Pretty COOL

Two weeks ago I was at the grocery store buying ground beef. I noticed that the country of origin label (COOL) said, "Product of Canada, US, or Mexico." Huh? I buy a pound of ground beef, and the best they can do is tell me it comes from one of three countries?! Not cool!

Luckily, we had already planned to visit our ranch friends over Christmas break and buy a 1/4 side of beef from them. Now, not only do we know the country of origin, we know the ranch and the family of origin! We were there when the calves were branded in the spring. We know our meat wasn't pumped up with hormones. Our friends are letting us pay on the installment plan. And their kids played with my kids for hours the day we drove there to pick up the beef. Pretty cool!

(Two happy girls: our daughter, and their younger daughter on the right, after spending time in heaven - AKA with the horses.)

"Please tell the world what is happening here."

I've not been a huge Prince Charles fan, but I appreciate what he's doing to help these farmers in India. The quote in my title doesn't come from him, but from a farmer in India, where genetically modified seeds are being used.

Please take the time to read this article. It is well worth your time. Being the suburban gal that I am, I am not real knowledgeable about this topic, but I've been reading about it for quite some time, and am appalled at what is going on.

The Futurist

Kind of sounds like the title of a movie. But it's the job title of a guest speaker at our Library Board meeting a few weeks ago. I heard the term "futurist" and I thought, "You can make money doing that??"

Our unabridged dictionary defines a futurist as someone who practices or advocates "a point of view that seeks life's meaning or fulfillment in the future rather than in the past or present: utopianism."

Trying to process the speaker's world view through the lenses of my world view was a bit of a struggle. He spent considerable time talking about the amount of information that is available to us 24/7, and the speed with which we can access that information. He seemed to marvel at the means and speed with which we will be able to access even more information in the future.

No talk of cultivating human relationships. Just acquisition of facts. No talk of how to separate the wheat from the chaff in the huge sea of information. Just more so-called knowledge. Faster.

Quite telling is this fact. On the same dictionary page as futurist, is the term future farmer (a member of Future Farmers of America). If I got to pick a lunch companion...I'd go with the future farmer. I know I'd learn more facts. Only, it'd be a lot more enjoyable!

Kind of like utopia! Right now!

Farmers

I sit in the front yard, hand pulling little weeds. The yard looks nice from the street. You don't notice the weeds unless you're walking by. But here I am, pulling these little buggars before they go to seed. I look up the street, and across the way at the soccer field. Then it hit me. We're all farmers.

This doesn't make me happy. We raise a fairly useless "crop". Grass. Kentucky blue grass, to be specific. In arid Colorado. Doesn't make much sense, does it? We can't eat it. No livestock eats it. The wild bunnies do, but I'm not speaking to them. They ate too much of my garden this summer. Well, I take that back. I do speak to them. I tell them, "You can eat the grass. You can even eat the flowers. Just leave my vegetable garden alone! You see that fence? That means keep out!" That's what I tell them these days. I empathize with Mr. MacGregor. Ole Peter Rabbit doesn't get my sympathy anymore.

But back to the grass thing. I think of all the time and expense we suburbanites spend on keeping the yard looking good enough to keep the neighbors from talking and the city from giving us a citation. Sure, it's fun to walk out there barefoot. But I'd rather put on shoes and walk in a pasture. I'd rather be a useful farmer. A real farmer.

So what I do is plant seeds. Ideas, actually. In our children's heads. Thoughts of living away from the city. Living off your land. Living simply. And then I pray for those seedlings to take root.

Maybe I am a bit of a farmer after all.

My New Career.....Midwife

If you have ever taken the time to look at the blogs I link on the right hand sidebar, you will notice that most of them are written by Christian agrarians. Believers who are making their living off their own land, using their own hands. When I first started writing in this little corner of blogdom, I hadn't stumbled upon these blogs just yet. But I have been, for a long time, a suburban gal who wished she lived in the country or a little town.

I don't even remember how I first found these blogs, but one led to another which led to another. I now regularly peruse Scott's blog in upstate New York, I find others through his links, I read Northern Farmer whose writing reminds me so much of our cattle rancher friend here in Colorado, I read what the faithful saints are doing in Missouri, others in central Texas, a family in Canada, a family in Idaho, and a mama in Tennessee with her three boys.

It was the family in Tennessee who asked for ideas for a new name for their farm. I submitted an idea, and with some tweaking, they used it! Me, who has never given birth, has now helped birth a new name for an entire farm! Now, how cool is that?! My grandfather would have been proud!

(I stole this picture from the Tennessee Farmgirl blog. It's of her three boys after a hard day's work.)

Branded

My daughter and I went to our friends' ranch for their annual calf branding on Saturday. The calves waiting to be branded huddled together in the farthest reaches of their pen as the cowboys rode in atop their horses. The calves shied away, but the skillful ranchers were able to deftly (and magically) get their ropes around the calves' back legs and pull them out of the pen. Some calves immediately rolled over on their backs, which made the dragging out much easier on them. Others fought it with all their strength. They pawed the ground in futility with their front legs until finally they, too, succumbed and were flipped over on their backs.

Once on the ground, the calf was suddenly held down by a couple of men. A team darted in for the shot, the brand, cauterizing of the horns, pouring of the liquid that will keep the flies off the tender skin at the brand site, (and castration, for the males). It's usually over before the calf knows what hit them. They are patted on the rump and sent off with the others to wait until they can be released to pair up with their mothers.

I got to thinking that this is a lot like God calling us to Himself. Of course, He's the skillful one atop the horse. We're the ones cowering in the corner, unsure of that Presence in our midst. He magically catches us and takes us to a place where at first glance, there is lots of pain. But it turns out that the pain is for our own good. It is a part of life, and it is what helps us to thrive. And although it appears we are released to resume our old life, we are forever changed.

We are His.

(photo taken at the Saturday branding)

As the Family Farm Goes...

...so goes the country.

I just finished reading a novel, In a Pickle, by Jerry Apps. It takes place in Wisconsin during 1955-56. Big ag is slowly worming its way into family farms. The ones that will let them, anyway. Not the best book I've read, but he hit on a few truths. One of the characters muses upon the differences in farming when big ag takes over:

Farming would turn from growing food to producing a product. The land would no longer be something special but just another kind of factory. Inputs and outputs. Seed, fertilizer, and water in. Corn, cucumbers, potatoes, wheat, and oats out. The factory way. Measure the inputs. Measure the outputs. Farmer as factory worker, machine operator, and technician rather than steward, custodian, and caretaker.

One of the characters is widowed and must sell off her farm. About 25 years ago, my husband and I attended one such auction. Partly I wanted to be able to legally be on a farm for a time. I was also hoping to find an inexpensive antique for our apartment. But, I was struck by the sadness of it all. A lifetime of memories stuffed in boxes and laying on tables. All for sale. I fell in love with a milking stool, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. What right did I have to take this stool that could tell many a story? It felt like the stealing of a memory. Listen to how the author of the book described the widow at the auction:

Iris Clayton stood alone, watching her life on the farm being sold piece by piece, animal by animal. Memories flooded over her, of milking the cows that now were numbered to be sold--cows that she knew by name, Susan and Florence, Sally and Lilly, Amanda and Polly. She knew each one, knew her personality, how she wanted to be milked, what she liked to eat, how much milk she gave. Information that no one else cared about, private information that she held and cherished. How do you sell a memory? she wondered. The tears continued down her face.

Ultimately, the book has a hopeful ending. Although the reader laments the lives ruined by corporate intrusion, the main character is able to make some changes on his farm on his own terms, and he keeps his land and continues to farm.

As I read blogs written by Christians who farm, and I seek to slowly increase our own little suburban vegetable patch, I thank God for His creation and His provision. And may He richly bless the hard work of those who continue to farm and ranch for His glory.

Spring Break

Overheard in our house this week...while one parent was lying on the couch reading and sipping wine, and the other one was 'slaving' in the kitchen..."When do home school moms get spring break?"

Then, I ran across this from Peter Kreeft's The God Who Loves You:
We moderns often tend to forget eternal necessities since our lives are surrounded by human artifices, changing and changeable things.

I thought, Aha! This is why I desire to live a simpler life in the country. I want to get away from a life full of human artifices. I want to flee these 'changing and changeable things' and be closer to that which does not change. That which is of God and IS God.

Spring Break is a human artifice. Now, I'd like a Year of Jubilee as much as the next guy. But, Spring Break is not guaranteed in Scripture. Instead of grumbling that I don't get a vacation I need to be thankful for my many God-given blessings.

(By the way, I look NOTHING like this when I am in the kitchen!)

Exploding Pyrex

God was gracious and we averted danger this afternoon when my 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup exploded. Yes, exploded.

I accidentally hit my measuring cup against a bowl and a little piece of the pouring spout broke off. I placed the measuring cup on the counter while I finished putting the rest of the dishes away and about one minute later, we heard an exploding sound. Thankfully, neither the kids, our dog, or myself were injured, even though we were all within no more than 8 feet from the explosion.

It scared our dog out of the kitchen. The kids and I stood there in shock. We immediately knew we were most fortunate that none of us were hurt. God kept most of the millions of pieces of broken glass on the counter.

This evening I Googled "exploding Pyrex cup" and learned many other people have had similar experiences with glass Pyrex products. What little reading I did made me realize how fortunate we truly were. Some people had dishes explode while they were holding them or cleaning them. Some exploded right at the table.

I could be all wrong about this, but I can't help but think the company is knowingly putting out shoddy products. I think Pyrex (now owned by Corning and under the umbrella of yet another company called World Kitchens) is trying to rest on their past good reputation and is manufacturing an inferior product in order to make more money. (I have older Pyrex dishes I've used for more than 25 years. This measuring cup was not even 2 years old.) I fear that this happens all too frequently. A large company, far removed from their consumers, produces a product with inferior materials and inferior methods just so a few guys at the top can make more money.

It's bad enough that glass measuring cups are manufactured and sold this way. It's really scary when you realize that much of the food we buy at the grocery store isn't far removed from this same scenario. Big ag has the goal of producing the most food for the lowest price and showering their high paid execs with perks and high salaries. The consumer, high quality, a good name...these don't count for much anymore.

(The photo comes from a consumeraffairs.com article about exploding Pyrex dishes.)

Farmer Washington-George and Martha (Part 4)

George Washington (born February 22, 1732) not only shunned the title of King, he prefered to think of himself as Farmer Washington.

Ponder what he wrote about farming:

I think that the life of a Husbandman is of all others the most delectable. It is honourable. It is amusing. And with Judicious management it is profitable. To see plants rise from the Earth and flourish by the superior skill and bounty of the labourer fills a contemplative mind with ideas which are more easy to be conceived than expresed. The more I am acquainted with agricultural affairs the better I am pleased with them. I can nowhere find so great satisfaction as in those innocent and useful pursuits.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

A week or so ago, I received an e-newsletter from a lady who used to have a catalog geared to home schoolers. Now she is into internet businesses. Her newsletter was touting a new DVD conference given by a millionaire who made his money on internet businesses. I clicked on a link to check it out, just out of curiosity. What I found was not pretty. This millionaire can't seem to spring for an editor. His advertisement was full of misspellings and punctuation errors. Clicking on the link caused me to receive multiple unsolicited e-mails from him daily for about a week. And to add insult to injury, I discovered that this Christian home school mom was receiving money for every person who clicked on the link. I felt used and angry.

That's the bad and the ugly.

Now, the good.

Two Christian agrarian blogs which I read often are both offering help to other agrarians out there. Scott at Homesteader Life wants to find homes for some good milk cows. Northern Farmer is giving away corn seeds.

These two unselfish men are willing to help others get started in a lifestyle which they appreciate greatly. They aren't in it to get rich quick. Or to beat the system. They want to raise their families...living off the land, simply, and together.

Just thought it was an interesting comparison.

Big Ag vs. the Family Farm

It's not really fair to use this as my title, but this is exactly what I thought when the following story happened.

Our suburban house is across the street from an elementary school and an adjacent soccer field. On occasion, people who don't have anything better to do will drink a six-pack of beer in the parking lot. Those who REALLY don't have anything better to do will break a few beer bottles on the pavement and conspicuously leave behind the proof of their idiocy.

Last month, there was a substantial remnant of misplaced exuberant mirth. Broken glass littered several feet of the sidewalk where we walk our dog every day between Math and Reading. Each day, we walked our dog far away from the glass, and I picked up a handful of glass shards to throw away. After about a week, we began to notice a difference, but there was still much more glass to dispose of. Then, it snowed a few inches. The city sent out one of their guys on a little plow to clean the sidewalk around the soccer field. They couldn't have known what their good deed would do. The glass was now pushed off the sidewalk and scattered in the grass alongside the walk.

As we walked past the familiar spot, I realized that I would not be able to easily retrieve the glass any longer. It will be lying in wait for an unsuspecting barefooted child or dog to step in the grass come next summer and receive a nasty cut on their foot.

That was when I thought, 'This is like the difference between big ag and the family farm.' The family farmer knows his animals and land intimately. He rights wrongs, he fixes things, he has personal knowledge and pride in what he raises. He cares about his customers. He knows many of them by name. He may go to church with some of them. His wife may take over a casserole when one of them has a baby. If he has broken glass in his barn, he knows about it and makes sure it gets cleaned up.

God bless the family farmers. May they prosper

Two Souls in Glory

I just saw these entries on two blogs I read and wanted to share them.

The two blogs are kept by farmers. One is a newly single mother of six, running a dairy farm in Kansas. The other is a farmer in Minnesota who keeps a blog along with three other farmers. Both blogs have valuable insight into various aspects of the Christian life: hard work, being faithful, and persevering, to name a few.

Another thing they provide is a down-to-earth honest account of their lives. That seems to be the hallmark of all the agrarian blogs I read, and of the few ranch families I know here in Colorado. I find such honesty so refreshing, especially in a time where most of what we see or hear from various media sources has been "enhanced" visually and/or auditorally. The "pretty" girl on the cover of the latest magazine doesn't really look like that. The latest pop star doesn't really sound like that, either. But, it's pretty hard for a farmer to fake it during coffee time at church, when everyone passes his drought ravaged withering corn fields on the way to town. I appreciate honesty over facade any day.

So here are the blog posts. They're a bit long, but worth reading if you can sit a spell. By the way, I keep both blogs listed in the sidebar to the right so you can check them out anytime. They're well worth reading on a regular basis.

Northern Farmer wrote about his fellow farming neighbor, Jim, who just passed away. Tom's description of the ways Jim lived out of his faith is a true inspiration.

Another bittersweet post was by Kansas Milkmaid about a family who just laid their newborn to rest.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

This saying got me through many a difficult day when I was pining for a baby many years ago. Sometimes it was very hard to be thankful for the childlessness during our season of infertility.

There are times in my life now when I pine for something else: living away from the city, living a slower life, more in tune with nature and the seasons, and more self-sufficient. My heart knows that The Grass Is Greener syndrome hits us all and we imagine a better life lived somewhere else, when what we often need is to be content where we are. I read these verses today and felt convicted about this dissatisfaction of mine.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all who were carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit. Take wives and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may bear sons and daughters--that you may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace."

Jeremiah 29:4-7 NKVJ

Then, I was also reminded of, "He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much..." (Luke 16:10a NKJV)

I am to be faithful in my little garden, my home, my family.

In other words, I am to bloom where I am planted.

Ora et Labora-Part 4

Lately I've been writing about a Benedictine Abbey I've been privileged to visit for personal retreats. So, just who was Benedict?

Benedict was born in Italy around 480. A Benedictine nun who wrote Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, states,

"He went to school in Rome when the Empire was in a state of material prosperity but moral decline... He decided that life lived in that fashion was not the fullness of life at all. He left Rome and went to a rural area south of the city to contemplate the meaning of life, to simplify its demands, and to refashion his own attitudes and life-style.

"It wasn't long until he was sought after by multitudes of other people who were also uneasy with the secular climate of the day but unsure as well of what ought to be its spiritual character. Out of this came what we know today as Western monasticism, the pursuit of the spiritual life in community, rather than in the secluded cells of the solitaries, which was the form of religious life that had been prevalent in the deserts of Egypt and in the East... As time passed, Benedictine monasteries became the anchor points and centerpieces of whole villages in Europe. From the monastics... the people learned to live and to work and to pray. As a result, the Benedictine Order has often been credited with having saved Western Europe after the barbarian invasions, and Benedict himself was named the patron of Europe."

From this brief history of Benedict and his time, I see many parallels to today's Christian agrarian movement. America is certainly in a state of seemingly material prosperity, coupled with extreme moral decline. Many agrarians are pursuing a spiritual life in community. Sometimes the community is an actual geographic place where several like-minded families settle to farm and worship. Sometimes it is a community that exists in cyberspace. Nonetheless, people are leaving the secluded cells of the solitaries to become part of this new spiritual community. These secluded cells range from cubicles in corporate America to postage stamp sized suburban backyards fenced in by six foot tall privacy fences. Some folks are instead tangling with barbed wire fences and modest farmhouses situated on a few acres they can call their own.

While an agrarian lifestyle doesn't work for everyone, I am impressed with the ingenuity, hard work, honest convictions, desire to please God, and committment to providing for future generations that I see in the agrarian blogs I read. My maternal grandfather passed down to me a love of gardening and an appreciation of God's creation. If I never get my farm, may I pass along to my children the desire to pursue a more agrarian lifestyle.

Real Work for Sons--part 2

A few weeks ago our son made a blow dart gun out of a broken fishing rod. He made darts out of wooden shish-kabob skewers and craft foam. He's been out in the backyard shooting homemade cardboard targets and even taught his little sister how to do it.

The other day he purchased some one inch diameter PVC pipe, cut it to size, wrapped it with camoflage duct tape, and added a PVC "mouthpiece." He then spent the better part of the afternoon in the backyard shooting at just about anything he could get his hands on, including an old potato.

We watched him, intently shooting. "It's natural that he wants to shoot at things," my husband said. "Yes," I replied. "He's ready to help defend the family."

And here we sit in suburbia. In a neighborhood of tract houses, across the street from a government school that we've never used.

Lord, I know each part of 'the body' has its place. Help us to learn where we fit. Help us to be obedient. Help us to be content.

Real Work for Sons

Some dear friends and I recently got to talking about the problems of small families and living in suburbia.

First, one lady wondered if the fact that most families are small nowadays made relationships more difficult. Instead of several siblings to chose from for various games, activities, and confidences, children now usually have only one or two siblings. They don't have to learn to share on such a large scale, etc.

Then I added that perhaps even more damaging is the lack of substantive work for children to do in the family. My family is getting a little tired of me saying, "If we lived on a farm...," but I think how different our lives would be if we had a small farm. Our twelve-year-old son would have something substantive to occupy his brain, muscles, and hours. In addition, it would be IMPORTANT to the good of the family. There seems to be something wrong about living in suburbia, with Dad driving off to work every day. Even if Mom and the kids are home schooling, there are a lack of meaningful tasks for children, especially boys, to contribute to the well-being of the family.

A blogger from Pennsylvania recently wrote a post about the PBS series "Frontier House" (now out on DVD) which he and his family had viewed. Upon finishing the series, he wrote the following:

I asked my sons, why do you think these children would rather have been back on the frontier where it was all such hard work? My youngest replied, "Because they knew they were needed." They knew they were needed! Children don't need all the latest toys or video games. They need to know that they are needed (and I would say "loved" as well).

This is one of the things that draws me to agrarianism. The desire to be able to raise my boys in an environment where each is a contributing member of the family, where they can see that they are making a difference, that they are needed, that they are wanted.

I say a hearty "Amen" to this family, and I pray they are able to lead the agrarian lifestyle they so desire.