Weekend farming, cookout prep, orthodoxy
Two more inches of rain this week. A brief hail storm passed through Friday afternoon while we were filling coolers at the barn. It was deafening. Not all weekends are as busy as last weekend, but there’s often more to do on the weekends that throughout the week.
Amy tries to leave for the Abingdon Farmers Market around 6:00 on Saturday mornings. I start loading her coolers around 5:30 while she and the kids are getting ready. Wren and Carter stayed with me to move chickens before we headed to Marion to deliver orders and herd shares that morning. Moving cows that afternoon. Then we fixed up another chicken shelter that was needing extensive repairs. After taking it to the field and getting it set up, we caught 60 more chicks from the brooder to put in it. Then fed pigs. The day was capped off with Owen bringing us 14 piglets to purchase Saturday evening.
On Sundays we try to do as little farm work as possible, but sometimes that still ends up being a fair amount more than we’d like. Chickens still need moved, fed, and watered before church. With a trip to the processor early on Monday, we brought in 20 cows to sort out the biggest to harvest. After loading up four hogs on the trailer, we needed to load up coolers and orders for the Knoxville delivery on Monday.
Amy and the kids were in route to Knoxville before I got back from the processor Monday afternoon. With inventory low, I took two more cows to the processor in Abingdon Tuesday morning. We settled about 700 baby chicks into the brooder on Wednesday.
Amy and the kids wrapped up their homeschool year this week. Amy also wrapped up a three part course she was teaching for Barn2Door to help other farmers communicate through email. She is a great teacher and loves teaching. But I think she’s ready to catch her breath.
Much of this week was spent preparing for tomorrow’s cookout. We are really excited, and it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day. Hallie said she likes the cookout day even better than her birthday. Ha. Amy spent an afternoon pressure washing at the barn. I finally had to cut her off or she would’ve stayed out there all night. If this farm thing doesn’t pan out, Amy says she wants to get into the pressure washing business.
Lots of work setting up, but we have lots of friends and family willing to help. Hopefully we have plenty of meat thawed for tomorrow. About 300 ORVF chicken wings, 12 ORVF briskets, 16 racks of ORVF pork ribs, and lots of ORVF burgers to go with it.
This week while mowing, I’ve enjoyed listening to ORTHODOXY by G.K. Chesterton.
In comparing optimists and pessimists Chesterton says, “I came to the conclusion that the optimist thought everything good except the pessimist, and that the pessimist thought everything bad except himself.”
“The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love. The point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more… Men did not love Rome because she was great; she was great because they had loved her.”
“Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else… Just as when you marry one woman, you give up all the others, so when you take one course of action, you give up all the other courses.”
“Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them.”
Have a good week.
Will