Modern Pioneering -- book review

Whether you are an avid DIYer, want to try your hand at a little gardening, want to cook food from whole ingredients, or consider yourself to be a modern pioneer, this book is a fun and helpful read. Now, Modern Pioneering by GeorgiaPellegrini isn’t a normal book. Modern Pioneering is more like a guide and cook book all in one. It is composed of various sections that cover the different areas. All the while, with lovely photographs throughout the whole book.

The first section is on The Garden. I found this part of the book to be full of lots of helpful tips and information. Thank goodness for that information on mulching, it has saved me a top of work in the garden already this summer. There was plenty of information that I will probably refer back to for years to come.

Next is the section on The Home. This section is mostly comprised of recipes. All of the recipes have clear instructions that are easy to follow. Now there are several recipes I plan to try. There are also several recipes that I’m pretty sure I would never try. Not they are bad recipes, just not something that I would eat. All the recipes use fresh ingredients that you would gather from your garden, get from a farmers market, or from your local store. There aren’t any processed foods in these recipes.

The following section is The Wild. This contains information on vegetation that you can eat from the wild. There are also recipes for using those foods. This section also contains useful information on such things like how to use a compass, survive in the wild, and such.

Lastly is The Rest. There are some recipes in here. There are some DIY projects. There is some random stuff. Honestly, most of the stuff in this section could have been left out and the book wouldn’t be lacking. The home DIY crafty stuff seemed a bit out of place with the rest of the book.

Overall, it was a fun read that gave me some good information and good ideas of stuff to try. I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review.

Zipporah

Zipporah is the wife of Moses. Now Moses is a very well known Bible character, Zipporah on the other hand is hardly mentioned. The small bit that we do know of her is an odd part of the story as well.

After Moses had fled Egypt because he had killed an Egyptian and knew that his life would be in danger, he fled to Midian. When in Midian, Moses rescued the daughters of Jethro (also known as Reuel) from some bullies. The girls were simply trying to get water for their flocks when some other shepherds drove them away. Moses could have minded his own business, but he stepped in and stood up for the girls. When the girls returned to their father, he inquired as to why they were finished so early. The girls told him of their rescuer. Jethro insisted that they invite Moses to come to their home. This led to Zipporah becoming the wife of Moses.

Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage.  Exodus 2:21

After Moses, Zipporah, and their two sons had lived in the land of Midian for a long time, God instructed Moses to return to Egypt to free the Israelites.

So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.  Exodus 4:20

It was during this journey to Egypt that the story of Zipporah has this weird, confusing, and mysterious part.

Remember that Zipporah was not an Israelite. She did not follow the same religious practices that Moses followed. For all we know she may not have even served God like he did, we don’t know that for sure though. Anyhow, circumcision was an important practice for the Israelites. If you were a male, you were going to be circumcised when you were a baby. From this part of the story we see that Moses and Zipporah had not followed this tradition with one of their sons. Because Moses had not followed this practice it brought some serious consequences to his life.  

At a lodging place along the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said. “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.)  Exodus 4:24-26

And this is where a lot of us read this story, go “huh?” and keep on reading. Yep, this is the strange part.

Zipporah knew that Moses’ life was in danger and she knew why. Surely her husband would have told her of the importance of circumcision. Immediately she acted. She knew what had to be done, and she did it. After she had cut off the foreskin and touched it to Moses’ feet, she made the declaration that he was a bridegroom of blood to her. This is a statement of her surrender to follow the Jewish custom. Some translations say that she “flung the foreskin” at his feet. This just goes to show the desperate state that she was in. It took a bold move on Zipporah’s part to save Moses from death.

At some point, Moses sent Zipporah and their two sons back to her father. We don’t know exactly why he did this. Later Jethro brings them back to Moses, and they are reunited. This is about the last that we hear of Zipporah.