Vaughnshire Farm

Just in time…before the election…

Can you see what he is holding? 

Tip-  For teaching your children the 50 states and capitals

1.) a motivating reward

2.) a .25 cent place-mat of the U.S.

These are the famous super buffs.  For those who haven’t heard the story…this little boy nursed these two back to health with an eye dropper of water and lots of patience. 

Our 12 year old receives a magazine subscription to Backyard Poultry.  In it, he discovered a photo contest.  Soon after reading about the contest to his brothers and figuring out they could all enter it….they were off trying to catch their favorite chickens.  

They are optimistic evidently.  The 7 year old has asked me just about every day if we have received an email yet telling him he is the winner. 

Super Buff is quite a heavy bird. 

…. loosing balance!

Well now…. we regained control and have balance.  How long can you balance a chicken on your head?

I don’t know about all boys, but our boys are attracted to mud like bees to honey…. or flies to fly tape… or chickens to clean porches…

Our very large mud puddle ( soon to be my beautiful garden pond one year)  is a favorite stomping ground for two highly energetic boys.  Here I find them yelling at one another, “Clean as a baby!” and then whack…a hand full of mud is hurled through the air…then a chorus of laughter…and the game repeats itself for an hour.  Who needs outside toys with a mud puddle like this! 

We had 12 children in the house who were 12 years old and under.  There was much noise and excitement and lots of rain. 

Lots of muddy, wet, cold kids, but they had fun….and we enjoyed the visit of so many little cousins!

This week we have posted a lot of farm related material…that would be because it’s early spring (as of today) and there are a ton of things to do around a farm during “planting season”.  As one of my younger children recently lamented, “If only we had more children…we could have more help…” 

Today was a beyond gorgeous day.  I sat in a lawn chair out by the garden and gave directions on what I wanted done. We had cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, potatoes and onions to get in the ground.  By the days end, they had the garden planted with plants and had posted the poultry netting around the garden.   The garden would have been gone by morning if we didn’t do something quick because the chickens spotted the fresh young plants and started eating them. 

The boys also repaired the disconnected spring pipe.  Water was gushing out of the pipe into the creek (it is supposed to be connected to another pipe running into our spring tank).  The pipe was disconnected because of the amount of water and debris that rushed through the creek yesterday with all of our rain.  The boys cleared the debris and reconnected the pipe.  All is well. 

The cows and goats were also moved over into a different section of the pasture.  They enjoyed having fresh green grass as they had been grazing in another section for several weeks. 

So far the mother hen hatched out 3 chicks:  one died, two are doing great.  We aren’t sure why the other eggs have not hatched. 

This week, my husband and the boys also started taking out one of the driveways so we can run a fence across the front of the house.  They worked on clearing brush, filling in other parts of the land with fill dirt, leveling out other parts.  This is a huge project in the works. 

That’s all the farm updates.

Our boys are pretty content running around here getting into all sorts of inventive, creative projects that cause me to either turn my head and pretend I don’t see what they are doing or cause me to be thankful that they are happily work-playing.  The lack of brain stimulation to get those creative juices flowing to inspire creativity makes for bored boys and nerved mothers who have to deal with bored boys.  It is amazing what happens when you throw out the TV and prevent electronic games from taking over their minds and instead, give them tools and access to the outdoors!

However, as much as I love encouraging creative play, I did put a moratorium on unapproved scrap dream building for a time until we accomplished some much needed real building and repairs around here.  The amount of scrap wood hammered to the trees and towering contraptions that look like human traps were becoming a bit too much.

As if that isn’t enough, walking into the bathroom and seeing a raccoon skin hanging over the bathtub or waking in the kitchen bright and early in the morning to find a squirrel tail soaking in my tupperware plastic container sitting on counter is slightly more disturbing. I will leave that alone for another post, but you get the idea.  The point is having a load of boys around here isn’t for the faint hearted and weary.

If we aren’t careful the back yard can quickly turned into a junk yard of concoctions of high valued (in the eyes of the children) inventive objects and projects.

My boys don’t ask for toys, they ask for strange things like hardware cloth and caster wheels.  The boys often hand me their list of things they “NEED”.

It goes something like this:

• 20 feet of copper tubing
• 10 wood 2X4’s
• a bag of spot ties
• an old tire from the dump yard
• alum
• salt without iodine
• pvc pipe
• batteries

You may be asking why a 10 year old needs copper tubing or salt without iodine. I don’t know.  I assure you they have a very good reason.  To them, the greatest toys are a dump truck load of dirt, pvc pipe connectors and 60 feet of rope. Am I the only one who has the rule, “No picking things up off the parking lot or store floor, no matter how useful it might look to you.”

Instilling a creative, inventive spirit in your boys is not that difficult.  I find that most boys are eager to get out there and work with their hands, however, they are often frustrated by their sterile environments that stifle any sort of creativity or ability to think about creating something out of nothing.

In the end, what they create may still end up being just a big piece of junk, however, it is their big piece of junk that they worked on with their own two hands and brain power that they are exceedingly proud of.  The trick is to harness that energy and creativity to be geared towards projects that are useful and beneficial to the family.  As of yet, we are hitting and missing on that one, but at least they are getting some good practice and hopefully developing skills that will highly useful and productive.

Today, after I put the babies down for a nap, I spent some time baking in the kitchen with the windows up, enjoying the beautiful breezes outside rustling the bush against the window screen.  I soon heard a distant, annoying, noise screeching and squealing over and over.  I quickly discovered that the horrid sound was in fact another piece of “boy ingenuity” that had added to our collection of yard art.

The boys made a cart to pull behind their peddle cart: a very noisy, squealing, squeaking cart that they used to haul all sorts of other pieces of junk around the yard today.

It proved useful when they won their baby sister’s affection by pulling her around in their brand new, super-proud-of, inventive and creative pull cart made out of scrap wood, nails, scrap fence wire, left over chicken wire and a pair of old bicycle training wheels.

Just a regular day in the life of a boy…

Armed with homemade spears and split-fire wood sledge hammers, a bag of cookies and a jug of spring water, we left mid-morning for a trek across Vaughnshire.  It was a beautiful morning after a night of steady rain and a morning with cool temperatures. We loaded up the baby girls in the wagon and set off.

Our first fence crossing led us into the present cow pasture.  Our 6 year old reminded everyone to watch out for cow patties a bit too late.  We stopped off at the barn to pick up the dogs.  One is a good for nothing beagle that we didn’t get 5 feet with before she literally dug her feet into the ground and howled for dear life.  Forget that idea, we put her back and took our more reliable mutt dog that has turned out to be a very smart farm dog that actually does some good around here.

Off we go.  Through the first pasture, to the second fence line.  Through the second section to the third fence line until we entered into Vaughnshire Forrest.  We walked along the path while our dog, Dixie, ran ahead of us and circled back around us making me tired just watching her.  I was quite impressed with her abilities to stay with us and sniff out danger ahead and was by now very confident that she would alert us if any snakes or other unwanted wildlife were around. Soon, I would be disappointed…but that is getting ahead of the story.

We strolled down the path looking at the many varieties of trees, moss, ferns, grasses, flowers.  I am still awed by the rock ledges, rolling hills and soaring trees in this part of the country.  It is truly a beautiful sight to behold.  We soon came to the first road block which was a downed tree in the path. The older children worked on getting the girls over the obstacle and we were soon back on our way.

We came to a 2nd road block a few minutes later. After the boys tried to put some strength into moving the tree out of the path along with some good ol’fashion back breaking sledge hammering by the 6 year old, they decided that this was a good place to stop. We had our snack and rested a while.

They soon set off on a self-made path which brought them to a tree bridge over the dry creek ravine. Boys resist crossing a tree bridge??? Not even close!

I soon heard excited voices yell back that they had discovered two hunting stands in some trees.

They inspected these new finds and marked their path so they could visit again. On their way back, one of the boys yelled they had found water in the creek bed. We all went to check out this new discovery that the dog had actually found and are still undecided if it is just a water hole from the rains or is in fact a small spring. We also discovered a unique tree along the side of a deep ravine that created a Narnia like hiding place. It was a large tree whose roots stood up like stilts creating a roomy cubby hole in which three adventurous boys and a inquisitive dog could hide beneath.

We started back after the exciting discoveries of the water hole, tree bridge, tree root hiding place and the hunting stands to get home to some much needed farm work.

As we approached the edge of Vaughnshire Forest, one of the boys yelled out, “SNAKE!” The dog didn’t flinch, didn’t bark, didn’t even see it and in fact steps over it several times before wandering off. The 5 year old boy yells,”Quick, GET THE SWEDCH HAMMER!” The two older boys grab the homemade spear (a stick, copper pipe, a large nail) and the sledge hammer (split log nailed to another stick) and proceed to kill the snake. I am wishing we were home by now and frantically reminding them they “better not let that thing bite them”, “are you sure you know what your doing”, “don’t miss”, “did you get it”, “are you sure it’s dead”! They attacked the snake with the homemade sledge hammer killing it within short order. One of the boys carried the snake back on the end of the stick so he could confirm what kind of snake it was when daddy arrived back home (which ended up being harmless).   As we approached the house, the cows met us as we entered into the pasture directly behind the house and followed us home. When we arrived home, one of the boys spotted another snake hanging out of the beak of one of our laying hens, which they assured me was a harmless baby pink-belly snake.

Except for the snakes, even if they were baby snakes,  the morning walk was a wonderful break amidst the large amount of farm work we have before us and was a needed reminder to stop and look around and enjoy God’s magnificent creation.

As I was reading through my drafts, I came across this post that I wrote back before the drought consumed all of our time and energy and way back when we had green grass…evidently I never posted it…so here it is…
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End of May 2007

Today the children will show the Vaughnshire organic chicken feed gathering and processing steps.

What is that out in the field?

Why….it’s children running around in the field with empty water bottles catching June bugs and Japanese beetles.

Here are more children at the processing station. When I asked the 4 year old what they were doing he said, “Torturing the beetles…mom!” The two year old said, “Soup, Mom…”

After they successfully kill or incapacitate the beetles, the 3rd crew takes the fresh organic chicken feed to the laying hens and watch them gulp down and enjoy the fine gourmet chicken food produced right here on the farm.

That’s just one way we incorporate creative play, work and productive organic farming all into one.

Organic pest control, healthy organic chicken feed, increase in egg production, decrease in beetle population, entertainment, play and work for the children makes for happy tired children and an added bonus of mom being able to focus on the laundry mound.

We have a handful of boys running around here and they always amaze me with their unique boyness that still baffles my feminine mind.  The way they look and smell…and dress is uniquely different…at least around here.  The camo hat and pants, the pockets full of….well, junk, the million questions I don’t care about, the things they find funny and entertaining…..well, they just aren’t me.  That’s ok…that’s why I enjoy them so much.  They are full of busy, boy energy. 

We recently purchased a hardback book series written by the author R.M. Ballantyne who wrote a series of Christian adventure books for boys.  A quote from one of the books:

Boys [should be] inured from childhood to trifling risks and slight dangers of every possible description, such as tumbling into ponds and off of trees, etc., in order to strengthen their nervous system…. They ought to practice leaping off heights into deep water. They ought never to hesitate to cross a stream over a narrow unsafe plank for fear of a ducking. They ought never to decline to climb up a tree, to pull fruit merely because there is a possibility of their falling off and breaking their necks. I firmly believe that boys were intended to encounter all kinds of risks, in order to prepare them to meet and grapple with risks and dangers incident to man’s career with cool, cautious self-possession…. R.M. Ballantyne, The Gorilla Hunters

Two of my boys just finished The Gorilla Hunters and have been talking about it for days.  They each revisit parts of the book that they found thrilling and engage in animated conversation over the adventures that Ballantyne wrote about in the 1850’s.  

The only caution I would give is that these books will inspire your boys… not only in conversation….but after your 10 year old reads The Gorilla Hunters or The Pirate City or The Young Fur Traders and has just memorized a deck of survival cards….don’t be surprised if you walk in your kitchen one morning and see something like this appear on your kitchen “What’s For Supper?” board:

My daughters comment as she was starring at the kitchen board was “What is wrong with them?”  She further added, “I would never write anything like that mom…” 

The “turtle blood” had me asking “…drinking turtle blood??? Where did you get that idea???”  My 10 year old left the room and came running back with a deck of survival cards and pulled out the turtle card…promptly turning over the card he read….”Edible…if water is unavailable, you may drink turtle blood to maintain hydration until water can be found…” 

Just another, “Hey…..Mom….did you know…..” statement I can see us having at the grocery store one day.  Maybe since the turtle blood was dealt with at home, some poor elderly lady in the grocery store won’t have to worry herself sick that she passed cultists in on isle 7 and save me explaining that it was just the survival cards they were reading.

At the end of a long day, my 11 year old announced, “I just had the best Monday of my life…”

What, you may ask, was so great about Monday?

He, his brothers and dad worked out in the hot sun all day and plowed a 60X20 garden plot. In addition they also laid some water line from the overflow tank at the spring and shoveled out mud in the pond to hopefully prepare it to be a gravity fed spring pond that they can stock with fish.

During supper, our 9 year old commented that “it seems like working and playing are the same thing!”

I have made many interesting observations about boys over the years, but one striking observation is that boys need lots of work and productive outlets to focus their mind and energy on. Not only do bored, unchallenged boys end up in trouble, but they develop a lazy attitude about everything.  Besides, work doesn’t have to be drudgery all the time. 

In our home, at 6 years old, a boy graduates from being a playminded little-responsibility momma’s boy to a worker boy. It isn’t a magical immediate switch from toddlerhood to worker-boy-hood.  The change is gradual and we have many ups and downs in our training progress.  However, we have noticed that not only do they desperately need to be given more responsibility, but they need to be given work and chores that challenge them to step up to the plate and encourage them to be a worker boy.

Here are a few things that we have identified as important aspects of boyhood work:

Physical Work — Boys need to use that energy God gave them to physically work hard. Depending on where you live and the opportunities available, a boy’s work will greatly vary from place to place.  The important thing is that boys need to work. The day my boys plowed the field, it was hot, sweaty, smelly work! But they loved it. I love making them a big glass of ice water with lemons or sweet tea and taking it out to them while they are working hard. It makes them feel like a man.

Responsibility — Young boys need to be given responsibilities. Whether it is taking care of a animal or a section of space or a specific chore, boys thrive on having something to be responsible for. Recently, we handed over the pig feeding assignment to our 6 year old. Every day he is responsible for getting the food bucket off the kitchen counter and walking it down to the barn and dumping it over the fence to the pig. He then gathers eggs and brings the bucket and eggs back home. He has thrived with his new job and we have seen a big maturity growth in this boy. Everyday, he gives us a report on how the pig is doing. He knows what the pig likes and what he doesn’t like and reminds me not to put orange peels into the pig bucket because he doesn’t like them. Of course, as the boys grow, the responsibility increases.

Accountability — As parents, part of our job is training our children how to work. We first teach them to do all their work heartily as unto the Lord. We strive to cultivate a heart of humbleness, diligence, excellence and thoroughness in their work. They know that we are there to help them, but also are there to guide, correct and train them in how to work. We also have a deep desire to teach them how to work with their siblings. 

Rewards and job well done incentives — Many times we hire our children to do a job. I recently hired my 4 year old and 6 year old to move dirt from a dirt pile, to the garden. I paid them .10 cents a load. They worked hard and received payment for their work. The older children work different jobs around here and are paid accordingly, however, not everything is a paid chore or job. Some things you have to do just because you live here. We do not promote “free-ride or free-parking” living around here.

Vision for future work — At 4 years old, don’t be discouraged if they are still whining a lot and attempts to work become flustered because they are prone to distraction. Training during these early years will eventually pay off. Starting out early and starting small may not seem important but it is vital to begin at 2 if you want a worker boy at 10. We want to lay out a vision for the future and give our boys goals of things they can achieve in regards to work. We have been encouraging our boys in entrepreneurship. This type of work excites them very much. They have made plans for selling things they make and grow. Our oldest son has several invention ideas that he is planning on experimenting with, with the hopes of marketing a solar / hydro gardening device that will grow pre-flood sized plants. Even if his overenthusiastic idea is a flop — the point is that experimenting and dreaming up ideas is always better than being cemented to conform to a pre-determined mindset of normality. As bad as I hate to see some of the boys “experiments” or “contraptions” laying around the yard, I have to tell myself that “It’s really not junk…It just looks that way…”

Another interesting observation I have made about raising boys is that when we promote healthy physical work, responsibility, accountability and a vision for future work, a boy’s mind is stimulated to think, solve problems, invent, and lead.  He begins to think beyond himself and starts to see the world through the perspective of the creature God created him to be.  A creature with a dominion mandate. 

Many wonder about how this applies to girls.  I will elaborate on young girls and work next.