The season to prepare for the rest of the year according to the calendar of YHWH is just about upon us. We are just a couple of weeks from the first month on our Creator's calendar. It is not presumption or a lack of faith to recognize His seasons and prepare as His Word Instructs. This is seed time, and if a harvest is expected, the planting season cannot be ignored. Our society has been drawn away from YHWH's plan for so long, most of us are out of touch with even the concept of seed time and harvest.
A particular pet peeve of mine is to hear people complaining about rain in the spring! Throughout Scripture, rain is a blessing from YHWH. There was that one big incident in Genesis, but He's promised that won't happen again, and even then, His people were blessed to be saved, and once again be agrarian when the boat docked. We need rain in it's season and spring time is the season we need it. I'm enjoying the appearance of green at the end of the tree branches and just above the ground. Every drop of rain is nourishing the pastures and the tender shoots in the garden, as well as the delicate leaves of the fruit trees.
Realizing we've become so distant from our food supply and religion has been teaching for years, that money and material possessions are blessings, rather than rain. I'm going to preach, now! Many of us are familiar with Malachi 3:10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine
house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open
you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be
room enough to receive it.
I discovered only recently that the same Hebrew words here in Malachi 3 are the same words used in Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth
day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken
up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
This is the season to receive the blessing poured out from the open windows of heaven. Most offerings were bread or meat, while tithes were often, produce. The blessing is rain!
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Get Growing!
Old news is now foundational law. This report is not hot off the presses, but since the bill was drafted by my very own "representative," I want to take this opportunity to remind folks, we are not being represented in Washington DC. Please do something to regain or maintain some independence in regard to the food supply. We've got to get growing, because history has proven whoever controls the food will control the people!
http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-protection-act-signed-by-obama-gmo-bill-written-by-monsanto-signed-into-law/5329388
http://www.globalresearch.ca/monsanto-protection-act-signed-by-obama-gmo-bill-written-by-monsanto-signed-into-law/5329388
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Chemical Replacements Are Poison
I seem to be a on a roll this week of building slightly offensive acronyms. Actually, the acronym is pretty accurate as it applies to our food supply and our economy.
It's as if this chemical consumption for calorie control that began nearly 50 years ago, has changed the standard of food forever. Now our food is loaded with chemical, but that is not the only problem. We pay extra for organic and pure food, while obesity and diabetes are at an all time high. Something certainly seems amiss! Surely this was not the goal! Does this fall in the category of "unintended consequences?"
The best way, maybe the only way, to know what's in your food is to prepare it yourself, from the beginning. When I was a young home maker, healthy meals were fairly simple and basic. The advice was, to shop around outer edges of the grocery store. Fresh produce, dairy, meat, and bread were uniformly on the outer walls of every grocery store. They may vary to a degree, but the variance was minimal. It served as a good rule of thumb to avoid prepackaged and high sodium products.
Since the advent of GMOs, eating healthy and natural has become a bit more difficult. GMO labeling is not required, so we don't know if our fresh produce will sprout on the way home or has the DNA of a digestive track of it's own. USDA standards regarding meat and milk are hazy to say the least.
As I think of all the things I wish I'd known to teach my kids when they were growing up, this is one that simply was not an issue then. I didn't let them have diet products when they were young, and GMO produce was not even an issue until the mid nineties. This GMO issue has gained such momentum so quickly, there is really only one way to stop the impact, and that's on a personal level.
By the time our grandchildren are parents, real food may actually be a thing of the past. The only way to insure pure food, and that only by the protection of our Creator, is to raise our own. It's already been proven that GMO dominates in cross pollinations, so as I said, it will only be by the protection of our Creator to bless the work of our hands in tending the garden.
Thinking about a spring garden puts a smile on my face, even as the "drizmal" winter weather continues. If space is an issue check out square foot gardening.
It's as if this chemical consumption for calorie control that began nearly 50 years ago, has changed the standard of food forever. Now our food is loaded with chemical, but that is not the only problem. We pay extra for organic and pure food, while obesity and diabetes are at an all time high. Something certainly seems amiss! Surely this was not the goal! Does this fall in the category of "unintended consequences?"
The best way, maybe the only way, to know what's in your food is to prepare it yourself, from the beginning. When I was a young home maker, healthy meals were fairly simple and basic. The advice was, to shop around outer edges of the grocery store. Fresh produce, dairy, meat, and bread were uniformly on the outer walls of every grocery store. They may vary to a degree, but the variance was minimal. It served as a good rule of thumb to avoid prepackaged and high sodium products.
Since the advent of GMOs, eating healthy and natural has become a bit more difficult. GMO labeling is not required, so we don't know if our fresh produce will sprout on the way home or has the DNA of a digestive track of it's own. USDA standards regarding meat and milk are hazy to say the least.
As I think of all the things I wish I'd known to teach my kids when they were growing up, this is one that simply was not an issue then. I didn't let them have diet products when they were young, and GMO produce was not even an issue until the mid nineties. This GMO issue has gained such momentum so quickly, there is really only one way to stop the impact, and that's on a personal level.
By the time our grandchildren are parents, real food may actually be a thing of the past. The only way to insure pure food, and that only by the protection of our Creator, is to raise our own. It's already been proven that GMO dominates in cross pollinations, so as I said, it will only be by the protection of our Creator to bless the work of our hands in tending the garden.
Thinking about a spring garden puts a smile on my face, even as the "drizmal" winter weather continues. If space is an issue check out square foot gardening.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Six Rows In
It's garden season! I just love it. It's still early for most of the US, so you're not too late to get started. I'll give a few recommendations. If you're a city dweller, no need to raise any livestock feed, but the "people feed" is so much better from the garden!
If space is limited, I recommend Kale, a tomato plant, and a pepper plant. Those three veggies are loaded with vitamins and produce well in square foot gardening. These will literally grow like house plants, with the tomato and pepper needing plenty of sunlight. If a backyard garden is an option, by all means do it! You won't regret it. Craigslist is a great place to find someone who will till a small garden spot very reasonably, so there's no need for a major outlay of cash in the beginning.
It is time to get growing!
Just in case you're not encouraged by my enthusiasm, I've included a link including negative reinforcement.
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2014/02/18/15-reasons-why-your-food-bill-is-going-to-start-soaring/
If space is limited, I recommend Kale, a tomato plant, and a pepper plant. Those three veggies are loaded with vitamins and produce well in square foot gardening. These will literally grow like house plants, with the tomato and pepper needing plenty of sunlight. If a backyard garden is an option, by all means do it! You won't regret it. Craigslist is a great place to find someone who will till a small garden spot very reasonably, so there's no need for a major outlay of cash in the beginning.
It is time to get growing!
Just in case you're not encouraged by my enthusiasm, I've included a link including negative reinforcement.
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2014/02/18/15-reasons-why-your-food-bill-is-going-to-start-soaring/
Sunday, February 16, 2014
If YHWH Wills . . .
Tomorrow, I have a date planned! With my Creator, a rototiller, and several seeds.
It's literally taken every ounce of discipline I have and the power of YHWH for me to stay indoors and get the journalism done. Planting season has arrived. Today has been exquisite!
This photo was taken after 5pm!
Tomorrow, I pray, I'm in the garden.
It's literally taken every ounce of discipline I have and the power of YHWH for me to stay indoors and get the journalism done. Planting season has arrived. Today has been exquisite!
This photo was taken after 5pm!
Tomorrow, I pray, I'm in the garden.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
School Lunches
After reporting about the recent unreasonable way "shortfalls" in school lunch accounts were handled, I decided to do something besides report about it. My comments were completely biased and editorialized . . .but these are children. My heart was just so heavy for those children who had been humiliated, then returned to class to finish their day hungry. Reporting the incident, simply was not enough.
Scripture tells us we are to help the widows and fatherless, and the poor. I have no idea how many school children live in single parent homes, but I do know there are many Americans struggling to provide for their families, and they are working! So, I called the local school to see what could be done to avoid such a ridiculous solution as was perpetrated in Salt Lake City.
It was so easy! I can actually give them money specifically earmarked to cushion the school lunch program in the event of an outstanding balance. It can be a one time donation, or I can do it regularly. Some area churches also have food pantries that are willing to use donations as they are earmarked.
Between school lunch programs and food pantries, fulfilling Scripture to feed the hungry has really never been easier! A word of caution, though. There are some USDA issues with the donation of home grown and home preserved products, but fresh produce is acceptable. Meanwhile, many schools are open and willing to work with people trying to help.
Scripture tells us we are to help the widows and fatherless, and the poor. I have no idea how many school children live in single parent homes, but I do know there are many Americans struggling to provide for their families, and they are working! So, I called the local school to see what could be done to avoid such a ridiculous solution as was perpetrated in Salt Lake City.
It was so easy! I can actually give them money specifically earmarked to cushion the school lunch program in the event of an outstanding balance. It can be a one time donation, or I can do it regularly. Some area churches also have food pantries that are willing to use donations as they are earmarked.
Between school lunch programs and food pantries, fulfilling Scripture to feed the hungry has really never been easier! A word of caution, though. There are some USDA issues with the donation of home grown and home preserved products, but fresh produce is acceptable. Meanwhile, many schools are open and willing to work with people trying to help.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Spring is Nearly Here
As I look out my office window, I am reminded that it is indeed, still winter. That's fine, we need everything in it's season, but spring is on the way. We've reached the half-way point for winter. In growing zone 7, rumor has it we can have lettuce, peas, and radishes in the ground in two weeks. If there is another snow, well, we shall see, but since relocating and going natural, I've spent every birthday in the garden. I'll use the Gregorian date, just for ease of recognition, although my birthday on the Hebrew calendar is actually mentioned in the book of Esther, but . . . I digress.
Regardless of what the middle of February holds in the way of weather, I've been working in the garden, every March 5, since 2006. I messed up on the last Shemitah, and thankfully, I've been forgiven. Perhaps that's why I'm sounding the warning so strongly for this one. The long debate and discussion of dates in the TO, HRM, Messianic community did not begin with Facebook. There are those who have figured it from the arrival into the Promised Land, those who figure it from Israel's re-establishment, and those who figure it from their own beginnings at Homesteading.
Fortunately, I have taken the opportunity to turn off the social debates and sit down and do the math. I figure Shemitah from the children of Israel's arrival in the Promised Land. When I arrived at that, I was then ready to apply that to my gardening, as well. As it turns out, I learned this just in time to coordinate it with this homestead. The first small one, as I mentioned was a place of learning and adapting. Once I had the year figured, the next thing I heard, was "It's time to move!" Sure enough, this is my sixth year in this place. I am so thankful our Heavenly Father makes things easy and preserves the simple!
This is the time the nurseries begin to stock bedding plants and even the Dollar General sells seed packets. Don't let this year's garden season pass you by, even if it's only a 1 square foot garden.
Regardless of what the middle of February holds in the way of weather, I've been working in the garden, every March 5, since 2006. I messed up on the last Shemitah, and thankfully, I've been forgiven. Perhaps that's why I'm sounding the warning so strongly for this one. The long debate and discussion of dates in the TO, HRM, Messianic community did not begin with Facebook. There are those who have figured it from the arrival into the Promised Land, those who figure it from Israel's re-establishment, and those who figure it from their own beginnings at Homesteading.
Fortunately, I have taken the opportunity to turn off the social debates and sit down and do the math. I figure Shemitah from the children of Israel's arrival in the Promised Land. When I arrived at that, I was then ready to apply that to my gardening, as well. As it turns out, I learned this just in time to coordinate it with this homestead. The first small one, as I mentioned was a place of learning and adapting. Once I had the year figured, the next thing I heard, was "It's time to move!" Sure enough, this is my sixth year in this place. I am so thankful our Heavenly Father makes things easy and preserves the simple!
This is the time the nurseries begin to stock bedding plants and even the Dollar General sells seed packets. Don't let this year's garden season pass you by, even if it's only a 1 square foot garden.
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