Today's radio show!

Click on the link for September 20, 2011 to hear tonight's radio show!

Thank you to Scott McCausey and Christian Devotions Speak Up for the opportunity!

To God be the glory!

Tuesday a radio show for MVOGF

Don't forget today's 1 hour radio show by Scott McCausey, from Christian Devotion's Speak UP with yours truly (HomemakerAng-if you haven't had enough of me already)!  At 6 pm eastern time.

The link to the show is 2 posts down.  Click on the link for more info!

HOPE to "see" you there.  I will be broadcasting live from a-top of the windmill...

xo

I am having a hard time gettin' going this Monday...

After a weekend in beautiful Leelanau...  How bout' you?

radio broadcast link from post below

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/christian-devotions/2011/09/27/christian-devotions-speak-up-with-angela-kuncaitis

See you all next week at 6 pm at Christian Devotions Speak UP!

3 year off-grid anniversary and a radio show!

Like time in an hour glass… “These are the days of our lives”…

 

 

Can you really believe we are on the eve of our 3 year anniversary here at Maple Valley Off-Grid Farm?  Wow, time surely flies if you will….  I would, we would like to personally thank you from the bottom of our huge hearts for reading here, for going along with us on this journey, for your interest and your encouragement…  It has been a truly incredible ride and “God is still driving this thing”…  I used that phrase at the beginning of this trip and I still am using it now.  We always want to be right smack dab in the middle of His will, no matter where that may lead us.

 

 

I have done my best as the writer of this blog to keep it real, to share our world, to keep it up beat and to be an encouragement to you to pursue your God given dreams.  I want to agitate you to dig deep into your soul and wonder and ask yourself some deep questions in your heart and to get some answers to the “what ifs” in the dreaming and faith departments…  Whatever that might be…

 

 

We have some exciting things coming up to celebrate our 3 year anniversary of living off the grid! We will be having another birthday party as a family to celebrate our journey, complete with a store bought cake!  We work hard cooking with wood all year so we will reward ourselves with a store or bakery bought cake again on this October 14^th Anniversary!  Oh…the irony of our lives…  But we do have candles and believe me, it lights up the kitchen of this farm house just a little brighter mixed the oil lamps.

 

 

***We want to invite you to a ONE HOUR LIVE RADIO BROADCAST that all of you should be able to tune into to listen to a live interview with Scott Mc Causey of “Christian Devotions Speak Up” with yours truly, HomemakerAng! We will be doing the show live a week from today,  September 27, 2011 at 6 pm if the Lord tarries…  Please tune in and you can get a real personal feel of this journey as Scott and I discuss the NUMEROUS challenges and WONDERFUL rewards of this lifestyle that our family lives.

 

 

Back to the honesty part…  I have not mentioned much here about a residual illness and more that I have been stricken with since February 2011.  This has truly made my life much more challenging to live these past months.  However, per the medical doctors mixed with homeopathic remedies and my strong faith that Jesus truly is my healer, I will beat this.  But in this case they all have stated that “time truly heals all” and this is what I will need is time and more time with Him.  There may be some changes for me which means us as a family here.  But, be rest assured that “God is still driving this thing…”

 

 

And now, let us get on with this PARTY!!!!  Won’t you help us and join in to celebrate 3 of the best years of our lives on this beautiful earth so far???  You all have been a special part how we live and we thank you!  To God be the glory!!!  Lets PARTY!!!!

 

Autumn evenings on this story book farm...

Real farm kids...

It's that time of year again!

Buddy's deer from the farm, early doe season!  Looks like we will be pressure canning tomorrow.

Book school is in session...

Some napping and others out to work...  Our first year without all 6 kitty cats

Friends...

In memory...

Some gave all...

Running!

Our son running to enjoy these last summer like days!  

Friday night "off-grid Little Ceaser's Pizza"

Ok, not quite but better...

Fresh garden pizza, wood fired, off-grid style...

Meet our new baker and chef in residence...

At just 15 she taken over the kitchen ropes although she has been making some wonderful homemade bread for 2 years in our wood cookstove.   Here is applesauce fresh from our trees and herbal tomato soup from the garden.

Our school starts Monday.  What are you up to this weekend?

Be blessed today... Life is short.  

Acts 16:31 "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and though shalt be saved"!

It really is that easy... Don't wait, why not call on Him today?

Xo
Homemakerang

Need help, just ask!

Where were you on that fateful day?

"I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears."
Psalm 34:4

What are your fears?

It's a rhubarb-coconut bakeover breakfast mornin'

What are you having for breakfast?  In where she successfully blog's off-grid from her Droid!!!

Off-grid summer nights are winding down..

There is a chill in the air!

In where she threads a treadle bobbin...

Finally, our own little corner of Leelanau...

You can make everything new...

Tuesday January 11, 2011…

I was just going to sit down. Things finally seemed to slow down after a small chimney fire in the farm kitchen on that cold Saturday winter evening. We had readied up the home for Sunday, things were winding down after bath time… A cake in the oven for the next day, clean kitchen floors and we looked and small flames streamed into the farm house above the cook stove. I tried my best to turn the stove down. I wanted to stop the flames from coming in… I thought I had succeeded but when I went outside to see the chimney with a rocket jet appearance I figured it was now beyond me and I called for help to the local fire department.

After a few hours of bright lights into the home and numerous firemen helping, we had put the small fire out. We were left with thankful hearts for local help and a messy kitchen and pantry. That night could have been worse. The firemen said if we were not home the farmhouse would have burned to the ground. But God had other plans for us…

And now it is Tuesday… a cold and blizzardy January day. Weather is coming in fiercely as the day drags on. We had help shooing the Belgians today. Lots of winter chores to be done, emptying manure from the barn and spreading it to the fields. Bringing wood to the house as these January days seem to be sunny but the temperatures dropping lower still. After school at the kitchen table I brought out homemade Rueben sandwiches to the men in the shoppe haus that were shooing the Belgians. The girls and I tidied up the kitchen and I seemed to just be “sitting down” for the day making a short phone call when the eventful barging through the kitchen door happened.

I had noticed the gentle giant calling in when I was on the phone but I was finishing up some farm business and could not answer his call. I found it strange that he had called twice so I decided I should hang up now. As I reached for the local paper and my hot tea the kitchen door came bursting open.

I could tell by the look in her eyes, the color in her cold face that something was dreadfully wrong… She looked at me breathing heavily and much too bravely said, “Mom, there has been an accident, I need warm blankets now!”… My heart literally was in my throat and with a faint and weak voice I could barely stand and asked my sweet and innocent daughter, “What is wrong”? I was not sure I could handle what she was going to tell me next but this was the moment of truth… The moment every parent never wants to have, where we need to hear some terribly bad, possibly life changing news… I had to hear her answer…

“Buddy is lying in the field, he cannot get up and was injured and we need to cover him up, Dad has already called ambulances”. “Is he hurt I screamed” she said “We do not know but find the blankets now!” I could barely function; I could not keep my head about me as I went to the cedar lined closet to reach for the woolen linens. My first thought, “I knew we shouldn’t have learned to drive horses, I should have listened to all of the concerned ‘naysayers’…” I still had not even known what was wrong with my dear Buddy, our precious 13 year old son. But at that moment in time I promised God I would reevaluate everything (whatever that could possibly be); please God, just save our son! “And they were taunting, “there is a price to pay, I told you so, there is a price to pay I told you so…” I pushed back the evil and threw the blankets to our daughter. I prayed… I grabbed my phone and my long wool coat, head lamp and boots and I started running east for what seemed like hours. As I trudged along I was slipping on the icy and blizzardy road. I could not see even 2 ft. in front of my face with the blowing and drifting snow coming down. I was thanking God that I was not pregnant as I would have been 34 weeks if not for the sad loss but now was finally comforted and healed from the snatching of the tiny life earlier inside my womb. There would have been no way I could even walk out here if not so. I didn’t even call my husband yet; I called 911 and told them to meet me on the road by the back of the 40 so I could flag them down. They would have to “find” our son lying in the middle of the field and I knew that no vehicle or ambulance was going to be able to get to him.

After calling and running for what seemed like forever I reached the gentle giant on the phone. He was out of breath and was holding our son and telling me to wait for the ambulance in a yelling tone. I could not, I ran out to the field to see my precious Buddy lifeless, to find our daughter delivering the blankets on horse back to my husband and my son… Covering Buddy to keep him from shock. He could not stand and hardly talk… “GOD, I need you now” “I need you more than ever to come through for this family NOW” “Please GOD, let our son live”! I could barely ask, “What happened”… I really did not want to know, I just wanted our son back to the way he was… The how or whys didn’t seem to matter at this point… Just get us back to how we used to be God!

The Gentle Giant told me what had happened… At this moment we were sure our sweet Buddy had internal injuries and we knew nothing more. But we prayed and we prayed and we screamed out to God to save our son!

I could hear the ambulances faintly away… the sounds of sirens would come closer and then grow fainter. I kept calling and calling 911 and giving them directions! Why couldn’t they find us? They stated they were lost, LOST!!! And the roads were so horrible they could not navigate fast lest they go into the ditch… I prayed again, I prayed harder and I wondered if “this was it” every parent’s worst nightmare. Is this what “it” feels like? I was ready to vomit, I would never drive a horse again, I wanted to be safe, I wanted us to be safe… Like we used to be… We only did all of this for good, for God…

I was abruptly taken from my fears by a friendly face pulling up from our local fire department. He rolled his window down and said without any ‘introduction’, “We won’t be able to get back to him there”… He radioed into dispatch and told them to be ready for a backboard rescue at this time and possibly aero med. I told him we needed to cut the fences now. He handed me a tool while readying a backboard and gear and I cut into raw steel and cut my cold and frozen hand on barbed wire.

The ambulances pulled up and confirmed they would try the backboard rescue first if that would even work. The Gentle Giant was telling them Buddy’s pulse and breaths per minute and stated he believed our dear Buddy was going into shock. Between the rural setting and the horrible blizzard Buddy had laid in that field unmovable for much too long…

After a treacherous rescue mission through frozen furrows and small icy hills, Buddy was delivered to the back of the warm ambulance and hooked to IV’s and oxygen. They wouldn’t let me in the back of the ambulance… They would NOT let me hold Buddy, and I told them that under no circumstances was I letting them take Buddy from this farm without me. They put me in the front of the ambulance to warm me up. I looked and opened the tiny window to the back of the ambulance to see my son. I tried to put my arm through the window to touch his hat.

He was telling them not to cut his Muck Boots. “Do you know how much these cost my dad”? He said… That was all he said… He cried out in pain as they removed the boot. I numbly told Buddy we would get him new boots just as soon as we could. He wouldn’t talk to me… He just cried in pain. I cried to my God to save Buddy, to save this “family”… The blizzardous drive to the hospital took forever. The Gentle Giant following behind…They took an odd route to get our son to safety and Matt let them know kindly but firmly when we finally arrived. Buddy had now been almost 2 hours damaged from the accident.

They wheeled him in to the room and I finally could get to Buddy. His eyes full of fear and he reached out and grabbed me so hard I almost fell over. He held on tight, he was scared and I kissed him from my salty tears and told him he was going to ok… I prayed with him again for complete restoration… and He said, “I love you Mom, so much”…

HomemakerAng

September 3, 2011