Goat Business, Fair Fun, In My Blood
Looks like we’re in the goat business. The kids have been as excited about the Rich Valley Fair as I remember being at their age. On youth day at the fair, Hallie caught a goat and got to bring it home. Mustang is his new name. I don’t know much about goats, but I know they’re a headache to keep in and predators find them tasty. That being said, for the past couple years I’ve been increasingly intrigued by goats. Our farm naturally produces a lot of grass that the cows love to eat. But our land also produces a lot of weeds and briars that the cows don’t love to eat. The idea of goats eating the weeds and leafy plants that the cows don’t typically prefer seems like a good idea to me. Lots of my ideas seem good in my head. Reality often disagrees. The kids have been talking about using some of their chicken processing earnings to buy a few more goats to go with Mustang. We’ll see.
With Hallie and Hasten wanting to enter the talent show and enter Dixie in the pet show on Monday, Amy took the kids to the fair while I made the delivery to Chilhowie and then on to Abingdon. We got Boston Butts and briskets trimmed and seasoned that afternoon and put them on the smoker after the fair fun Monday night.
Outside of chores, we pulled pork, sliced and packaged smoked brisket, sorted chicken parts, and got beef and pork delivered back to the farm and into the freezers. Hasten helped fix some fences and move cows. Another batch of chicks in the brooder.
Other than farm and fair, Amy has been doing some homeschool planning. Picking out curriculum and trying to think through a daily schedule. How to give each child adequate attention while also keeping up with farm admin and housework. She’s looking forward to it. She loves our kids and loves teaching them.
The highlight of my week was sitting on the front porch watching a thunderstorm roll in. I don’t really even know why. I don’t know if it was the rain. Or the storm. Or seeing it gradually creep closer from over the ridge. Or the porch. Or it being Sunday. Or my family sitting there sharing that moment with me. I really don’t know. But it made me want to press pause and slow down time.
On that note, instead of listening to audiobooks like I usually do, I’ve had Cody Jinks’ latest album “In My Blood” on repeat all week. Here’s some lyrics from “When Time Didn’t Fly”
“A little front porch
If those rocking chairs could talk
I'd give anything at all
If I could only
Pull the words out of these walls
Jesus loved me this I know
For the Bible told me so
And the sand was in my toes
Not a glass
Throwing rocks and paper planes
Leaving pennies for the train
Had more days down the road
Than in the past
When heroes never died
And time didn't fly”
Here’s a few more lyrics from his new album that are too good not to share.
“When You Can’t Remember”
“It was, ‘Boy, take your best shot
A good name's all that you've got
Take care of your sister
The best you know how’
It was ‘Stand on your own feet
Give God the glory’
That's what you taught me
So I'll tell you now
...
It was marriage and babies
‘Son, that's your lady.
You love that girl
And cherish those children’
Now it’s grandkids and ‘Son,
When you think we’ll go fishing?’
…
When you can't remember
I'll tell you we broke the cycle
We stayed together
Like you prayed that we would.”
Some from “Lonely Man”
“I ain't afraid of dying
There's people dying every day
I'm afraid of where I've failed
At any turn along the way
I hope tomorrow finds me
With a chance to try again
I pray the weather's good,
And my back's against the wind
Just a lonely man that set out long ago for something
That never ends”
Have a good week.
Will