family and community.

It has left me picking up the pieces of a shattered former life and trying to figure out what sticks. I am not the same person I was a year ago. I am stronger.

Dreaming. It’s exciting.

Pineapple Einkorn upside down cake.

Posted on by Melissa

(adapted from Einkorn: Recipes for Nature’s Original Wheat by Carla Bartolucci.)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup coconut oil/butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 20 oz. can sliced pineapple

1 cup (120 g.) all purpose einkorn flour

5 large eggs, room temperature and separated

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.  In a 10 inch cast iron pan, melt coconut oil or butter over low heat.  Remove from heat and sprinkle brown sugar evenly over the pan.  Arrange pineapple slices to cover bottom of the skillet.  Set aside.

In a stand mixer with wire whisk attachment, add the egg yols, 1/2 cup of the sugar, salt and process on medium high speed for 3 minutes until thick and pale yellow.  Pour mixture into a large bowl.

Clean and dry mixer bowl.  Add the egg whites to the bowl and beat on medium speed for 1-2 minutes until the whites hold soft peaks.  With the mixer running, slowly add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat for 1 minute until stiff and glossy.

Fold a third of the whites into the yolk mixture.  Sift the flour in a small bowl then sift and fold half of the flour into the yolk mixture.  Fold in another one third of the whites, then the rest of the flour, and finish off with the whites.

Pour the batter in the prepared pan over top of the pineapple.  Bake for 35-37 minutes until the center of the cake springs back when you press on it.  Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes then invert onto serving plate.