We have added
raw honey to our product line - not just any raw honey, but the best honey we have ever tasted. I would never have dreamed of licking the honey spoon in the past - ugh. But, things have changed. Until we moved here, we'd never tasted anything like it. Everyone who tries it agrees. Not only is it delicious, but there are many health benefits to raw honey. It contains a complex assortment of enzymes, organic acids, trace minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, and antimicrobial compounds, vitamin C, vitamin A, beta carotene, the complete complex of B vitamins, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, magnesium, sulfur, chlorine, potassium, iodine, sodium, copper, manganese, high concentrations of hydrogen peroxide, and formic acid (to name a few!). Honey contains more than 75 different compounds! Many of the remaining substances in honey are so complex (4-7 percent of the honey) that they have yet to be identified.
Because of the high sugar content, honey absorbs moisture in wounds, making it hard for bacteria to survive. Honey can contain large amounts of hydrogen peroxide which is regularly used to disinfect cuts and scrapes. In laboratory tests, raw honey applied to seven types of bacteria killed all seven.
About a year ago, Josiah (a.k.a. Adventure Boy), was riding his bike with a wrench in his pocket (who knows – don’t ask!). He crashed and got a cut where the wrench broke through his pants. A few days after the crash, he came to me and told me that his cut was hurting. I found a red, inflamed, angry looking wound. I immediately covered it in goldenseal and bandaged it up. It felt and looked much better the next day, but one evening a few days later (I should have been more attentive to it), it was back to its painful, swollen status, except this time, the redness was growing and there were small bumps further down the leg; tell-tale signs of a developing staph infection. First, I freaked out, then I slathered the cut with raw honey and bandaged it up. By the next morning it looked totally different: the redness was gone, it was no longer swollen, and the bumps had disappeared. It had begun healing and we didn’t have to attend to it again. I have also taken raw honey in a bit of warm water for food poisoning with dramatic results. Raw honey is amazing. And it is nice when it tastes unbelievable on your biscuits too! ;)
We took our family photos with the Rickels and Millers. We just had to do a kid photo. I love it. 3 Rickel kids are missing (2 married, 1 soon to be married.....yahoo Paige and Josh - less than a month!!) and there are still 14 kids here.
We are so blessed that our kids have such great friends.
So my father won't continue to be disappointed as he wears out his computer coming to my blog to see if we have posted anything....tada. The first photo of 2011. We rang in the New Year with a big group of great friends. And I only took one photo. Here it is. Happy New year, Mom and Dad.
When McGyver got back from the ranch last week, our car was looking mighty odd.....the horses are staying at the ranch all winter this year and becuase of the snow, Brad couldn't get the car to an area where the horses couldn't get to it. When Brad arrived at the ranch, the car was a filthy brown from all of the snow, sludge and salt on the roads through the pass. Well, the horses not only cribbed the front hood (but we won't talk about that) but they also LICKED the entire car. You can't really tell by the photos - you can see parts of the car (I took these a few days after it had been driven around and sludged off) that look like there are weird brownish smudges all over. The entire car - really - entire car - bumpers, rear view mirrors, windows; were thoroughly licked by the horses. We figure it is from the salt they put on the roads ( I'm thinking they need some salt and minerals out there maybe?). I couldn't even see out the rear window to drive. I would love to have seen that taking place and loved even more to get a photo - or video!!! MONTANA CAR WASH!! HA! America's Funniest Videos here we come. 
This year's photos were taken in front of a great, old barn on some friends', John (Doc) and Marylane Heine's, property. Doc Heine (pronounced Hiney) was an OB/GYN in the valley for 30-something years....true story. We went with the Rickels and Millers to take photos, so our photos all look strikingly similar. Well, you know, except that all of the people are different of course. 
We are all laughing, because my hubby had just turned around and acted like he was going to moon everyone.....thank heavens he did not!!!
Josiah - 14
Elisha - 13
Isaiah - newly turned 12
Elias - turned 10 on October 31st
Micah - 7, but will be 8 in a mere 2 months....shocking.
Our good friends, the Meulis, have a very large cattle ranch here in the valley. We went to their ranch to get our Christmas tree this year. On the way, Brad announced to us all "Let's get this straight. We are not looking for the perfect tree today - I am not going to carry this chain saw around in the wilderness for hours. We are going to find a mediocre tree - it is a Charlie Brown Christmas tree for us, everybody got it? " Now that we had that straight, we headed out with the Meuli's truck (ranch truck with chains which is the only way we were getting out to where we needed to go). The kids were all in the back of the truck (brrrrrrr!) and my former race car driver husband was having the time of his life sliding all over the place and trying to keep it between the trees while I, imagining smashing into trees and kids flying all over tarnation, rode white knuckled and wide eyed up to Skaggs lake - the official Christmas Tree grounds. The snow was at least 2 feet deep, but we only had to trudge around for about 30 minutes to find the tree. It was cold crisp and beautiful out. It is such fun cutting down your own tree - I really do love it. HOWEVER, I would be even happier if we cut down a tree, for the "cutting your own tree" experience, and then ditched it in the bushes to go home and plug in a pre-lit fake. Not very politically correct or environmentally friendly of me, huh? But way easier than stringing all those lights. Ugh. 
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