Big Changes

We're often given situations in life that are hard to accept.  For the past three (almost) years, our family has been struggling with a situation of which many of you are aware, in which the end result was not what we had hoped for.  But even though we are a little disappointed in what the earthly outcome has turned out to be, we know because of the ordeal we are stronger in our work and in our faith. God has promised that if we trust in Him, He won't let us down.  And that is what our family strived to do - trust Him.  We believed from the beginning that if things were meant to go "our" way, it would.  It didn't, and so we decided to accept the fact that life was changing and to keep moving forward.  We learned alot of how the world works, of how worldly motivations make people make decisions that they never would have made if hope for worldly processions didn't change their point of view  We learned what kind of people we don't want to be.  But moreso, our trust in God's promise of caring for us was confirmed; and we hope that we left a testimony of the way God intends for us to treat others in the way we handled certain situations and people all the way along. 

God has certainly provided.  We needed a machine shed to make up for the one we lost.  So, through careful stewardship of the blessings we've received (some of which were unexpected - we choose to think it's God's hand), we are able to build a small machine shed on our yard that will serve mostly as a shop and to store much of the harvest equipment.  The work on the pad finally started this week and we have had a great time admiring the equipment doing the work:

Sarah and Caleb spent quite a long while watching the bulldozer push the dirt around.  Notice how Sarah has just made herself nice and comfy to enjoy the feature presentation.

The "before" shot.  There will be several "after" shots in later posts.

We had to push over two huge trees to make room.  In order to push over the larger of the two trees, the bulldozer dug a great big hole around the roots to break them up. 

To really understand how big the tree and the hole was, you have to compare it to the dozer.  Even this picture doesn't really do justice to just how BIG the project was.

On the way down....

Success!!!  The tree fell sooner and, thankfully, easier than expected.  We probably don't give enough credit to dozer people, because it took a lot of planning and preparation to get the tree to do safely just what he wanted it to do.

Later in the day, Caleb was able to see the roller (at least that's what we called it) up close.

We thought it was great fun to feel the vibration of the machine as it packed down the dirt for the pad.

Future dirt workers?

What could be more fun to a little boy than to sit in a real, live bulldozer?  He was smiling from ear to ear the entire time!