"Oh the sun is shinin' on down in Tennessee...hey, there ain't no doubt that God's been good to me!"

The older I get the more I can't believe how quickly time goes by. For example, it's May! May, people! It really should still be March. Of 2010.

But life goes on, whether we like it or not. In less than 48 hours, I will be boarding a plane for Europe even though I really could have used a couple more weeks to prepare for the trip. Oh well. Too late now. I think along with time speeding up, something else that comes with getting older is the feeling of not being able to stop and take a break. I mean, I don't have a problem with getting together with friends for an evening or taking the time to watch a movie, but leaving the country for two weeks? I feel like I have way too much work to do here to take a vacation! So this will be good for me. And for the rest of the family traveling. We all need to be forced to take a break every now and then, right?

Life around the farm has been fairly normal as of late. Or at least as normal as it can be. Summertime is here, and the work load seems to have doubled, but I'm glad to get out of the house (and to wear flip-flops again!). Garden planting time has come and gone; now we water and wait for God to grow the plants. And pray the sheep don't eat them. Yes, I'm more worried about our own sheep than I am about the deer and rabbits around here. Building projects are still underway. We, er, uh, I managed to allow thirty-something concrete trucks to drive all way past our house without them turning over. That was good. And now I have an excuse to get some roller blades again! Oh, I am so happy! I didn't realize that I would miss concrete so much after moving here...

I believe I promised you all pictures of a certain timber frame raising a little while back. I put them all together in a couple of slide shows and uploaded them to YouTube. However, I managed to have a bit of trouble with one of them and tried to fix it a number of times but was never successful. So unfortunately I can only give you one. But it's a good one.

While this show doesn't show as much of the actual work and raising of the structure, it portrays such a beautiful picture of the fun that our church family has when we get together, even when it's to do hard work. I love all the smiles and laughter and goofiness that come out. And I love that this is characteristic of this group of people, not just a one time thing. We can have fun just about anywhere. :)

So enjoy a small peek into our community life, and maybe you'll see what I'm talking about.