Record Breaking, This is Happiness
A fun, laidback July 4th weekend with friends and family. Thankful for this country and prayerful about its future. Caught up on mowing and weed eating cabin yards and around the barn. Riverside rest on Sunday afternoon.
On Monday Bella Jane came up and helped us sort meat and fill this month’s herd shares.
After a couple weeks break from processing chickens, on Tuesday we got everything ready for a big harvest day on Wednesday. Before catching big chickens in the field, the three girls caught over 200 chicks from the brooder to take to the shelters in the field, insisting that I let them do all the catching. Filling the crates with 20 chicks each, they developed a pretty good system: Hallie caught five; Wren caught three; Carter caught two. Over and over again until they finally announced proudly that they caught them all.
Hasten was a big help in the field catching chickens for harvest. Amy does the vast majority of chicken catching while I carry the crates to the trailer. Hasten couldn’t quite keep up with his mom, but he’s getting there. This time he filled 11 crates by himself, steadily catching at least 88 chickens.
On Wednesday, with the biggest crew of helpers we’ve had in a while, we killed and chilled 300 birds in just under 2 hours. Then kept the momentum going into the afternoon parting 180 of them in record time. Shout out to cousin Sean who always brings his A game when visiting the farm on processing days.
A slower day yesterday. Thankful for 2 inches of rain this week.
Most of my tractor or chore time has been spent listening to THIS IS HAPPINESS by Niall Williams as an Irish village awaits electricity coming to town. Here’s a few quotes from what I’ve listened to so far.
“I lived in a profound loneliness at the time. I am not sure why or how it happens that a person finds themselves on the margin of life, but there I was. I was the opposite of sure footed. I couldn’t get any purchase on the ground and was unable to see how to belong anywhere.”
“It was where when darkness fell, it fell absolutely. And when you went outside, the wind sometimes drew apart the clouds, and you stood in the revelation of so many stars, you could not credit the wonder and felt smaller in your body as your soul felt enormous.”
“You live a decent length to get an appreciation for the individuality of creation. You understand there’s no such thing as the common man and certainly not woman. But even then, in those first moments beside him on the window seal, I think I knew there was something arresting about him. Everybody carries a world, but certain people change the air about them. That’s the best I can say. It can’t be explained, only felt. He was easy in himself. Maybe that was the first thing. He didn’t feel the need to fill the quiet and had the confidence of the storyteller when the story is still unpacked.”
“At the time you’re living it, you can sometimes think your life is nothing much. It’s ordinary and everyday and should be and could be in this or that way better. It is without the perspective by which any meaning can be derived because it’s too sensual and urgent and immediate, which is the way life is to be lived. We’re all, all the time, striving, and though that means there’s a more or less constant supply of failure, it’s not such a terrible thing if you think that we can keep on trying. There’s something to consider in that.”
“A key thing to understand about Ganga was that he loved a story. He believed that human beings were inside a story that had no ending because its teller had started it without conceiving of one, and that after 10,000 tales, was no nearer to finding the resolution of the last page. Story was the stuff of life, and to realize you were inside one allowed you to sometimes surrender to the plot, to bear a little easier the griefs and sufferings, and to enjoy more fully the twists that came along the way.”
Have a good week.
Will