leafytwiglet

Well I was WOW 79-80 and I can tell you since I did the sending in for part of the year. we had to send our ABS in and the cost for the money order and the stamps was seperate and we were told that direct from our limb leader. for the State. I was taking it out of my own pocket for a while becasue I made the most money in our WOW family until my Family COordinator found out then we ended up spliting it ... And we did okay financially becasue we were incredibly frugal. taht and each of us had bosses that would give us food occasionally. Also I remember once a couple of girls in the state )this was after my WOW Year) needed moey and my husband and I decided we were going to give them our ABS for that week. The Limb LEader made an anouncement that any one that helped them better not take it oot of their weekly ABS .. We gave tehm the money in secret. this was not too long before we left the ministry but IT sure felt good to help them out. WOW's really had nex tto nothing when you are feeding a family of four three meals on one chicken to make ends meet those pennies add up... Real fast.

I love tiers... Our yard is flat as a pancake. WHen we lived in the big city we had a tiny yard too. you could mow teh lawn in the front yard and back yard in 15 minutes tops with a push mower. LOL Now we have about 1/4 of an acre of just lawn. What I like the best about the acre yard is you are not on top of your neighbors any more so you don't have to listen to their music tv shows etc through the walls. We used to live in Silicon Valley.

Hi ClayJay welcome from one newbie to another. I left before it got really bad too. No matter from what I saw in the Corps stuff We would have been thrown out anyway in a few years if we had stayed. Anyway there are some fun forum threads besides some of the heavier stuff.

NOT gigantic but pretty good sized it is Aprox 30 X 70 feet I have 6 4X8 Foot raised beds... TO protect all vegetables from a host of gophers and voles and moles. They keep the majority out. I also have black berries and baba berries (a respberry blackberry cross that will grow and fruit in our non frosting area) and two plum trees in there and three wine barrel halves with flowers in them.and the mulch pile so plenty of room. I want to maybe add a little herb bed in there too. Maybe this spring. Then I have a huge flower garden it is 50 X 100 Ft and I am working on getting some gopher resistent (as if there really are any) flowers and plants in there. The flower garden also has a nectarine tree and an apple tree in it. WE also have other fruit trees scatered around the property. TIP: GOPHERS LOVE DAISIES... Other plants that will keep your gophers thriving and expanding their little colonies. Pretty much any daisy variety. Dahlias are gopher crack. They come from miiles away for these. and english lavender But they will leave French and spanish lavender alone. Not sure why. Also tasty treats for gophers: Gladiolas, Petunias, Cosmos, chrysantemums pansys and johnny jump ups. Oh yeah and chocolate mint?????? goofy little buggers Things they will leave to eat until they are starving but will still mow down if given half a chance Coreopsis, Sweet Williams, and Lots of bulb plants actually too numerous to mention. Proven unedible to gophers Daffodils, narcisus which goes with out saying.... Irises, pincushion flowers and periwinkle. mexican posies, morning glories, and holly hocks. also agapanthis (Sp?) Digitalis, and of course gopher purge which is a singularly ugly plant and contrary to belief will not protect anything they just dig all around it eatting things next to it. This concludes our study of Gopher husbandry ::Smirk::

What a difficult thing to go thru and that is the worst part of leaving... the not being sure if you are going against God even though you know it is the right thing for you.. How could the right thing for you ever be going against God.. IT makes me realize how far off TWI was.

I did. IT was beautiful there. I think Idaho at least on the East side is not a fun place..

Oh we were practically neighbors... did you go over to Seattle when they had the what ever it was... gads the memory goes as i get older... it was some regional thing and there were WOW's all over the place. I didn't make it to the space needle but I did to the Warf. I remeber our bus stopped in okay I could be wrong about this but either Idaho Falls or pocatello.. .. When were you there. in Idaho????

WE.. Hubby and I left quietly in the night and it was early on some time around the end of 82... WE were in one of those states in the middle of the country that were basically devistaded by the recession of the late 70's and early 80's... hubby could not get work and was slowly but surely falling into a deep pit of depression. NOt to mention getting the pressure to get it together by the LC.. which I think just made it worse. We had seen a couple of things that I think really scared him.. Me not so much because I was a newbie really and was not paying that close of attention. he was way Corps (9) and had seen more.. anyway one of the things we saw was at the rock of ages the summer before we left. One corp guy was supposedly thrown out for being an alcoholic(at rock of ages) and his wife left with him. The corps was told to not talk to him or her ever again.. I think she was corps too. any way My Hubby knew the guy and his wife and he kept saying I can't believe he was drinking .. It just doesn't make sense.. (now i wonder if they just left and these lies were told to cover it up) Prior to that we had also seen a twig believer get a verbal working over it was not pleasant. I assume he had seen much more than those two things. any way to make a long story short one night he asked me did I mind if we left and I looked at my dear man who would never hurt a flea and saw only the deepest kind of hurt and pain and I said I will follow you where ever you go.. so we left that night after every one went to sleep. He was a twig leader.. and we were living in a way home with several other believers. We left almost all our stuff behind.. We went to a non WAY friend of my husbands and stayed with them for two days and then hitchhiked out of town and headed to his parents house. When we were almost home Hubby said he kept waiting for God to strike us dead and it didn't happen. I felt much teh same. IT was like we betrayed God when really we had done no such thing at all we had just left for self preservation. I assume we were mark and avoid after we left but they had no way to really find us. Which was good. I didn't run into any way people until I had my two kids .. IT was right before the LCM debacle, I met a woman at the grocery store quit by accident.. She had a Way sticker on her car, and I almost went back but I could not shake that feeling of fear I had caught from my husband as we left .. SO I didn't go back.. Now after coming here and reading so much of the information here I can't help but feel glad I didn't get involved again.

Hi is there anyone out there who was a WOW in Montana I was there from 79-80 and in Montan itself until 81. I am especially looking for any Havre or Great Falls WOW's But any one who was there give me a shout

Well I may be in the minority here but for me what attracted me to the Way wasn't Weirwille it was the way people were reading the bible and studying it. IT was the first time I ever felt like the word of God was something I could read and understand and it was exciting to actually find some where that tried to be logical about their study of the word. Okay and let me add here that I took the class in 1979 in Colorado. Also in my WOW Family we didn't just go back over teh stuff from PFAL we would share the stuff we were reading in our Bible too. OF course we were a bit of a renegade WOW family but that is neither here nor there. I never got far enough along to argue if any point was true or false.. mostly becasue I had this flaw(Acording to one Way Corps Guy I knew) I liked to really look everything up that I heaard and try to see for myself if it was true or not. Silly me! :)

Hai!!! before the black bin we had it in a big pile but the chickens would just scratch it all over and make a big old mess. I tried to coral it a bit. and we were looking at building a compost bin but this one was so much cheaper than the built one I pounced on it and I will have to go get a second one to make it more viable. I need to go look as they should be on sale again with the end of the gardening season here. We have an acre so one bin really isn't enough. Good thing the eggs taste so good. LOL

We drive Foregign cars or as foreign as any car is now days WE are a toyota tacoma and a subaru outback I love them both. they get excellent milage and with maintenance we are repair free so far except for the windshield that got cracked on the truck from a rock on the highway! One of my all time favorite cars in my past though was totally American it was a chevy Nova Hatch back. it was my first car... Used of course but it got great milage for the time frame of it and it was oh heck it was really fun to drive especially on wet or icy roads as it was very light in the back. It was well over 200,000 miles when I sold it.. and I still miss it every once in a while. After working in the auto industry let me just say there are no more viehicles that are fully made in one country or another. They all have parts from all over the world.

I think one of the weirdest beliefs that was put out was that VP had done the research and so we didn't need to go study the bible. I got that from several different people and thought it was stupid becasue teh bible said (and VP too ) Study to show they self approved unto God Rightly dividing the word of turth. THat and the fear fo leaving. My husband was Way Corps and when we left I think he was afraid God would strike us dead. Of course God didn't do any such thing. I am so glad now that we left before I was in the ministry more than the 4 years i was with them. I am thankful for my WOW year though no mater how anyone else feels. I really did learn a lot about God that year and about standing on my own two feet and being responsible for my stand on the word and not dependant on any one else. I guess TWI wasn't so far off the mark when I was involved from 79-82... But I also bucked the system a lot. Well I really should say some of the really icky stuff had not yet trickled down to the twig level yet. but I did hear some disturbing things then too.. you know how that goes little gossipy snippets you would hear sometimes at the Farm in August when so many people were there.

I was 3 going on 4 and it was late morning or early afternoon can't remember which but my Mom turned on teh TV and said "here sit down there is going to be a parade soon.. you can watch that for a little bit till your brother comes home". I sat for a bit and then there was the news and I turned it off and told my Mom there isn't going to be a parade somebody died and she did't believe me and turned the TV on to see that the President had been shot. I remember everyone being distraught and my big brother coming home early from school. it was a very sad day but I had no clue.

My kids are grown but we always were tight on money and we always made ornaments for other family members.One of the nice things is they are inexpensive and the kids love making them.. We also did the cookies and candy gifts. Of late we have stopped giving gifts .. as I said all the kids are grown and really we all just want to spend the day together. A friend of mine and her family volunteers at the home less shelter they dish up food. IT has been a growing experience for them and their kids ages 10-17 now but they started when the little one was 5

Hi I just thought I would say hello I am new here to the cafe but I am an avid gardener. I am using a black bin for compost this year for the first time. I am not sure if I like it yet or not. it is hard to turn everything in it but I am hoping to have a full bin of good dirt in the spring. I live in a warm state (US) so our daffodils bloom in January. They actually stand up to a good frost as long as it isn't sub zero Fareinhite and I am getting ready to plant my winter spinach and cabbage and some lettuce. Becasue we get lots of fog where we live I have found that the best beans for my area are any of the bush varieties... and they are definately a summer crop. IF you find your beans do good where you are thru the winter can you repost? I am always up for trying new vegetables.