Life on Snow Hill

Last night I got home from work and got straight to work in the garden. I enjoy it for the most part, but it took me the rest of the night to get everything done – it was almost dark when I came inside.

The first thing I did was get the tiller and run it through the whole garden. It was beginning to look like part of the yard with all the grass..er..weeds growing in it. That by itself cleaned things up nicely.

I had 14 healthy tomato plants, plus one more that was really thirsty. I got those in the ground. We’re not planting quite as many things this year, so I had some extra room for tomatoes. I left extra space between the plants so it would be easier to get around them all once they start bearing.

I also got 4 each of some bell pepper and jalapeño pepper plants. Those all looked good except for one..it was a little thirsty as well.

I had wanted to plant some gourds, but never got any seeds from them last year. Well, where they were growing last year, some more started to come up. So I moved some of those plants to another part of the garden.

The same thing happened with cucumbers. We bought some seeds this year, but some of them didn’t come up very well. Some of the old cucumbers from last year started growing again, so I moved those plants to the cucumber row.

I planted some beans that a family in our church gave us – Turkey Craw. Everybody seems to like them pretty well, so we thought we’d give them a try.

I also had to replant the okra. I saved some seeds from a few pods last year, but those never came up.

It was a nice evening to work, and a great time to get it finished. We got some good rain last night, and the thirsty tomato and pepper plants revived and looked strong.

You can’t see much yet, but here is the garden as of this morning. (Click to enlarge)

At some point in the morning, unless it’s pouring down the rain, we have this little visitor. At first, it was annoying. Now it’s actually a little funny.

Lately, there have been a few things I’ve wanted to post, but didn’t. There have been a few things like that which I went ahead and posted because I wanted them ‘out there’ for people to see. However, they didn’t pertain much to the content that the name of this site would lead people to believe is here.

So, from now on, this blog will focus on content that has more to do with every-day life stuff around home, things I like to do, etc. My ‘thoughts and rants’ will go on a new blog, www.jdsnow.com. That one will have more to do with my religious views, or random thoughts I feel like talking about.

I haven’t installed the blog software just yet, but I expect it will be functional by the end of the day. Come on over!

Well, it’s about that time of year again. Spring is in full swing – the air is filled with…er..pollen, and the sun is shining when April showers aren’t falling. We got the garden area plowed up a few weeks ago, and just over last weekend we got it tilled up and ready to plant.

Monday evening when I came home from work, Becky and I set to work in the garden. First, one little bit of something funny. We let the garden go last year. We didn’t get near as much out of it as we should have. It got all grown up with weeds so that we couldn’t do anything at all toward the end of the growing season. Onions are hearty little plants. Before anything else started doing anything, whether it was grass, flowers, trees – you name it – we had onions in our garden from last year. We have two perfect rows already. Sweet! One less thing to have to worry about planting this year!

So I got the tiller out on Monday and worked up the ground a little more where we’d be planting. We put out okra, corn, cucumbers, carrots, squash and watermelon. We still need to put out some green beans, peppers and tomatoes.

Now I’ll be outside every day checking to see which seeds have sprouted first. Then we get to work hard to keep weeds out of it this year. I’m determined not to lose it this time!

Saturday, March 27, from 8:30pm to 9:30pm is “Earth Hour“. Earth Hour is a time when people commit to turning off all their lights in a sort of idealistic showing to demonstrate their commitment to stopping climate change.

Since I think Al Gore and all his loonies are, well, loonies, I’m pledging to turn ON all my lights from 8:30 to 9:30.

That’s all…

So, I’ve had this idea for a while now about a website something like Facebook, but for Christians. I quit Facebook a while back because, among other reasons, there were trashy ads, I would see friends of friends’ photos and status updates that I’d rather not see, and just general stuff that a Christian doesn’t exactly find appealing.

I’m about to go geeky on you, so just bear with me.

I love WordPress. There’s a social plugin called BuddyPress that I really, really wanted to use. It’s lightweight, fast and pretty configurable. It looks somewhat like Facebook, so it would be familiar to those who moved over (or at least used both).

A couple weeks into it, I found it wasn’t going to cut it. I’d been trying to get a real-time chat script to work on it, but ran into a wall. Several times. then I found JomSocial. This is a social layer built on top of a powerful CMS called Joomla. I’ve actually tried Joomla before, but it was a long time ago and it was way over my head. I’ve learned a little bit about web stuff since then, and it actually makes sense (mostly) to me now.

JomSocial had a lot of the stuff I already wanted – photos, videos, walls, activity feeds, friends, groups…you get the picture. It didn’t have chat built in though. I tried the same script on this software, and voila! It just worked! So far, everything I’ve tried to do with this software has worked, and worked well.

Now that you’ve gotten through the geeky stuff, you may be wondering what this Christian website is? It’s called Friends of Faith. Feel free to go take a visit and sign up. It’s still growing, and things are changing, but that’s half the fun!

Hebrews 10:25:

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

Speaks for itself, right? I don’t believe I have ever met a church member that doesn’t know this verse by heart. Maybe I should say we all know it by memory. If we really knew it by heart, we might actually put it into more practice.

Fair warning – I’m telling the truth here. If you’re easily offended by blunt, honest truth, stop reading.

Yes, I’m going there. Church attendance. It seems to be the first thing that many people choose to forego when they need a day to do something fun. It appears to be the least important thing in many people’s lives, as they choose movies, ballgames (Yes, I went there, too), voluntary overtime, fishing, hunting…(shall I continue?) over church attendance.

My first reaction to this is to get angry. I’m working on this. But I get angry because these people know better. They’ve been taught the truth and know what’s right. They know not to skip church, but they do it anyway. It makes me want to grab ‘em by the shoulders and say, “Don’t you see what you’re doing??”

But then I think a little deeper about it. It has begun to break my heart. The anger isn’t as strong as it used to be, and here’s why. When someone can be at church and he or she makes a choice not to be there (circumstances completely within their control), I believe that person is responsible for and will be accountable for the truth that they would have heard had they been where they were supposed to be. They are hurting themselves eternally, and yet they can’t see it. My heart breaks for them. Mostly because I can’t do anything about it. I pray for them, and tell them the truth when I have the opportunity. But the choice is up to them.

What is more important? Seeing a movie that will be playing for weeks to come, yet has no spiritual significance and no eternal impact? Bouncing a ball up and down a floor that has a basket on each end that you try to throw that ball into? Catching the biggest fish? I’ve just picked a few of the most popular ‘excuses’. Insert your own here. Are these more important than the eternal impact that good, Bible preaching will have on your life? I think not…

God help us all to place the importance we should on meeting together in a good, Bible believing church to hear the man of God preach His Word.

Wow, it’s been nearly 3 weeks since I’ve posted anything! I’ve severely neglected my blog. It’s not like I don’t want to keep it up to date – I’ve actually been pretty busy.

One thing I’ve been working on is a social website for Christians. It is still in its infancy right now. I’m getting some help from a group, mostly from my church, to get things set up for it, select a name as well as the initial features the site should have. My goal is to have all of that finished before it goes live and is opened up to the rest of the ‘world’. Hopefully it will be ready within another couple of weeks. Stay tuned for an update.

This month has been Youth Month at our church. So far, I’ve had the privilege to preach twice. We’ve had two Youth Sundays, and I’ve preached both Sunday mornings. We also had Benjamin Cooley for the first one, and Jeremiah Cooley for the second. For those of you who don’t know them, they are twin brothers who are great young men that serve God. We also had Seth Stewart from Redemption Baptist Church. He is 13 years old and has announced his call to preach. They all 3 did a great job and preached messages that encouraged, strengthened and charged me.

I look forward to this Sunday, when Breaking Ground will be with us. They are a group of young men (The oldest is 26 I believe) who sing bluegrass Gospel music and preach. One of their wives also sings with the group. All of the guys preach, and preach well. I’m looking forward to all of it.

We’re also having a youth revival the week of March 1st through the 5th. Nick Sorrell and myself will be preaching that revival. We’re looking for the Lord to do some great things in all our hearts and lives.

So again, this has been a busy month, and it isn’t quite over yet. I’ll do my best to keep this blog updated a little better so that you, my loyal readers, will have something to read.

Today’s daily verse is Philippians 4:8 – Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Every once in a while, I run across someone who simply wants to twist the Scripture to make it fit his or her lifestyle. Some try to use it to flaunt their ‘super-Spirituality’ and highly educated self. Some totally ignore it so they can do the things they want and feel no conviction for it.

Some do all three.

This morning I was thinking about some of them. When I do that, I usually find myself getting angry and not fit for much for a while. Then I thought to myself, “Today is Sunday. I should be at my very best today.” Not that I should be any different today than I am any other day of the week – I certainly shouldn’t. I should live life the same every single day. I should be the same person every single day, whether it’s a Thursday, a Monday, or, yes, Sunday.

My point is, today is the Lord’s day, and I should find myself extra careful to keep my focus on the things of the Lord. Dare I say, the devil may try extra hard to get us off track on Sunday? Sure he does.

That’s when God reminded me of today’s verse – think on these things. Don’t worry about those other people. Stand for truth, for sure, but think on these things.

One small disclaimer. I couldn’t put the entire verse in my twitter status because I only get 140 characters. I’m not trying to change anything about what it says – promise!