Our family has greatly benefitted from the family reformation taking place within the church today. The emphasis on viewing the family unit through a literal, biblical lense, and the importance of modelling our family lives based upon the instructions found in scripture are at the heart of the family reformation movement.

Today I learned of a new conference based upon the principles of family reformation – A Puritan Family Reformation being held May 9 – 10th in Wake Forest, North Carolina. You can find all of the details, including a video at the conference website.

Here is what the conference host, Scott Brown, has to say about the purpose of the conference:

On May 9-10 we are having a really unusual conference for the reformation of family life. It is called, “A Puritan Family Reformation,” which seeks to document the biblical doctrine of the family as the Puritans understood it and to put it into practice in our times. It will be a very practical conference for the reforming of marriage, child raising and the relationship between the family and the church.

This is just the sort of instruction that the church today can benefit from – clear, practical biblical teaching to restore the family to the model clearly presented in scripture. If God has placed a burden on your heart for the retun of the family to His clear plan, this is a conference you should seriously consider.

If you would like to promote this contest on your blog, there is a contest taking place at Life in a Shoe, but the contest closes today. Here are the details:

In order to help get the word out about the conference I will be having a drawing for 3 copies of “A Church in the House” by Matthew Henry and “The Joy of Family Worship” cd by R.C. Sproul Jr. IF you blog about the conference.

Together – one of each to 3 people – The conference starts the 9th so we’ll close entries on this drawing on the 30th of April!

I came across a contest over at the Stone Soup blog today, with quite a choice of books to win.  This is the blog of an author, so it is rather bookish, which I always find fun!  She has book reviews on her site, personal news, insight into the publishing industry, and book giveaways.

The best part of this contest is it is open to anyone the mail can reach!  Here are the contest details:

For next week, you can win any book I’ve mentioned. It can be a book I’ve already given away, one I’ve referred to on the blog, something I’ve reviewed here or here, or any book on either of my giveaway shelves. Here’s your chance to get a book you wanted in the past and didn’t win.

Just tell me in a comment what book you want before noon Sunday (Pacific Time), and I’ll choose a winner from one of my hats. Contest is open to anyone, anywhere, as long as mail service can reach you.

I entered for Writer’s Guide to Character Traits by Linda N. Edelstein.  You’ll have to browse around through her sites to see the wide selection of books you can choose from for your chance to win.  I also think the hat collection is fabulous!  Just scroll down to see a few hats that the blogger, Katrina, uses to choose the winners for her drawings.  Very neat!  Enjoy the contest!

Today is the official start of the Ultimate Home School Expo, running until May 03rd (but if you are reading this post in my archives, keep going – the downloads are up on the site for you to access at a later date!) with a great variety of homeschooling topics covered each day, all week long, door prizes for those listening in person, and a tonne of free giveaways in the Mommy Grab Bags! I just got my ticket today, and though I can’t listen live (because I’m on a Mac) I can download the MANY (I counted 58) preview topics that are already uploaded to the membership site. AND I can get busy downloading all of the free goodies in the Mommy Grab Bag! Wow, there is such a long list I’m almost in overwhelm just wondering how long it will take my little dial up to go get them all! I just love resources, and the UHSE is the best place to get the MOST for your homeschooling dollar. Only $40 purchases a ticket to the downloads of ALL the preview chats, and live attendance, or downloads of ALL the conference topics (I count 28 full length topics, that will be available for download after the conference), PLUS all the mommy goodies for free!

Again – if you are reading this AFTER the first week of May, never fear, Cindy archives all of the audio and goodies on her site so that you can buy a ticket and go download them at any time! Homeschooling conferences just don’t get more flexible than this!

Ready to check it out? On to the download!

Oops! My Cup is Empty and My Coffee Pot is Broke!
Audio Workshop Download With Cindy Rushton

Tired? Weary? Find yourself overwhelmed by the tremendous load of motherhood? Do you consider this one of the most demanding, yet rewarding roles you will ever fill…yet that send shivers down your spine? Join Cindy as she exhorts you in your high calling. This workshop shares Cindy’s heart as she shares about those good days and bad days…sweet memories and rather bitter moments that have made life so precious all along the way. Taking you on a journey back in Scripture to meet Hannah, Cindy will share God’s answers to her heart cry during times she has found her OWN cup empty while “everything” continued to hit all at once!! The biblical insights are sure to draw YOUR heart to your Heavenly Father AND to those you are pouring into. Join us as Cindy ministers encouragement and direction straight from the Word of God to your heart, soul, and mind!

Download by Mp3
http://www.cindysdesktop.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/OopsNashvilleMP3.mp3

This is only ONE of the awesome gifts included on the Membership Site. There are hundreds more!

Take my word for it, you will WANT a ticket to this event and access to all of the wonderful resources. Grab your ticket here:

http://www.cindysaffiliates.com/go.php?offer=quiverfulf&pid=1

Now for our long awaited How To Castrate a Piglet tutorial! Our sensitive readers may wish to skip this post if they feel a bit sensitive when encountering surgical procedures. It does include detailed photographs.

Castrating your own piglets is a necessary chore to do if you are keeping sows for breeding, and raising piglets. Someone will need to castrate the little male piglets (called barrows) unless you are saving them to sell as breeding stock. If they are to be sold as weaner pigs, or to be fed out into butcher hogs, they will need to be castrated. Yes, you can hire a vet to perform this service, but when last I checked the price for castrating two pigs (granted these were large weaner pigs that my in-laws had put off castrating themselves) the vet quoted them $150.00 for the two. My dear husband, Larry castrated them instead with the help of my in-laws (and he did need help, castrating a large pig is very difficult, they are quite strong and need to be carefully restrained).

However, if you castrate your piglets when they are 8 – 14 days old the operation can easily be performed by two people, some can even perform it by themselves if they are particularly talented, and it only requires a matter of minutes to complete. My husband Larry has now castrated a few batches of piglets, and some larger pigs as well, so he will be starring in this tutorial in the photographs along with my father-in-law, Keith. Keith is holding, and Larry is cutting, thanks for letting me take pictures! It was a bit difficult to get good photos of some of the detailed work, as there were 4 adults and my two small children in a smallish area.

Please note that we aren’t vets, and cannot take any liability for the outcome of your own castration of your piglets. This information is provided for educational purposes only.

So, here we go!

1. Remove the piglet to be castrated from its mother. Depending upon the breed of pig the mother may display varying signs of distress, and possibly hostility upon having surgical procedures performed to her off-spring, so it is best to be well away from her. We have kept Berkshires, and so do our in-laws, their mothers seem midly concerned, will come take a look, and do some querying snorting from the other side of the fence, but we haven’t had any problems so far.
2. Have your helper restrain the piglet in the position show in the photograph. Apply iodine to sterilize the area. Prepare a sharp, sterile cutting instrumet – scalpels with disposable blades can be picked up at the vet supply, local farm store, rural co-ops etc.
3. Squeeze the testes sac so that the testicles are snug up against the outer skin of the sac.
4. Make a vertical incision with the sterile scalpel on one of the sides of the sac, down low for drainage purposes. When the piglet is held in this position, the slit should be made high on the testes sac so that when the piglet is placed on the ground it down low, and well situated for drainage of the sac. Depending upon the age of the pig you may need to cut down further into the testes sac depending upon the amount of fat between the skin and the testicle. You’ll have to figure this out as you go.
5. Cut down into the teste to be removed, and squeeze the testes sac until the testicle ‘pops’ out of the sac. You may need to enlarge your incision slightly to facilitate this removal.
6. Once the testicle is outside of the bag, draw it away from the body with one hand. Cut the white spermatic cord with the scalpel, then continue pulling the testicle until the red blood cord snaps off. This will result in the least amount of bleeding for the piglet. Larry has the testicle in his hand in this photo and is preparing to cut the white cord with the scalpel.
7. This should be your end result. If you have everything out that is pictured in the below photo, your job is done for that side.
8. Now you are done the first side, repeat procedures 3 – 6 on the other side.
9. Spray the piglet well with a disinfecting agent, we use iodine, and my in-laws like to apply some colloidal silver as well.
10. Place the piglet back in the pen with his mother (he is now referred to as a wether), he will run to her for some tender Momma love and comfort, and will hardly act like anything happed at all. This is a very quick and humane method of castration, hardly seems to fizz the little fellows!

I hope you find this helpful in your own homesteading efforts! This basic technique works well for other animals as well, though with older pigs, and different breeds of animals you may need to cut the blood cord depending upon the age and stage of development of that animal. In that case, pull it out as far as you can before cutting it, so that it will retract back into the body. The method of restraint will vary according to the animal breed and age as well. We have successfully castrated tomcats and bull calves using variations of this method.

My last couple of posts have been sort of boring/admin-ish details that I needed to get cleared up for my site, but it is all done now!  The I follow transition has been completed – check out my nifty new button in the sidebar, proudly announcing to the world that we are search engine spider friendly!  I’ve also been wondering how to get a disclosure policy on my website to let my readers know that I do have some paid blogging insertions on the site, and I saw one over at Laura Williams Musings blog, and decided to go get one from the website that she used, Disclosure Policy (also in my sidebar).

I’ve also added her to my blogroll, because I love contests, and she has a daily contest listing that is so quick and handy!  She also offers insightful Christian book reviews that I have really enjoyed, so do feel free to head on over there for a visit.  I’m still laid up with my badly burned foot, so knowing me, I will likely be making a few more posts and blog changes in the days to come, while I’m here at the computer taking it easy .

Thanks for bearing with me during these bloggy, technical detail posts and changes!

Disclosure Policy

This policy is valid from 28 April 2008

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact  Jennifer Bogart jennifer(at)quiverfullfamily.com.

This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.

The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content.

The owner(s) of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner(s) of this blog receives compensation for our posts or advertisements, we always give our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers’ own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

This blog does contain content which might present a conflict of interest. This content may not always be identified.

To get your own policy, go to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org

Also, a privacy policy:

First and foremost – when you leave us a blog comment with your email address in it, or sign up for our blog updates through Feedburner, you can trust that we WILL NOT share your email address with others.

Now, because this site serves Google ads I need to provide you with some further information.

We take your privacy seriously. This policy describes what personal information we collect and how we use it. (This privacy policy is applicable to websites falling under the primary holder Quiverfull Family – http://quiverfullfamily.com)

Routine Information Collection

All web servers track basic information about their visitors. This information includes, but is not limited to, IP addresses, browser details, timestamps and referring pages. None of this information can personally identify specific visitors to this site. The information is tracked for routine administration and maintenance purposes, and lets me know what pages and information are useful and helpful to visitors.

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Any advertisements served by Google, Inc., and affiliated companies may be controlled using cookies. These cookies allow Google to display ads based on your visits to this site and other sites that use Google advertising services. Learn how to opt out of Google’s cookie usage. As mentioned above, any tracking done by Google through cookies and other mechanisms is subject to Google’s own privacy policies.

About Google advertising: What is the DoubleClick DART cookie? The DoubleClick DART cookie is used by Google in the ads served on publisher websites displaying AdSense for content ads. When users visit an AdSense publisher’s website and either view or click on an ad, a cookie may be dropped on that end user’s browser. The data gathered from these cookies will be used to help AdSense publishers better serve and manage the ads on their site(s) and across the web. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

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Concerns or questions about this privacy policy can be directed to jennifer at quiverfullfamily dot com.

Please comment on our blog!  Comments are always open and unmoderated, no registration is necessary to post, and please feel free to include your website in the appropriate box so that your name links through to it (any links to websites that are NOT family friendly, or actively anti-Christian will be removed).  We look forward to hearing from you!  We have enabled a couple of measures to make your commenting experience here richer, we have removed the no follow attribute on  our comments so that the search engine spiders will follow them through to your website.  We have also installed the CommentLuv plugin so that your last blog post will display with your comments as well, encouraging traffic to your site.

We are a Christian blog, seeking to serve the Lord Jesus Christ above all else.  Keeping this in mind, any comments that are disparaging of Jesus, God or the Christian faith will be deleted.  Please aim to keep your comments encouraging and positive, overtly harsh or critical comments may be removed.  Any comments that are not family friendly will also be deleted.  Spam of any sort is not tolerated here, and is detected and deleted immediately.

Thanks for visiting, and commenting with us!

I can just imagine the conversation now.

“So honey, what did you accomplish today”, asks DH.

“I installed the Do Follow Plugin for WordPress blogs today sweetie, it’s very exciting! Now we are a part of the I Follow movement!”

DH, “….”

“No – really, it IS exciting! Now the sweet bloggers who come to leave comments on our families blog will be able to have the web spiders crawl through their links to their own blogs, reaping the full optimization benefits of leaving comments on the blogs of others!”

DH, “….”

Well, this certainly isn’t going to excite EVERYBODY. But it does excite me! When bloggers are hard at work leaving their comments strewn about the blogosphere in the hopes that those website links they point back at their own blogs are going to do them some good – now it will.

And hopefully this will get all of my readers excited about commenting too! Soon there will be a pretty new button in my right hand side bar indicating that the no follow on my blog comments has been turned off, as well as a link to my comment policy, which I’ll be writing up as a post sometime soon (tonight? tomorrow? who knows how long the complete I Follow transformation will take?)

Maybe even you would like to join the I Follow movement taking place around the blogosphere (not only for WordPress blogs, but for everyone! See the link for details) – let loose the spiders!

Edited to add update.  Well, a couple of days after what I thought was our big I Follow transition, a comment came through from Penny Raine, and lo and behold, I spotted the no-follow was still hiding in her comment!  ARGH!  After I had installed the Dofollow and everything.   What’s a girl to do?  So, I headed over to visit Douglas Karr, found through a Google search to get some handy dandy tips on hacking the WordPress code for myself.  And that’s what I did.  Took hmmm, two minutes .  Thanks Doug!!  Should be fixed for everyone, again, now, so comment away!

My first christian children’s picture book review! We have SO many picture books in our personal library. I like to collect classic picture books, board books (both classic and contemporary, if they are humorous or lovely), and we now have a small collection of christian children’s picture books as well to read to our wee ones. We do a lot of reading, and picture books are perfect for those times when the children are just getting a bit on the cranky and unsettled side, just pull them in tight, and enjoy the beautiful pictures and wonderful story.

Because I Love You! By Max Lucado / Crossway Books & Bibles A long time ago a wise man named Shaddai built a wonderful village for the children to live in. He talked to them and sang for them, and even told them stories. Shaddai gave them everything they needed. And with his own hands, rock by rock, he built a protective wall around the village.One day Paladin, the most curious child in the village, discovers something troubling about the wall. Something that made him doubt about Shaddai’s love. Could there be a mistake? Would Paladin be able to discover the answer and understand how deeply he is loved? Recommended for ages 4 and up.

*Start of Review*

I must warn you, whenever I read this book I cry.  Somehow that never deters my children from asking me to read them this story, again, and again.  And it isn’t just the pregnancy hormones talking either.  Even before I was expecting our third daughter this book brought tears, and sometimes downright unconsolable sobbing from me.  Now, how can that be?  Can a children’s picture book really be that moving?  That emotionally stirring?  Yes, emphatically, Yes.  This may be because as a new believer (Fall 2006) what Jesus has done for me is still so fresh in my mind.  The redeeming changes that He has worked in me so recent.  But I don’t know if it will ever change, He continues to change me and work in me each day.

The simple, flowing text of this book clearly illustrate God’s love for each of His children.  How He has His ear turned toward us, and is so attuned to us, wanting to be beside us every day, in every step of our walk in faith with Him.  The Shaddai mentioned in the below quote is the character in this allegorical tale who is meant to represent God, he is sometimes referred to as the Maker, the one who created a perfect city for his children to live in.

“When one of them called his name, he droped whatever he was doing and turned.  His giant heart had a hudred strings – each held by a different child.  And Shaddai loved each one the same.”  Excerpt from Because I Love You by Max Lucado

Oh!  That I could love my own children the same way!  That my love for them would be an echo and a reflection, however small, of the love their heavenly father has for them.

The illustrations are remarkable, life-like and realistic with no hint of comedy or cartoon.  Executed masterfully by Mitchell Heinze, you really must take a peek at the book link above and look inside the book to see the beautiful work.  The use of light gives a feeling of surrealism within a very realistic enviroment, and the landscapes are simply gorgeous.  My 5 year old daughter tells me “They are so so bright, whoever painted the must have gone to painting school.  Whew, that’s a lot of work.”

A beautiful parable told simply, in child friendly, yet lyrical language that presents the story of the Gospel from the perfection of creation, through the fall, and Christ’s redemption of us.  This book has created so many opportunities for me to discuss the gospel with my children, my tears always prompt conversation – “Why are you crying Mommy?”, “Because God loves us so very much, even when we were turned against Him that He comes to rescue us, to save us when we call out for Him”.  Perhaps this is the gospel in a nutshell, and it is what this book presents in story form in a way that a child can understand.  As you can tell from my review, I have likely received more benefit from this book as a new believer than my children have at this point, but it will stay on our bookshelf for years to come so that they too can glean it’s deeper truths as they mature.  Every new Christian or child in your life can benefit by reading Because I Love You.  This is truly a masterpiece of a book, and is destined to become a classic.

A modern classic in Christian biography, this title was originally published in 1978, and has been continuously reprinted since then. I am reviewing a UK edition from my personal home library dated 2005. The version you will commonly find in bookstores today is the 25th Anniversary Edition. For a book to go through so many re-printings and to be continuously in print for over 25 years you can tell that there is something special about such a book, some stirring within the human spirit that continues to draw us to it.

I Dared to Call Him Father, 25th Anniversary Edition: The Miraculous Story of a Muslim Woman’s Encounter with GodBy Bilquis Lohse / Baker At a time when new questions about Islam arise daily, the miraculous story of Bilquis Sheikh will help you understand and reach out to Muslims—with compassion and the gospel. A wealthy Pakistani woman, the outspoken Sheikh came to know God through a dream, turning her world upside down—and putting her life in danger. 192 pages, softcover from Baker.

*Start of Review*

At first glance I thought that perhaps this book would better enable Christians to understand the mind of a Muslim, their point of view, helping them to better witness to Muslims. I can tell you that this book is definitely not focused upon apologetics, nor is it full of ‘how-to’s’ on reaching out to the Muslim community. Rather it is the intimate story of one woman coming to know Jesus as her Lord and Saviour, and her resulting walk in obedience with Him, and His faithfulness to her. It just happens that she was a wealthy Muslim in Pakistan, but truly, this story could be the testimony of any person that the Lord has drawn to Him, out of any circumstances.

I was so moved to read of how God reached into the life of Bilquis and drew her to him.

John 6:44 – No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

And indeed, my own testimony, and that of others bears witness to the truth of that verse as well. Without any overt evangelism God can still speak to us through the circumstances in our lives and draw us to His son. The author experiences a rather dramatic and prophetic conversion, the story of her coming to the Lord is quite striking, unique and moving. Her resulting early walk in faith with Jesus and of striving to live in the presence and power of the Holy Ghost every waking moment is so inspiring. Would that I, myself, had such a clear witness of the Spirit in my life on such an ongoing basis rather than in glimpses here and there.

For our family we do have one doctrinal disagreement with the book. The matter of her baptism is one that we will have to discuss further in terms of doctrine when we re-read this book together; I’m not about to argue with the validity of her baptism, because she was in trying circumstances, and felt she had a word from the Lord, but our family does hold to believers baptism by immersion performed by a believing man. I obtained this book to add to our growing homeschooling and personal home library, as I intend to acquaint my growing children with notable Christian biographies throughout their years in our home. Since our children are only 5 and 2 it will be a few years before we read this book together due to some of the complex social themes presented, those of ostracism namely, though this is definitely a social phenomenon that we as Christians, and our children should be prepared to face as we follow Jesus.

Jhn 15:18 – If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before [it hated] you.
1Jo 3:13 – Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.

A moving and true personal testimony of one womans desire to obey the Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in His Spirit, and by His power, every waking hour, to be obedient in even the smallest details of her life, is one that we can use as an example in our own walk in faith with Jesus Christ, our saviour.   The book also includes a very touching after-word (which brought me to tears) by a missionary wife who was used of the Lord in Bilquis’ quest for the truth, and her later discipleship.  The author is now with the Lord, and continues to serve as a shining example of a personal relationship with Jesus for us today.