Surfside Leadership Academy (((((((((((((((( Contact Us for Educational Assistance

This bread is simple and delicious.  I make two loaves once a week for my family.  I made a sour dough starter a few years ago.  I “feed it” when I make my loaves.  The mason jar is pictured in the right corner of the photo.  The recipe begins with two greased loaf pans (I use glass) and coconut oil for greasing.  Add one cup of sour dough starter, one cup warm milk, and one cup warm water.  Add 2 tsp. yeast, *1 Tbsp. salt (or less if you like *I use 1-2 tsp.), about 1/4 cup coconut oil, 1/3 cup honey.  Stir.  Let yeast bloom for about 10 minutes.  Add about 4 cups of flour (we use Amish Heritage Flour Blend-Redeemer, Glen, and Red Fife).  Stir until blended.  Pour into bread pans.  Cover and let rise until bread reaches the top of pans (about 2 hours).  Giggle to let our air bubbles for second rise.  Let rise until reaches near the top of bread pans.  Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes.  Cool or serve warm.  Lasts one week in the refrigerator.  Delicious!

This was our afternoon harvest yesterday from one green bean bush growing in a raised bed.  We lightly steamed them and enjoyed them for dinner.  Along with the green beans, we harvested a beefsteak tomato, a Roma tomato, a red onion, a white onion, and a foot long cucumber!

As a mother, I have had many conversations with other moms who discuss their children’s unwillingness to do work around the house or excuse them from chores.  “For each will have to bear his own load.”  (Galations 6:5)  One told me that it was like “death” when work was asked to be done around the house.
For years we have kept a chores list on the refrigerator for check off.  This did not work.  Today, a daily chore list is made and the child is required to check off the duties as they are accomplished.  Both the parents and the child are happy with their progress as the checks accumulate and can be accounted for as the day progresses.  The items on the list include:  brushing teeth, putting away laundry, cleaning up toys, sweeping, taking out recycles, helping with meals, etc.  We have also learned that the parent should not do anything the child can do.  For example, if the child is able to clean up the toys, then they should do it.  This makes everybody’s burden lighter.

After roasting an organic whole chicken for dinner, we remove all remaining chicken, and throw the carcass in a pot with purified water.  We cover and simmer the bones for 4 hours or longer.  The bone broth is rich in flavor from the roasting seasonings (Himalayan pink salt, sage, pepper, and avocado oil).  We store the broth in a mason jar in the refrigerator for up to a week.  Today, it will be used in a clam chowder recipe.  It has been used in enchiladas, straight when we are ailing from colds, and in stews.  Nothing goes to waste since the whole chicken is being used.

Bone broth contains gelatin, which helps strengthen hair and nails.  It contains chondroitin, and glucosamine.  The broth contains cysteine which is said to help thin mucus in the lungs.  The amino acids arginine, glycine, and proline help with inflammation.  Calcium and magnesium help to strengthen the bones.  You get all this life from a pot full of bones.

*Thanks to Dr. Mercola for the nutritional information.

Beets have to be one of the easiest vegetables to grow.  In our climate zone, we can grow them all year, and do.  They sprout easily from seed and are hardy when transplanted.  We grow them in a raised bed in soil that is mostly compost with chicken manure, egg shells, volcanic minerals, and plant compost.  They are currently growing companions with bush green beans, beefsteak tomatoes, cucumbers, and yellow squash.  The birds visit all day to eat any insect growing on the leaves.

We thoroughly wash the beets when harvested, cut the greens (we gave these to our chickens), but they can be eaten, and boil/steam in purified water with skin on until a fork can pierce the outer flesh.  Pour off excess water, cover, and continue to steam and cool.  Use a potato peeler to peel off outer skin and carefully slice before serving.   Beets contain nitrates which some believe may help with blood pressure and even endurance.  It is believed by some that beets may help with inflammation, ward off certain cancers, and detoxify the liver.  The beet is loaded with fiber, minerals, vitamin C, folate, and manganese.  Enjoy this amazing and delicious vegetable with any meal!

*Thanks to Dr. Mercola for the nutritional information.

“Historical fact and historical record must be sharply distinguished.  The historical fact is indeed what really happened.  The historical record of the fact is what someone believes happened from his own narrow perspective.”  Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn

^“Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.” (1 Corinthians 10:6) ”  We have been given examples so we can learn from the past.  School text books have their own interpretation of history.  Over the years, we have watched the content shrink to a very sparse recollection of distorted historical events.  Thanksgiving has turned into eating turkey and the colonies being founded for economic reasons instead of Christianity.  There has been a deliberate twisting of truth in school text books.  John Calvin influenced the Pilgrims and Puritans who influenced the American Republic.  A Republic which is derived from Latin (Res Publica-a public affair) is a government where elected officials are chosen to represent the people.  Calvin believed that both the church and state are under the authority of God’s word.  He wrote that the independent church should be supported by the state.  Each were to be equally important and independent from each other.  Neither one was to be controlled by the other.  Calvin taught the positive value of law and theocentricism.  Calvin wrote in his Institutes, “The Lord has provided us with a written law to give us a clearer witness of what was too obscure in the unwritten law of nature.”  In his sermons from Deuteronomy he taught to apply the exact judicials of the Mosaic law to his contemporary political circumstances.  Man is a natural law breaker and the law is designed to restrain man’s evil tendencies.  Calvin’s ideas influenced Europe in England, Geneva, France, and Scotland.  Many denominations embraced his teachings:  Baptist, Anglican, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians.  They were of one mind.  Their goal was to build a holy Commonwealth to the glory and praise of God.  They desired to maximize liberty and minimize the sinful abuse of freedom.  “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” (Galations 5:13)  The charters were localized and decentralized.  The towns were built up from grass roots that were biblical, Calvinistic, and Puritan in their theology.  They grew into communities that used Old Testament biblical case laws as their standard for legal practices.  The colonists required Christian oaths to take office acknowledging faith in the Trinity and inerrancy of the Bible.  Calvin taught that the duty of the lesser magistrates was to protect the people with an orderly resistance.  There was a representative to the king and representatives in the legislative and judicial branches.  All of the chartered colonies were covenantal constitutional groups under the king.  The Declaration of Independence was an act of separation from England as a result of King George III breaking covenant with the colonies.  The broken covenant resulted in free and independent states.  The colonists did not invade England, but England invaded the colonies.  King George III, who was seen as a nurturing “father” both religiously and civilly, was now a tyrant who was unfit to be ruler of a free people.  New ideas were influencing the colonists as well.  There was a shift from biblical coventantalism to secular constitutionalism.  Isaac Newton was a proponent of natural revelation and natural law (Romans 2:15).  Deism and free masonry were becoming more popular between 1641 and 1788.  John Locke’s Enlightenment ideas had penetrated society.  In 1788, two million out of three million colonists were raised from Calvinistic principles. Yet, it was the Unitarians like Jefferson and not Calvinistic Protestants who helped draft the Constitution at the Conventions.  Traditional Christian government was overturned to secularism.  “I look upon the Constitution as the most fatal plan that could be possibly be conceived to enslave a free people.”(Patrick Henry)  During the Civil War, a new preamble to the Constitution was written and proposed to Congress by the National Reform Association, “We, the People of the United States recognizing the being and attributes of Almighty God, the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures, the law of God as the paramount rule, and Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior and Lord of all, the Savior and Lord of all, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  Citizens of American during the Civil War viewed the events as God’s judgement for not having a government ordered according to His word.  In  Jeremiah 51 God did judge the secular state of Babylon for its disobedience to His law word.  How different America would look if these few words would have been added to the Constitution of the United States in 1788.  We press on optimistically to the future though.

“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,“(Philippians 3:13) 

“He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31-32)  Christ’s kingdom continues to grow.

America’s Christian Heritage:  Dream or Reality by Reverend Roger Wagner                 Covenant Media Foundation

I asked my family what they thought of this new recipe from Beach House Baking:   An Endless Summer of Delicious Desserts by Lei Shishak.  The recipe is on page 2 and titled “bountiful blueberry scones”.  The comments from my family were, “I just ate two!” and “Those were the yummiest in the whole wide world!”  I have made many other recipes from this book.  Some are “apple and ginger and pear, oh my” pie, “pumpkin beach ball whoopee pies”, “gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, and “aged cheddar, bacon, and scallion biscuits”.  All of Lei’s recipes have turned out moist and delicious!  There are many more I want to try.  Her book includes various frozen pops, beverages, hand crafted ice cream sandwiches, cupcakes, and interesting baked goodies with wonderful beach themed photographs and stories.  In my opinion, the book is quite beautiful and one that I re-visit often.

We have tried everything to eliminate rash guard odors.  We used less detergent, soaked it in salt water after training and before washing, and dried it in the sun.  The odor persisted.  We began putting a dab of tea tree oil in the arm pits before applying an aluminum free deodorant.  It worked!  Our rash guard odor problem has been solved.

About 10 Anna apples are clustered together and growing beautifully in our backyard.  We enjoy watching them grow and look forward to eating them soon.

This looked too good not to photograph!  The carnitas was made the day before from a slow cooked pastured pork shoulder.  The corn tortillas are organic, as well as, the romaine lettuce, tomato, salsa, sour cream, and avocado.  Tasted so good!