Book review: Saint's Roost

Saint's Roost
Sundowners (September 20, 2009)
by
Terry Burns


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Terry has over 30 books in print, including work in a dozen short story collections and four non-fiction books plus numerous articles and short stories.

His last book Beyond the Smoke is a 2009 winner of the Will Rogers Medallion for best youth fiction and a nominee for the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. He has a three book Mysterious Ways series out from David C Cook, and Trails of the Dime Novel from Echelon Press.

A graduate of West Texas State he did post graduate work at Southern Methodist University. Terry plans to continue writing inspirational fiction as well as working as an agent for Hartline Literary Agency. Terry is a native Texan Living in Amarillo, Texas with his lovely wife Saundra.





ABOUT THE BOOK

Terry Burns has written a novel rich in Texan drawl and old western authenticity.

Saint’s Roost opens with a determined couple leaving a wagon train to set off on their own, only to be set upon by savages. Patrick, an eager evangelizing preacher, steps out to share the Good Book with the savages and meets an untimely demise, leaving his wife, Janie, alone on a trail to nowhere with no one to help her survive.

She makes her way across the frontier determined to follow her husband’s calling, but she doesn’t know where to begin, or even how to take care of herself. When her travels bring her into the lives of two cowhands, an ex-prostitute, a young boy and his drunken grandfather, and towns filled with cowboys waiting to be saved, she discovers there’s more than one way to spread God’s word.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Saint's Roost, go HERE

Jack in the tree

Who is that peaking out from the branches of the Christmas tree?


It's Jack. The tree has only been up a couple of days and he and Sonora (our other cat) have been tearing it up like crazy. Who knew an artificial tree could be so appealing? He may not look like it in these pictures, but Jack is a big, fat cat. Yesterday the cats shook the tree so much that the angel fell of the top!

Putting up the tree

Last year Hubby spent time teaching Justin, now 14, to put up the tree himself. And this year, Justin did it. Hubby still supervised and helped once or twice when Justin had a question. Justin started by sorting all the branches by size.

Hubby said Justin gets this from me. He sticks out his tongue when he is really concentrating.

Adam, 6, looked on. He is anxious to learn so he can be the one to put up the tree one day!

Almost done!

Hubby put the lights on.


The kids helped with the garland.

And finally, the tree was up!

Once the work was done, Justin couldn't help having some fun!

Book review: The Quest for Thunder Mountain

The Quest for Thunder Mountain

The Quest for Thunder Mountain, written to show the wonder of doing the will of God, is the first book in the new young adult allegory series Tales from Terrestria, a companion series to the Terrestria Chronicles.

My son Justin said the allegories (okay, he didn't use that word, I did) in the book were pretty clear. He as able to tell right away that the book was about "Christian things." The main character, Gavin, and his friends spend spend their time trying to figure out if they should follow the plans of King Emmanuel (God). The book centers around Gavin's quest to push through his fear and uncertainty about the future to discover that the will of God is infallible.

The story and its point are easy to understand, but the vocabulary is not "dumbed down" by any means. Full of knights and dragons, this book by Ed Dunlop is enough to capture the imagination of any boy while teaching him biblical truths.

Ages 10 and up

Price $7.99

Timberdoodle: Puzzleball Globe

I love Timberdoodle's stuff, so I was pretty happy when the company offered to send me their Puzzleball Globe so that I could try it out with my 6-year-old son. Adam insisted that a couple of his stuffed animals had to watch if he was going to put together a new puzzle.

The puzzle frustrated us a bit at first. With a 6-year-old's motor skills, Adam had a hard time holding the round puzzle up and fitting the pieces in at the same time. The puzzle came with a base, but he had to be able to see the pictures, so the first several pieces had to be done while being held.

We also discovered pretty quickly that the pieces themselves, many of them a blue ocean, were a bit challenging for him. But perhaps Timberdoodle foresaw that problem, because they labeled the back of each piece with a number. That proved easier for Adam. He started with number 1 and went through 96, figuring out how to fit each piece in as he went along.

Adam liked the large, child-friendly graphics on the globe, pointing out pictures of kangaroos and penguins and the like.

He became distracted about half-way through, when he quickly realized that half of a globe made an excellent house for some of his plastic dinosaurs!

But eventually he got back to work and finished the globe completely. Because it was challenging for him, I was a little surprised when it quickly became one of his favorite toys. He took it apart and put it back together several times over the next few days. He also enjoyed carrying the globe around and playing it while it was put together. I was also surprised to find that his 14-year-old brother and 17-year-sister each asked to take a turn putting it together!

One of the great things about this globe is that the pieces are plastic and, once put together, the globe holds up beautifully to the abuse of young boys. I know this because at one point Adam and his brother decided to make a game of seeing how many times they could drop the globe on the hard kitchen floor before it came apart. Surprisingly, they had to drop it several times, harder each time, to get it to come apart!

Puzzles can be educational in so many ways because they stretch your child's brain and improve the way his mind solves problems. While he's solving a puzzle, he's really teaching his brain to work in new ways. As your child solves a geography puzzle he is mentally drilling himself with physical facts, such as what country goes next to the one he has just completed. Unconsciously he is making a number of associations as he searches for the next piece.

Oh, in case you are wondering, this is a true puzzle. No glue required!

Price: $12.75

Put out by: Timberdoodle (Publisher: Ravensburger)


Video:

We have an old dog with really bad teeth, and we want to make sure we don't make the mistake of letting that happen again with our 1-year-old golden retriever. So today we went to the pet store and picked up and doggie toothbrush with chicken flavored toothpaste. Ugh. I can't imagine brushing my teeth with chicken flavored toothpaste!

So Bailey the dog got her first brushing today. She didn't like it very much and did a lot of wiggling. But as the "alpha" of the house Hubby was able to get her to lie down long for him. Hopefully, she'll get used to it as time goes on.

Venison

We have a friend who has recently gotten into hunting - in a big way. He's been hunting nearly every day! Anyway, he gave us a couple of pieces of venison and we decided to try and cook them tonight. Hubby and I have both eaten venison before at various church potlucks, but we've never tried to cook it ourselves.

See the bowl on the right? That's some pieces of fat (with some little bits of meat still on it) we decided to cook for the dogs.

Our friend suggested cutting the venison into strips, flouring it and frying it up. This is the south and a lot of people fry everything, but we're not big into frying meat. So we decided to try them on our George Foreman grill. Hubby seasoned them with garlic, Worcestershire sauce, and a little seasoned salt.



The steaks were done in no time. They didn't taste wild or gamey at all, and were actually quite good. The only drawback is that they were more "chewy" than the beef steaks we are used to eating. Anybody know what to do about that? Maybe we should have tenderized them?

There was a time I would have never considered eating a poor, helpless deer. But over the past couple years as we have really looked deeply at our beliefs, I have come to the realization that if I have to choose between a deer that lived free and wild up until its last minutes and a cow that spent its entire life in horrible conditions, I'll choose the former. If you don't think factory cows are really treated that badly, just click on this link and watch the video - but make sure you have a box of tissues handy.

Another thing we really liked about this meat? It never made it to a processing plant or a grocery store shelf. It was butchered, processed and eaten in just days, and in the same general area. It certainly didn't have to travel 10,000 miles to get to our table!

Ultimate Cloth - A Frugal, Green Clean

I was excited but a little skeptical about trying The Ultimate Cloth. The cloth is thin and almost has a thick, yet pliable, paper consistency. I thought it would never stand up to hard jobs. But I was wrong. I tested the cloth in several different places in my home. I hadn't got much cleaning done this week, so finding dirty areas of the house was no problem!

I tried it first on my wood kitchen farmhouse table. The cloth came away dirty, which surprised and somewhat disgusted me... Next came the mirror in the bathroom the kids use. Toothpaste splatters came right off, and there was no streaking at all. Then came the bathroom countertops - no problem.

And lastly, the hardest test of all... the bathroom wall next to the mirror. The bathroom wall is hard not only because of all the normal bathroom stuff, but because the wall catches all the over-spray from hair spray and the like. Although it took a considerable amount more elbow grease, the Ultimate Cloth managed to clean that yucky bathroom wall, as well.

It cleaned and disinfected all of those things with nothing but water. I flipped the cloth over to a clean side for each job as suggested. Tomorrow I'll throw it in the washing machine and use it again. I don't see how any other cleaning aid could be as green. No chemicals at all, reusable.... the cloth lasts for an average of five years. And... the Ultimate Cloth has been lab tested to remove 96% of bacteria without the use of chemicals.

Well, I'm sold. This one cloth was provided to me free so I could do a review, but I'll be buying more. Just imagine the uses in the kitchen, bathroom, windows, cars... any hard surface. One for for every room of the house sounds good.

Product/Book Name: The Ultimate Cloth

Price: $6

Links: http://www.ultimateclothamerica.com/index.html

Guess what? All of my readers can receive a FREE Ultimate Cloth!

All you need to do is follow Ultimate Cloth America on Twitter or become a fan on facebook:
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ultimate_Cloth
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ultimate-Cloth-America/209222110335?v=wall&ref=ts

The family that make the cloth will reveal how to get the free Ultimate Cloths via Twitter and facebook.

Family bowling night

Last night our Young Adult Bible Study class did a "bowling night." I wasn't able to get good photos because the proprietor said I couldn't use my flash. Which meant my camera wouldn't focus well. In the photo above, that blur is my 14-year-old. He starts his run to the lane way back by the ball return.

Here are a couple of photos of my youngest. It was his first time bowling!

Book review: Curse of the Spider King

The Curse of the Spider King: Book 1 in the Berinfell Prophecies

By: Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper

Ages: 12 - 17

Put out by: Thomas Nelson

Price: $14.99

My 14-year-old son fell in love with this book. While he was reading it, he wanted to tell me about it constantly. In his words, "It's about seven 13-year old kids who are being hunted by strange mystical creatures. The kids begin developing strange powers and discover they are actually elves. They are the children of elf kings and queens and they have to go from earth back to their world to help save it from the spider king."

So I asked him, "Why did you like it?"

He said the book is actually two stories in one. The story of the kids who are the main characters, and a story the kids are reading.

"The kids are reading a book of the world that they come from, and when they read it and touch the words, the book actually comes to life around them. "

But he was quick to point out that there was another reason he liked the book.

"And I just like reading books about mystical creatures."

Justin also enjoyed trying using a rhyme found in the book to try and go through clues on the Web site, although he did get a little frustrated when he couldn't figure it out!



Disclosure: Thomas Nelson provided me with a complimentary copy of the book via Mama Buzz so that Justin and I could review it.

Giveaway at Southern Blessings

If you have kids make sure you head over to Nancy's blog to enter her giveaway for a SpellQuizzer computer spelling program (a $29.95 value). It's good for grades preschool through.... whenever they learn to spell!

The deadline is Friday, Nov. 20!

Review: The Story of Christmas

The Story of Christmas by Gwen Ellis
Illustrated by Steve Smallman

Ages: 4-7

Put out by: Thomas Nelson

Price: $10.99

This was a great book for telling and explaining the real meaning of Christmas. My son is now 6-years-old, and I feel like he is really getting and understanding the whole concept. But I do think this book can be used with younger ages as well.

There are a couple of things that make this book different from other "nativity story" books. The book is broken down into bite-sized pieces. Although we chose to read the entire book at once, I could see that using these smaller pieces would be a good idea for younger children. Parents could break the book up into one piece a night to keep the story going. Every piece is also accompanied by the Bible passage it came out of for easy reference.

The book also comes with a DVD of the story.

The best thing about this book - in my opinion - were the discussion questions. Each "piece" or chapter of the book was followed by one discussion question. Having only one question means it isn't overwhelming to the child the book is being read to, and the question are worded in an informal and child-friendly way.

When I asked Adam what he had learned from the book, he replied, "Jesus was our Savior, and He almost died when He was a baby."

Then Adam came up with a question of his own. "Mommy, why do they think Jesus' birthday is at Christmas?"

Be prepared to answer some questions after reading this book!

Disclosure: Thomas Nelson provided me with a complimentary copy of the book via Mama Buzz so Adam and I could review it.

A working sheep farm

Yesterday our homeschool association braved the wind and bitter cold (the temp was in the 50s) to travel the 2 1/2 hours to Timmonsville, SC to attend Homeschool Day at Ovis Hill Farm. The photo above is my daughter Alli on the right and her friend on the left.

Here is a good description of the farm from their Web site:

Ovis Hill Farm is a family owned livestock farm located in Darlington County just west of Florence and convenient to I-20 and I-95. Alice and Charlie Caldwell are currently shepherding about 400 sheep, grazing 35 dairy and beef cows as well as gathering eggs from a small flock of laying hens. Many of the sheep are historic breeds representing some of the earliest livestock brought into our country. The Caldwells sell pasture raised, grass fed lamb, beef, poultry, eggs, and dairy products as well as wool and yarn from their sheep. All meat is USDA inspected, hormone and antibiotic free."

Here is the farmer, Charlie, with some of his cows.







And here he is near one of the farms many chicken tractors.
Charlie said Ovis Hill Farm participates with a few other farms to sell their wares at a farmer's market and in each others' stores.


The Caldwells hire local homeschool moms to do tours for both public schools and, twice a year, homeschools. The kids learned about a lot about wool and took a tour of the farm. One of the things the kids did was to make butter. Below is Adam getting a taste of the butter he made. He wasn't too sure about it, but boy, that was some good butter - it was very creamy!


My favorite part of the day was watching Jolly, one of their border collies, at work. Jolly is a red and white border collie, bred for her abilities as a herding dog, not appearances as mandated by the American Kennel Club. And let me tell you, she was good at her job!


If you look very closely at the photo below, you can see Jolly hunched down behind the sheep. She could stop on a dime whenever Charlie told her to, and kept her head low and her demeanor non-threatening so as not to scare the sheep too much. And did you know that herding dogs are actually taught to know left from right so their masters can communicate with them? I have always herd that border collies were one of the smartest breeds of dogs around, and watching Jolly yesterday - I believe it!