Road to War

The first bag is gone, the uniform has changed, our living room has exploded at least three times... but amongst it all we are still managing to find some peace to drink some coffee and enjoy each other before the day actually arrives.

Not quite there yet but getting close

Sprouts

About 2 days in

About 3 days in

Laying out to dry

We have sprouts!

I have wanted to try growing sprouts for a long time, in fact I received 3 bags of sprouts to start for Christmas LAST year.  Then life got in the way and they got put in the back corner and just here recently I discovered them again.  I looked online how to grow sprouts (you know? youtubed it!)  and I have to say I was a bit intimidated.  Everyone seemed to have their own way of doing it, some say you have to soak them this long or this long, some say you have to rinse them this amount of times per day or not...
I felt overwhelmed, not really sure where to start really.  I knew it was easy, I just had to get past that first step.
So I shut off the internet and walked away.  I knew I needed a jar and I needed a screen of some sort to keep in the top of the jar for easy rinsing and draining.  I have seen jars and kits for sale at the local Health Food's Store (for upwards of $20) and knew what I needed and also knew I could make it for less at home if I could just find the right stuff.  I looked around at Lowe's, thought maybe I could get a screen patch and use that but didn't want to spend that much money.  I came home and thought about it for a few days.  I looked one more time on the internet looking for benefits of eating sprouts, how to eat them and recipes and things.  I remembered I had cheese cloth from making yogurt cheese awhile ago and thought that would work perfectly!  I was right.  I have the jars, I have the round part of the lid and so I just cut a square big enough to cover the top of the jar and put the lid on!  I looked at the front of the bag the sprouts came in and there were directions right there telling me how long to soak them for, how many times to rinse them in a day, and how long until they are ready.
I did all three of the ones got: Adzuki Beans, Broccoli, and a Spice Mix from Territorial Seeds.
This one just happens to be the ones that sprouted the fastest.  This one is the Spicy Mix.
They are pretty cool, they start as this little tiny bit in the bottom of the jar and over the course of a soaking, a few days of rinsing and draining and letting them sit they start to FILL the jar.
I am currently waiting for the other 2 to be ready to eat, they are coming along but need a couple more days.

Adzuki Beans

Broccoli 

Can't wait to try these too!

WORMS!!!

We have worms!

Or to be more precise, we have Red Wigglers.  These little wiggly things are working hard turning my compost into wonderful plant growing dirt.
Or that's the idea and the hope in any case!

We have never done this before so we are definitely still learning, but it is a lot of fun to say the least.  Even the kids are having fun doing it.  We are keeping them in the shed for now until it really starts to warm up and we can get a lid for our container so the neighborhood cats don't get into it.

We started them off in the bucket on the left, but by the time we got some food for them to eat on, some sand to help them digest, and some dirt to help keep them warm while they are working the bucket was already half full.  We thought maybe they needed some more room to spread out.  There are 100 of them in there after all.

So a friend of mine happened to have the container on the right she needed to get rid of so we took it off her hands!

Much better if I do say so myself!  I just hope they worms like it!

Man Work

The Rooster and West have been doing Man Work!! 

Nothing I love better than men doing Man Work!  Seriously, who doesn't love it?
They are doing a pretty dang good job too if I do say so.

Barquentine Peacemaker

This ship has been docked in Savannah since October sometime.  They offer free tours and we finally were able to catch them when they were open.
What a fun and amazing thing to experience.  The people who run the ship actually live on it as well.  The Peacemaker is their home and their money-maker.  You can check out their web-site to see their story and see all the places they have been and why they are doing what they are doing.
They are currently docked in Savannah for the winter I believe which means we will get to see this beauty whenever we head downtown.
This is another one of those things we would not be able to see or do without the Army having sent us here, one more reason to be thankful for this venture we are one at the moment.

Verse of the Week

As I go through my week I want to be reminded of where I need to be, and where I need to be headed.  This weekly verse is my way of looking in that direction.

"I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditation on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious -- the best not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse."  Philippians 4:8 (The Message)

Book Review: Fall of Giants (Ken Follett)

This is one of those books that I picked up because I liked the way it looked.  Usually when I like the way a book looks I like the way it feels in my hands, this one was no different.  I can't help myself, I love the feel of a book in my hand, the weight of it, the feel of the cover as I run my hand over it, then as I open it the feel of the pages as I flip through it; and as with every book I have to put my nose in between the pages to smell it.  If you are at the library most books have a smell all their own, most of them I love, some of them just smell bad, but most of them I can just picture the last person reading that particular book.  I can't help myself, I love the feel and smell of a book.  And this one was no exception, it just felt good in my hand and it smelled too good to put down.  It has been a long time since I have found a book that I couldn't put down, I didn't even know what this book was about.  It was on sale, it was obviously meant to be, for Pete's sake I hadn't even been looking for a book to read.

I actually started reading it just because I wanted to feel it in my hand.  It took me a bit to get into the story, or should I say stories...

Amazon's description of this book:
"Ken Follett’s magnificent new historical epic begins, as five interrelated families move through the momentous dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. 

A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man’s world in the mining pits.…An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House.… A housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with a German spy.…And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution.

From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families—and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again.…"

I have never read a book set in this time period before that was based on fact.  I have read plenty set during WWII, but WWI has actually always been kind of a mystery to me.  Never really sure what it was all about, I know we covered it in History class in school but fairly certain there wasn't a lot of time spent on it.  
This book, written in the form of fiction but based on fact and real people, was hard to put down once I got into it.  Very well written, the stories blended together in a way that made me wonder how much was actually fiction and how much was nonfiction.  

SIDENOTE: One of the stories was written about a man in the 3rd Infantry Division (based here at Fort Stewart) and how 3ID became known as "The Rock of the Marne".  

All-in-all I loved the book, looked forward to turning each page to see what would happen next, found myself cheering for some of the characters and dreading others.  
I would definitely recommend this book to someone looking for a good historical fiction book, or even just someone who wants a good-read!  I will be checking out the next book in the trilogy Winter of the World and looking for the same flow of words and story.