The Chickens Have Arrived!!!!!

Exciting things are happening here on the Hasseman House Property! The new Amish Door Farms is being started up this year. Our local Amish neighbors, the Keims, are heading up the venture.

A few days ago a trailer load of 300 full grown chickens was delivered to the movable chicken coop. We helped with moving the chickens from the trailer to the coop and I've never before had the experience of holding in each hand two flapping and upset chickens, upside down :) It was quite an experience!

Joy, Faith & I just got in from the first round-up of catching chickens and putting them in their coop to protect them from predators. It was like a game! The chickens were hiding under the coop, but I had an idea to use the hose I hooked up to scare them into the open. It worked and there was no harm done to the chickens except for a little water ;)

Amazingly, a few months ago we had some guests stay with us who raised chickens and told us how much fun it is. Less than a month later, when visiting the Keims, I was asked if our girls would be interested in a job of herding chickens in each night. Chickens? Yes, and had not only a dozen chickens, but 300! In big and little ways the Lord shows how He knows the desires of our hearts even before we ask Him--Psalm 37:4. Also, Joy & Faith have expressed interest in goats and horse before, and guess what?...they are in the works too. What an opportunity for them to learn elements of the Amish farm lifestyle.

Well, it's about time I blogged. I am not going to make any more statements saying I will blog every few weeks as 3 months have passed instead. But, when I can, I will :-}

Happy New Year 2011 from the Hasseman House!!

Well, Happy New Year to you all in 2011!! I have been so behind in blogging. When I started it up I blogged about every two weeks. Now it's been about 3 months since I last blogged. Isn't that how life goes. I will say though, that I was having some issues with the blogger not letting me type in the content, but finally found our that clearing the cache is the answer. Maybe that will be helpful to you all. Things are going well with us at the Hasseman House Bed & Breakfast http://amishdoor.com/content/hassemanhouse.php.

We are pretty slow as usual in January, but this is a down time that allows us to have a winter renewing. In the coming weeks I plan to share some of the special places we visited in the Holmes County in 2010. Places like Peter Dunn's and Wendell August Forge.

Our family is doing well. The picture of us was taken in December. Faith just turned 8 and Joy will be 10 in May. Wow! Does time fly. My latest musical interest is the Irish Penny Whistle. I've experimented making a low D out of PVC pipe and it works great. Plans can be found here and are a lot of fun: http://www.ggwhistles.com/howto/

I have started playing piano most Saturdays at the Amish Door Restaurant from ~ 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. I really enjoy doing this. Say hi to me if you come out sometime.

Well, hopefully my next post will not be months away. Thanks for reading and God bless!!

Super Guests/Friends Staying At Hasseman House

One of the biggest blessings of being Innkeepers is the wonderful people we meet coming into our home on a daily basis. Many come as guests but leave as friends! I wanted to highlight some of the super guests/friends we've had in the past weeks.

We were really glad to have Tina Miley and here family stay with us for four days about 3 weeks ago. They were all the way from Louisiana and biked the whole way. It was a wonderful time of Christian fellowship and left us with a lot of joy about innkeeping :)

Then we had Sam & Jill stay with us. They are international missionaries who have been back in the States for the past year. We spent hours of encouraging and challenging conversation that left us uplifted in the Lord.

Daniel & Sara Adkins had stayed with us earlier this year and then returned with a whole house of family. Daniel and his two brothers, and parents stayed with us a night. It was a great time for Joy and Faith as they had a lot of fun playing with two of the Adkin girls who are about the same age.

Kevin & Alison Lee along with their daughter Lydia stayed with us earlier this year. Lydia had seen our porch kittie, Sweetie, in the window and urged her Mom & Dad to stay:) The girls became fast friends and they returned for two days this past week. We really have enjoyed building a friendship with them. They are also a fellow homeschooling family so we have a lot in common.

New Friends and a New Dulcimer

Wow! This week was such a blessing. We had Rick and Rita stay with us, a couple celebrating their 50th year anniversary!! God bless them for keeping the course that so many aren't in today's society!! They were our only guests before 5 nights fully booked starting today when they left. So we know God wanted us to get to know them. Of course they know the Lord Jesus as Savior and He is their Hope. The girls really enjoyed playing games with Rita a few of the nights. I really enjoyed playing Rick's handmade dulcimer that he brought with him. I was blown away when one morning he told me that he and Rita felt that God wanted them to give me the dulcimer. What a gift! It is beautifully made of solid black walnut and maple for a sound board and has hummingbirds built into the sound-hole. If you look at a previous blog I had mentioned that humming birds our one of our favorite birds. The sound is amazing on this dulcimer and I am really enjoying playing it, especially some hymns like I'll Fly Away, and Behold What Manner of Love. Be Thou My Vision also sounds especially nice with the D droning while I strum. Anyway, one more unexpected blessing that God bestows--But, the Christian fellowship was the best blessing of all :)

Visiting Schoenbrunn

A few weeks ago we started up our homeschooling year for Joy & Faith. One of the assignments is to visit an historic settlement in Ohio. We decided to visit Schoenbrunn Village. In a previous blog entry I shared about our seeing the outdoor play Trumpet in The Land which told the story of David Zeisburger at Gnadenhutten. Schoenbrunn was the other settlement he worked and lived at.

"First settled in 1772 by Moravian Missionary, David Zeisberger, Schoenbrunn (or "Beautiful Spring" in the native Delaware language) has become the window into our states past. Schoenbrunn Village grew to include over sixty dwellings and 300 Delaware Native Americans and Moravian missionaries. These residents drew up Ohio's first civil code and built its first Christian church and schoolhouse."

It was a really neat trip. The village has been reconstructed in detail based on historic findings. The buildings and layout of the village was very peaceful and conveyed a sense of what it would have been like to live there. The above picture is of the girls at the schoolhouse. They had fun with a scavenger hunt of places and things found throughout the village tour. Definitely worth visiting when you are in the area or staying with us at the Hasseman House. http://amishdoor.com/content/hassemanhouse.php.

I had shared in our first blog about the garden that Joy & Faith planted. We've had an abundant harvest of tomatoes from the four plants we put in - hundreds of them :) We bought a water bath canner and were able to can 12 quarts of tomatoes for the winter which was a new experience for us. Truly God provides us with what we need in all things.

Summer is fast fading away and Fall is almost here. We are thankful for the many blessings that the Lord bestows upon us and look forward to what He has in store for us as we serve Him together as a family here at the B&B.

Camping in Mohican

We were blessed this past week to have a getaway to Mohican (which is about a 45 minute drive for us and is in West Holmes County) for a 4 night camping trip. This was a great opportunity to spend some time together as a family and enjoy God's creation. We went to Camp Toodik, which is one of our favorite Camp Grounds. It has very clean bathrooms and, best of all, an outdoor heated pool that I guess they must keep about 85 degrees. We spent most of our time at the pool just enjoying the great weather and splashing around :). Camping is one of our favorite things to do together as a family.

Mennonite Relief Sale in Kidron

We just went to the Mennonite Relief Sale in Kidron that is a yearly event in the area. All the funds go to relief efforts throughout the world. Our first stop was at the used book sale. It is a great place to find books for the girls and is by a donation basis. The highlight for me was the Laotian egg rolls. They are wonderful. Last year I liked them so much that I've been really looking forward to them. I even brought my own soy sauce :) The fresh lemonade is also a real treat. Also the Gerbers chicken is very popular and the homemade ice cream. Joy & Faith really enjoy the train ride. Pulled by a tractor train, about 15 little trolleys made from oil barrels go zooming in and around all the people at the sale. It was hard to pull them away after their ride. The Mennonite Relief Sale is definitely something worth going to if you are in the area the first Friday and Saturday of August.