Feed corn, winter snow and boyhood farm work are beautiful sights!  The boys went up to a new feed store that just opened up in town.  They bought some bags of corn for $5.75 for a 50 lb bag.  They were doing good to get the trailer unloaded and the feed put away in the barn with the down pour of snow we were having.  After they unload and stack feed bags, they bolt in the back door wanting hot cocoa.  They take the layers of  coats and gloves off  as I fix them a warm mug of raw milk hot cocoa…something our family loves on cold days like today!  I love hearing them talk about how many pounds they lifted and watch them compare muscles.  Boyhood farm work is so good for young men!

If we were real agrarians, we would have a corn crib full of corn and hay piled high in our hay loft that we grew in our fields this summer.   But we aren’t experienced agrarians yet.  We’ve experienced a lot of what not to do.  (like the example we give here)

When you start living on a farm, you quickly realize how inadequate your farming efforts really are.  It’s good to put your hand to the plow so to speak and start somewhere and be grateful for the work you do get done.  However, as spring turns into summer….summer to fall….and fall to winter….the grass disappears, it gets cold and your animals get hungry!  A real farmer would plan to store up enough food for the winter.  Just like a real farm wife would still have a pantry full of wonderful food stores conveniently stored away for the winter blasts.

We’re grateful for the lessons we are learning on the farm.  We’re grateful for the challenge, for the growing and the stretching.  We’ve come to understand the completeness and depth of the words provision and preparation.  Our 24 hr. Stuff-Mart cultural mindset is completely opposite of the agrarian life where forethought and preparation are vital to survival.

Ideally, we would love to find a resource for buying bulk corn and mixing it ourselves.  It’s too cold to think about that now though.  We’re collecting the last pieces of firewood and hoping to hold out until spring so we can start over and try preparing for winter again!

I found some other “When It’s Cold Outside” posts I’ve written in the past.  Here are just a few.  There are a ton more:

When it’s Cold Outside and the Natives are Restless

The Not So Glorious Agrarian Life in the Winter Time

Ice Weather

Farming Frustrations

Farm Boy’s Birthday Saga

Talk about a cowboy. Here we have Tex the son in the cowboy hat, riding on Tex, mommom’s freezer beef.

The stated idea was to use a cow to round up the cows. I’m not so sure that worked well. But, I think the real objective of having a little farm adventure was achieved!

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:

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 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.

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.

1. How do you turn a chicken into a nugget?  Here is the answer.
2. Even Walmart is able to read the dollar signs on the real food movement – no more rBST in their milk.
3. And to wrap it up, here is a great article about Joel Salatin.  He is featured in both the films we posted about recently: Fresh the Movie, and Food, INC.

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:

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Then you watch the trailer and buy your tickets here: http://www.foodincmovie.com/

It is amazing how many videos are coming out that deal with sustainable agriculture.  We have watched several lately that I will be sharing as we have time.  For now, if you interested in saving seeds, and specialty beans, this 20 minute clip will encourage you.

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This isn’t what I was searching for when I found this post, but I figure it will be useful when we get ready to plant some row crops soon.

How to Plow a Field

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!

Beth already spilt the beans as they say.  But, today was another exciting day on the farm with many lessons in the ups and downs of life.

It started off very “low” in the early hours of the morning.  You know those early hours, the ones before most computer geeks go to bed.  Yep, it was in those early hours that I found myself wondering around the carnage of dead chicken bodies and a feather covered field.  With a chill in my bones and frost on my breath, I was hunting or uhm…searching - no I think hunting is the correct word here, for Dixie, the dog we now know has an insatiable appetite for chicken. 

I had caught her with “a” chicken a few moments earlier, and scolded her from the front porch while I was in my sock feet.  She immediately let the chicken go, tuck her tail, hung her head down low to the ground and headed for the back barn where she normally resides.

I slipped my boots and coat on to quickly run out and tie her up.  She was no where to be found and I soon found out why.

To toll the next morning as the boys surveyed the damages and learned yet another real life experience thanks to the farm, was eleven birds dead and a few suspected missing with big unexplained piles of feathers at a couple locations.

But the day progressed from there and as the farm hands assessed the damage they noticed the brown ewe, Georgia, had not come down with the rest of the small flock.  They found her with her new 10 pound baby lamb, complete with umbilical cord.  She was nursing and happy and she was a baby ewe!  This makes our ram, Winchester, two for two as far as gender determination goes.  He also apparently produces large babies.

We transported momma and baby down to the lambing pen where we could ensure they were OK.  The whole family enjoyed them throughout the day as we fed and generally pampered both of them.  We are now waiting for the white ewe, Louisiana, to have hers.  The boys have gone out as I write this for the pre-bedtime check on her.

There were other exciting adventures that filled the rest of the day.  Such as discovering what happened to the two missing kitties and at the same time what caused the strange odor coming from the air conditioning vents in the floor. 

There was also recapturing all the chickens at roosting time and getting an official head count.  There are now 22 brown egg layers and around 68 White Leghorns.  I’m awaiting the final eggs count for the day, but it looks like we are still on an up trend even with the dramatic fowl and mammal conflict during the night. 

Finally, there was the much anticipated and awaited “dispatching” of the possum the boys trapped.  All in all, it was just another day on the farm.  What a blessed life God allows us to live!