Farming in the shade

I'd like to recommend a book that makes basic economics understandable. It's written in simple enough terms that children and their middle-aged parents both gain knowledge about the basics of our free enterprise system. Many homeschooling families use it, and it's part of Sonlight's curriculum (which is how I stumbled across it).   Whatever Happened to Penny Candy , by Richard Maybury, is written as a series of letters from an economist to his nephew, Chris. History, definitions, quotes and statistics are sprinkled liberally throughout, and hold the interest of the reader well. I close with this quote which seems appropriate in these times: "The public money of this country is the toil and labor of the people, who are under many uncommon difficulties and distresses at this time, so that all reasonable frugality ought to be observed." --John Adams, 1735-1826 American Revolutionary and 2nd President of the United States

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins,  O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.  --Psalm 130:1-5 Please pray for two friends (Mel and George) who are facing a recurrence of cancer. 

After supper and a walk tonight, I headed off to my workshop for some quality alone time. Finished a rug made from 3 recycled cotton sheets in shades of sage green and brown...

Every so often, the girls get a bee in their bonnet to make something different. Lately, it's been purses. They raid my stash of old clothing and fabrics saved for weaving and leave a mess wherever they work.  I'm sure they don't get their work habits from me. I always clean up after myself when I'm creative. Not. These particular little purses are made from upcycled wool blend, corduroy and canvas fabric.  Available in an etsy store near you.

Over the last couple of years we've bumped into Mary at several different events. She's brought her animals to our church's summer picnic for a couple of years running. We've both attended state sheep events. She's involved with an area agricultural organization and so is The Farmer.  Each time we've learned a little more about Mary's passion to educate children and young people about farming and animals. Mary runs an educational children's farm in a nearby town. Her mini-farm was there first, and the neighborhood (with very nice houses) has built up around her. She's feeling squeezed for space. So Mary is looking for a new home for the Critter Barn . If you'd like to help, we'd be ever so grateful. Because Mary runs something much better than a petting zoo. Her mini-farm is all about the reality of animal care. She teaches her Critter Campers about agriculture, which gives them a healthy knowledge about where food comes from. She teaches the...

"The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy." --Psalm 126:3

This week we received the lab results that told us what killed 80% of our soybean crop prematurely. Charcoal Rot Fungus. The plants are dead, and the soybeans in the pods are like little hard BBs. It was a stressful year for our plants. First the great flood of June, then a long period of drought--at least six weeks with almost no rain. And now, again, another, smaller flood. Stressed plants can't fight off attackers as well.  This was also the week that we found out that we have no crop insurance this year. After years of paying premiums and receiving no service at all (don't insurance guys at least call every five years to see if you're still happy? This company was like a brick wall to us), we decided to switch. In the switch, somewhere, someone dropped the ball and didn't finish the job. It's not important who. But we have no crop insurance, and now, no soybean crop. Decisions need to be made. Plow them in? Harvest what is there first, and then plow them in? Th...

Not often, but sometimes... Earlier this summer, The Farmer confessed his weakness for antique circular sock knitting machines to a woman who works in antiques/estate sales. "Please keep your eyes open for me, will you?" he asked. Friday, out of the blue, she left a message on our answering machine. "Call me if you get this message within the next 30 minutes or so," she said. "I may have found one." We were both listening to the messages at the same time, and when we heard this one, we looked at each other with chagrin (good word, eh?). It was well past the 30 minutes. The Farmer called her. She'd bought it without our call, just on a whim. Within 15 minutes, she was in our yard, unloading it... Sweet! A little dirty, perhaps, but it looked like most of the parts were there. And the price was so low that if I print it here, sock knitters around the world will convulse.  We paid her, thanked her profusely, and ate supper. Suddenly, the previously-schedu...

I lift up my eyes to you,  to you whose throne is in heaven. As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he shows us his mercy. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us,  for we have endured much contempt. We have endured much ridicule from the proud, much contempt from the arrogant. --Psalm 123 (Happy birthday, dear!)

Yesterday in my reading I stumbled across a link to an essay by Wendell Berry . I have to have my thinking cap on when I read anything non-fiction by him. As is usual with Berry, he mentions agriculture in the essay. So I think it belongs here, on a farming blog. The essay starts out by discussing our oil consumption, but quickly delves into the deeper problem of our desire to live without limits. We want to have what we want, when we want it, in the manner we want it. And here's a particularly good snippet about blooming where you're planted: If we always have a theoretically better substitute available from somebody or someplace else, we will never make the most of anything. It is hard to make the most of one life. If we each had two lives, we would not make much of either. Or as one of my best teachers said of people in general: “They’ll never be worth a damn as long as they’ve got two choices.”

Meet Tamarin, our guard llama. He runs with the sheep to prevent loss of life due to stray dogs, coyotes or foxes. Until now, we can't complain about his work ethic.  But lately we've suspected that Tamarin has been guarding our sheep too well. Recently we put the rams in with the Suffolk ewes. Tamarin doesn't seem to appreciate these newly introduced intruders. We've seen a lot of chasing, of late. Tonight, we cornered and caught Tamarin, and put him in with the Polypay ewes (who are due to receive their suitors later this fall).   Never a dull moment on the farm...

Everything is a canvas. Artwork created using toy farm implements on carpet. Unfortunately, the vacuum prevailed...

Wow...after over a month with almost no rain, it rained the whole day yesterday. Remnants of a hurricane in the south, they say. We received around 4" of rain--the good, slow, steady, soaking kind of rain. We are glad for the rain. In some ways it is too late. But, as we are coming to realize, no crop year is perfect. If it's not one thing, it's five others... Farming is either a big gamble or an exercise in trusting God. Depends on your worldview. 

One of our daughters recently made some mousey cat toys from wool. Here's one. We are starting to think about what new things we can make for the Christmas market that we always do in our town. This is one of the new things we'll be selling this year. Cats seem to love anything small like this made from wool. Any suggestions for what you'd like to see in our market booth this year? P.S. These mice are much cuter than those we are catching in our farmhouse right now. The nasty little critters got into my chocolate stash. This is war...

I have spent entirely too much time on cats lately. We are over-run with them, frankly, due to people dumping them and wild ones just wandering over. We feed them, appreciate their rodent-control services, don't pay attention, and suddenly there are 4, 982 of them. Yikes! Last week I brought 7 kittens and 1 mama cat to the low-cost spay/neuter clinic 30 miles away. I paid my money, drove back home, and picked them up the next morning. Kept them in the garage for a few days while they recuperated, and let them all out. All is well, right? No. Several of them have a respiratory virus (common among barn cats, I'm told by the vet at the spay/neuter clinic), and are hacking and coughing and dribbling in a cluster right outside our front door. If nothing else, it'll probably keep the travelling cutlery salesmen from stopping... I was advised to buy the stinkiest canned cat food for them to eat while they're recovering. Apparently, they don't eat if they can't smell. A...

We spent a good part of the day playing games (outside, until it got hot, and then we moved inside for a killer Monopoly tournament). Farm work, of course, is never truly done. But The Farmer did finish up at about 1:00 with the chores that absolutely needed to be done, and spent the rest of the afternoon taking school photos of the kids. Then we cooked hobo pies over a fire and turned in early. Tomorrow school begins.