Family year-end update

Here is a Shedd family year end update to catch you all up on the many months of sparce (or no) posting! 

 Dear friends and family,                                                                                                                    

We hope this Christmas greeting finds you well and excited to celebrate Jesus’ birth in a few short weeks.    As is probably true for many of you, 2022 has been a busy, fun, and also crazy year for us.  In March, we re-homed our German Shepherd (Chula) to my parents’ home in PA.  I simply wasn’t able to take her for walks like she needed, and she needed more freedom to run around.  She is happy, healthy, and THRIVING living on my parents 5 acres. Plus, I think my dad kind of spoils her 😊 

In March, Dan began building a tiny cabin on our “farm”.  

In April we had a renewal conference at church on a Saturday thru Wednesday.  Included in those nights were a men’s night, teen night, and regular services as well.  It was a blessing.  At the end of April, I fell down our library steps (how embarrassing), and didn’t even look around to see if anyone had noticed!  I never went to the doctor, but I couldn’t put any weight on it for over a week.  It still bothers me when it’s cold and rainy.  We went that week for a few days on an anniversary trip with the kiddos.  I hobbled about on crutches and Dan even pushed me around in a wheelchair at Aldi.  Nothing like being reminded that our vows were “in sickness and in health”.  

In May, we did all of our garden planting.  I expanded the garden by about 8 feet this year in order to plant potatoes.  Because we re-homed Chula though, the rabbits and deer went to town on our garden.  In spite of that, we had a great green bean crop, corn, and cantaloupe.  Cucumbers, squash and zucchini, watermelon, carrots, onions, and basil, dill, thyme, and parsley did awesome.  The potatoes were pretty small (probably due to the deer chomping off the flowering tops of the plants in late July), but still tasty! We got some baby chicks as well in May and began raising them out.   Dan completed the tiny cabin and we furnished it, he made an outhouse with composting toilet etc., and then we began renting it out as a short-term rental.  Mostly to city folks who wanted a weekend to “rough it” with no electricity.  

In June, July and August, I kept busy with gardening, managing and cleaning the short-term rental we have, and also was faithfully going running every day.  We went to a conference in NJ in July and returned home refreshed and ready to win some battles for Christ.  It was right after that that we experienced one of the hardest blows in ministry we’ve experienced so far.  Through it all, God has been good though, and we know that God has a plan and a purpose in what He allows.  

Progress on the farm has come along steadily, and though Dan is working solo, he has finished working on the barn roof, re-doing the whole back of the barn, and also, fixing the holes in the house roof(which is slate).  He is now beginning the arduous task of gutting the house.  One friend came over to see the house and skeptically said “I don’t know…I’d probably bulldoze this place and start from the ground up.”  However, I love the history of the place.  It was built in 1810 and while it needs tons (TONS) of work, I believe it will be worth the hassle of fixing.

In September, we did something crazy…and bought 6 pigs- 1 sow and 5 piglets.  The sow we butchered right away.  Now we have been enjoying sausage and hams.  We sold 1 piglet, and still have 4.  

Gwen (4) LOVES school, writing, learning to spell words, and leads her sisters in singing all the time.  She plays the piano quite well for her age, and I’ve already told her that if she keeps it up, she’ll take my spot as church pianist.  😊 She is also very motivated to learn the piano “to proficiency” so that she can begin the violin and trumpet.  Gwen is in kindergarten.

Lucie (3) loves to help with things.  She gets very excited when Dan takes her to work.  She likes to help wash eggs, and make scrambled eggs for breakfast.  Both girls are learning to fold and put away their whole load of laundry.  Lucie also loves school and has already finished 2 sets of preschool books, and is currently in her 3rd.   

Eliza (18 months) is our “joy bell”.  She is happy almost all the time, and we love hearing her say words.  Her favorite words are “candy”, “crackers”, “soup”, and “mommy”.  

We were able to take a trip to Georgia to see family right after Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day, we stopped for a night at my parents’ and then had a lovely meal with them.  In our journeying, we toured the Mayfield Dairy, the Jamestown settlement, and visited the church in MD where we worked for 2 years while newlyweds.  Dan was given the opportunity to preach in Spanish at the church plant he assisted in while in his late teens/early 20’s.  

In our church, I have been leading a ladies Bible study now every Wednesday.  We’ve studied verse-by-verse through Galatians, Ephesians, 1 and 2nd Thessalonians, Colossians, and James so far.  It has been such a learning time for all of us, and I love seeing the ladies’ grow in their faith.  I am also currently meeting with 3 different women throughout the week for personal discipleship (a 26-week course).  Dan is currently meeting with 1 man.  

We set up a booth in Granville for our annual tree lighting.  We gave out brownies and hot cider.  It was a great outreach opportunity.  Many people were thankful for both as well as the tracts we were giving out.  We are participating in the Granville lighted tractor parade on the 9th as well.  Dan will be building a float and decking it out all week in preparation for that.  Gwendolyn and Lucie are both playing the piano in my piano students’ Christmas recital on the 10th.  They don’t know it yet, but I’ve gotten them and myself tickets to go see the Nutcracker that evening after the recital.  I think they will enjoy that.  On the 11th, Gwen will be an angel and Lucie will be a shepherd in the church’s Christmas program.

  Dan got his first deer two weeks ago.  We did the whole thing into steaks this time.  We discovered that our creek at “the farm” has a beaver dam in it.  Thankfully, a trapper pointed it out to us and asked if he could trap our beaver for us.  We agreed.  

In June, I was asked to accompany the Granville Area Chorus for their summer concert at the park while their pianist was recovering from an injury.  It was mostly showtunes and patriotic songs, and I had fun with that.  In September I was asked to be the permanent accompanist, so I accepted.  Our Christmas concert is coming up in a few weeks.  We are doing a few of the songs from Handel’s Messiah…and those have required more practicing than I’ve been used to.  Very good for me! 

Well, I had better sign off and let you get back to your Christmas traditions, whatever they may be.  As for me, I’ll need to crack the whip if I expect to have the house decorated before Christmas.  Please have a wonderful Christmas with your family or friends, and don’t forget the real reason why we celebrate this time of the year!  

Much love, 

The Shedd’s 

Grandma's Angel

 As a young person, between 10-13 yrs of age, I have vivid memories of going with my grandma to help her at craft shows.

Grandma was a true artisan and could make doilies, table runners, quilts, angels, dolls… (you name it!). When she needed help setting up the stand, I would accompany her to different high schools and help out.

I recall setting up the booth in such a way that during “dead” times, I could hide under the table amongst the boxes and make fun forts.

I would help set out the Christmas angels and there were tiny baby ones, skinny ones, ones with poofy “robes”, ones with pointy wings, ones with rounded wings…. And this one always was my favorite. The wide, bell skirt was always perfect, and I loved the delicacy of the wings. I remember saying to Grandma one day at the West York HS craft show “Grandma, someday if you don’t sell this angel today, I want to buy her!”

Grandma laughed and said “Virginia, some day you can HAVE her. I have too much junk.”

That’s how Grandma always was. She never indicated that she thought what she did was talented, beautiful, or delicious (she was also an amazing cook).

Well, time went by and I graduated college, got married, and two years ago, I went to visit Grandma when I was in Pennsylvania. She told me she wanted me to follow her upstairs. There, in the room I used to stay in when I’d sleep over at her house, she had boxes of her crafts that were left from the craft sales. She had stopped doing them long before.

She told me that I was the last grandchild to be given the opportunity to look thru everything and pick out anything I wanted.

I picked out snowflakes, Christmas bells, doilies, and potholders. She reached over the bed and pulled out the last box and said “I don’t know if you even want one of these angels, but if you can use them…”

There was my beautiful angel I always said I’d buy.

I told Grandma about that, and she laughed, made the clicking noise she always made, and said “Well, looks like she’s yours.”

I miss Grandma. I love that her handiwork is all over my house so I easily am reminded of her generous nature and hard work.

Gardening 2022

Gardens are fascinating things.  They are so much work and maintenance, but the satisfaction of growing your own food is unbeatable. 

You know you've become a boring adult when you have more photos of your garden than anything else on your phone except kids. 

We expanded the garden this year by about 8 feet to accommodate the bag of potatoes that had some seriously long eyes. I've never tried planting potatoes before.  Unfortunately, many of them got chomped pretty good by deer when they were flowering...so we will see if they produce or not. 

Planting our yearly batch of sunflowers.  About half of them also got chomped. 

We did black plastic this year for the zucchini and squash, cantalope and watermelon, and the cucumbers, basil, thyme, and parsley. 

Beans and Peas.  Obviously, these are old photos. 

There are few things more beautiful than new life springing up. 

Our first potato plant.

Since these photos were taken, I have picked and canned quite a few beans, froze a bunch of peas, and dried lots of basil.  We just started picking cucumbers and we ate two for lunch.  As per our normal summers, we are overrun with zucchini, so we give a bunch away to anyone who will take it at church each week.  haha. 

I love gardening!!!!

Chicks

We've had 15 hens who were laying eggs consistently since 2020.  In the early Spring though, we began getting about 5 eggs each day.  That was also when the stores were experiencing a shortage of eggs, so we had lots of customers stopping at the house for eggs randomly.  We were having to turn them away because we didn't have enough for everyone.  We stopped eating eggs, and I stopped baking anything containing eggs.

One day, I was cleaning and Dan came home with 15 chicks from Tractor Supply.  He told me that he walked in, offered to take 15 of them for $1 each, and the manager agreed!  

There are some barred rocks and some Isa Browns.  

This is only the second flock we've raised out.  The hens we currently have we bought as ready-to-lay pullets.  We decided it was worth it to not have to hassle with chicks and feeding chicks.  

But this time, I'm keeping track, and so far, they've only cost us $40.

They got their cute little feathers.  Unfortunately, the littlest chick just died two days ago.  :(

I started taking them outside to get fresh air in the daytimes.

And this is them now.  We put them in our old, moveable cage which Dan made 5 years ago.  It still works!  Turns out, our hens aren't done for after all!  I started really picking grass to feed them 3 times a day, I feed them any and all weeds from the garden, and also switched their feed to laying mash instead of the crumble or cracked corn.  Now they are giving us about 11 eggs a day.  Two of the hens were very broody, so we shipped them off to the farm.  They lived there for about 3 weeks until they disappeared.  

I don't love chickens...but I love eggs.  So it's worth it to have a couple chickens to get eggs every day and not have to worry about egg shortages and such.  

Hope you all are doing good!  

New church sign

Wow! Life has flown by and though it’s hard to believe, my dear friend summer is here! 

Among the many things that have been keeping us busy this spring, Dan took on the hefty project of putting in a footer for our new church sign.

First they dug this hole, 6 feet deep.

They built a frame and footer.  Then mixed cement and started building the footer.

Dan was so thankful for the help of the guys who came and gave several hours here and there to help out!

Dan stayed up late one night trying to finish the brick work.

This is the current sign!

And the new sign! 

Thankful that it is done for now! 

Hope you all are doing well! I’ll be back on here more often, making posts! Sorry for my long absence!

Anniversary Getaway

Getaways and vacations don't have to be pricey!  I love to go on trips.  Short ones, long ones, in-between- ones..

But the dollars start adding up and trips can be super pricey if you aren't careful.  

We decided this year that we won't do the weekly vacation that we've done for the last 3 years.  I've enjoyed our week-long trips, but wanted to try something different this year.  Instead of one long trip, I began planning a few shorter trips that we could take throughout the year.  

We took our first one in March when we went to visit my family for a few days.  

Our second trip was for our anniversary last weekend.  

Some of you all might not know this about me, but I'm super budget-conscious.  Some people say that I'm cheap...but I say "thrifty" is more like it.  :-) 

I started trying to find places that are close to home that are also very cheap or even free.  

So I requested a stay at The Parsonage House in Stone Ridge New York.  A church in Stone Ridge has a home that they open up to anyone in ministry for free stays.  We went there last year in May to stay for a week, but ended up having to come back after only half a night because of what I thought was Eliza's arrival.  She ended up tricking us...and stayed in an extra week and a half but anyway....

The day that we were going to leave for Stone Ridge last week, I was going to teach the Ladies Bible study, and then we'd leave after and get to the house by about 9.  Plans changed because earlier that day, I was returning a dvd to the library dropbox and as I hopped down the steps back to the van, I twisted my foot sideways and fell down the steps.  

I managed to hobble in to teach the ladies bible study, but when I got home, I told Dan that I thought maybe we shouldn't go on our trip because I was in a great deal of pain. 

He insisted that we go, and we finally left the house around 8, which made us get down to Stone Ridge quite late...almost 10:30pm.  

I took these photos the day that we were coming home, which is why the beds are stripped etc. 

The girls absolutely loved that this house has a shelf full of toys, books, crayons, etc for kids to play with.  New toys are always so exciting.  They especially loved the pair of red binoculars.  

They loved sleeping in their "big girl" beds too.  

Thursday morning, Dan made us oatmeal for breakfast, and I felt horrible not able to help with anything.  I wrapped my foot, kept it elevated as much as possible, and hopped around on one foot.  

Dan insisted that on this trip, he was going to use this roadmap to go everywhere we needed to go on our trip.  :-) 

Our first stop for the day was to CVS to buy some crutches.  Thankfully, they had one pair in stock.  

We drove down by the Hudson river and went to a woodworking shop where they hand-dug canoes etc.  It was neat.  

I have to say though, I was struggling with the crutches...My upper arms were in pain after using the crutches down by the river, and because I'd only eaten a little oatmeal in the previous 24 hours, I was feeling weak and in lots of pain.  

Duh...should have just taken an ibuprofen, but I was trying to muscle through without any.  

We went to eat at a diner for lunch, then went to Aldi's for a few groceries.  Then we went back to the house where I rested.  Dan took Gwen and Lucie to explore/walk in the neighborhood a bit and they came back all excited to show me their findings.  So we all got in the car and drove to see some beautiful mountains, a cemetery, and the neat farms and old homes.  

That night I woke up in terrible pain, was hallucinating, sweaty, and had un-controllable shaking.  Homestly, I don't know why...I guess because of the pain?  Anyway, I decided to take Ibuprofen and that cured me.  From then on, I took ibuprofen when I felt the pain coming back.  Made the rest of the trip enjoyable for me.  :-)  

Friday morning we went to the Minnewaska State Park.  Loved seeing the view of this lake at the top of the mountain! 

There was a large resort/hotel built where the visitors center is now, but I thought it was neat to see one of the original stone lodges that was built on the side of a cliff by one of the Smiley brothers (Alfred, I believe).  I enjoyed reading about the twin brothers, who built a successful establishment resort where they maintained their Quaker beliefs of temperance and no card-playing etc.  

After spending time in the visitors center, seeing the lake and surrounding mountains, we drove down to the Awosting Falls area.  The sign said that the hike down to the falls was half a mile, so I figured I could manage it on crutches.  

I was forced to go slowly and give myself a ridiculous number of breaks :-) Which is good for photo-taking.  

Dan brought our picnic lunch, which we ate when we got to the falls. 

Here's a photo of my little Lucie and I. 

The waterfall was very pretty.  

By the time we finished our lunch, the girls enjoyed “soaking their feet”, and we walked back to our car, Eliza and Lucie were pretty sleepy. They both took cat naps as we drove to the town of New Paltz.

We first let the girls play on a kids playground for about an hour, and then went to the historic district, a street called Huguenot Street. 

The homes on this street were very old, and I was loving reading all the plaques about the original builders of each one. And also reveling in the fact that I was walking down a street where a young settlement first began.

Most of the gravestones at the church were written in French. 

After that, we headed back to the parsonage house. On the way, we saw this adorable chapel near the Mohonk house (which we would have loved to visit…but for the hike to it and my foot).

Dan climbed the hill and took a few photos for me.

When we got back to the house, we ate dinner and then had a bonfire outside.

The next morning, we made breakfast, cleaned the house and did the laundry, and left by about 10. Stopped and took a photo of this lovely Bever House.

Stopped at the Kaatsbaan Reformed church where they were having a sale. We looked around, bought a few little things, and then a lady who was there showed us inside! It was very neat.

The church building is from 1732. I loved reading about it. 

This organ was fully restored in 2013 and it’s a beauty. It’s up in the balcony of the church, which I thought was interesting.

We left there and came upon an antique mall! We had so much fun walking thru it. Dan has been wanting a buck saw and asked the man at the front desk if there was one. The man said no. 

And low and behold, look what Dan found!! 

We made it home safely, and celebrated the finale of our anniversary getaway with a store-bought cake—-my favorite! The bakery was closed for the day, so Dan improvised and tried to fashion the words “6 years and counting” with ice cream sprinkles. But he got tired of the meticulous placement of the sprinkles with a tweezer and I said “Let’s just eat it already!” 

Oh and this was on the way home when we’d stopped for our lunch. We had a carton of ice cream we’d nearly finished but there was lots melted at the bottom. Give two little girls a straw and it got cleaned right up! :-)

What a fun trip!!! Even despite my foot. The crutches seem to have done the trick. Taking the weight completely off it was so important. It’s now only a little bit sore still. 

Hope you all have a lovely week!