Oh, the farm life

Well, it's been a fantastic week and a half! Last weekend, I attended a fiber retreat in Tyler, TX on my birthday. What a blast! I sold enough alpaca products to even pay for my trip, plus a little. Sweet...

This week was spring break for the kids. We spent the week making day trips, starting out Monday by going to the Dr Pepper museum. Tuesday was spent at Fossil Rim...total blast. We got to feed giraffes and zebras (among other things) from our hands. Uber cool. Wednesday was spent at the Ft. Worth Zoo. Fun, but a downer after going to Fossil Rim. We spent Wednesday evening at a drive in theater out just past Ennis. Total blast for the family (putt putt golf, dinner and a movie out of the back of our truck). Thursday, we went on a historic train ride from Grapevine to the Fort Worth Stockyards, hung out for a couple of hours shopping, and then rode the train back home again. Today, Tim took two of our kids fishing out in Tyler. We finished up this evening at church...or so we thought.

Then, our luck changed. Upon our arrival home, we headed out to feed our animals. We found four of our chicks dead in our backyard. We located seven others and returned them to our chick pen. We still can't find the other two chicks. Apparently, our own dog broke in to our chick pen and began his "hay day" chasing down chicks and killing them. Yep, this is part of the farm life. Sometimes it's great and other times it just stinks.

We learned tonight at church from the book of Nehemiah to praise God in the good times and the bad. Regardless of how bad your life is going, you need to depend on God, to be obedient, to focus on God. We are to celebrate regardless of our situation, because God IS GOOD ALL THE TIME. So, I thank God that only four chicks were killed and not more. I thank God that my children are learning to deal with the pain of loss with pets rather than friends, and that with every death on the farm, there is also new life. Yes, God is good. I am so thankful that I am a child of God and that God is sovereign. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness to me. I choose to celebrate life, even in the midst of death...