Wasted Space

I read this interesting statistic yesterday....

America has thirty-five million acres of lawn and thirty-six million acres devoted to housing and feeding recreational horses, and that doesn’t even count golf courses.

Salatin, Joel Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World (p. 77). Center Street. Kindle Edition.

That is some 70 million acres devoted to grass that produces basically nothing. At 640 acres to the square mile that works out to  109,375 square miles. For comparison sake, England is 50,346 square miles and Greece is 50,949 square miles, so in the United States we have the equivalent of two entire European nations worth of grass that we spend billions of dollars, who knows how many gallons of chemicals and untold amounts of energy and time either mowing to meet an arbitrary standard of neatness or caring for horses that we mostly look at. The lawn care business (and the larger general industry of landscaping suburban homes that sit in neighborhoods that are largely abandoned during daylight hours) is a huge one and one of the most frivolous and unnecessary that we have.

I like our horses and I don't mind having some lawn but I do kind of question whether we need acres of meticulously manicured lawns and pastures full of horses that mostly stand around and turn hay into manure. Just something I found interesting,

What's Happenin'?

Well quite a lot! Just not on the blog. As only my most astute readers will notice my pace of blogging has slowed substantially. It is not that I have nothing to say, I have never suffered from that malady. No, it is more than I feel like I have nothing new or useful to say. I have so many posts half-written that I decided no one was interested in reading because I was only half-interested in what I had assembled so I just stopped. What do I have to say that I haven't said before? Precious little it seems. The church is a mess. American "Christianity" is obsessed with money, with comfort, with false security, with tradition and ritual. Christians in America seem far more concerned with their right to kill someone else, whether a mugger on the streets of America or a potential terrorist on the streets of some faraway Muslim nation, than they are with loving their enemy, taking up their cross and dying to self. Anyone not heard me say those very things before? I despair of change. We are outraged over the "assault on our religious liberty" and stand with Chick-fil-a and Hobby Lobby but seem largely unconcerned about standing with the poor, even the poor among the church, here and abroad. Have you heard that before? I often just want to throw my hands up in despair.

Blogging for me is both hobby and habit, and it is a habit that is quite easy to get out of. It is also a creative outlet. Blogging begets blogging. As I think, I blog and as I blog I think so more. I can rightly be accused of thinking about stuff more than actually doing stuff but that doesn't mean I need to think less but do more. Thinking and doing are not a zero sum game.

So I haven't died or taken a social media vow of silence. I have just been re-prioritizing some things and trying to find a happier medium. So more will come and I am sure it won't be new but hopefully it will still be helpful or edifying to someone.

Why I Love Joel Salatin

It is this sort of stuff.

The function that herbivores play, for example, in stimulating biomass accumulation is both powerful and real. Chickens have historically converted kitchen scraps into eggs. Pigs have historically scavenged domestic waste products as varied as whey, offal, forest mast, and spoiled grain. That a large percentage of landfilled material is animal-edible food waste should strike us as criminal. Rather than showering landfill administrators with greenie awards for injecting pipes into the anaerobic swill to collect biogas, we should be cycling all that edible waste through chickens and pigs so that it never goes to the landfill in the first place. 

Instead, we send armies around the world to ensure cheap petroleum to energize chemical fertilizer factories to inject acidulated elemental Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosporus (N, P and K) into tilled soils to grow grain to be harvested, gas-dried, then transported to animal factories. And now that the landfills are filling too fast, we routinely incinerate these wet, edible wastes in energy-intensive systems that run at a net energy loss. It’s insane. Nature’s systems do not generate waste. When will we learn that there is no away? We say we’ll throw it away, but away doesn’t exist. That’s why nature is full of loops and cycles.

Salatin, Joel Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World (p. 32). Kindle Edition

I am reading his book Folks, This Ain't Normal and it is chock full of solid information and common sense without the hysteria or silliness that accompanies a lot of books by people pontificating on ecological issues. I am far more interested in what a farmer has to say than what some pompous dude in Boston who has never been dirty opines about the ecology. Salatin in some ways bridges the gap by not giving into the hype. He is a Christian and a guy who likes meat but he also recognizes that there is something inherently unhealthy and unnatural when people are removed from the food chain. His view is a healthy position between the tinfoil hat wearing, Al Gore wing of the Left and the "pollution is good for you", Rush Limbaugh wing of the Right. Joel is someone who speaks eloquently and convincingly that our lifestyle impacts the environment and not in a good way but that you can still enjoy a nice steak without feeling guilty.

It is strangely perverse that we live in a society where people are living longer but also living worse. Life expectancy has never been longer thanks to medical advances to keep people alive but the general health of Americans is horrible. Asthma and allergies are incredibly widespread. Obesity is a national epidemic. Diabetes has in turn grown more widespread. We are more medicated and vaccinated and sanitized than ever before and I can't think of a way in which we are healthier. Granted people don't die from easily treatable diseases any more but what kind of a life is it? The ubiquitous bottles of hand sanitizer everywhere tell the tale. We are a people terrified of dirt and "germs", something that stems back I believe to our disconnect with the natural cycles of life, a cycle that includes death and dirt and blood. We may think we are so incredibly advanced but in truth we are unhappy and unhealthy in the extreme.

We once were a people that spread across the fruited plains, establishing small farms and homesteads that in turn created small communities. That model has been reversed over the last 50 years as more and more people returned to the urban areas and in turn created the phenomenon of suburbs (and now exurbs). This has turned farmland into acre sized lots for enormous houses that sit empty most of the time as both parents work to make the mortgage payment, sending their children off to day care and public schools (the difference between the two is hard to distinguish at times) until it is time to grab little Johnny and Suzie from school and begin running them to various activities, exhausting everyone in a quest to make sure that kids are "well rounded" enough to go to college so that they can get married at some point and start the cycle all over again. It is simply madness.

I don't consider myself a Luddite nor am I naive enough to think that we will all move back to farms. I like being able to buy foods from the store. The convenience of buying a bag of potatoes at will rather than trying to store them up is great. I don't see my family eating primarily items that we grew ourselves any time soon. I like having computers and my Kindle. I just agree with Joel that there is something essential about having this connection to the land, not just for my wife and I as adults but for our children as well. As farmers age and young people leave the land to go sit in a cubicle somewhere we are in real danger of losing something fundamental to society, namely a connection to our food supply beyond putting pre-packaged foods on the belt at Wal-Mart.

Thus far I have found Folks, This Ain't Normal to be a welcome breath of fresh air and common sense into a conversation that all too often veers off into ridiculous rhetoric and posturing. Expect to see more excerpts and thoughts from this book as I continue reading!

Book Review: True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia

As part of the the torrent of free books that became available for a few weeks I "bought" and downloaded Jerry Bridge's book True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia. Bridges is a well known and generally respected author and community is a topic that I ponder and blog about a lot so this seemed like a natural fit but also one that could easily turn out to be a disappointment.

I was not disappointed.

Without hesitation I can say the True Community was one of the most engaging books I have read in the past few years. Accessible but thought-provoking, it is not a terribly deep treatment of the topic but given how far we have strayed from the Biblical principle of koinonia it is critical introduction.

One of the real strengths of this book is how little time Jerry spends talking about the formal gathering of the church. Community is not found in showing up to church, it is a reality of our new lives in Christ and we find community in sharing our lives, our time, our burdens and our material possessions with one another.

Another area I found extremely positive was his treatment of the idea that our community in Christ is a reality whether we acknowledged or not. We are in community with one another by virtue of our regenerate heart and adoption, how we live that out is where we run into questions.

An area that Jerry spends a lot of ink is on sharing materially. This is something of a taboo subject in the church at least in America. We give what we choose to "the church" and most of that money is used for our own comfort and convenience on Sunday. As he points out, sharing materially in the early church was not an afterthought but a critical part of koinonia....

One of the most common usages of koinonia in the New Testament is this sense of sharing material resources with others. For example, Paul urges us to “share with God’s people who are in need” (Romans 12: 13). In 2 Corinthians 9: 13, he speaks of “your generosity in sharing with [others].” The writer of Hebrews urges us to “not forget to do good and to share with others” (13: 16). The word share in these passages is a translation of koinnia in either its noun or verb form. A willingness to share our possessions with one another is a very important aspect of true biblical community.

Bridges, Jerry True Community: The Biblical Practice of Koinonia (Kindle Locations 154-157)

That is so important for us to understand. A community where "what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours" cannot function as a true community because it denies our oneness in Christ or at least relegates it to a subordinate position behind our American right to private property. That doesn't mean that material sharing requires the Hutterite model but it does call into question acceptance and encouragement of the American evangelical love of money, possessions and financial security.

If there was an area of weakness, it was the very brief and kind of clunky chapter on Supporting Your Local Ministry. This chapter, just a few pages long, deals with the importance of giving at your "local church" for the purpose of sustaining that local church. The chapter was very perfunctory and seemed to be tacked on for no real purpose. It could easily be dropped from the book entirely.

All in all this is a great introduction to a neglected subject. True community in the Biblical model of koinonia is tragically absent in the church and it hampers our walk together, our maturation as Christians and our witness to the world. Grab this book and give it a read!

The Definition Of Insanity

Nothing is quite as amusing as an article on religion by the secular media and doubly so when the source is the self-important New York Times. I saw several people link to a recent story, Building Congregations Around Art Galleries and Cafes as Spirituality Wanes, and just had to read it. The piece focused on local churches trying to reach people in more accessible ways. It was a mix of silliness and serious questions. For example:

The “spiritual but not religious” category is an important audience that evangelical leaders hope to reach in a culture that many believers call “post-Christian.” 

So they arrange meetings in movie theaters, schools, warehouses and downtown entertainment districts. They house exercise studios and coffee shops to draw more traffic. Many have even cast aside the words “church” and “church service” in favor of terms like “spiritual communities” and “gatherings,” with services that do not stick to any script. 

One Sunday before Easter, the pastor at the Relevant Church in Tampa, Fla., wearing a rabbit suit, whisked the unsuspecting congregation away on chartered buses to a nearby park to build enthusiasm for the coming service. 

“For us, it’s all about being interactive,” said Paul Wirth, Relevant’s founder and lead pastor.

So meh on the dressing up in a rabbit suit (which is not really any less Biblical than dressing up in a business suit) but kudos on the focus on interaction rather than observation. The second page has some decent insights....

Today, younger pastors are less willing to try to finance multimillion-dollar churches with debt. After the recession, there was a surge in church foreclosures, reaching record highs in 2010 and 2011. Since 2008, more than 300 church properties have been sold after defaulting on their loans, according to the CoStar Group, a real estate information firm. 
------

“Every generation wants their own thing,” said Houston Clark, whose company designs spaces and audiovisual systems for churches nationwide. “Kids in their late 20s to midteens now, they really crave intimacy and authenticity. They want high-quality experiences, but don’t necessarily want them in huge voluminous buildings.” 

Five years ago, Mr. Clark said, 90 percent of his business was installing expensive lighting and sound systems for megachurches that could hold up to 5,000. But today, 70 percent of his business is working on existing buildings, like warehouses, to renovate the interiors as multipurpose spaces for churches to operate. 

It is a trend that even established megachurches, like Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, Tex., are studying. After paying off $5 million in debt on its 135,000-square-foot facility last year, the church is again seeking to expand. But instead of building another huge campus, church officials are looking at smaller satellite spaces that can operate seven days a week, with services like child care, shared office spaces and a community theater. 

“That’s a significant difference for us,” said Paul Miller, the pastor of ministries for Bent Tree. “We’re really building a community center, more than we are a worship center.”

Good thoughts there and I am glad to see more younger pastors eschewing the notion that a huge  mortgage on a building is a sign of godliness. As groups of Christians expand they don't need to build giant satellite campuses or ever larger buildings, indeed as the economy stumbles along and our Washington overlords keep burying us in debt the church will not be in a position to keep "spending as worship" in the future.

So the article was a little silly and off the mark, nothing less than you would expect from the New York Times trying to speak to an issue it simply doesn't understand. Sure some of this is a bit over the top, nothing like subtly trying to show how "relevant" you are by naming your church "Relevant Church". No big deal. Of course this sort of conversation is terrible threatening to the self-appointed (anointed?) powers that be. Not surprisingly the article has been a source of ridicule and in one such attempt at mockery I read a subsequent comment from someone named Kevin (full name redacted) on Facebook.

That made my eyes bleed. The number of things wrong with the idea of "worshiping in spirit and truth" equaling "sitting in comfort and safety in a pew watching a religious performance" are myriad. They are also pretty common. However I doubt many people who read that comment would see a thing wrong with it. The gathering of the church is where we go and we don't want to be interrupted while we are "worshiping", whether by messy people or often by our own messy children. Anyway, the reaction to this NY Times article is often a clumsy but predictable appeal to "Biblical leadership", defined as a strong, hierarchical sort of worldly leadership focused on a pastor who "preaches Biblically". That is what has gotten us where we are, not leaders trying to think outside of the religious box, and yet so many "leaders" in the church keep prescribing the same medicine that has gotten us sick in the first place.

Appeals to the cult of personality model where people are drawn to "church" based on a powerful individual, whether that individual is Rick Warren or John Piper or D. James Kennedy or Joel Osteen, are great for packing the pews and filling the coffers (and selling books). On preparing the church for ministry, not so much. As Alan Knox points out in a post this morning, Remembering the Importance of Mutual Edification, the primary purpose for the church gathering in whatever setting that might be is mutual edification, which I define as preparing one for the work of ministry outside of the gathering, rather than a misguided notion of what constitutes "worship". To put it more bluntly if you gather with the church and are not actively being edified and equipped in a way that prepares you for the work of ministry you are wasting your time and should find something else to do on Sunday. There are too many Christians who spend year after year "going to church" on Sunday and coming not even marginally more prepared or willing to minister to the lost in spite of decades of ever more churching.

Rather than ridiculing those who are trying to reach the lost in ways that seem odd to our traditional ideas maybe we should see if those methods are effective in reaching those we are called to minister to and take the Gospel to. This sort of criticism of those who try to operate outside of the bounds of religious tradition are not new, they were even directed at our Lord:

And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:29-32)

Who does that Jesus guy think He is, hanging around with sinners! Doesn't He know that proper religious folks stay far away from sinners and lepers and women and children? I certainly am not suggesting that a pastor dressed in a rabbit suit is the same thing as Jesus eating with tax collectors but the point is that the religious establishment sees any threat to their power, prestige and pocketbook as something to be squashed. As the church our calling is to be a radical, subversive counter-witness to the prevailing religious establishment of the day rather than a willing partner indistinguishable from the religious establishment. That might mean, in fact I am convinced it must mean, that we operate outside of our traditional boundaries because the people we are called to reach simply are not found in our cozy religious cocoon. We have allegedly constructed these religious boundaries to protect "the truth" but instead we have created a hedge to keep out those who need to hear that truth. I have been in far too many gatherings where "outsiders" feel uncomfortable and that is not their fault. It is ours and it needs to change.  If we aren't sharing the Gospel we are guilty of hiding it. None of us should desire to explain how we hid the light of the Gospel under a basket or buried the talent to our Lord.

Apologies In Advance

I have added the hated word verification to my comments, the volume of spam from bots has gotten out of control. I really don't like that extra step but like I said the spam is out of control and I am hearing the same thing from other people.

And We're Off!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are trying out a do it yourself indoor fodder system to grow nutritious chow for our critters all year round. I found an initial source for grains to sprout at Great River Organic Milling and better yet they have a store on Amazon so I can get 25 or 50 lbs bags of grain delivered for free. Whadda bargan! Plus I emailed them a question and got an answer back right away which makes me far more likely to shop from them in the future.

They next step and obviously a crucial one was to come up with the racks and containers. Now my wife tends to accumulate all sorts of stuff that I consider to be wasted space but then every once in a while she comes up with an almost perfect solution for something that costs me nothing. This was no exception. She dug out a couple of racks to put the growing trays on and found what appears to be a plastic cover for clothes to make a protective screen. With that in place we went to Wal-Mart to try to find some plastic storage bins. At first I checked litter boxes but they were all too small. Then I checked dish pans, same problem. We saw some storage bins but they were expensive, like $7-8 each and not quite what we were looking for. Discouraged we headed for the checkouts, thinking we could pay for our groceries and get the frozen stuff in the car (it was below freezing after all) and then shop a little more when lo and behold we came across a shelf with exactly what we were looking for, clear plastic, the right depth and the right dimensions, all for less than $3! So we bought ten, 8 to grow in one per day and two to nest on top of the sprouts on day one and two to simulate soil pressure. All in out of pocket cost was under $30. Here is the result:

As you can see, we have it right next to a window for natural light and if you look at the bottom corner you can see that it sits over a heating register so it will stay nice and warm (and dry, so we need to watch the moisture level). We have enough racks that we can have one tray per day for eight days so every day we will have a tray coming ready and a new one started. Initially I expect to use the mat of sprouted grains to feed our cow, we can just drop it in her hay rack where she is milked and let her munch on it, if there are leftovers we can give it to the horses or the chickens.

Our first 25 pound bag of hard red spring wheat is on the way and should be here tomorrow but we decided to try out some oats first since we have a fair amount of them and they were free. I am not sure how old the oats are but we are just practicing for now so it doesn't matter. This is what it looks like on day one after a night of soaking....

As I mentioned the top container provides the illusion of soil pressure which apparently helps germination, on day three we will remove the top container and let it grow. Once we get a feel for how this is working we can try experimenting by adding some oats and other seeds to the wheat like lentils, sunflowers, other grains, radishes, etc. I can't wait to see if this works and if it helps with the milk production and quality! I will keep you informed as I am sure this is fascinating stuff for my readers.

Where All "Ministries" Find Common Ground

'Tis the season...for end of the year fund raising emails! It cracks me up that no matter how different a "ministry" might be when it comes to raising money the appeals are almost identical. Today I got an email from Ligonier needing almost half a million dollars (Ligonier seems to burn through money like the Federal government) and also from "Red Letter Christians". R.C. Sproul and Tony Campolo, united at last!

You should absolutely give and give generously, indeed sacrificially. I would just suggest you direct that giving toward actual ministries like The Haiti Orphan Project, a ministry that houses and feeds orphans (you know, the sort of stuff the Bible calls ministering) or your local food pantry or pregnancy resource center, ministries that are engaged in far more important work than pushing their own agenda and calling it a "ministry".

Look to the persecuted

During a rather heated conversation on Facebook over the last few days, an idea developed in my mind. It is nothing new but it still sort of struck me. Here is the crux of it: when we look at the history of the church we should look to the persecuted, not the persecutor.

That seems kind of self-evident on the surface but in practice it is anything but. Look back at standard church history text and they revolve around the famous personalities: Luther, Calvin, Augustine, popes, theologians. As the old saying goes, the winners write the history books and our church culture is a reflection of that. Most of what we know as "the church" is aligned with a faction that at some point in history was persecuting others and moreover we often look at those times when they were doing the persecution as some sort of "Golden Age"

This is not a perfect rule by any means but throughout history it is the persecuted we should be studying rather than the persecutors. The idea that the church, which from infancy was outcast and persecuted by the religious powers of the day, suddenly turned 180 degrees and became the religious power of the day and persecuted those who dared stray is patently and demonstrably contrary to everything we read in the New Testament. The church became a reverse Paul in that Paul was the persecutor of followers of the Way but was born again and became persecuted and in a complete reversal the church was persecuted for three hundred years until Constantine when the church decided to use the sword to persecute others? How does that make any sense?! That brings me to the sword, a more dominate symbol in traditional church history than the cross.

One of the most important lessons from church history regarding the sword is that not only is the use of the sword condemned by Christ it is also invariably linked with corruption. Paul taught that when he was his weakest he found his true strength,. Taking up the sword means that you are no longer weak, at least in the worldly sense. So when the church takes up the sword it is abandoning our source of strength and relying instead on our own perception of strength. I would say with little hesitation that invariably where the church embraced the sword, the Gospel witness suffered and the church became in varying degrees corrupted. It happened in 313 when Constantine allegedly saw a vision and decided to wage war under the sign of the cross, a perversion of the very meaning of the cross. It happened throughout the Western world for the next 1200 years when Rome used the sword to crush dissent and gather power and wealth. It happened in the years after the Reformation when Catholics and Protestants in turn killed one another and jointly used the sword to persecute and murder the Anabaptists. Throughout the intervening years in Europe wars were waged with the blessing of clergy on one side and the other, asking for God to bless their cause and smite their enemies, enemies who were often fellow Christians. Roman Catholics and Protestants killed one another for centuries, even as recently as my lifetime in Northern Ireland. America has perfected this strength through the sword mentality with a blending of vaguely Christian theology and American patriotism, sending clerics to war to bless and minister to those we dispatch to kill in our name. We seem more comfortable in finding common ground with unbelievers who share our culture and our flag than we do with the believer who seems foreign and strange to us, and church history only encourages this attitude.

We desperately need to completely revamp our view of church history for three main reasons. As it stands today, "church history"...

- Is focused on the wrong things
- Serves mainly to reinforce the status quo
- Teaches us very little that will be of practical use to us in the post-Christendom world.

As we study the church throughout the ages, there is so much more to learn from those who have been persecuted for the faith, especially when they have been persecuted by others claiming to be "the church". Everything in the New Testament tells us this. The church is found among the persecuted, the poor, the outcast, the weak, the unwanted, the unlovely. It is a grave error to seek the church in places of wealth and power and comfort. The church is stained with blood rather than gilded with gold.

What we require, what the times demand, is a radical rethinking of leadership both present and past. I am less and less interested in learning at the  feet of "great men" of the past and more interested is seeing the example of those history has largely ignored, forgotten or perhaps even vilified. Looking at the faith traditions that have the best books but often persecuted the followers of the Way is a great way to perpetuate the problem and leave us woefully unprepared for the future.

We can and should look to the past to speak to the future. Let's just make sure that we are looking in the right places.

Cannon, er Cattle (or Chicken) Fodder

We are going to try to raise our own fodder from a self-enclosed system as a way to supplement our normal grass/hay feed without adding a bunch of expense.

This is kind of what one looks like (from the webpage Backyard Chickens). The link is to the full article and has detailed instructions.

The idea is to germinate and sprout grains which turn into mats of high quality feed that is quick to grow and provides a lot of additional nutrition beyond just hay, which is turn should reduce the amount of hay we need to buy. My helpmeet has had her eye on this type of system for a while and although you can buy a fully prepared system they are several thousand dollars which sort of defeats the purpose of saving money! Check out this brief video from BBC's Countryfile show on fodder systems. We are not looking for anything on this scale of course but it is interesting. Plus I like Countryfile, it is interesting to see how they farm in the U.K.




So we will see how it goes and report back!

This Portion Of Scripture Has Nothing To Do With Today

...but it is still pretty cool. Immanuel, God with us. Not just one day a year but every day.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. (Luke 2:1-21)

Oh hay can you see....

It is only December and hay prices are out of control already. We went to the local hay auction this morning and hay was going for way above the normal price thanks o shortages stemming from the super dry summer. We got some decent hay but paid $290 a ton which is pretty expensive. I am thinking we need to start contemplating seriously about shrinking the number of animals we are feeding. On the bright side we came home to meet the guy we bought the hay from, talked with him a bit and set the older boys on the task of putting away the hay while my wife and I went to breakfast!

Spent a good chunk of the afternoon standing calf deep in water/mud/pig poo. They have made a bowl of mud in their pen and it is holding water so a large chunk of their pen is a soupy mess. That means I got to stand in the aforementioned soupy mix and dig an exit trench. It was super delightful, let me assure you! The hogs are pretty furry which is funny because hogs in factory farms are always indoors and tend to not grow a coat. While it is funny to look at it also means more work when we butcher and have to scald and scrape off the hair. At least one chicken made the mistake of wandering into the hog pen and becoming a pig dinner, they are kind of funny and all but they will eat whatever they can get their snouts on. Our big boy is so close to being ready to butcher, we could probably slaughter him at any time now but since we are planning on killing him ourselves to save the $50 we are hoping for some colder, drier weather.

One of our Amish friends is going to help us to slaughter the hogs and is also donating a bunch of ear corn. In return we will share the bacon and ham and pork chops. It is interesting to see how the bartering economy is alive and well in the country. We know so many people and each one has a little something that someone else does not. We don't all need a gas powered auger to dig post holes but it is nice for us to know someone who does! We have a ram that services our three ewes but we also loan him out to a guy we know that doesn't have a ram. That same guy has a horse trailer that we have borrowed. On and on. So much of our society is a self-contained one. Everyone has their own stuff meaning we consume a lot of goods that we don't really use that much but because we are so distant from even our next door neighbor the days of borrowing stuff is rapidly ending. Instead we all buy our own stuff and let it sit around collecting dust. More on this idea of a mutual sharing/bartering community to come in a future post.

Looks like we are headed for a stretch of cold weather which means watering becomes more cumbersome. The hoses need to be rolled up, drained and stored inside every time we use them. Thanks to rainy weather we still haven't tilled up the garden which we really need to, if we can get a few more dry days I am hoping we can do so before the ground freezes or we get more rain.

After a busy day of bedding down and feeding horses, dealing with ponds of liquid pig poo, feeding the sheep and goats, and other miscellaneous tasks I am ready to hunker down for the evening!