PART THREE:

I am ready to finish this series on the cows escaping. I’ll tell you about two of the cows first. They found two of the missing three cows the same day that they started looking for them but then scared them into running off our property into the Audubon Forest. I don’t exactly know what that is. You’d have to ask someone who’s lived in New Hampshire longer than I have and knows the area better than I do. So they were trying to chase the cows and I’m not exactly sure of the whole story but I think that they lost them for a little bit since this Audubon Forest is like 600-700 acres big. Our CEO alerted our neighbors and one of the neighbors called at like 10 o’ clock at night and said that they found two of our cows. Our Director of B&M (Building&Maintenence) went and walked the cows up to our property. He wasn’t leading the cows, the cows were leading him. He was just walking behind them, making sure that they kept on going all the way up to our property. He said that it took him about 30-45 minutes or so. The cows were worn out and tired so they just walked right into their pen. 

Now about the third cow. A bit of background first, a young adult group from Connecticut came up to His Mansion to serve for the weekend. Late on Saturday night (the 30th), a few of them decided to go to McD’s right in Hillsboro. They passed a police car which was baby-sitting a cow. The people from the Connecticut group called to let us know where the third cow was. So our CEO and Director of B&M came down and looked after the cow. They decided to put the cow in a pasture with a bunch of other cows. I think that our CEO knew the owner of the pasture, I’m not sure. But they just penned the cow in there for the night. The next day, they took the stock trailer in there and with bit of coaxing, the cow walked into the trailer and they hauled it back up to the property.

Now, these cows really went wandering around. People spotted them walking around on some of the nearby roads. Our CEO was really worried about them and as it grew later, he decided to put a bounty on their heads. He was going to shoot them, had a freezer ready to chill the meat and everything. But nothing of that sort happened. All three cows are safe and sound back at our barn. Everybody was glad and relieved that the whole thing was over. That’s the end of the this series. Hope you enjoyed it! Signing off now. -DL

P.S. There is never a dull moment around here! And if we still lived in Portland, we would never get to experience all of this. Cows are also not very smart animals.

P.P.S. You don’t have to be very smart to catch cows, you just have to be (do you know where I’m going with this?) smarter than the cows. I thought that that would be funny especially after my last P.S. So I hope that some of you thought that that was funny. If not, that’s okay. I’m not a comedian, honestly, I’m not.

PART TWO:

NEWS FLASH!

Dad came back from working in the Office and gave us a bit of news about the cows. He said that people found the cows but the cows won’t allow themselves to be herded back up to the pasture. Dad doesn’t know where the cows are but he said that our CEO is worried that someone might hit the cows and they’re thinking about maybe shooting the cows since they won’t come back up to the pasture. So they might be near the road or something. I think that someone is keeping an eye on the cows but I don’t know what’s going to happen. If anything else comes up, I’ll post it up. This is DL signing off.

PART ONE:

Just a quick post. This morning 3 brown and white cows got out of their pasture. We have 6 cows, I believe. At about 8:15 this morning, about 5-6 guys were out fairly deep in the woods behind our duplex looking for the missing cows. Those 5-6 guys looked diligently but they didn’t find them. Our family went up to breakfast at the dining hall this morning, our Director of Operations made an announcement at breakfast, “Here at the Mansion you learn to be flexible.” And he went on to explain that he was having everybody go out to look for the cows. The men and the women alike. He gave instructions on what to do and what to do if you found a cow. The danger is that the cows may have gotten down to the road and off our property. That was earlier this morning and we’ve been home since breakfast so I don’t know if they found the cows or not yet. But I sure hope so! Our Director of Operations also said, “That’s your steak this fall.” Everybody thought that was funny. At least, it’s sunny and some blue sky, not rainy or anything. That would be no fun. All the men and women went out looking for cows except for a few who stayed back to work in the kitchen and a couple other places. The cows unfortunately ran down the fields that border their pasture so now the fields have to be done again. That is a downside to the cows getting out other than the safety of the cows and having to take the time of chasing them. We’ll let you know if the cows are found. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back after these messages. Just kidding. That’s all for now. Signing off -DL

DL here again. I’ll catch up on some Mansion news. Everything is green again, the trees have their leaves back and it’s warm enough so there are dandelions popping up all over the place. People have been hoeing in the fields by our house. I don’t think that they’ve planted yet. There is a marked section for Long Term Staff gardens. There are 4 or 5 LTS women who are doing gardens. Mom started her garden, she hasn’t planted anything yet. We have a little space right in front of our house and Mom put in some dwarf sunflower seeds so that will be cool. I think that Mom is planting Chinese veggies, basil, tomatoes, snap peas and some other stuff. She’ll have to write her own post about her garden. Mom’s doing the garden work now but she says that we get to help her with weeding and harvesting. Harvesting is okay, you can see all of the bright colors of the vegetables and you get to eat them. I’m definitely not a fan of weeding. That’s just me. I’d like to meet someone who does enjoy weeding.  The weather has been nice although we have some rainy days inbetween. Mom recently put her plants into the ground, she said that she wanted to put them in before it rained. This isn’t the best post but I’m definitely not an expert on gardening. Hope spring is pleasant wherever you are! Bye for now. -DL

Sorry, I couldn’t think of a very creative title. If I think of something different, I’ll put it up. It’s Dog Lover, DL for short, posting. Well, we’re back in New Hampshire after two weeks in the Pacific Northwest. Us kids and Mom had a good time seeing friends, family, hanging out and playing. I think that Dad had it harder since he had to speak 5 times during those 2 weeks. He spoke 4 times over a weekend church retreat in Seattle. He preached at our home church on Sunday, 10th and did a few presentations about His Mansion here and there. Although the presentations are very easy. Dad has done them lots of times. We kids could almost do it for you! That’s b/c we’ve heard it so many times, which I guess isn’t a bad thing. If anybody ever asks us what His Mansion is about, we’ll definitely know what to say!

We came back and jumped right back into our routine. We got back to our house late at night on the 13th. The next day, Dad went back to work and Mom and us kids didn’t do school b/c we slept in late. So we did a bit of house cleaning, running errands and adjusting to the time change. The next day, we kids got back to doing school. It’s almost as if we never went to Seattle and Portland. One of my friends gave me this analogy, it’s like being at camp. That week is so fun. You’ve looked forward to it for a long time. You get to go and be with your friends. It’s a blast! No parents are around (although on this trip, there were parents of course). You’re sad to leave, you want to stay longer b/c it was such an awesome week. You enjoyed spending time with your friends and counselors. You say goodbye and you hope that you can come back next year for more great times. When you come back from that week, you get picked right back up into your routine. All you have left are the memories. The wonderful memories that you keep in your mind and reminisce over with your friends. 

We had a great time seeing people. In Seattle, we visited some friends and then went to the church retreat over the weekend. We visited my mom’s cousin and spent time with friends in Bellevue, Washington. In Portland, we stayed with a family from church. They kindly let us take over their basement for 5 days. I got to go to the jr. high youth group at our home church. We visited some of our favorite places. Dad visited the clinic where he used to work as a family physician. A few families had open houses during the week where people could come after dinner and hear about His Mansion and what we were doing there. Like I said before, Dad preached on Sunday at our home church and we saw lots of people then. t was great to see familiar faces and say hi. :) We spent time with our uncle, aunt and cousins on Mother’s Day. We stayed at an older couple’s house for a few days, the older couple are like grandparents to us kids. We spent a whole day with friends who were like family. That was a ton of fun! Yet, it’s all over. One of the nice things is that we know we’ll come back to Portland again in July. I’m not sure about the exact dates. My sister and I will be able to go to a summer camp that our church supports. We’ve gone to this camp in past years and it’s really cool. I love it! If you live in Portland and you’re looking for a week long Christian camp in the summer, contact us. We’d love to give you info. Anyway, it was wonderful seeing everyone in Portland. That’s all for now. Signing off. -DL