What They Do for Fun in Oklahoma!

In Oklahoma, they hunt for fun and food.

What we found most interesting is what they hunt...

Emilie, Daniel & Sadie ready for the hunt Gary aiming at the prey
Dustin Hart (Roger's oldest) taking aim
Can you see what they are aiming for? It's up there.
Emilie isn't too fond of the loud sound of the shot guns

Daniel covering his ears while Mr. Hart take his shot
Mr.Hart helping Daniel shoot
Patrick has his sights set
Did I get one?
Why, yes, he did. He got that pesky walnut out of the tree.
Walnut hunting. Who'd have thunk it?

Once we start working the chicken houses, we won't be able to participate in the chicken holding and petting pastime. Better get all that out of our system now.


One funny looking bird
Thanksgiving is almost here!

Join us next time when the fun & excitement includes

seeing whose coin can remain spinning the longest!

Oklahoma, home of good wholesome fun!

Oklahoma Pictures

We had a wonderful time while staying with Gary & Wanda. They have a beautiful piece of property. The following pictures were all taken at their place.Aunt Wanda taking the kids out on the pond to check the trout line for loggerhead turtles
Aunt Wanda, Emilie, Tonya (Wanda's niece), Sadie & Daniel
Hi Mom!
Patrick having a talk with Kronk
Emily Cat and Tiger, one of her babies

blurry, but beautiful

Just look at that grass!!

Daniel went to the cattle auction with his dad and Mr. Hart (Roger, Wanda's brother)

Here is Daniel with two of ours ; )

Our Animals

This one is named Pistol because she is an ornery one
This is Daisy or was it Suzie or maybe we settled on Sally???
This is Sir Loin
This is Arnold

The following are Gary & Wanda's Shera (sp?) the Longhorn

she actually is Roger's cow

L J (Little Jack) Gary & Wanda's baby

Pearl

Kronk

The Pig Family

The male is named Bacon, but I can't remember the mama's name

Turning Our New House into Our Home

This is our driveway.
This is our commute to work ; )
These are our ten chicken houses
Here is our first house warming gift. I carried the metal turkey decoration all the way to Delaware last year and never set it up. Gary and Wanda came over for dinner our first night in the house and brought the pumpkin. I was so excited to use it with the turkey my mom gave me a couple of years ago.

The pumpkin and the gift of free hay led to this ; )

Can you tell we are excite to be settled?
Sitting on the front porch


The infamous jelly melon

My dear, sweet husband found my "kitchen coop" boarder from our old house at Lowe's and put it up in our new kitchen.
A true labor of love to make me feel at home ; )
Sadie helping her daddy

I know everyone is going to think I'm carrying the chicken theme a little too far when they see my kitchen, but I had the theme before we had the job. After all, these chickens don't need tending to or smell ; )

Here’s the story… the Readers’ Digest version anyway…

Let me tell you a story about a man named Pat,

poor Florida boy, barely kept his family fed.

Then one day, he stepped out on faith

and the Lord took him on a journey across this great nation of ours

and blessed us beyond our wildest dreams.

(I know, it doesn't rhyme, but it's true ; )

After three months in Arizona we have decided to move on again. Although we met some really terrific people, there were some things that we just couldn’t make fit into our lives. An opportunity to go to Oklahoma presented itself and we realized that Patrick could still work on the project he and Travis were working on no matter our location, so we packed up and hit the road again.

Now, our God is an AWESOME God! When we were still in Florida, trying to figure out what we were doing and where we would go, we considered Oklahoma. We even decided that when we “made our millions” we would buy property in Oklahoma and settle there. We had no idea what God had in store for us, even when we were in Delaware, let alone the day we left Arizona!

We were arriving in Amarillo, Texas when Patrick called me about stopping for the night. He said, “Have you been praying about our future?” Of course I had. “I just got a call from David Bowen. Bob Farewell has a son who manages an Organic farm in Kentucky and they need an assistant manager. They thought of me. The job comes with a house.” All I could think is that I can’t handle it if the rug got pulled out from under us again. We settled in for the night on the east side of Amarillo and Patrick called Rob Farewell about the job. It turns out that the owner already had someone in mind for the job and Rob would call us if they wanted to meet him. We never heard back from him.

We arrived in Westville, Oklahoma, Friday around 6:00 pm. Westville is the home of our new dear friends, Wanda and Gary. We were to park in their yard for a few days while we figured out what we would do next. They have a beautiful piece of property complete with grass, a large pond, two cows, two pigs and nine piglets, two llamas, one large dog, one small dog, and six cats of various ages. Sadie, Daniel, and Emilie are in seventh heaven.

So, now that we are in Oklahoma, what next? What was that Kentucky thing all about? What should we make of that? I said, “Maybe we should apply for jobs managing someone else’s farm. I never realized that that was a common job position.” Then on Saturday Wanda’s sister Lenora told Patrick that there was a local chicken farm with a position available. He called on Tuesday, September 30th. The owner said that the management team is usually only in the office together once a month and that day they were all in, could he come in right away. He went. They said they hire husband and wife teams, could his wife come in? He came back for me and we went in to fill out an application.

Early in the conversation, the owner, Steve Butler, said that he was a Christian businessman and that he encouraged his employees to put God first, then family and then the chicken houses. In that order, God would take care that the chickens were successful. He said this before he knew whether we were Christians or not. It made us feel good. He also said that the ten chicken houses we would potentially run have been being taken care of by one couple for almost a year and they are still responsible for ten of their own as well (20 chicken houses! That’s a LOT of chickens). He also said they have a stack of applicants for the job, but have been waiting for the right couple to come along. He took us out to the farm and showed us the house we would live in (3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, 1980’s brick home with attached garage).

At the end of the day, he said, “The job is yours if you want it!” We told him we needed to pray about it and would get back with him. We didn’t want to jump desperately at the first offer we got. We wanted to make sure this was from God. While we were still talking with Steve, Patrick got a call from a guy working with him on the business proposal in Arizona. He is trying to set up a meeting that could result in us making a lot of money. How tempting to put our trust in that instead of taking the chicken farm job. That deal is still in the works, but Thursday afternoon (six days after we arrived in Oklahoma) Patrick called Steve and accepted the job! We went in the following Tuesday morning to sign forms and go over rules, etc. and then took possession of the house!

We stayed in Gary and Wanda’s yard for a few more days because Patrick had to seat three toilets and do some electric work at the house. They had a leaking roof (which they have since replaced) that damaged the ceiling in one bedroom and Patrick is to repair that as well. Because of the leaking roof, they have put new carpet and linoleum in throughout. The house comes with all appliances, including dishwasher, washer and dryer! I cried out to the Lord and asked Him for a house and a job. God has provided us a wonderful brick home surrounded by about 2-3 acres of yard! How AWESOME is He that provides the desires of our heart.

It has been a humbling journey from home ownership and self employment to living in someone else’s house and working for them as well, but we know that it has all been provided by our Lord and we are truly grateful! But wait… there’s even more to the story.

Wanda’s brother Roger told us that cattle were selling really cheap. About half of what they were going for a month ago, so Patrick went to an auction with Roger and bought six calves for less than $1,000! We gave Gary and Wanda three of them as payment for boarding our three on their land. They have given us one pig and will give us another when they get a set from another line. The economy is in danger of collapse, but God has provided us with a home, a job, a yard to grow a garden in and pork and beef to feed our family no matter what the future holds, not to mention wonderful new friends. And, for the first time in two years, we will have Christmas in our own home!!!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We also get a family insurance plan. So, if Daniel still ends up needing that $30,000 dollar procedure, God has provided for that as well! He is so AWESOME and we are so humbled. He keeps providing and providing!

The Winners of the "Guess What?" Contest

Well, I’m here to announce the winner of the Guess What? Contest. We actually had some really close guesses and so we will be giving points for being close.

Drum roll please…

Kitty guessed moving to Alaska and since we are moving to yet another state and the state does have beautiful country and snow, she gets 1000 points! Enjoy.

Grace guessed that we were buying a house. Well, we aren’t buying, but we will be living in a house of our own (something we haven’t done in a year). Enjoy your 1000 points.

Peter guessed starting a new business. That was also close. We will be working for someone else’s business, but it is new to us. 1000 points to you too, Pete.

We came to realize this past week or two that we have been sort of on the mission field for the past year as we have traveled the country and touched so many lives and for that, Markie’s guess wins her 1000 points as well!

Now, to Sarah who guessed voting for Obama. A big fat ZERO points! Sorry about that. I hope you are alright with your points ; ) It looks like Chuck Baldwin will be getting our two votes and we will let God handle the outcome.

Amanda, you get 2 points for originality, but no, we aren’t moving to the moon to start a shoe factory. Thanks for playing and I hope you all enjoy the home version of the game just for playing along.

Now, the closest winners are:
Eddie for his guess of coming to Florida. It is only close because only Sadie and her daddy are going down to get our gooseneck trailer. Enjoy those whopping 10,000 points!

Katie also gets 10,000 points because where we are moving is less than 10 minutes from Arkansas and only three hours from Yellville!

Now the judges are still out as to whether or not Eddie should also get the 1,000,000 point grand prize for making an exact guess seeing as I had called and told the Dischers before he made that guess. But the real answer to “Guess What?” is…

We have moved to Oklahoma to become chicken farmers.

We've Been Tagged!

The Sunny South, Eh?, aka The Discher Family, has "tagged" us! We have been ordered to say six things entertaining.

We may say one very clever thing, or two things moderately clever, or three things very dull indeed...not really.

Here are the rules for those who are tagged:

Check the list after our 6 THINGS to see if you’re it.

THEN...

Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write six random things about yourself.
Tag sixish people at the end of your post.
Let each person know he or she has been tagged.
Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So, here we are!

• Mr. Franklin used to be a chef at a four star French restaurant in the Catskills.
• Mrs. Franklin used to teach 2nd grade at a mission school in the Navajo Nation.
• Sadie was born in our car after only 52 minutes of labor! She has also written one mystery story, with plans for more.
• Daniel is fascinated by all flying things and may have finally found a good airfield for his experiments to fly. After all, the wind does go sweeping down the plain.
• Emilie wrote a song called “You Better Water the Emilie Weeds”
• We have been on our journey of faith for a year and seen God’s hand in our lives every step of the way. He is MIGHTY and AWESOME and we are so humbled by His love and care for every detail of our lives.

There you have it. Six things about us.

Here are those we are "tagging"

The Miller Family
Amanda Tanner
Mrs. Stokes

Guess What?

To quote our favorite blog, "The Sunny South, Eh?", the Franklin family is in for some changes in the near future. We thought it would be fun to play a guessing game for whoever may be reading our blog out there! Any guesses?

I look forward to reading your guesses.