“White flowers for Easter!” she announced triumphantly. …
“It looks like a church at Easter time, doesn’t it?” remarked Jenny. As she spoke the sun rose behind the mountain and streamed into the room, blessing them with warmth and light.”
Star of Light, Patricia StJohn
Hello friends!
I hope you all had a joyful Easter, replete with hot cross buns, some delicious chocolate and maybe even some white flowers. The above quote came at the end of “Star of Light” which I’ve been reading with Sparkly Eyes. In a country where there were mosques and not churches, the main character, a nurse, celebrated Easter in her home. I thought the picture painted was beautiful.
I was looking forward to Easter with eager anticipation and in God’s kindness we had a lovely week or so. HWH, myself and the girls celebrated Passover on Maundy Thursday, as is our family tradition. Both boys wended their ways home on Good Friday. I seem to remember we had some sunshine on Saturday and our traditional Easter breakfast and egg hunt on Sunday before church where both boys played in the worship band. After lunch they headed back to Lanky Dude’s church for an afternoon service where he does the PA and played in the band. We had Rhythm Dude home for a little longer while he revised and Lanky Dude popped back a few times to see him and other friends.
The girls and I baked a supply of treats, including an everlasting Simnel cake, and enjoyed several tea parties and meals with friends and neighbours. So, while the girls and I started back to lessons after only a week’s holiday (due to rubbish weather…we thought we’d save our holidays for some sunny days!) it’s felt like our Easter celebrations have lasted a while.
I hope you enjoy this month’s offerings,
Molly x
Nature notes and homestead jottings
All the rain has certainly produced some luscious green grass, which these nine weaners are enjoying! They arrived a week ago, and had been kept indoors with their mum until they came to us. It always amazes me how quickly two month old piglets adapt to living outdoors, including learning about the electric fence. We are part of the A star pig group again this year. I’m so grateful I don’t have to do lots of lugging of water and food anymore; they sort it all out and the girls and I just have to feed them once a week.
We are finally getting some patches of blue sky, and the rain is stopping for long enough to allow for the girls to play out on the grass sometimes and for me to begin planting out some veg. I’ve got onions and garlic in the ground and have planted out broad beans I started in the polytunnel. The chickens are now enclosed, but keep finding ways to escape; I’ve decided to net as much of the veg patch as possible in an endeavour to preserve the food for us rather than them! I’ll let you know how it works.
Wild garlic is carpeting our woods and I’ve made a couple of pots of pesto for the freezer, dried a jar full and enjoyed plenty fresh in salads.
Homeschool journal
Outings, or field trips in the language of our friends from across the pond, have always been a regular and significant part of our home education. In the last month we’ve visited the SS Great Britain (and had the benefit of being shown around by a lovely friend who works there), and the cottage where Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his young family dwelt for a few years.
We’ve been reading some of his poetry in our morning times, probably the most memorable being “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. The cottage is nestled under the Quantock hills in west Somerset, and is now managed by the National Trust. One of the volunteers was American and a descendant of Coleridge; it was really fun to hear his story.
I was struck by the poverty in which they lived and the resilience of his wife. He was a man of ideals, wanting his children to be brought up in the countryside with freshly grown vegetables and good air. However, it seemed it was his wife who turned this into reality, working in the garden, cooking over an open fire and all while looking after four young children. The floor of the two downstairs rooms was of beaten earth and the tiny cottage infested with mice.
It was interesting getting a glimpse of their lives; Samuel has been named a genius and although I don’t know much about poetry, I understand he developed a new genre and was thus the first of the romantic poets. I was also interested to see that towards the end of his life, having suffered much physical as well as emotional pain (he had a medicinal opium addiction) he wrote some deeply faith filled poetry. I’m intrigued and would definitely like to learn more about him and his poetry.
And…for those of you who home educate, don’t forget to take a look at and sign up for Learn Free home educators’ conference, all online this year.
Musings for our time
I’m fairly cautious about prophetic words these days, having left a community where they seemed to be two a penny and even to take on greater importance than God’s Word at times. I left confused, and over these past few years have had to re think much of my theology. I’m so incredibly grateful to God that he put people and resources in my way that meant I dug further into Scripture to do this, not away from it. I was able to “reconstruct” from the starting point of “If God’s Word is true, which I believe it is, then I need to dig into it deeper in order to understand what certain passages mean and how they are outworked in our lives today.”
Despite my caution, occasionally something rings true and one of these was given last week by a pastor and published on Prophecy Today . I leave it to your discernment.
Mothering through the seasons 