Fall Happenings

I can't believe I haven't updated this sooner!

Life has been busy and full here.

Early in October our friends the Mathais came up from Oregon again for another speaking engagement in the area. They spent a weekend in the Mountain cottage. We are always glad to host them.

Mid-October we got to visit friends and family in Pennsylvania. It was wonderful to see everyone! Jay finally got to meet my extended family! One of our favorite highlights was getting to hike at Ricketts Glen state Park with my family. The fall colors were beautiful!! There are 21 waterfalls along about a 5 mile hike. We only had time to do half the trail but it was fantastic!

When we got back from our trip, Jay went back to work to a new and incredibly draining schedule. He has worked at least 70 hours a week since we have been back. He is getting up at 11:30 at night and getting home between 2-3 in the afternoon everyday. He gets home, eats dinner, maybe chills for an hour and goes to bed to start the cycle over. He just heard that his schedule is going to change next week. He will either start another route or be laid off for possibly 2 months, we'll find out soon.

Other happening in October include a lot of trash removal! Our friends Phil and Len Parent have been gradually moving over here from Hayden, Idaho. Because they are using Phil's big cube van to move - He's been bringing a load of their things over and taking a load of trash to the dump for us. It has been great to watch all the piles of junk that have accumulated over the years, start to disappear! We also did the first initial clear out of the Desert Cabin - trying to ready it for the remodel!

Getting the truck fixed was a huge blessing that happened last month. It's wonderful to have it start up right away without half an hour of work every time we use it. Now we can get more wood and we'll be ready to plow snow!

This month we've been concentrating on getting ready for winter.

Wednesday we worked on converting the old log cabin from a one stall barn for Sugar to a 2 stall shelter for both of the horses. We've got about another day's work to do to finish that project.

We've been getting firewood every chance we get. We got about 4 trees worth on Saturday. Right now we are just tossing it in a huge pile in front of our woodshed, with a tarp tossed over it. We'll split eventually! It's great that we can actually use our woodshed this year- last year it was full of various house parts from our unexpected kitchen remodel.

I did a little winter shopping for the cabins. I was able to get flannel sheets and a new comforter set for the mountain cabin.

The foggy mornings have been beautiful here, soon they will be frosty mornings as well.

We're still picking apples from our trees. I'm trying to beat the hard frost!! I've made apple sauce, apple juice, and apple pie filling. I'm hoping to freeze more pie filling soon.

Several of you have asked if our friends, the Parents, that I mentioned earlier, have moved here yet. Due to a job that Phil is working on they have been delayed several times in their move over here. They are hoping to finally make it over next week. We are looking forward to having them here.

We hope you all are doing well!

Blessing from the Paulsons

at Living Springs Ranch

It's firewood season! Jay and I spent a great day together yesterday splittting and stacking firewood for this winter. We have about a third of our winter supply in now!

Mission ConneXion

I am going to try and update this blog more often with more day to day happenings here at the ranch- We'll see how it goes!

Yesterday, Jay and I went to Spokane to check out the Mission ConneXion conference. It was facinating to see all the different booths, the opportunites available and to talk to people about their ministries. It was good to make a few connentions and see where our ministry may be able to help others in the future. I particularly appreciated talking to Cliff and Beth who are Chaplains for the Spokane police department. What a difficult, and highly stressful ministry they have, supporting both the police officers and the victioms of tragedies. We spoke to them about the need for support among the Chaplains themselves. Perhaps the ranch can be a quiet haven for these folks as well...

Summer at Living Springs Ranch

Living Springs Ranch has seen much activity in the past few months-

We have welcomed several additions to our ranch including a horse named Granite, a flock of chickens, and three ducks. Granite has made a great companion for Tiffany's horse Sugar. We are looking forward to getting fresh eggs from our free range chickens. The ducks have been a lot fun, last month we released them to live on the upper pond.

Wildlife has been abundant here recently as well. Recent sightings include a cow Moose with twin calves, another cow Moose with a single calf, does and fawns and two black bears.

More evidence of God's handiwork has been seen in the stunning display of wildflowers this year. The wild roses, Lupine, Phlox, and Showy daisies have been beautiful, just to name a few. The wild shrubs are even getting in on the action, the Ocean Spray is phenomenal right now!

This summer we have a few projects that we would like to complete – we would welcome any volunteers!!

Jay and his friend Phil are planning to redo the plumbing and remodel the bathroom in the Mountain cottage – we don't have a start date for this but it looks like we will start in late August/ early September.

Tiffany and her friend Helen will be repainting the interior of the mountain cottage as well as the exterior of both the smaller cottages. They will be doing this project through the second half of August.

If you are interested in volunteering feel free to contact us. We will post more about these projects as the time draws near.

Lastly, thank you to each one of you for your interest and support of this ministry. We do earnestly covet your prayers for God's wisdom, blessing and guidance for His work.
Jay and Tiffany

Upcoming Volunteer Event

Join us on Sunday, May 23rd at 2:00pm and donate your photography skills! We are in need of some pictures for our Website and brochures, so if you have a camera or would like to be photographed (we need models too!) come join in and have some fun. We will probably break into groups about 2:15 or so to hike the mountain, looking for things to photograph and taking pictures of each other. You are welcome to bring friends and family and we will provide sloppy joes and dessert afterwards. If you are interested in participating, please contact us and we will send you more detailed information and directions.

Thank you for your support!
Jay and Tiffany

Update

As I write this, there are quarter inch snow/ hail balls falling from a gray sky! Come on, warm weather!


Since our last update, a few things have changed on our website including some colors and formating. We also added a few pictures to the page about Jay and I and re-wrote the text on that page.

Some new cabin updates include a beautiful new comforter for the ocean cabin and some warm flannel sheets for the mountain cabin.

Just a heads up...

The week of May 16th we are planning to do a volunteer photo day. Anyone interested in photography or in being a model for photos will be welcome to come! We'll probably break into groups to hike the mountain looking for things to photograph and taking pictures of each other. It should be a fun time to hang out together on the mountain and we'll have sloppy joes and maybe a campfire afterwards. So, if you have a camera and love to take pictures or if you just want to hike around for the day- you might really enjoy this! I will let you all know more specifics when we get a concrete date.

Thank you all for your support!

New Testimonials

For those who are interested, we updated our website with several new pages of testimonials from guests who have stayed at the ranch!

New Supplies!

They're here!!! Our new cabin supplies!
New sheets, pillows, pillowcases, bath towels, washcloths, hand towels, bath mats.... We can't wait to replace everything!
Praise God for His kind provision!

Spring!

Yay! Spring is coming to Living Springs Ranch!! The first of the Spring flowers are beginning to bloom!

We wanted to let our friends know that God has provided some funds for us to make some updates in the Cabins! Thanks to a few kind and generous supporters, we were able to order several brand new, quality sheet and towel sets for the cabins!! We were also able to purchase several new pillows and a few other items as well. They should all arive UPS sometime next week. We'll have to post a picture of the new supplies when they arrive. Thank you all for your support!

Thanks for visiting the Living Springs Ranch Blog!!!

We're glad you've stopped by!

Check back soon..... we are just getting set up!