Making Kefir and Filmjolk

This is cool! I've been making homemade Kefir and Fil milk. Kefir is a type of fermented milk which is full of enzymes, vitamins and is a live culture similar to yogurt and is a probiotic. It aides in digestion and of coarse has a lot of protein. It is said to best be made with raw milk but at this time I mostly use organic pasteurized milk. You can use cow or goat's milk and there are water kefir grains in which you can make a drink similar to soda that actually has some benefits with the live cultures in it and less sugars. The grains grow over time (the look a little like cottage cheese, lumpy like that). You add them to milk, let the milk set out over 24 hrs. Strain the grains and leave the milk out for another 24 hrs with the airlock I have on it (in the above picture) which keeps the air from going in and only lets air out. Then refrigerate for a day or two to allow more proliferation of B vitamins then, you can drink it straight or what I do is, add to you smoothie with what ever fruit you like and a little honey. Yummy good and good for you!

The Filmjolk (pronounced: feelm yolk) Is much the same process but there are no grains and the process is much more fool proof and hard to do wrong. You save out about 6 Tbsp. of liquid from a previous batch then add it to about a half gallon of milk or cream. If you use cream, you'll be making creme frache' ( a cultured sour cream!!) Leave it out for 24-48 hours depending on the temp of your kitchen. You can then drink it straight or use it is smoothies as above, or if using cream, as a sour cream for dips recipes etc. Best served raw of coarse.

Kefir, filmjolk, yogurt all add different probiotics to your diet so it's nice to have them all on hand. You can also just add to fruit and eat it that way or make dressings and such.

This is a cool website to check out for LOTS of info on kefir grains and filmjolk:

http://www.cheeseslave.com/2008/01/26/got-filmjolk/

Check out the section on "how to make homemade soda pop with kefir grains". It sounds really good. Maybe I'll try it too.

Would like to use the raw milk to make my kefir and fil milk just haven't gotten all the way there yet. I know a lot of ladies who use raw milk exclusively and I know that raw milk is full of nutrients that are destroyed by pasteurization and pasteurization is believed to make milk actually harmful to us.

It's good to make it at home instead of store bought as the store bought kefer is really full a sugars and sugars can kill the good live cultures, so by making it yourself, you know exactly what is in it and how much.

B's phone

Here's a pic of "B" talking on her phone. It's not really a phone, it's a big, flat calculator but she thinks it's a cell phone so she walks around saying, "hi" on it. It makes me laugh because it's so big but it has big numbers on it so I can see why she thinks it's a phone.

She's a hoot!

The Card

Here are some pics of us helping Braelynne Faith make a card for her mom's birthday. O my. It was quite a battle to get her to lay her little hand flat. The foot didn't go too bad but the hand, Oooooh my goodness, the hand!!!!!!!!! She really couldn't see the need for spreading out her cute little fingers and placing them neatly on the piece of paper without trying to make a fist and crumpling up the paper, aaaahhh. O well, it is the thought that counts, right?

Look at those toes, they are the cutes toes. It's cute to look back and remember how tiny they were because they grow so fast.

As "B" says, "Happy Day". She learned that when she had her first birthday. She actually said happy birthday but I guess she's a girl who doesn't waste her time so she has shortened it down to Happy Day. Sometimes she kinda sings it. Sometimes she just says it. But she just wanted to tell her mom...Happy Day!

Just Pics

Here are a few funny pics the boys took of themselves on the computer. They're always doing something wild with the computer; being guys on the news, commercials and short movies. They are quite a hoot sometimes and we get quite a chuckle out of 'em. In the top pic, Tanner is the "fattest man". The second pic looks like it could be Caleb when he's about 16, The next one is when Tanner is ALL finished with school, and I think in the bottom one, Caleb looks a little like the lead singer from the beatles! Ha!

Just for fun!

Questions from Caleb

I love it when Caleb opens up and asks questions. It really shows me the inner workings of his mind. Sometimes I really have to laugh at him because he has some pretty wild thoughts, like the time when he asked me, "Mom, what if a midget went to war and got his arm shot off and they had to give him a regular sized (prosthetic) arm"? That one actually made me laugh out loud and then I really had to ponder the thoughts that go thru this little guys mind. Ha, what a hoot! I asked him what in the world made him think of something like that, he said, "O, I just thought about one thing, then one thing led to another!"


As we sat talking about scriptures today, Caleb said to me (as his one thought leads to another thought thing kicks in) "did Yah say that there is supposed to be 24 hours in a day?" I explained to him that a man made up the time we keep on the clocks. A day as described by Yah is sunset to sunset. That is one day. In Genesis, He said, "the evening (sunset) and the morning (continuing until sunset) are the first DAY. SO...man can count the hours in a day or on the clock by dividing it any way they want, they can say it's 24 hours, 15 hours, 36 hours...and so on no matter how they divie it up, it's still man's description of time Which doesn't change what Yah says is one day. Which led us into this discussion (as MY one thought leads to another thought kicked in) EVERYTHING THAT YAH PUT INTO PLACE IS FOREVER (until heaven and earth pass away)! A day is a day still today, sunset to sunset. All the laws of nature created for this world: thermodynamics, gravity, laws governing water, motion and so on, remain true and constant forever as long as this world exists. The law of time. Time is only created for this world...why? Because Yah lives in eternity there is no end to Him. Time is created for the fallen world we live in because there is a certain amount of time appointed to us before the LORD (Yah) restores everything back to the way it was in the garden, the way it was meant to be.
So, I explained to him, ALL the laws that Yah created for this world from the very beginning are created for this world until it passes away. Man cannot change those truths that Yah has said. The laws of nature are a picture of the laws or instructions Yah gave to man. They are created for this world and they just are. Man may call them what he likes, try to manipulate them or do away with them all together but Yah has put them in place and they are created to exist here in this world FOR OUR GOOD, forever!
Yah is good. I am thankful for His truths and the opportunity we have to learn them and share them with our children.
Thoughts from this Sabbath day

How do we spend our time?

Craig left early this a.m. for storm duty in Davenport and the boys and I were sitting around talking about some scriptures we were reading and discussing how satan desires to distract us from the ways that Yah told us to go in. We talked about what we are to make our first priorities and we talked about what things can become priorities that are simply designed to distract us from the things that Yah says we are to be doing. It was a good discussion as one thing led to another. After our study, I wanted to blog about a couple of things the kids and I talked about and checked my e-mail prior to getting into the blog and someone had sent something that I read to the boys as it gave a good illustration of the talk we just had.

Here's the note:

If we can "be still & know that he is God" we can trust that he is big

enough to bring the ministry to us. We need to know what season we

are in, and focus on those important things in life. As for me and my house,

I am down to no TV & 1 day aweek internet. As my children grow, I look

back and regret that I didn't simplify sooner. This verse has been on my

heart- " Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around

like a roaring lion looking for someone to, devour." 1 peter 5:8 What a

better way to devour families but to devert our attention!!

Consider this story..A time management guru was speaking to a group of type

"A"personalities. He placed a wide-mouth gallon jar on the table in frontof him.

Next to the jar was a collection of fist-sized rocks. He carefully filled the jar with

the big rocks, until he could fit no more. He asked the group, "Is the jar full?

"Everyone responded, "Yes."He then pulled a large bowl of gravel from under

the table and proceeded to pour the gravel into the jar. The gravel fit into the

spaces between the rocks. He again queried, "Is the jar full?""Probably not,"

was the group's reply. He reached for another bowl, this one filled with sand.

He dumped the sand into the jar. The sand filled the spaces not taken by the

rocks and the gravel. Once more, he asked, "Is the jar full?""No," everyone

agreed. Finally, he reached for a pitcher of water and poured water into the

jar until it was filled to the top. The time management guru looked at

the group and asked, "What is the point of my illustration?"One man replied,

"That no matter how full your schedule is, you can always fit one more thing

into it."

"No!" the guru responded. The point of this illustration is, "If you don't put the

big rocks in first, you'll never get them in at all!

"The moral of Covey's story is:

Get the important things figured out first, then fit everything else in around

them. In other words, know what your priorities are.

Yah surely knows if He is first (like the big rocks in the jar) or if He comes later in importance to us. We cannot hide what we have allowed to crowd Him out of our lives.

If we want Yah to be present in our lives and in our families, we have to purposely make Him first. Time in prayer and scripture first then He will show us the way that we are to go that day. Often we swim upstream or contrary to what others think we should be doing but the scriptures tell us the Yah's people are peculiar, doing things that the rest of the world doesn't understand mostly because people have been taught that the things Yah told His people to do are now obsolete.

We continue to examine how our time is spent because as the WORD says, "our lives are like a vapour of smoke". Life quickly passes by. Scripture teaches that we are to watch and pray as we see the day of His return approaching so that we are living a life that is prepared and ready for His return.

Just thinkin'

The beauty of seeing yourself grow old

(This is good!)

I don't need any reminders that I'm getting old. I'm reminded every day when I can't remember what happened an hour ago, what I went into a room for, or call one of my kids by the wrong name. I used to be able to remember details from years ago, now I'm lucky if I can remember my own birth date.

If all that's not enough, the physical signs are starting to crop up-the tiny wrinkles and the body aches. I sometimes hurt in random places and have absolutely no explanation why. I get phantom pains that show up and go away just at quickly as they appeared, leaving me thinking that I am being prepared for something...maybe training for bigger aches and pains down the road.

Every now and then though, something happens that gives me just a glimmer of hope. Like yesterday morning when I woke up blind in one eye.

Doesn't sound like something that would pep me up, does it? Well, that's the way it worked out.

I got up at the normal time and stumbled to the bathroom, only banging into the wall once in the process, which was when I heard a strange tinkling sound. I immediately disregarded this sound because I do well just to find my way around the house at 5 a.m., and have no hope of solving any mysteries at such an early hour.

It was when I was exiting the bathroom that I discovered that my right eye had gone all wee-wonky. everything seemed very far away and fuzzy and, try as I might, I could not get that eye to focus.

"What now!?" I muttered to myself. Wasn't it enough that I had already been doomed to bifocals? Now this? I blinked the eye repeatedly, hoping to get some semblance of normal operation. I went through coffee-making and tuning in the weather channel on television using my good eye and a fair amount of yelling.

I learned that walking around with one eye closed can make you a little seasick and noted that if I kept my right eye half open the nausea abated, but caused the right eye to twitch uncontrollably.

Once I managed to find some form of function with one good eye and one fuzzy one, the morbid thoughts started to creep in. What was all this about, anyway? A symptom of a brain tumor? The beginnings of a cataract? No matter how I tried to focus on the weather, my thoughts were inexorably drawn to my mortality.

The next thing I knew I was thinking about all the things I was going to miss when this bad eye ultimately killed me- because I am a pessimist by nature and had convinced myself in the space of less than 10 minutes that I was dying. It was optical cancer or some never-heard- of rare and exotic disease that was causing this early symptom, and I would never see my grandkids or take that trip to Ireland that I've been planning. A great sadness set in when I came to the realization that my days were now of lesser number than they were yesterday. Now I had an inkling of what my future would be... and it was short.

But I still had to go to work.

So I set about getting ready; ironing my clothes, hunting for my shoes, waking up the kids and trying not to get choked up knowing that I would ultimately have to tell them that the old lady had one foot in the grave.

I made my way to the bathroom for my shower and it was then that I found the cause of the strange tinkling sound that I had heard earlier. There was what appeared to be a small rectangular piece of glass lying on the floor by the bathroom door. I squinted at it with my good eye trying to determine what it was and where it came from. It was only when I got down on my knees by the toilet and picked it up that I let out a hoop of relief. It was the right lens to my glasses. I guess when I smacked into the wall in my sleepy stupor I did it with enough force to pop the lens out.

Just to make sure, I reached for my glasses, where they sat faithfully on the bridge of my nose, and when my finger went right through the frame and I poked myself firmly in the eye, I knew I had solved the mystery and my heart soared.

Maybe I will see my grandkids. Maybe I will see Ireland. For the time being I was just rejoicing in the fact that I could see at all!!!

This story came from the "After the chores" section of COUNTRYSIDE Mag., written by CJ Mouser. I got my usual bi-monthly mag. one day and I was sitting reading this story to Craig, not something I usually do. We sat and laughed nearly thru the whole story... the wee-wonky eye, Ha! Maybe Craig could relate to the one eye thing but we can all related to the crazy thoughts that come into our heads sometimes.
I just wanted to share this story and even tho I've had it now for prob. a couple of years now, I still laught when I read it. Hope you liked it.

Just for laughs

Before I was a Mom

Before I was a Mom,
I never tripped over toys or forgot words to a lullaby.
I didn‘t worry whether or not my plants were poisonous. I never thought about immunizations.
Before I was a Mom,
I had never been puked on. Pooped on. Chewed on. Peed on. I had complete control of my mind and my thoughts.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held down a screaming child so doctors
could do tests Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried. I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin. I never sat up late hours at nightwatching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held a sleeping baby just because
I didn‘t want to put her down. I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn‘t stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small
could affect my life so much..
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom,
I didn‘t know the feeling of
having my heart outside my body..
I didn ‘ t know how special it could feel
to feed a hungry baby.
I didn‘t know that bond
between a mother and her child.
I didn ‘ t know that something so small
could make me feel so important and happy.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night
every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth,
the joy,
the love,
the heartache,
the wonderment
or the satisfaction of being a Mom.
I didn ‘ t know I was capable of feeling so much,
before I was a Mom .

Send this to someone who you think is an awesome Mom.
May you always be overwhelmed by the Grace of God rather than by the cares of life!

Legrand Bouma...(I think)

So, have you ever wondered why...

So, have you ever wondered why we no longer celebrate the HOLIdays? Well, we traded them in for the HOLYdays. Let me explain what I mean. A few years ago, we began to study the origins of the HOLIdays (speaking of Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas). We learned in our studies that these days actually came out of worship to gods other than the one who created the heavens and the earth. In Leviticus Ch. 18: 1-4 God tells the ones who follow Him not to take on the customs of the people who are worshiping other gods and to keep HIS statutes (that means HOLYdays) which God told them that if the would do, they would live. Many other places in the bible Yahuah warns them against doing the things that other people were doing who were worshiping other gods. He gave them instructions so that they would be different, set apart, not like "the world" but special to Him.

As we studied the scriptures more, we discovered that Yahuah gave instructions to observe some specific days, He calls these days "Feasts Days" (these days are more commonly known as Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles) and He said to celebrate these days FOREVER because they are prophetic to us who follow Him. They teach us about His first coming and His second coming.

Passover is for us to remember: Exile from Egypt and the protection the blood of the lamb gave us from the death angel...fulfilled by Yahushua's death on the cross. Both occuring on the same Feast day.

Penecost is for us to remember: the giving of the law to Moses at Mt. Sinai and the Holy spirit falling in the upper room in the book of Acts. Both occuring on the same Feast day.

Tabernacles is for us to remember: This is a two part feast. It is the only Feast Day which has not beed fulfilled in it's entirety...in the "old" testament and the "new". It has been fulfilled in the "old" as it is believed Yahushua was born on this day, thus marking His first coming. Scripture foretells of His second coming which would then need to be fulfulled on this Feast day.

The reason why He tells His followers to keep these Feast Days is so we will look for His coming and to be ready. This is why we are not to put them away as many have done. He wants us to watch for Him and be ready. He gave specific instructions to keep His HOLYdays and not trade them in for man made customs because the HOLYdays are prophetic and point to the LORDs soon return. Satan is a liar and he has tried to duplicate God's HOLY and set apart days with days that LOOk like or have a similarity to the LORD's Feast Days but have no connection in teaching us to look for our Messiah who is yet to come...again!

Definitions: Holiday...custom of men

Holy day... a day set apart by Yahuah appointed by him to be perpetually observed and remembered forever thoughout our generations.

Just goin' by the book

Prophecy in the heavens

The moon will hide the face of the sun again this month (Wednesday, July 22, 2009) in the longest solar eclipse in this 21st century. "It will be a monster, with a totality lasting more than 6.6 minutes at maximum," say Fred Espenak and Jay Anderson, writers for Sky & Telescope magazine.
You may recall that when we interviewed Mark Biltz for our May 2008 issue of Prophecy in the News magazine, we noted that he had discovered three solar eclipses that would occur on each of three annual calendar dates that introduce the Jewish month of Av for the years 2008, 2009, and 2010. The first eclipse occurred on August 1, 2008. The second solar eclipse is coming up this month — on July 22, 2009, and the third will happen on July 11, 2010. Though these dates vary in our Gregorian calendar, they occur on the same calendar date in the Jewish calendar — Av 1. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon travels across the face of the sun, thus blocking out its sunlight.
A "total" solar eclipse means that the moon is large enough (closer to Earth) to completely cover the surface of the sun, whereas, an "annular" solar eclipse means that the moon is farther away from Earth and appears smaller than the sun’s disk. A "partial" solar eclipse means that the moon only crosses part the sun’s surface, but does not completely block out its light. These three solar eclipses are "total" eclipses — last year in the far north, this year across the middle of Earth’s surface, and next year in the far south.
The solar eclipse last year (August 1, 2008) was seen in parts of the Arctic, Siberia, and central Asia. The second of these three solar eclipses will be coming up this month on July 22, 2009. Sky & Telescope magazine (December 2008) had a story about this solar eclipse, saying that it would be the longest eclipse of the century and would not be seen in this configuration again until 2132.
Fred Espenak and Jay Anderson, writers for Sky & Telescope said, "A total eclipse of the sun will cross China next summer. Unlike the eclipse last August, the one on July 22, 2009, will darken major cities, densely populated countryside, and a vast expanse of tropical ocean."
"The third total solar eclipse will happen on July 11, 2010, almost entirely over the South Pacific. Easter Island and southern Chile (at sunset) offer the only landfalls. The South Pacific is again the site of the next one, on November 13, 2012."
November 13, 2012 ... hmmm ... that’s in the fourth year of this Sabbatical cycle, near December 12, 2012, the final day in the Mayan calendar. Could these be heavenly signs?
The total solar eclipse this month will have a magnitude of 1.080 that will be visible from a narrow corridor through northern India, eastern Nepal, northern Bangladesh, Bhutan, the northern tip of Myanmar, central China and the Pacific Ocean, including Ryukyu Islands, Marshall Islands and Kiribati. Totality will be visible in many cities such as Surat, Varanasi, Patna, Thimphu, Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan, Hangzhou and Shanghai. A partial eclipse will be seen from the much broader path of the Moon‘s penumbra, including most of South East Asia and north-eastern Oceania. The northern Iwo Jima island is the landmass with totality time closest to maximum.
On Friday, August 1, 2008, a total eclipse of the Sun was visible from within a narrow corridor that traversed half the Earth. The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow began in Canada and extended across northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia, Mongolia, and China. A partial eclipse was seen within the much broader path of the Moon’s penumbral shadow, which included northeastern North America, most of Europe and Asia.
On Sunday, July 11, 2010, a third total eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses Earth’s southern hemisphere. The path of the Moon’s umbral shadow will cross the South Pacific Ocean where it will make no landfall except for Mangaia (Cook Islands) and Easter Island (Isla de Pascua). The path of totality will end just after reaching southern Chile and Argentina. The Moon’s penumbral shadow will produce a partial eclipse visible from a much larger region covering the South Pacific and southern South America.
What is remarkable about these solar eclipses is the unusual way they occur on the Jewish calendar. There are several Scriptures that predict signs in the Sun and Moon around the time of the Tribulation Period. Isaiah wrote:
"Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, ... the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
"And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible" (Isa. 13:9-11).
John wrote: "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood" (Rev. 6:12).It is possible that solar and lunar eclipses over the next few years hold heavenly messages for mankind??

Courtesy of Prophecy in the News, J.R. Church

Interesting sites

I really love to visit web sites that have info on healthy living. In the polluted world we currently live in, it becomes quite a battle to know what the healthy choices are, so I have no problem learning from others ideas and experiences.

I have a couple of sites that I have recently "perused" which I liked and I will share. The first is http://dld123.com/debraslist/list.php?topic=Food#L00720 This gal has a ton of stuff on her site with mega links to stuff like: organic food, safe cookware, organic wine, and all the usual "green" and healthy topics. It's a fun site to look at. I found her while I was searching for a stainless steel Wok as stainless steel is supposed to be a "safe" cookware. I found out from her site that there is a difference in stainless steel products. Some stainless steel (18/0) does not have the alloys that regular stainless steel (18/10) has like nickle, which when the pan is scratched, leaches out into food...So it's good to do your shopping after you study the info!

Another site that I have visited is http://www.seedsofchange.com/organic_foods/default.asp . It is a site dedicated to information about genetically modified foods and such. It gives a rather extensive list of brands of foods which do contain genetically modified material. AKA, Frankenfoods! God said not to mix seeds. He's the creator and He knew it would hurt us if we did it...but for the sake of making a dollar, men will do whatever they want to do with no concern for the instructions for life that Yahuah left to us.

Just fun stuff

Ancient Paths

Remove not the ancient landmarks which your Fathers have set.
Proverbs 22:28

Hear my son and be wise and guide your heart in THE WAY... (of the ancient paths???)
Proverbs 23:19

Just Pics

This pic is a hoot. It's a few months old now but here is Braelynne and EZ. EZ is Corey and Megan's first puppy, he isn't very old here. He is a (as Corey would say) Chinese Fighting Dog...haha! He's a Shar pei (did I spell that right?) He and "B" are so cute here. He is a bundle of wrinkled skin with two tiny holes for eyes and a really big nose, cute as a button and has the best personality. Oh ya, and he hardly has ear holes, ha! Those are the qualities of his breed. He is a hoot!

We love you too EZ, you're a good boy!

Quote of the Day

Yesha'yahu (Isaiah) 2:3-4 Come you, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD (remember when you see capital LORD it always replaces His name, Yahuah, which the Jewish believers felt was too holy to say) to the house of the God of Jacob (speaking of Israel) and He will teach us His ways and we will walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the WORD of the LORD from Jerusalem and He shall judge among the nations and rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war any more.

This has not occured yet in it's fullness as this scripture speaks of a time when there will be peace, but We are being "called up" or back to the WAYs that the LORD instructed Israel in, so that we all may walk in His ways, His ancient paths as the scripture instructs us to do also.