Frost on a Sabbath, on my heart?

Hours roll by and bodies tire. Sleepless nights compound and the sin nature lurks to rule unabated. How often the tongue lies in wait ready to strike. Morning comes early. As milk pours forth the mouth is silent. Mostly. But the mind is churning. Hard freezes bring edgy pasture days. Bloat comes easy to the unsuspecting. Cattle graze not knowing of danger in every bite. The mind keeps churning. Will this year be different than others? Have we learned from mistakes, or like our nature do we keep rehearsing that which we soon regret. Can we repent? Turn away? Do that which we have not always done. Walk a different road? Cattle are restless. Do they know what has changed? Bull menaces. The tongue utters challenge. Reminds of supremacy. Analogies come to mind. How much my heart is in tune with Bull. Demanding attention. Challenging my master. "My way!" "My time!" "My family!" The list is long. I am reminded
My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. " Thank you Lord, your kindness leads us to repentance. I should have remembered the verses that predicated both, but I do not.
Moment passes and I am again working. Time is running hard and I am not. Will I be on time for the gathering of the body of believers for Worship? My mind again begins to churn.
I should have continued praising. In that moment the freshly rising Sun was in my stead, doing my delightful duty of praise.
Frozen mud flying, bitter wind biting at my hands I ride to barn. Are the others done? Yes, barely except one, he is already gone. My heart begins to overflow. Phone in hand my tongue becomes a world of evil, salt water flows fast. An ill spoken response catches me. Deed done, heart sick I go on, later than ever. My mind now a hurricane of spite and malice, yet light dawns mirroring the sun.
Self righteousness is seen for its hideous self.

Luke 5:32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.

I am broken. Lord you are my righteousness, I am a sinner.

Therefor you have no excuse, O man, everyone of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man -you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself - that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Romans 2:1-4

Lord thank you for your kindness. Forgive me.

2 Coringthians 7:10
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Thank you Lord for enduring such hostility from us, for being so patient.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding you r blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

"My son, do not regard ligtly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives."

Lord, because you you we have hope. Give me a repentant heart.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea,
a great High Priest whose name is Love,
who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on his hands,
my name is written on his heart;
I know that while in heav'n he stands
no tongue can bid me thence depart,
no tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to dispair,
and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see Him there,
who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free;
for God, the Just, is satisfied
to look on Him and pardon me,
to look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there! the risen Lamb,
my perfect spotless Righteousness,
the great unchangeable I AM,
the King of Glory and of grace!
One with Himself I cannot die,
my soul is purchased by His blood;
my life is hid with Christ on high,
with Christ, my Savior and my God,
with Christ, my Savior and my God.
-Charitie L. Bancroft

One more reason to Glory in Christ's mercy

I thank God in his mercy that we live in the time we live in. And that he has taught men (even men that didn't love him) the skill of a Caesarean birth.
Angela has struggled off and on wondering if there is something that she could have done differently that would have resulted in her being able to deliver Abraham vaginally. The doctors have told her there is nothing that she could have done other than possibly having induced labor when she was not so far along.
*disclaimer on being a little graphic*
My brothers Paul and David and I buy and resell diary heifers. About a week ago we had bought a group of dairy heifers. A veterinarian had pregnancy checked all of the heifers before the sale to tell how far along they were or if they were open. They do this through palpation of the heifer. Occasionally they are a little off on their guess as to how far along the heifer is in her pregnancy. We vaccinate the heifers accordingly using different vaccines for pregnant heifers and open ones. Well, a couple of days after we brought them home we noticed that one of the heifers was aborting her calf. We looked on the list and she was supposed to be open. We figured maybe the vet had missed it a little and she was probably short bred, like maybe 30-45 days. Well later on the second day we noticed that she still had cleanings (placenta) hanging out of her so we loaded her in the cattle trailer to she if we could do anything for her. Paul palpated her and discovered much to our surprise that she was probably about 8 months pregnant (cows are pregnant for about 9 months) and that she was still with calf. Normally cows have their calves on their own, but sometimes you have to pull the calf out. They come front feet first and then head and body. They are usually only in labor for a few hours at the absolute most. At 2 days the calf was already dead, and usually a cow that is in labor for that long has a very small chance of survival let alone being a productive cow. Well we (mostly Paul) worked for hours trying to get the calf out of this heifer. *VERY GRAPHIC* Paul was having to (with a long plastic glove that covers the length of your arm) try to get the calf's head in place so that it would come out as David and I pulled on the calving chains hooked to the calf's legs. But nothing would work. And reaching in a cow while it is laboring is very exhausting work for even a short time let alone hours. We pulled until there was nothing left to pull on and the calf was still in the heifer (As I said the calf was already dead and I have never seen this happen before). The heifer was not really able to even walk by the time we were done, and the majority of the calf was still inside. I ended up having to put the heifer down.

As I drove home that night the magnitude of what had just taken place really hit home to me. It was after 11 o'clock at night I had just lost a heifer, and neither of those things really mattered all that much. All I could keep thinking of was how hard Angela had labored with Abraham and then driven to exhaustion she still could do nothing to bring him into this world; he like that calf would just not fit out of the birthing canal. That is when it really hit me how again how gracious God has been to us. It is only fairly recently in history that C-sections are a common practice in humans with a very high survival rate for both mother and child. I do not know why He has blessed us with living in this time or place, when so many through history have not had that, I can only be thankful for the undue mercy He has had on us.
Thankyou! God You have been good to us beyond hope!

Tramp

Well, the day has come. It is sort of a sad day but today I put Tramp up for sale. He has been a very enjoyable bull to have around. He has a bit of personality, but is extremely docile. He has never been aggressive at all, even when in a tight corner with me only a couple of feet away. Thanksgiving day we got a bunch of snow and the extremely short grass they were on (our lawn looked like a hay field compairitively) was buried in snow. They maybe would have been able to scrounge for some feed but I was feeling like "Hey, it's thanksgiving and I am gonna eat pretty good, why shouldn't they." So I hauled the cattle here a couple of bales of bean straw. Well Tramp was the first one in the afore fenced off barn yard and checked out the bean straw, snuffed at it and proceeded to eat grass under the barnyard wire. Then this morning when the snow had melted back a bit, he left the bean straw to go back to nibbling on .5 inch tall grass. That bull has a serious love for grazing! Plus, he is one of the biggest chunks of meat I have seen. So, hopefully someone buys him, but none the less he is going to be missed. Even Angela likes him. He sings too her as he walks across the pasture when she dumps things like pear peals out for him.

Chores

Blake kindly volunteered to help feed "The Ladies" while he visited us last week.
At first they didn't know what to think...

Ma and Pa Shupe are locals around here...

But where'd Ma go, and who is this new guy that's picking up our poo?

They relaxed a bit after Blake put on his charm...


He even made a new friend, Donkey!

Udder Joy

Christmas morning we helped with some chores and milked the Jerseys we part own. Udder joy? Yes, we did enjoy most of the morning:).

Nicole (the newlywed!) hard at work, never complains, what a joy for David on their first Christmas!

The milkman...

Miss Ann...who says Michigan cows aren't happy!

(pic of the real milk maid-j:))The ladies tolerated me helping a bit. It's interesting how skiddish they can be when someone they don't know is in the parlor.