The commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” the Krishevsky family follows quite closely. Last Saturday, the great grandmother, Rachel Krishevsky passed away at the age of 99, leaving behind no less than 1,400 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-great-grandchildren.
My favorite pull quote comes from one of her grandchildren:
Grandma was a God-fearing woman…She knew the entire book of Psalms by heart, and participated in all the family events, happy and sad, up until two years ago. She knew all of her descendents. We are sad about her death, but proud of what she achieved in her life and her righteousness and compassion.
Talk about a real life example of a woman’s children rising up and calling her blessed! (Proverbs 31:28)
It has been said that every life is bookmarked by two dates. There is the date you were born and the date you die. In between is a dash… that is our life.
That always seemed to be a good reminder of just how short and insignificant our lives are in the scope of history, and how valuable each day is. While, that thought can help to keep us humble, it can also as a motivator to live each day to the fullest as it will never be repeated.
Johnny Cash perhaps understood that in a way many of us never will due to his fame and notoriety. Yet, as an older and wiser man, this song is what he had to say about it all.
This is the most absurd propaganda piece I have seen in years. I use to get upset when the evening news would cover a prolife event we were participating in and talk about us while showing clips of the purple haired tattooed one-world socialist tree hugging save the starving third world co-dependent lesbian whales crowd. (HT George Grant for the run on slur). But this is about as flagrant as the so called media can get. The real concern is what possible reason can they have for stoking the fires of racial tension??? Enjoy the clips.
While I’m very thankful for the tractor and all that it can do - the actual impact of progressive farming was exactly opposite of what this old film clip portrays. In fact, Beth recently quoted from “The Hind Tit“, Andrew Nelson Lytle essay published in 1930 on this very topic. Check out this little clip for the story that was sold:
Then you might contrast that with this quote or the entire essay to see what was purchased:
Industrialize the farm; be progressive; drop old-fashioned ways and adopt scientific methods. These slogans are powerfully persuasive and should be, but are not, regarded with the most deliberate circumspection, for under the guise of strengthening the farmer in his way of life they are advising him to abandon it and become absorbed. Such admonition coming from the quarters of the enemy is encouraging to the landowner in one sense only: it assures him he has something left to steal. Through its philosophy of Progress it is committing a mortal sin to persuade farmers that they can grow wealthy by adopting its methods. A farm is not a place to grow wealthy; it is a place to grow corn.
It is telling him that he can bring the city way of living to the country and that he will like it when it gets there. His sons and daughters, thoroughly indoctrinated with these ideas at state normals, return and further upset his equilibrium by demanding the things they grew to like in town. They urge him to make the experiment, with threats of an early departure from his hearth and board. Under such pressure it is no wonder that the distraught countryman, pulled at from all sides, contemplates a thing he by nature is loath to attempt . . . experimentation.
If it were an idle experiment, there would be no harm in such an indulgence; but it is not idle. It has a price and, like everything else in the industrial world, the price is too dear. In exchange for the bric-a-brac culture of progress he stands to lose his land, and losing that, his independence, for the vagaries of its idealism assume concrete form in urging him to over-produce his money crop, mortgage his land, and send his daughters to town to clerk in ten-cent stores, that he may buy the products of the power Age and keep its machines turning.
The entire essay can be read here. For the record I do not believe there is a more revealing work anywhere that has so completely captured the decline of the family and the family farm in the last 150 years. I don’t believe it is about technology and the age of the tractor as much as it is the philosophy that came with the equipment.
As you have probably seen by now, we have been working on a new backend for vaughnshire.com. We are maintaining the blog for the usual family update, political rants, and theological musings, but we felt the farm needed a little more flexibility than the blog could provide. We have a lot of exciting plans for the news site, but today the exciting announcement is the formal launch of the Vaughnshire Dairy. We are offering herd shares in our small (but growing) dairy herd. Check out the details here and if you are in the local area let us provide you with some great fresh milk!
I think it isn’t shocking to say that our culture at large has a very strong hatred of good honest work. As a culture, we relish what is faster-quicker-easier… The word “work” invokes the thought of having to exert too much energy, too much commitment…too much stick-to-it-tivity. It means I actually have to focus on something, exert mental and physical energy and put heart into something from start to finish.
Many of our grandparents were farm kids who knew what real, hard work was. It is a far cry from today’s sports and video game consumed boys. Valuable life lessons are lost when boys focus on play rather than consume a regular diet of honest, hard work. Boys need responsibility, working by the sweat of their brow, seeing a task through from start to finish. They learn to love and appreciate work, understaning it’s importance.
I love reading old stories to my children about “work”…good old fashion work ethic! We’ve read many books like, “Farmer Boy” which portrays boyhood work as a part of every day life. The most recent family reading book my husband has been reading out-loud to us is called, “Every Farm Tells a Story” by Jerry Apps. It has many wonderful stories about good boyhood work. We’ve been enjoying it immensely as a family as we laugh and relate to Mr. Apps’ childhood stories about growing up on a family dairy farm in Wisconsin.
Chores started on the home farm when you were around four years old, depending on, as Pa would say, “how much meat you have on your bones.”….By the time you were five, you moved up to feeding the chickens and gathering eggs….The ultimate chores took place in the cow barn. Milking cows by hand ranked number one. Other prestigious chores included forking hay from the haymow in ten-below-zero temperature, with frost hanging from the cobwebs and brushing you in the face; shoveling manure from the barn gutters into the manure carrier; cleaning out the calf pen; and throwing silage down from the top of the silo….Ma and Pa raised us to work together, play together and live together. We helped each other, depended on each other and at times defended each other….
Our children have especially enjoyed the age-appropriate chores Mr. Apps shares in his book. I’ll list off some examples of work these boys did and at what age…it is really amazing!
“Chores were and important part of our growing up years…”.
“We learned not to complain about work. We learned to show up on time, every time, day in and day out, including weekends. And we took pride in what we were doing. Chores were not drudgery, at least not on the farm where I grew up.”
By the time you were 6 or 7, you helped pick the smaller stones (out of the field before the crops could be planted).
When you were 10 or 12, you drove the team while sitting on the disk harrow or you walked behind the drag while a dust cloud swirled around you.
You became a serious hoer when you were 7 or 8.
By the age of 12 or so, you were cultivating potatoes with one horse and a walking cultivator.
By the time you were 10, you were driving the horses and performing simple tasks like handling the team while Pa pitched hay.
When you were 12 or so, you were pitching hay along with Pa.
By the time you were 14, you were driving a team on the threshing crew.
By age 12, you husked corn by hand for the hogs after school, often a wagon load every afternoon.
By the time I was 12, I put every nickel I earned toward buying books. I didn’t yet understand Pa’s good times-bad times theory (of saving some money for the bad times to get you through until the good times roll around again).
We have a long way to go to recapture what it means to work hard and to embrace it. But is no secret that we live in a day and age of wimpy boys, who don’t know what a hard days work really looks like, couldn’t defend the family if they had to, haven’t a clue about how to produce or hunt food and couldn’t save a nickel if they wanted to.
Moving to a farm was one of the best decisions we ever made!
The official motto of his dealership is, “God, Guns, Guts, and American Pickup Trucks!” They are giving away an AK-47 with each new truck purchase. It may be a gimmick, but if you listen to the interview you will see this guys is the real deal. Not only is he real… he is smart; he is helping to arm his neighbors. I would be willing to bet, if an army (foreign or domestic) were to invade the central part of our nation, they would not do well in Missouri where Max Motors is located.
Our friends over on Beaverdam Creek, run an organic family farm and run a popular CSA program. You should check out their website and blog and see all the great things they do. They “grow slow food” and supply their customers weekly with a basket of fresh, organic veggies grown in their huge garden. They also send out a great newsletter that we enjoy…this week…they mentioned a great essay from I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition by Twelve Southerners (1930)…that we thought was worth mentioning.
The essay is entitled “The Hind Tit” by Andrew Nelson Lytle and is rather poignant and enlightening considering where we find ourselves today in regards to agrarian life vs. industrial life. I’ve been reading parts of the essay to my children and we have been greatly enjoying the stimulating, thought provoking conversations this essay is spawning. Here are a few quotes:
“The midday meal, like all the meals in the country, has a great deal of form. It is, in the first place, unhurried. Diners accustomed to the mad, bolting pace of cafeterias will grow nervous at the slow performance of a country table. To be late is a very grave matter, since it is not served until everybody is present. But only some accident, or unusual occurrence, will detain any member of the family, for dinner is a social event of the first importance. The family are together with their experiences of the morning to relate; and merriment rises up from the hot, steaming vegetables, all set about the table, small hills around the mountains of meat at the ends, a heaping plate of fried chicken, a turkey, a plate of guineas, or a one-year ham spiced, and if company is there, baked in wine…
…His table, if the seasons allow, is always bountiful. The abundance of nature, its heaping dishes, its bulging-breasted fowls, deep-yellow butter and creamy milk, fat beans and juicy corn, and its potatoes flavored like pecans, fill his dining-room with the satisfaction of well-being, because he has not yet come to look upon his produce at so many cents a pound, or his corn at so much a dozen. If nature gives bountifully to his labor, he may enjoy largely….
…The dishes of food are peculiarly relished. Each dish has particular meaning to the consumer, for everybody has had something to do with the long and intricate procession from the ground to the table. Somebody planted the beans and worked them. Somebody else staked them and watched them grow, felt anxious during the early spring drought, gave silent thanksgiving when a deep-beating rain soaked into the crusty soil, for the leaves would no longer take the yellow shrivel… The fullness of meaning that rain and the elements extend to the farmer is all contained in a mess of beans, a plate of potatoes, or a dish of sallet. When the garden first comes in, this meaning is explicit. If the yield has been large and rich, it will be openly and pridefully commented upon; if the garden has burned and it has lost its succulence to the sun, some will remark that sorrier beans have been seen, while others, more resentful of nature’s invincible and inscrutable ways, will answer that better, also, have been seen. But aside from some such conservative expression, in its formal tone making a violent passion, no other comment will be made. And as the enjoyment of the garden’s produce becomes more regular, this particular meaning which the dishes at a country table has for its diners settles into the subconscious and becomes implicit in the conduct of the household.”
Thomas Moore, the chairman for the Southern National Congress, wrote a great essay late last month, that is well worth sharing. He gives a great high level fly over of the root problem in the corporate food industry. It doesn’t matter if the new laws, such as the Food Safety and Modernization Act of 2009 or the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act, intend to curtail an individual’s right to purchase, trade, or consume healthy food grown from their own land, that is the effect.
In fact, we are already seeing many tyrannical “enforcement” activities on other less intrusive laws that are being used to intimidate and curtail the efforts of small family farms. The existence of an organization called the “Farm to Consumer Foundation” who’s sole purpose is protecting small family farms against this abridgment of our rights by the federal and state government should tell us something of the times in which we live.
In fact Mr. Moore, declares that in these times planting our garden is a revoutionary act:
Today I committed a revolutionary act. It had nothing to do with firearms or marksmanship training. I didn’t organize a protest march or join the Underground. In fact, it had nothing to do with politics, except in the broadest possible sense. But it was revolutionary nonetheless. Today I finished spring planting.
How can such a benign activity be revolutionary, you may ask. In a sane and normal world it wouldn’t be. People have grown their own food from the beginning of the world. Agriculture has always been the foundation of civilization and the farmer a benefactor of mankind. But today we don’t live in a sane and normal world. The criminal Regime we live under is not content just to rob us of our liberty, our property, our dignity and humanity. It also seeks to control us by controlling the food supply. It seeks to strip us of food self-sufficiency and make us dependent, first on the central state, through food stamps, for example; and second, on the state’s real masters, the giant agri-businesses who determine Federal food policy. I call this process food fascism.
Read more of this revolutionary article here and commit your own revolutionary act by planting your garden today!
While many states have passed state sovereignty resolutions recently, Tennessee is the first to have the governor’s signature affixed to the bill. Now if we could wean ourselves from the federal dole we might actually have something. We can work on a free economic system for TN as we move forward, but at least this is a starting point.
Check out the full article and the text of the resolution at the Tenth Amendment Center.
Here’s a Food INC. movie review from some friends of ours:
Well, we just got back from the movie. Their answers to the problem seemed to rely too much on government, interestingly the same people they place a large portion of the blame on. I have put a review on my blog here.
Update from Paul:
Tony, did indeed post a great review of the movie that I was intending to comment on – but haven’t had the time. My thought was, that it seems like Fresh, The Movie, is going to be the answer movie and Food, INC. is the movie that highlights all the trouble!
It would be great to hear if anyone else has seen either movie. We are going to be hosting a local screen of Fresh as soon as we can make the arrangements. We’ll let you know what we think.
Ok – so in the absence of much writing, maybe you’d like to see what we’ve been reading. In addition to our family reading story, Every Farm Tells a Story by Jerry Apps, and my private study time book, Arator, by John Taylor of Caroline here are a few links to some good on-line articles.
Here is another movie that just opened on the 12th, called Food, Inc. We haven’t seen the entire movie yet, but we will. Based on this interview, I’m sure there are parts of the movie that we will disagree with, such as a solution to the problem which includes “Changing Walmart” or other corporations. Having said that, it sounds like the producer does a great job of identifing the problem with our food supply.
Check out this interview:
Then you can check out the trailer of the film here:
The amendment completely changed the bill. In a small farm hostile state it needed to be clearly stated that it is not illegal for us to consume milk from our own animals… Here is the amended language: http://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/106/Amend/HA0244.pdf
Shawn Dady gave a good comment on the importance of this wording on the Tennesseans For Raw Milk site and if I had read this before I posted, maybe I could have avoided spreading confusion about the prescriptions!
Update 5/22/09: Greetings! What an historic day. The TN Cow-Share bill is now law. The governor signed the bill into law today and it is a done deal. What this means is not that raw milk sales are legal, but it does mean that cow-shares and boarding have been fully recognized and declared as now legal. Contract law and private property rights, as outlined in our constitution, will be upheld in our state. This law SOLIDIFIES the postition that it is perfectly legal for an owner or a PARTIAL owner to drink THEIR OWN cow’s milk. PARTIAL is a very key word in this bill. In fact, without this word, the bill would not be the same and would not carry the weight and strength that it does. Partial owners are cow (or any hoofed mammal) share owners and the bill states their legal position loud and clear. Now farmers can enter into share/boarding contracts free from worry that a government agency will tell them they cannot. This bill clears the way for them.
It is always exciting to find new encouragement in the area of farming. We recently found these trailers for a new movie call, “Fresh The Movie”. It seems to be a little bit of a mix between “The Future of Food” and Joel Salatin’s farm videos. We are looking forward to the new release and have offered to host a screening here in Middle TN if they would allow us. Check out all 4 trailers. At the end of each clip there is an option for “more” that will take you to the next trailer.
Large-scale swine producers in Mexico deny that their industry is the source of the deadly new influenza strain, saying the animals are all healthy, and that it is scientifically “not possible” for hogs to infect people with the illness. But lawmakers in the eastern state of Veracruz are now charging that large-scale hog and poultry operations are “breeding grounds” of infection that are making people sick and fueling the pandemic.
The article goes on to say:
Mexican newspapers have been reporting for weeks that residents living near Granjas Carroll’s massive hog facility at La Gloria are falling ill with severe upper respiratory diseases. One five-year-old girl in the village just tested positive for swine flu – the bodies of two more children who died recently are being exhumed.
According to an April 5 article in La Jornada newspaper, “Clouds of flies emanate from the lagoons where Granjas Carroll discharges the fecal waste from its hog barns – as well as air pollution that has already caused an epidemic of respiratory infections in the town.”
More than 400 people had already been treated for respiratory infections, and more than 60 percent of the town’s 3,000 residents had reported getting sick, the paper said. State officials disputed that claim, and said the illnesses were caused by cold weather and dust in the air.
The problems began in early March, when many neighbors of the hog CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) became sick with colds and flu that quickly turned into lung infections, causing local health officials to impose a “sanitary cordon” around the area and begin a mass program of vaccination and home fumigation.
“According to state agents of the Mexican Social Security Institute, the vector of this outbreak are the clouds of flies that come out of the hog barns, and the waste lagoons into which the Mexican-US company spews tons of excrement,” La Jornada reported. “Even so, state and federal authorities paid no attention to the residents, until today.”
How can anyone seriously believe that raising hundreds or thousands of animals in confinement houses is perfectly healthy and natural? Factory farming practices are at the core bad and have serious consequences. We are all subject to such practices whether we like it or not…visit any restaurant or any grocery store and you are subject to the factory farm food. That’s just what happens with mass globalization and industrialism.
There has been a huge surge in family friendly farming over the last couple of years. Consumers are seeing the failures and dangers of factory farming and are turning towards alternative means of feeding themselves and their families: buying from family farms, farmer’s markets and community supported agriculture co-ops (CSAs).
More and more people are wanting to buy food from family farms. Many people are sick and tired of the denatured, substandard, sub-quality, altered, globalized factory food we have been eating for decades. We’re all about localized economies and the swine flu pandemic is another reason why these local economies are vital for the health and the well-being of those in the community.
Even with cutting back, buying sales, and strategic meal planning and grocery shopping, many families are still seeing an increase in what they are spending on food and household supplies. It isn’t so much the increase cost that is driving our family back to the land, but the extreme dependency that we find ourselves in. The majority of people depend on stores for every bit of their food. We have lost the know how and the work ethic to be able to produce our own food. That’s a dangerous place to be in!
“With the recession in full swing, many Americans are returning to their roots — literally — cultivating vegetables in their backyards to squeeze every penny out of their food budget.”
Industry surveys show double-digit growth in the number of home gardeners this year and mail-order companies report such a tremendous demand that some have run out of seeds for basic vegetables such as onions, tomatoes and peppers.
“People’s home grocery budget got absolutely shredded and now we’ve seen just this dramatic increase in the demand for our vegetable seeds. We’re selling out,” said George Ball, CEO of Burpee Seeds, the largest mail-order seed company in the U.S. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Gardening advocates, who have long struggled to get America grubby, have dubbed the newly planted tracts “recession gardens” and hope to shape the interest into a movement similar to the victory gardens of World War II.
Those gardens, modeled after a White House patch planted by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1943, were intended to inspire self-sufficiency, and at their peak supplied 40 percent of the nation’s fresh produce…”
This week the current White House broke ground on what will be a 1, 100 square foot garden on the lawn of the White House…the first plot garden since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden.
The article goes on to say:
Seed companies say this renaissance has rescued their vegetable business after years of drooping sales. Orders for vegetable seeds have skyrocketed, while orders for ornamental flowers are flat or down, said Richard Chamberlin, president of Harris Seeds in Rochester, N.Y.
Business there has increased 40 percent in the last year, with the most growth among vegetables such as peppers, tomatoes and kitchen herbs that can thrive in small urban plots or patio containers, he said. Harris Seeds recently had to reorder pepper and tomato seeds.
“I think if things were fine, you wouldn’t see people doing this. They’re just too busy,” Chamberlin said. “Gardening for most Americans was a dirty word because it meant work and nobody wanted more work — but that’s changed.”
While I think the majority of the garden interests springing up is merely a “let’s try our hand at this” approach, still, it is a serious resurgence and noticeable increase in gardening. I think a lot of people are connecting the dots on our food vulnerabilities and dependencies. But the reality is probably only a small percentage of people will actually do something about it.
I use to think our garden spot was a big garden spot. However, after seeing some of the gardens around here and realizing the reality of what it actually takes to produce enough food for a family..our garden spot is a measly science experiment.
However, it is a good size for us to get busy on. I should have been on this task long ago, but here is our start on the climbing peas.
The kids used some hog panels to make a trellis the peas could climb up and over. Our 11 year old boy was behind the ingenuity and functionality of the trellis. Our 10 year old daughter was concerned about how it looked and which way it was situated. I yelled through the windy spring weather, “Work it out!!” from the back door and watched them work out their differences and come to an agreement on the trellis. They did.
I am hoping to get out to the Amish community and pick up a couple of flats of cool weather vegetables this week.
Gardening has been on my mind. I don’t know about you, but I am constantly thinking about the garden. Not so much about the physical 2009 garden, but the idea of the “garden” and all that it implies.
Gardening reminds me of the past. It brings to life the many generations of fathers and mothers before me that tilled the ground and worked the soil, just like I am teaching my children to do today. Gardening reminds me of a time when men and women worked by the sweat of their brow and prayed for the Lord’s blessing on the fruit of the land. It is a lost idea today: physical labor poured into the dirt for the hopes of physical food to sustain life. Gardening was life or death.
Today, I am learning an overwhelming respect and awe for the simple things in this life. A small seed sprouting into an amazing plant producing fruit for sustenance designed by the Creator of the Universe. Truly amazing!
My gardening thoughts are developing deep roots that I never had before. I find myself wanting to dive into simplicity not for the sake of being simple and not because it is easy. Anyone who has worked a garden knows that is isn’t simple or easy. Simplicity and gardening are much more complex than I ever imagined, however the results of pursuing these old paths, considered “out-dated” paths by the modern world, I am finding are incredibly fulfilling to the soul.
To some the culture’s view of life in America’s is a battle to be fought or a cause to embrace, but to the Schindler family it was personal… it was life itself.
The Terri Schiavo Story, is a tragic and even difficult story to hear, and even more so to tell.But the team at Franklin Springs has taken on the challenge and through their excellence in film production and professional interviews with family members, culture leaders, and legal experts they take us to the heart of the battle for Terri’s life.
Terri’s story is examined from a uniquely biblical perspective and helps us to remember, that God is the creator and giver of life. The film puts humanity back into the discussion of life issues.
Enjoy the read. I can sympathize with the comment wishing his grandfather was around to show him how to do all this stuff! We have a major generation gap in agriculture and agrarian living. The one positive note is that if you can find an aged farmer who has this knowledge they are usually more than willing to share with you any information you might need. It seems that most of their children have run off to the city and no longer care about the things of the farm.
This is a sad assessment of farm families. But, I have a feeling with the economy being what it is, grandma and grandpa may be seeing a renewed interest from their family in they life they are living!
Helping over 74,000 businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/charts/metals/gold/t24_au_en_usoz_2.gif)
