I’ve been helping Michaela start her gardens this past month.  This particular garden has a variety of pumpkins on the cattle panels, cucumbers and winter squash on the white frames, flowers on the outside borders, and a large space where we’ll add our fall cabbage crop.  We like running our pumpkins, cucumbers, and squash vertically. This is only the second summer we have grown them this way, but they’re absolutely beautiful once the cattle panels and trellises are full. But … read more

My beautiful dining room table. Sweet Nathaniel cut the brown-eyed Susans, found a jar, and arranged them himself. Sunny Si couldn’t be left out so he cut what we call “little daisies” and found his own jar. They bring me these little treasures and don’t realize that the two of them are my truest treasures. And see the dirty dishes? Look at their arrangement. Close. Intimate. First breakfast, with my love. Quiet, private, shared. Not sure who played monopoly, but … read more

Hey y’all! It’s been a hot minute. We’re spring-time busy over here; but not our normal “spring – time, planting-season” busy. In fact, we haven’t started one single seed. (I know. It feels really, really weird and I’m working hard to trust and stay focused on what Father has us working on instead.) And the practice that keeps me focused and on task and “doing the next thing” is keeping our weekly Name for God scripture in front of me … read more

It is spring here on the farm. The big kids are camping with Grandma and Grandpa, the little girls are planting some flower seeds, Daddy is drilling soybeans and I am swinging in my porch swing watching oats grow in my garden spots.                                                                                                                            Yes, oats.     Instead of starting seeds in March I was tending to this little sprout. And I love him more than all the beans and taters in the world. Isn’t he just precious? … read more

Thank you to all the ladies who left me birthday blessings!  I enjoyed reading your comments and responding.  Miss Michaela had great fun putting everyone’s name in her own special cap and drawing out the winner.  She would like to congratulate….Kelly Zabka of the Zabka Clan!!  Of course to her, this was not “Kelly” but “Khloe’s mama”.  🙂  We will mail out your special package in the morning. Happy weekend everyone! Love, Margie and Michaela      

I remember my last visit with my Grandma Houseworth as if it were yesterday. It was the end of August and we were sitting in her yard snapping green beans. She had insisted on tea towels in our laps to catch the stems and we shared a bucket on the ground for the broken beans. Her namesake, Mary Caroline, was helping us snap in between playing cowboys with her brothers in the sunshine. The boys loved Grandma’s collection of cap … read more

When I was a little girl, I attended a small Southern Baptist church with my family. On Wednesday nights, we learned about missionaries who served all over the world. During my preschool years, I was a member of Carol Schenk’s Mission Friends. I remember Carol reading and singing and I can’t return to that church and sit in that room without thinking of Miss Carol. She was and is a very loving person and I think her warmth must be … read more

Clint and the boys had an event this weekend at Strath an De Farm, home of Father Son Camp East. It was for buckaroos. The girls wanted to be buckaroos but this was a guys only weekend. Mama had no desire to tent camp so I thought it all worked out well.  But how to please three pink buckaroos? Drum roll please: grocery shopping. You have no idea the groans this elicited from my bored cowgirls. Even Sam’s Club where … read more

We have had the awesome and humbling experience of watching Christ be glorified through His church this week and want to use this, our very first blog post on Give Me Your Heart, to hopefully glorify Him even more by proclaiming His great, wondrous, unfathomable mercy. On Monday afternoon, Dalton found Michaela face first on the floor next to the bed where she had been napping.  She had vomited and was awake but was lethargic and unresponsive.  We called Clint … read more