Hello again, you might remember us–Matthew and Jonathan from PotterVilla Academy? Yes, it hasn’t been that long, but a lot of things have happened since our last major update. Matthew butchered his 48 broiler chickens on the tenth–a week ago yesterday–and has sold all but one of them. His setup got reviewed by one of our friends on his prestigious blog, Iron Ink. This friend is the pastor of a reformed church in town; his nickname is The Poison Pen, and his blog used to be called Acid Ink. However, his comments on Matthew’s butchering wasn’t at all scathing, to the contrary, he seemed enthralled with my brother’s (as he called it in his blog) piece-de-resistance, the Whizbang Chicken Plucker.

We prepared one of the chickens to split between samples for the customers and dinner for us, and it turned out absolutely delicious. It cooked in the crock pot for about seven or eight hours, and when it was done, fell off the bones with hardly any water added. No seasonings either. The pasturing really paid off in taste, as well as economy.

On Sunday, I will be turning 17, and mom decided to get me my driver’s license for a birthday present. I finished driver’s ed about a while ago, but then it got put off until it was winter (I didn’t want to take my road test in the snow and ice), and then it got put off some more. However, we finally got around to setting up the test (I passed without too much effort), and then headed off to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The nearest office is in Lansing, about 20 minutes (and $8 of gas) away. Matthew had gotten his license previously, and so we thought we had a basic idea of what it entailed. We looked up (in the driver’s ed book) which documents we needed to take, I put on a nice shirt, and we were off. We also (as we do every time we go to Lansing) took a long shopping list. Matthew took three chickens he was selling to a member of the Lansing Homeschool group. Anyway, we got there, and after waiting in the initial customer service (or dis-service) line, were told that we didn’t have enough paperwork. The rules (made up by some high-ranking government official) had changed in January, and we needed my whole life history. So we just left, and did our shopping.

Today, we returned, bearing a file cabinet (just a file, really), including my birth certificate, my social security card, my state issued photo id, my road test certificate, my level 1 driving permit, mom’s photo id, and my bank account number (it’s the truth; they want two somethings that show that you live a a certain address, and a bank statement is one of the things that counts [junk mail from the army and the marines don’t count, probably since they got my address from the secretary of state–circular mailing]). Don’t forget a check made out to them for $25 to add to all the tax money they already get. And then, when we got up the the customer service desk, they asked us what our address was. This is documentary proof that the public school system is failing: even government employees have trouble reading. I mean, that address was on just about all of those documents. We haven’t moved, people!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, they finally did let us wait again, to fill out a second set of papers and to stand in front of a malfunctioning camera. Then, they give you a new piece of paper (to replace the old tattered one) that has one number changed. Boy, that was really worth it. But at least they’ll send a plastic one with a picture on it in the mail. :) And I can at least drive myself to Bible School, since mother can’t go because of her English tutoring classes.

I’ve also finished (mostly :)) the pottervilla.net webpage, putting up some of our chicken, etc, information.

My other recent project is dumping all of our home videos onto my computer; it’s very time consuming since it has to be done in real time, but it doesn’t require very many man hours, just computer hours. :) I’m getting to the end of it, the last 15 or so video tapes.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” – John 3:16-19

In His service,

Jonathan