"A Mighty Fortress is Our God"

 1. A mighty fortress is our God,

A bulwark never failing;

Our helper He, amid the flood

Of mortal ills prevailing;

For still our ancient foe

Doth seek to work us woe;

His craft and power are great,

And, armed with cruel hate,

On Earth is not his equal.

 

2. Did we in our own strength confide,

Our striving would be losing;

Were not the right Man on our side,

The Man of God's own choosing;

Dost ask who that may be?

Christ Jesus, it is He;

Lord Sabaoth, His name,

From age to age the same,

And He must win the battle.

 

3. And though this world, with devils filled,

Should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed

His truth to triumph through us;

The Prince of Darkness grim --

We tremble not for him;

His rage we can endure,

For lo, his doom is sure,

One little word shall fell him.

 

4. That word above all earthly powers,

No thanks to them, abideth.

The Spirit and the gifts are ours

Though Him who with us sideth;

Let goods and kindred go,

This mortal life also;

The body they may kill;

God's truth abideth still,

His kingdom is forever.

-Martin Luther-

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 

Psalm 46.1

Coming Soon...

A group of us homeschoolers are going apple picking tomorrow!  Stay tuned for photos.

I forgot my camera!  :(  So no photos.  We had a wonderful morning, though!

Happy Thanksgiving!

  O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

Psalm 118.29

A Stormy Week

We have been going through a very bad storm this week.  It is finally beginning to calm down.  The last two days have been constant, pounding winds and torrential rain.  It got really cold last evening and it has been raining/sleeting/snowing today.  I'm pretty sure our apple tree is permanently over to one side from the wind.  Remember our appleless apple tree?  It doesn't look like that anymore :(  My peonies and gladiolus are all smashed flat (good thing they're all finished for the year).  A lot of branches have come off the trees and our garbage bins are laying flat on the ground (nothing fell out thanks to my raccoon proof bungee cord).  We are thankful there hasn't been any serious damage here and we haven't lost power.

In other news... we are under squirrel invasion again.  It's the time of year when the squirrels realise you no longer have a cat around and decide to take over your property.  Those of you who know me personally know about my long history with squirrels.  I had one living with me for at least a week, sleeping in my bed when I went to work.  Said squirrel bit me twice when I finally captured it.  I've trapped at least 10 in a humane trap and released them far out in the woods.  We've had a squirrel in our bathroom.

Squirrels are cute where they belong - OUTSIDE.  Squirrels are not cute when you're staring them down in your house.

Hopefully, they'll just stay outside, relaxing in our lawn chairs and scampering across our roof.

And now for your viewing pleasure, a clip from our storm.

Hope you're somewhere warm and dry tonight.  Thanks for visiting!

The Yarn Inheritance

I have received a LARGE amount of yarn from a lady who is 94 and going into a nursing home.  A LARGE AMOUNT.  As in THREE garbage bags (yes, sir, yes, sir 3 bags full).  If nobody wanted it, there was a dumpster waiting for it.  So now it's in my living room.  It's not entirely yarn, there is some crochet cotton and rug making stuff as well.  Oh, and a kit to make a clock.  Guess I've got my "spare time" this winter planned out...

I found a pattern at Dollar Store Crafts for the World's Easiest Crocheted Scarf and decided to give it a try.  It is extremely easy.  I had never crocheted before and was able to make this without any difficulty.  The only stitch you need to know how to do is the chain stitch and there is an excellent video posted along with the pattern showing how to do it.  Pretty simple.

 Crochet a bunch of really long chains (8-10 feet long) out of whatever scrap yarn you have (this is a great way to use up yarn).  I think I had ten.  Make sure they're roughly the same length.

 Decide how you want them to go together.

 Knot them together every 8 to 12 inches or so.

 You can trim and reknot the ends once you're finished to neaten it up.

Ready to wear!

As I have said, it was very easy and quick to put together.  The chains took me 3 evenings to do (I didn't use all I had made because they didn't look right).  Actually putting the scarf together took about 10 minutes.  I'm certainly going to be making more of these - I've got a lot of yarn to use up!  Thanks for visiting today.