Category: September 2022
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FROM THE EDITOR: Mind Your Mouth
On a morning in mid-summer, I found myself listing all the ways in which I was failing on that day alone. I couldn’t care for a flower plant well enough to keep it alive. Literally. It withered up, giving no explanation. I couldn’t tend well enough to a tomato plant to support its production of…
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Hummingbird Moth
The first time I saw it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stick around. Flying insects sometimes come across as bullies, willing to defend their space with actions causing me discomfort, let’s say. Dr. Katie Kilmer, an associate professor of biology and environmental health at Missouri Southern State University, assures me hummingbird moths do not…
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PLANTED: Spoon Tomato
Sources tell me the spoon tomato is the tiniest tomato of all. Seed reviewers note the overabundance of fruit overloading the plant, the space around the plant and the time given by the grower to pick the small, little salad toppers. Psshhh*. I hesitate to bring up the drought and 100 degree temperatures we dealt…
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Good Times September
Events are subject to change. Contact event directly for more information. Submit an event for consideration at editor@homegrownjournal.com. SeymourSeymour Apple FestivalSept. 8-10, FreeSeymour Squarehttps://seymourapplefestival.com/ The annual Seymour Apple Festival is celebrating 50 years this Sept 8-10. During the festival, you can see 100+ craft and various vendors, free live entertainment, 5K run, parade, Johnny Appleseed…
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That Thing You Eat: Make It Local In September
Homegrown is in our name. Submit information about southwest Missouri farms to editor@homegrownjournal.com to be considered for future issues. Click the links below and like their Facebook pages. BIG MEATSBEEFRepublic, Missouri Big Meats provides USDA certified, local beef that has been raised, processed and packaged in southwest Missouri. Purchase beef already cut and packaged, or…
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Calling, Commitment, and Cambodia
LOOKING AT THE FIELDS Working alongside her father in the Kansas wheatfields was a daily chore for my wife, Carmen, during her childhood. When she was 13, riding in the family work truck and gazing at the crops, it seemed like another summer’s day as her mind shifted toward the upcoming months and the necessary…
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Refreshing Others With Our Words
I nestled into my hammock, a stack of thank you notes on my lap. After five months of study, lesson planning, sermon delivery, and small group facilitating, I was satisfied, yet weary. I began to read the gracious words written by the ladies in my church’s Bible study. words + photographs EVA BURKHOLDER Some just…
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Made Good Enough
Throughout my life, I have struggled with the belief I am just not good enough. I felt if I worked really hard, maybe I could be. These lies have permeated multiple areas of my life: school, work, relationships. When I was in high school, college, and even graduate school, I had an incessant need to…
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Fighting Words
Satan tries very hard to cause us to believe false truths. As we begin to believe those false truths and have doubts in our hearts and minds, we begin to turn ever so slightly from Jesus. Sometimes, I believe the lies. words + photographs JAYLA PENICK Some days, I believe I must be happy and…
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Lessons & Plans
“’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,’” (Jeremiah 29:11). Ever since I can remember, I knew the plan the Lord had for me. He had clearly revealed to me I was called to…
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Repurposed
Isaiah 55:11 promises God’s Word does not go out without a purposeful return in all He means to accomplish. I have witnessed this spiritual principle many times. All around, we have opportunities in how we carry His Word and how we listen to it ourselves. words + photographs MELISSA SWEARENGIN I once heard a funny…
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