SOCCERPRACTICECHICKENCOOPBUNNIES!

The title sort of sums up what my life has been like lately.  First, the soccer!

Miss Boo is playing soccer.  There are uniforms and cleats and snacks and game times.  (Although two snacks during a half-hour game seems over-snacked to me, but it seems to make it fun for everyone except the parent who is supposed to bring the snacks.)

She is #23.  She runs hard, and sometimes gets a good kick.  She got a goal her first game!  (I think they arrange it so almost everyone gets a goal at this age, but we were still proud.)

The Husband and I are still brewing.  We've moved up to having labels.  With knights on them. Because we bad like that.

The chicken coop is done.  I painted the whole inside in a tearing hurry with my beefy arms, and only just now is the soreness fading.

Those are a feed container and water container hanging from the chains.  The little window piece on the wall is where the nest boxes will go when there are nest boxes and the chickens are old enough to need them.

The door (massively heavy) with the pretty hinges.  (Pretty hinges, pointed out the Husband, cost only $2 more than ugly hinges, so we got the pretty ones.)

The (partially painted) side of the coop with the chicken door.

The back before the window shutters were on, with the cleanout door and an attractive tarp.

Chickens in the coop, reveling in the newfound ability to turn around.

MOAR chicken pictures.

The window shutters in place.

So we also drove to Idaho and bought half a cow.  It was labelled for us, but it makes it kind of eerie getting hamburger out of the freezer, because I keep thinking of that old Hitchcock story where the murderess served Roast Husband to the investigating cop.

Swinging in the park.

More swinging.

Slightly bored with swinging, considering the slide.

A pile of baby bunnies (we had baby bunnies April 1).  Eight of them!

One bunny!

What have you been doing lately?

Cheers,

Breanna

Loving Our Enemies

  “You have heard that it was said, 

YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR 

and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, 

love your enemies 

and pray for those 

who persecute you,

so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; 

for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, 

and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

For if you love those who love you, 

what reward do you have? 

Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

If you greet only your brothers, 

what more are you doing than others? 

Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

--Matthew 5:43-48

I always wonder about their mothers.

The first time was when there was a triple homicide in the town where we lived; a mother and her two kids were killed and their house was set on fire.  For weeks the police couldn't find who did it, and we hoped that when they found "the guy" that he would get the death penalty.  And surely, death is deserved for such a horrible, evil act.

Then they found the murderer--a 16-year-old girl who had been a babysitter for the family, who was turned in by her own mother.

And all I could think about was that mother, having to drive home from the jail.  I still pray for her.

I felt that way again when saw the picture this morning of the youngest of the two brothers that planted the bombs in Boston.  He's 19; he looks so young.  Am I saying he shouldn't have to pay for doing something so wicked, because he's 19?  Not at all.  But I can't stop thinking about his mother, about when this bomber was a little boy, a baby the same age as my baby.  What happened to him between then and now?  What makes a happy baby into a cold-blooded murderer?  He's got to pay for his crimes, but how I wish someone could have stopped him--saved him.  How I wish someone could have saved that 16-year-old murderess.

And then it occurs to me that this is how God must feel, looking at us.

We love our enemies not because they deserve it.  By definition, an enemy is someone who has hurt us or who wants to hurt us.  An enemy is a bad guy.  We are told to love them because that's how God loves us--He loves us even though we were rebels against Him, His enemies.  This makes no sense, does it?  Why does He love us when we behave the way we do?

Likewise, prayer for these men--our enemies, bad, wicked, evil men--does not make sense, does it?  But you see above that the Lord Himself tells us to do it.  I don't think He meant just tiny enemies, or enemies that don't kill anyone, or enemies that haven't broken the law.  I think He meant all of them.

So how can we pray for men like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

Well, we can certainly pray that he is caught.  "Getting away" with his crimes here on earth is not beneficial for his soul.  Justice needs to be served.

We can pray that he doesn't die when the police and FBI get him, in order that he can be questioned (so that others will be protected, if there are more people connected with these attacks) and so he has a last chance to hear and accept the Gospel.

We can pray that he doesn't hurt anyone else.

And we can pray for his eternal salvation.

Do I want to pray these things?  Not really.  I'd like revenge.  An 8-year-old was among those murdered during the marathon.  I'd like Tsarnaev to die, preferably in as much pain and terror as he caused his victims.

But I'm a Christian, and I've been commanded to love him and pray for him, even though he's an evil man.  This is one of the distinctives of Christianity.  Christ forgave the men who nailed him to the cross.  He forgave Judas.  The martyrs in ancient Rome forgave the men who tied them up and turned the lions loose.  Can we do less and call ourselves Christians?

(Note that none of this means that we are against justice being served.  Even if every single one of my prayers above were answered, that wouldn't mean that Tsarnaev shouldn't get the death penalty.  I do believe that when you take lives, your life is forfeit--and I have Biblical backup for that.)

So.

I encourage you to pray for the police and the residents of Boston, that no one else will be hurt today.  Pray for the medical personnel who are dealing with the wounded from the marathon and the noble, wounded policeman from today.  Pray for the family of the police officer who was murdered earlier today.

And pray for the murderer, and for his mother.

Breanna

P.S.

I am aware that I'm asking you to do a difficult thing, and it's okay if you feel like you can't.  I just felt led to post this today.

Cooping

So we ordered chickens.  The Husband decided he would design and build the coop.

The first thing was digging and leveling.  So much leveling.

So much digging.

And we had help.  They got very very very dusty.

(Just a picture of the mountains over my back fence...

(...I thought they were pretty that day.)

This is what the Back 40 looked like before, btw.

This is the sunburn I got while foolishly leveling in short sleeves.  Yes, I am naturally that pale fishbelly color.  I was genetically engineered to live in a bog.

Here you see my shadow and the LEVEL cinderblock foundation.

Here you see the finger I mashed leveling.

The floor, which we built in the garage and then hauled across 4586 miles to the back back yard, where the coop was to be.

We had a handsome site foreman, though.

(Before we let the baby sit on it, we put chicken wire on under the OSB boards, and then put the OSB boards on.  The chicken wire will, we hope, discourage things that like to chew through floors and eat chickens.)

Inspecting the level-ness of the floor.  It darn well better be level.

Then it was Easter!

(The Husband said, "Did you get a picture of the two walls up?"  I don't have any framing pictures of these walls.  Suffice to say we framed them in the garage--they all had to be trimmed--and carried them 937 miles to the back back yard, where we nailed them to the floor.  Which seemed flimsy to me, but then we put some steel ties on them and nailed THOSE to the floor.)

Anyway.  Easter.  Eating candy in your slip and tights because you don't want to get your dress dirty.

Eating candy in jammies and bed-head.

Eating candy with what later turned out to be a fever.

Fancy Easter hair.

Showing off her stickers...

And the Easter dress.

This is the post-Easter playclothes, and a baby doll she resurrected and named Melissa.

The chicks arrived on Easter Monday.  The surprisingly tolerant post office called to tell me I had a peeping package waiting for me.

So I went and picked it up.  This is the chick we call "Bootsie".  S/he is a fancy "exotic" breed that the hatchery threw in for free/because they want to get rid of their exotic chicks/in case a chick died.  S/he has feathers on his/her feet.

She got sick on the same day that Daddy was sick enough to stay home from work, Thursday of Easter week.  We didn't get a lot of coop work done, obviously.

They didn't really care.  They are living in a box with a lamp at the moment.

We got all the walls on; we tried to lift the roof on and it was much, much, much too heavy.

Which turned out to be good, because we realized we had to trim the OSB.  We kinda forgot about that when we were trying to lift the roof in the rain.

See? big square box, no slant?

Enter "sawzall" tool.  Voila, slant.

Then we wrapped it in Tyvek, because if you're going to build it (says the Husband) you should build it CORRECTLY.

We did some finegalling and took the roof apart and put it back together on top of the building.  (I hate pulling nails.)

Looks pretty good though, doesn't it?

Now we just have to insulate and put down flooring (we bought a linoleum remnant to protect the floorboards) and put up the interior walls (doing it CORRECTLY).

And hang the door.  And put in the next boxes.  And paint.

Oh well, it's a nice little three-weekend project. ;)  And I think my husband is pretty smart for knowing how to build it all by ourselves.

Cheers,

Breanna