Be Strong!

Maltbie Davenport Babcock

Be Strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift;
Shun not the struggle - face it; 'ts God's gift.

Be Strong!
Say not,"The days are evil. Who's to blame?"
And fold the hands and acquiesce - oh shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God's name.

Be Strong!
It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day how long;
Faint not - fight on! To-marrow comes the song.

A great coffee sign

“I saw this sign on a large self-serve coffee urn in a café in Milwaukee: ‘Please don’t laugh at our coffee.’ You may be old and weak yourself someday.” – Earl Kronberg

Lime -Cilantro Dressing

Cooking Free cookbook by Carol Fenster

(This book is one of our family’s favorite. Though we are not allergic to gluten or dairy these recipes make you forget they have no gluten or dairy)

Makes about 1 cup

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup water
¼ cup fresh limejuice
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
½ teaspoon salt
1 medium garlic clove, minced
½ teaspoon honey or agave nectar
1/8-ground cumin
1/8-teaspoon xanthan gum
Put all ingredients in blender until smooth. Refrigerate in airtight container for up to 1 week.You can also just shake it up and use on tacos, burritos, or taco salads.

Marrionberry Bars

From Gluten-free, Sugar-free Cooking
By Susan O’Brien

½ c. agave nectar or fruit sweetener (room temperature)
1 c. buttery spread, room temperature (earth nature’s)
3 - 3-½ c. brown rice flour
1 c. walnuts or pecans, chopped
Vegetable spray
10 oz. all fruit jam – Marrionberry or seedless black raspberry

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Combine agave nectar and buttery spread in large mixing bowl. Beat until light and fluffy.
3. Add egg, flour (add till lightly sticky, but still able to press out), and nuts. Beat at low until well mixed. Set aside 1 ¼ c. for toping.
4. Spray 8x8in. square pan.
5. Press the remaining mixture into pan.
6. Spread jam on tope and spread to within ¼ inch from the edge.
7. Crumble the reserved flour / nut mixture over the jam.
8. Cook for 35-45 minutes or until lightly browned.
9. Let cool and cut into bars.
Serves 12

My New Bunny Curio

Curio was about 4 weeks old when (he/she) got out of its cage at the Young’s while we were watching the Farm for them. At that time Rachel had two Dutch rabbits with the same colored babies. Dad found it and put it in “its cage”. Mom came by the next day and saw the baby sitting by the door of the cage. She soon discovered the problem and set it in the right cage. But the baby hadn’t had milk, water, or food for one whole day. It also had a bite on its neck (from the wrong mother rabbit), left side, and ear as well as a possibly broken leg.

It couldn’t hop around the wire cage very well, so when I came over of course I took it under my “wing” and brought it home to be taken care of. This was my first rabbit that I had ever hand fed. I found out that the best thing to do was to feed it 10 -15 ml of goats milk twice a day. Once in the morning around 7 a.m. and once around 7 p.m. I enjoyed it very much and Curio adopted me as its mother.

In a week we found out that its leg was fine, but its bites had developed abscess. So we tried to clean and treat them. By week 3 there was not much change, so we took Curio to the vet for some antibiotics. After a week of medicine we saw a great improvement, but not enough to clear it completely. So off we went to the vet again for some more medication. If Curio was over a year old they would rather cut the abscesses off, but for now the antibiotics will have to do.

Curio has improved very well! One abscess on the neck has dissipated completely and the other drains pretty well now. Curio will most likely have to have the abscess cut off some time in the future.

Thanks to the Reilly's we now have a cage for it as well.

It was very nice of Rachel to let me keep it! Curio loves to fallow me around and even comes when I call. Every day I get little kisses too!

Curio has very good markings and can still b bred. I think Curio is a boy, but its still a bit soon to tell.
So yes the Bryan Clan has had another unexpected animal land in their laps again. (I don’t mind… really!) Curio is now 6 ½ weeks old, weighing over 3 ounces and still as curious as ever.

The Old-Time Family By Edgar A. Guest

It makes me smile to hear ‘em tell each other nowadays
The burdens they are bearing with a child or two to raise.
Of course the cost of living has gone soaring to the sky
And our kids are wearing garments that my parents couldn’t buy.
Now my father wasn’t wealthy, but I never heard him squeal
Because eight of us ere sitting at the table every meal.

People fancy they are martyrs if their children number three,
And four or five they reckon make a large sized family.
A dozen hungry youngsters at a table I have seen,
And their daddy didn’t grumble when they licked the platter clean.
Oh I wonder how these mothers and these fathers up-to-date
Would like the job of buying little shoes for seven or eight.

We were eight about the table in those happy days back then,
Eight that cleaned our plates of pot pie and then passed them up again;
Eight that needed shoes and stockings; eight to wash and put to bed,
And with mighty little money in the purse, as I have said,
But with all the care we brought them, and through all the days of stress,
I never heard my father or my mother wish for less.

Too Many Children?

By Edgar A, Guest

'Whenever the mothers’ club holds a session on our front porch I get a chuckle. To hear some of them talk you’d think they were doing the Lord a favor to have a child or two instead of the Lord favoring them mightily to let them have ‘em. The responsibilities of parenthood have been magnified so much and dwelt upon so long by the experts that they’ve actually frightened off countless couples who would have had happier lives if they hadn’t heard about the difficulty of bringing up children.

“Oh,” said one woman in a session at our house, “we haven’t dared to have a baby. Children tie you down so; the responsibility is so great.”

I was about to say to that dame: “It’s too bad your mother didn’t have the same idea.” But Nellie, who reads me at a glance, kicked me on the shin as a signal to me to keep still.

I’ve yet to hear of a man going bankrupt because he had four children to support; I’ve yet to hear a man getting rich because he had no child to feed or clothe; my observation ids that the man who thinks he’ll get his fortune first and a family after usually winds up with neither. It seems to me to be not a question of whether you can afford to have children but can you afford to do without them.

We had hard times when I was young, harder even than these have been, and our family was large and we lived them through. The little dining-rooms in those days were literally cluttered with youngsters; mothers were kept busy patching little breeches and feeding hungry little stomachs. The responsibilities my mother faced would frighten to death some of these modern conversationalists, yet she met them all as a matter of course and thought nothing about them. I’m sure that my father never once thought that he’d have more of his salary to spend on himself if some of us hadn’t been born. So long as we were fed and clothed and housed he was content. I was for us he was working, not himself.'

A Common Misnomer of Homeschoolers

The Lessons of Leadership

By William Wilberforce

˜ Providence prepares the path of every great leader.

˜ A leader’s religious faith is inseparable from his worldly accomplishments.

˜ Since true leadership entails integrity, what a leader says and does must be one.

˜ A wise leader will acknowledge his faults and welcome the criticism of his friends.

˜ If a leader would improve the world he must first improve himself.

˜ No one respects ignorance; a leader must read in order to gain wisdom and knowledge.

˜ A leader expands his influence by being kind and winsome.

˜ Since a man’s friends shape his thought and life, a leader must choose friends wisely.

˜ A leader must have the gravitational force that draws men together for teamwork.

˜ A leader who truly loves God will also love his fellow man.

˜ Private benevolence says more about a leader’s character than public charity.

˜ A large capacity for work is the earmark of a world-class leader.

˜ A day of rest is the springboard for a week of labor.

˜ A Christian leader will never forget that his colleagues have an eternal destiny.

˜ A leader who has embraced the gospel will support its spread worldwide.

˜ A leader will do his duty even if it means standing alone.

˜ Principled leadership means being governed by principles that transcend the personal or political.

˜ A life well lived is the best answer to criticism undeserved.

˜ The adventures of leadership are no shield from the adversities of life.

˜ Before he can govern others, a leader must first govern himself.

˜ A leader must choose a virtuous and compatible wife.

˜ A good leader should equally be a good father and husband.

˜ Mere visionaries are many; men of vision are rare.

˜ Principled and visionary leadership makes a leader a reformer.

˜ A wise leader advocates his cause in a judicious and prudent manner; he is neither radical nor reactionary.

˜ To be heard with success, a leader must be heard with pleasure.

˜ Frame is truly deserved when it is used to advance morality and religion.

˜ The noblest leader may succumb to pride if he does not cultivate humility.

˜ The benefits of leadership bring the moral obligation to benefit others.

˜ Perseverance wins the prize.

Oh, that the men of today would follow these wise words.