Remember records? Not like a record for underwater pogo jumps but records…music…needles. Skip, repeat, skip, repeat. I have a nice copy of Led Zeppelin 4 in my attic on LP. Somewhere a twenty-something is looking this up on Wikipedia. Next they will look up Led Zeppelin.
The repeating theme I know you have read before is: This farming stuff is hard.
It’s hard.
No, like, really hard.
No. I still don’t think you get it. I’ll say it in teenspeak. It is like literally hard to even. Literally.
Near as I can tell, May (dairy cow #2) is cycling right now so her udder may be a little…sensitive (all the lady readers say “Hey!”). I attached a cup, she kicked it off. I attached it again, she kicked it off again. I attached to the rear first, she kicked me (not intentionally but literally. Like even). Sigh.
And so it goes.
Dream that dream. Go ahead. It’s awesome when that calf is born or that chicken you didn’t know was missing returns with a hatch of chicks trailing behind her.
But there are not awesome days too. Days when you forget to put the milk away and there is no chicken feed in your warehouse and that project you’ve been working on gets delayed and your spouse gets sick and the house is a mess and the cow like literally kicks your butt. Try not to smile as the cow’s tail hits your face (happened). Don’t inhale a bug when you laugh your way through the pasture (happened). Be polite to the internet company when they say it will take 4 days to fix their service (but you’ll be billed for the whole month). Even if you didn’t have the cows things would go wrong. That’s life.
Fairy tales end with “…and they lived happily ever after.” I call BS. They moved into a cold, drafty old house, the roof leaked and they literally had some bad days and some good days ever after. But it required a lot of sacrifice and it turns out Prince Charming snores. OMG!
So. Pick your poison. Do you want the bad things in life to happen in suburbia or do you want to take them out in the stix? I think we are literally better off out here in the stix. But it’s literally hard to even. You know?
“Oh! To live as you do….on the farm, chickens, cows, a few apple trees! How wonderful for your children to eat all that fresh food!”
Awesome? Yes. Easy? No. Glamorous? LOL!
Remember, behind every beautiful cow is a tail covered in manure…smacking you on the back of the head as you milk.
There is a lot going on in that picture, many small tweaks that come from experience and even a few from a recent read of Farmer’s Progress. I’m holding the bucket between my knees to keep it up and clean and not stepped in. My left knee keeps the cow from kicking. My head presses into her side, looking toward the cow’s head. The only problem here (aside from the manure on the tail hitting the back of my head) is the small handles. She has thimbles! I have to milk her with my thumb and two fingers. Ugh…takes For. Ever. This kind of milking will teach patience. Fortunately Julie does most of the milking! I think it’s time to break out the milker. …and to tie up the tail during milking.
So, yeah man. Move on out to the farm. Spend the day with the fragrance of eau de Bos. Vous serez tres chic! (You may even remember your high school French!)
I seem to have them all fooled…at least for now. All of them. My employer, my wife, my children, my dog. Maybe even you, the reader.
We have a bumper sticker that came with our van that says, “Lord, let me be the person my dog thinks I am.” Wow does that apply to my life.
My livestock expect me to be the kind of man who gets up in the morning and meets all of their needs. Not just safety, respect and high-quality feed and forage but opportunity to express natural inclinations. But I don’t know what I’m doing. I just look at the animals and their poop and make adjustments until things look like I think they are supposed to. Then I write a few notes about my cow’s poop, include a few pictures and publish it for all of the internet to enjoy…because apparently there are a few people out there who enjoy gritty stories of farm life from the trenches.
Lord, let me be the person my cows think I am.
I wouldn’t have a farm if I didn’t have a job with a fairly significant income. We just wouldn’t be here. So I have to keep that job. I have done my job for 10 years but with side jobs and extra hours I have at least 15 years of experience. Most of my work time is spent being proactive about problems. Being intentionally vague (cause my job is nerdy and boring) I work to find issues before they impact customers. I also dedicate a portion of each day to learning about new technologies and new trends in my field. I do a bit of firefighting but if I’m really on top of my game I look like the Maytag repair man…but I have to look busy or I’ll lose my job and, potentially, my farm. Management doesn’t seem to appreciate me when everything just “works” regardless of how much work it takes to look effortless.
Lord, let me be the employee my employer thinks I am.
Being completely honest, I couldn’t do my job as well without the internet. I don’t have to discover every solution. Somebody else has already done it, blogged it and moved on. Same with cattle. Where would I be without Joel Salatin’s books and the generations of farmers he has inspired (at least 2 generations now, maybe 3). I wonder if Salatin every prays, “Lord, let me be the farmer they think I am.”
That takes me to my family. I don’t know who they think I am. I have no idea why Julie married me. I wouldn’t marry me. Not only that, but she married me and stuck with it. Weird. And she intentionally and voluntarily created children with me. Is she on drugs? Is this all a dream? What if she finds out? After everything that Julie and I have been through I’m really not as insecure about our relationship as I’m pretending to be but still…I have no idea why she is still there every night when I get home. It must be the exciting and frequent conversations we have about cow poop.
Lord, let me be the husband my wife needs me to be.
Kids, though…kids. In some ways you could liken them to inmates. They have an 18-year sentence before we’ll let them loose. By that point they may be so completely institutionalized that the freedom will drive them crazy or they will break down the locked door to get back home. Hopefully, though, they will grow to be self-assured young men and women who live each day with purpose and vision. But who is going to teach them that? Me? LOL! I don’t know what I’m doing. I have never raised children before! They are more complicated than dogs. Messier too. Fortunately the conversation is so much more meaningful. But what do I talk to them about? I can’t talk about my job. They don’t care about cow poop. I think the older boy is catching on to me. Maybe I should wrestle him in the grass, throw a ball and end the day with a meaningful life lesson, “Son, life is like cow poop. Sometimes it’s runny and messy and sticks to your tail. Other times it’s firm and hard. Either extreme is too much. You want it right in the middle. That’s all of life right there, son. If cow poop comes out soft but doesn’t mess up the tail and has a depression on top, you’ve done everything right by your cows. You think about that, son.”
Lord, let me be the father my children think I am.
I have no idea what I’m doing but I have an idea of what I need to do each day. I wake up, make a plan and execute that plan…or at least chip away at it. The phrase “Fake it ’till you make it” indicates that someday I’ll finally know something about what I’m doing and can stop faking my way through. But someday isn’t here. I have heard grazers say it takes 20 years to learn anything about grazing livestock so I’ll be faking for at least another 15 years.
To be more serious for a moment, I really don’t know where I’m going…where my wife and I are going. We have direction. We are obedient. We work hard. I have a vague idea of the next destination but I can’t for the life of me comprehend how to get there. So we focus on our relationships, we do our work, we study, we take one step at a time and we pray a lot. I don’t know what else to do.
I don’t know how you do what you do or if you share any of my insecurities but I do thank you for reading this and hope you will come back again.
Lord, let me be the person my blog reader thinks I am.
A reader asked for a walkthrough of a day on the farm. So I tried to keep track. This is fairly typical of a weekend. The livestock don’t take much time. On weekdays Julie has a schedule for housework, home school, business building and writing. On weekends we tackle bigger jobs.
Today was an odd day. We were up late Friday night as Julie wanted to go on a date. I don’t know why she wants to date again. We have been happily married for 17 years. Maybe there is something wrong. Something I can fix. Something I can do. She says it’s not that simple. Oh well. A night off work.
We had dinner out then came home to watch a movie. If you haven’t seen Ender’s Game, don’t. Just don’t. So that put us to bed around 11:30. I never stay up until 11:30
Today Julie’s phone woke us up at 4:30 alerting us that we were a mere 30 minutes away from the official start time of the day. What a stupid thing for a phone to do. I adjusted the phone’s attitude and slept for another hour to spite it.
At 5:30 I decide I can no longer excuse laying in bed all day so I pop up, brush my teeth and begin planning my day. The sun won’t come up for another hour at least and there is a pile of laundry and a small pile of dishes that need my attention. I responded to a few comments on the blog then got out the door…which is always guarded by cats.
On work days I can check the pigs, feed the cows, check and water the chickens and open the nest boxes then walk to the yellow house to check and feed the broilers and return home in 15 minutes. On Saturdays I tend to stand around and enjoy the scenery a little more. It took me 45 minutes today. I dropped the bale and stood in place surrounded by cows.
That’s kind of fun but it also gives me a good chance to look them over. Good thing too. Remember that date? I get home between 6 and 6:30. By that time we only just have time to drive 30 or 40 minutes to the nearest restaurant for dinner out and still get home at a decent hour. So Julie planned out the day’s pasture and elected not to bring the cows a bale of hay. The day’s pasture is not an issue of square feet. It is an eyeballing of available forage in a given space. She didn’t give them enough to eat as evidenced by Mrs. White.
I had a chicken out of the fence and spent 5 minutes stalking her then clipped her wing. Otherwise the birds were doing their thing. Feed? Check. Water? Check. Nest boxes open? Check.
Then I sharpened a couple of chain saw chains, loaded up my equipment, hooked the trailer to the truck, straightened things up a little bit in the shop and headed in for breakfast at 8:00 on the dot. One slice of bacon, two eggs and half a cup of coffee later and I’m killing time waiting on her to go to the broilers with me. So I decide to build a race car for a Yeti.
By 8:40 the broilers were moved, fed and watered (there are currently 3 tractors in the field, just snapped a picture before moving it)…
…and I kissed Julie goodbye. She was going to town to pick up the kids at her mom’s. She didn’t return until 11:00. In the meantime I dropped the trailer off at the brooder so we can haul bedding to the garden later and drove to the day’s main project, cleaning a fence row. The fence has been mostly smashed and buried by falling limbs and time but I need to at least find it. Further, I want to drop the lower tree limbs where I can, stop the trees from reaching into my field and cut out saplings that are inching into my field year by year. Again, I’m all in favor of trees, just not where I have fences. But I really can’t manage the neighbor’s side of the fence…only so much I can do. Finally, there is only so much I’m willing to do today. This is a first effort. Let’s establish a beach head. Lower limbs, nuisance species and encroaching saplings. Next year we’ll do a little more. Maybe.There were really only three tree species in the stand: hedge, elm and hackberry. I’m happy to burn all three but I hate cutting hedge. It is the hottest-burning of our hardwoods but what a pain. Literally. Hedge is covered in thorns. The thorns on the branches cause it to stick together like velcro. When it comes loose the limbs go on the attack. There appears to be something in or on the thorns that causes additional soreness for the next few days…especially joint pain. But there’s nothing else to do. You just have to sort of carve your way into the tree then start pulling it apart. Great fire wood though. And it’s good for bow making. And it’s a cut and come again tree so if I coppice it down to a stool I’ll have a new group of thorny sprouts the next year. That must have happened to this tree some years ago.
As I cut my way through I lay firewood-sized limbs aside for later and stack the rest for chipping. It is important to lay all the butts facing the same direction to make it easier on chipper day. I’ll just set up in front of the brush piles and tie into it. I should point out I rent a 6″ chipper but it can not chew through hedge larger than 1″. Hedge is tough stuff. When I say hedge you should read Osage Orange.
Beyond the trees there were a number of unwanted and unpleasant things growing in there. Bush honeysuckle is an invasive monster that’s hard to get rid of but poison ivy is the worst. Especially when it grows in a shrub form. Every time I cut one sawdust flies up into my face. Poison. Ivy. Sawdust.
So Julie and the kids showed up to help after 11. Julie stopped to gather eggs and check water. The oldest boy fed and checked the broilers. Then everybody helped move limbs into a neat row. We are maybe a fourth of the way down the row after three hours of work. That may be too generous. It’s obviously faster with 6 of us on the job. Well 4 of us. The youngest two mostly sat in the truck out of the cold wind.
We had lunch at Aunt Marian’s house. Every year for St. Patrick’s day she serves corned beef and cabbage. For some reason we are celebrating late. Delicious anyway. I asked her about the things in her house…who they came from. I was sitting in a chair that uncle French bought 120 years ago and eating from plates that belonged to my great-grandmother and the glasses were jelly jars that uncle Pete gave her.. I think that’s pretty cool.
After lunch the oldest boy and I worked on pruning Aunt Marian’s fruit trees. Aunt Marian and I have radically differing philosophies on pruning trees. In short, she is in her 90’s. She sells her heifers and buys cows because she needs calves now, not later. Similarly, she wants me to prune for apples this season, heck with next season. Same conversations every year. I remove suckers, shoots and dead limbs. Then I start carving out interfering branches and limbs and work to open up the tree. She corrects me saying she has never removed shoots and just wants the dead and interfering branches out. But she defines interfering as just the limbs that have actually grown together. I don’t wish to disobey her. I just want to do a good job. No pictures of the fruit trees. When I removed my poison ivy-covered clothes at lunch I left my phone on the dresser and Julie was inside.
Home again around 3:30 and it’s time for some chores. 6 more layers are out of the fence so I ask the boys to grab the scissors. Then it’s off to build cow pasture, feed a bale of grass hay, do a final egg collection. The oldest boy feeds and waters one last time, we all change and it’s off to church at 4:30. At church I run the video production system. Julie and our oldest run cameras. Pretty cool stuff.
Then a little grocery shopping, head home and chill while watching an episode of Tudor Monastery Farm then it’s off to bed.
That’s pretty much how a Saturday works around here. Normal livestock chores take a few minutes here and there and we try to make progress on some major projects inside or outside. We try to find a few minutes to goof off and look for opportunities to serve. Sundays work at a different pace with a different set of specific tasks and traditions. We clean the horse stalls and clean our toilet buckets. We also have our weekly family meeting and watch star trek. Weekdays we just try to keep up…and apparently go on dates. Who knew?
Years ago we established a family mission statement. A number of books we have read emphasized the need for this but The Thomas Jefferson Education got us to actually do it.
The Jordan Family Mission:
We work together as a team to steward God’s resources, create a welcoming home, share with others, encourage one another, learn and explore new ideas and pursue our God given purpose.
That should be seen as a work in progress. In fact, it is still in draft form and is revisited regularly. But what is included? Cows? Pigs? Money? Only as “God’s resources”. Money, that great bug-a-boo, is a means not an end. The end is learning and personal development. Enlightenment. We use money to buy books and to heat our home so we can read in comfort. It’s just a tool. The cows are a way of caring for the land and generating a little money (so we can be warm and can buy books). Cows are just a tool. A means not an end.
We don’t bother to name tools in the mission statement. We don’t specify plans either. The mission statement is the what, not the how.
I have this vision of what could be. A preferred future. I have written about it before so I’ll just go on. I have a plan to get there. 11 cows today. 5,000 cows tomorrow. Simple as that. Oh, along the way I’ll have to learn about sales, I’ll have to accumulate more land, time will pass, money will be lost, money will be made. Then I get old, they bury me in the family cemetery and succeeding generations continue to succeed. The Jordan family grows to eclipse the Rockefellers.
The cold, hard reality of the world can’t be planned for. My detailed, step-by-step agenda could include my great-grandchildren building long-range ships to ranch all of Mars. Will it happen? Is that important to the objective? Cows on Mars is not the objective. Honoring God, welcoming people and seeking personal growth is the objective.
So if the plan goes awry…well, we’ll survive. If we fail as farmers we are still a family. If we fail as a family the farm won’t be needed. What is important here?
What is important is that each of us see the big picture.
Since we have a farm we should try to do something with it. So we make plans. These plans don’t make or break our family. Julie plans to get rid of clutter on a weekly basis. Is that time wasted if the house burns to the ground or is carried away by a tornado? I don’t think so. The weekly exercise has forced her to change her thinking about our possessions. It has helped her to focus on the objective and certainly helps make a welcoming home. But the weekly exercise is not the goal. The welcoming home is the goal. By planning to clean a little more each week we inch closer toward our objective.
The focus is not on the plan. The focus is on the purpose.
The cows are part of the plan. The cows are not the purpose.
Cleaning the house is part of the plan. A clean house is not a purpose.
Money is part of the plan. Money is not the purpose.
Johnny Cash’s music is part of our family cultural heritage. Johnny Cash’s music is not our family purpose. (lol)
It is not always so easy to distinguish plans from objectives…especially when emotions come into play. But I think we are off to a flying start.
Now what?
Now we pray/hope/teach our kids to recognize the objective. We make a few plans. We turn the next generation loose and get out of the way. The most important thing I can do is to give control to the next generation as soon as possible. I am beginning to notice that I am not as fearless as I have been in the past. Maybe it’s time to move myself to an administrative position in our organization. I am reaching the point where I am no longer fit to lead the troops on the front lines. I have raised a generation of creative, intelligent, hard working children. Their intelligence and creativity exceeds my own (thank God). Our objective is personal development. The farm is the incubator for that development. It’s almost time for them to fly.
If I retain control the farm will stagnate. We’ll have cows. We’ll have chickens. We’ll have pigs. I’ll blog. I’ll write books. But what won’t I do? We will continue moving toward our purpose but the toolset will be limited. The kids may continue the livestock but add in Android applications, cookbooks, automated cattle fencing and a series of rental cabins on the farm. I can’t even imagine what they will come up with…and I’m excited to see it.
So rather than close them out, rather than force them to move on and seek funding for their own ideas, I would rather move into an advisory role. To offer them counsel and financial enhancement (but not dependence!). College? Sure, if you want. Seminary? Sure, if you want. Recording studio for a podcast? Sure, if you want. Come up with a plan. Show me how it fits into the overall purpose. Even if the plan fails, the purpose remains.
And my children know our purpose. We defined it together.
We work together as a team to steward God’s resources, create a welcoming home, share with others, encourage one another, learn and explore new ideas and pursue our God given purpose.
Kids, I’m here for you. I love the work we do together. I hope we can always work together. And I’m excited to see where you take it next. Whenever you are ready. We’ll fulfill our purpose together. And as soon as possible, pass it on to your children.
I took a vacation day yesterday to finish getting our chick brooder ready and cut some firewood for next year. I also took care of a few odds and ends around the farm. Finally, the thaw and rain have caused a little flooding so the cows had to be moved to higher ground. Thank God I still have stockpiled forages up high! I haven’t been writing much lately because that’s just how the days have been. I get up, I work. I finish working, I go to bed. I try to make time in there to just hang out with the kids which means I am not writing.
A friend at work asked me if I had fun on my vacation day. “Yup. I did. I cut a bunch of firewood! I’m really sore today too!”
She replied, “That doesn’t sound like fun.”
My inner weird showed up again in an email to a friend. I have convinced him that he needs a couple of pigs to boost fertility in his yard and garden and help cycle resources that otherwise go underutilized. I said, “If you haven’t met me, I’m all in favor of boiling something down to its essence. You might call it “oversimplificaiton”. Further, I don’t scare easily. And I’m willing to endure significant pain to get the desired result. Let me give you an example. I could save 70% of each paycheck if I just had a modest home in the suburbs. That money could be invested in any of several index funds. With all my free time, I could write books about homeschooling or family government. But instead I’m pouring all of my money and time into a farm, driving 3 hours/day and fighting to keep animals alive so I can kill them in the dream that farming will at least prove to be a wash financially.”
That’s a frightfully honest assessment of my situation. Maybe cynical…but still…not dishonest.
I wish I could write more. Lots of neat things are happening around the farm and I would love to show them to you. This morning there were small, green blades of grass behind where the cows have grazed! You should see the manure the cows put down in the pasture as we strip grazed through the snow! But then, there’s that inner weird again.
We have lived in the suburbs…within distance of pizza delivery. I have cut the grass and washed the car. That’s a sweet gig. I have chatted with neighbors over the fence and discussed our favorite sports teams and ribbed each other’s joking inadequacies. It was fun but I was bored. Unfulfilled. It was like I was waiting for something to happen. Try as I might, I couldn’t make it work. My inner weird was always lurking…ready to shock the world. “I was thinking of pulling out the burning bush and replacing them with blueberries. They would still be pretty but would also give us fruit.” Somehow (and I really don’t understand why) that was just the wrong thing to say. For reasons I still can’t fathom, food can’t come from people’s yards.
So here we are. Too busy to tell you about it. Still as weird as ever but with a 60 acre yard and lots of food.
When I was 16 I saw you for the first time. You were beautiful. But I didn’t see you on that first Valentines day. You weren’t my girlfriend. You were just some girl at church and school. Pretty, yes. But just another girl.
On Valentines day of 1995 you were much more to me. You were acceptance. Appreciation. Affirmation. My 18 year old eyes didn’t see you that way but that’s what you were. And I thought I loved you. I had no idea.
In 1997 we were married. I’m embarrassed to say I saw you as an object when we were first married. Certainly we were still friends and were supportive of each other but I didn’t see that. I just saw, and appreciated, your beauty. On Valentines day of 1998 I thought I loved you. I had no idea.
When I was 30 we renewed our vows. Events in our lives had drawn us very close together. I thought I loved you then. I had no idea.
Now it is 2014. I have seen you nearly every day for 20 years. (Kissed you nearly every day for 18 years.) What I see has changed over time. Not changed. Evolved. As has my understanding of the word “love”.
We have changed. Our relationship. We grew up together and have grown together. Our paths have merged more fully. When we were first married we were two people sharing some stuff and time. My concept of “closeness” had more to do with proximity than with emotions. I thought we had arrived! Woo Hoo!
I had no idea.
Valentines day is not just some made-up holiday to sell cards and chocolate. Valentines day gives me an official excuse to stand on a mountain and proclaim to the world that I love you. But I don’t have a mountain. I have a blog. (Thanks Ron Burgundy). I love you so much more than I did when I was 18. I have outgrown that love. I have outgrown the love I had for you when I was 30. I had no idea what love was. And now, as I stand at the edge of 38, I see more clearly what we are becoming.
Becoming.
I thought I had arrived when we swapped rings 16+ years ago. I thought we had arrived when we bought a house. I thought we arrived when we had kids 1, 2, 3 and 4. I thought we had arrived when we moved to the next house. Or the next house. Or the farm itself. We have not arrived.
We are still traveling. Together.
I wouldn’t trade you now for the “you” of 10 years ago. I need you as you are now. In another 10 years I’ll know you so much better. You will teach me more about what “love” means. I’m excited about how I’ll see you in 10 years. But I’ll wait.
I have no idea what is next. I know where we are aiming. We have written down our shared goals. I know what we are trying to do. But today we are here.
And I’m so happy to be here – right here – with you now.
Bad weather is on its way. They are calling for a mix of sleet and snow Friday, Saturday and again Tuesday. Temps should fall back into single digits again, wind chills deeply negative. There is quite a bit of work to do beforehand so I asked the kids to get the laundry done, firewood brought in, pine cones collected, the pigs and chickens bedded, and the house picked up. There is much more to do but the kids can handle those few chores. I left a list on the fridge this morning including a suggested timeline. Before 8, do this. Before noon, have these done. Before 5, be sure to have everything behind you.
I got some negative feedback from my oldest. Actually, my wife called me at work and asked me to talk to my son about his attitude.
So I talked to my son. I didn’t talk down to my son. I didn’t yell at my son. I didn’t even lecture my son. I said, “A storm is coming. If you guys can do those chores, I’ll have that much less to do when I get home after dark.” He felt foolish and agreed that the work just needed to be done and really wouldn’t take all that long.
But I am not finished. With him or with me. I’ll start with me.
I am significantly larger and stronger than my children. In fact, there have been several recreational wrestling matches pitting my four children and my wife against me (they try to get a toy out of my hands). I always win. I could easily force my children to submit to my will. But even if I couldn’t physically overpower them, I have absolute power over them. I could restrict their freedoms, remove favorite toys and prove to them in many ways, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am not only someone to be respected and feared, I am an enemy to be escaped from. That is not what I want to teach my children.
Let’s talk about my relationship with my wife for a moment. My wife is a sovereign partner in our marriage. She is a willing participant. She is not my slave. I have no ownership claim on her as she is not my property. Her body is her own, not mine. The success of our marriage is not the result of my command but the result of conscious, daily choices each of us make to respect the other. Julie has full authority to act without my permission but chooses to limit her actions in favor of partnership with me. For example, she could easily drive to the airport, hop on a plane for Jamaica and spend a week on the beach without us but she doesn’t. She could spend what little money we have but she doesn’t. She could, behind my back, sell all of our livestock or attract the attention of any man. But she doesn’t. And it’s not because she is afraid of me. We live on the farm, not because I said, “You are my wife!” and she said, “Goodbye city life!” but, instead, because we agreed to live here.
I have to teach this to my children. My children are not yet sovereign individuals but as they approach sovereignty I have to turn loose a little more. At age 3 it is enough to command. After around age 5 it becomes appropriate to reason…but not negotiate. To say, “We’re doing this because…” but not ask your children for permission to act. But then there will come a time when my children have full authority to act without my permission. I have to handle that transition correctly. They have to know they have the power and ability to either hurt or honor others as well as the freedom to make their own choices…and earn their own consequences. I want them to learn to express their freedom, not simply to exert power over others. So I work to avoid expressions of power. I try not to dominate. I try only to set the example and to show them love and respect.
I should have made a better presentation for my children this morning. I should not have simply written a list of things to do. I should have spelled out why each is important. I like wearing clean socks so we need all of the laundry clean in case the power goes off for the next two weeks (as has happened in the recent past). We need firewood stacked indoors in case the storm really packs a wallop and pine cones to help light fires (since we are out of stick bundles). The chickens and pigs need fresh bedding for their health and it is easier to add today than it will be when the sawdust is covered by snow and ice. If the laundry is all put away and the tables are cleaned off we’ll be more comfortable when we are all stuck indoors. I know these extra chores add a lot of time to your day but all of us will be better off for the next few days if we just pitch in and do it now.
So tonight when I get home I’ll sit with the family at the dinner table and review the day’s activities. I’ll pull up the weather forecast on the laptop and show them what is predicted to come our way. I’ll lay out the whole list of chores that have to be completed before bad weather hits tomorrow night (lay out cow pasture, haul, stack and cover hay, make sure coolers are clean in case power goes out, verify our pantry is sufficiently stocked, etc.). Then, after dinner, I’ll lay out the work I hope to accomplish tonight and in the morning and what they can do to help out. Maybe it won’t work. I don’t know. As a friend recently said to me, there are no “do-overs” in parenting. I think it is better to make a mistake while being respectful toward my children than to make a mistake being abusive.
In a prior life I did the main page Crossfit Workout of the Day (WOD) every day. I write about this from time to time. Speaking from experience, the main page Crossfit WOD is not for normal humans. All these years later the main page WOD has been accelerated to the point that it’s not even for exceptional humans. It is made for super-humans. Truly elite fitness. But 10 years ago I couldn’t wait to knock out the main page WOD and post my results. I should also add that Crossfit came along at just the right time in my life. If you think I write about Crossfit too much…well, please understand there is more going on here than just push-ups.
Let me summarize what I believe Crossfit is. Crossfit is for everyone. It calls itself the sport of fitness. In short, they put up a workout 3 days out of 4 to measure your own ability to perform work in time. (The fourth day was a rest day and there was usually some suggested discussion topic ranging from history to liberty to economics.) In a normal workout you might deadlift 300 pounds 21, 15 and 9 times. In between deadlifts you might have to do 9, 15 and 21 handstand push ups. Yeah. Handstand pushups. But it’s not enough to just pick up the weight and stand on your hands. The workouts are designed to be completed quickly. You wouldn’t think of lifting 300 pounds as a cardio workout…until you try to lift 300 pounds 21 times in 30 seconds. Total intensity followed by rest. You learn very quickly where your body is weak, where you want to quit and when you really need to quit. Crossfit is for everyone…but you probably need to scale it back for your fitness level, age and ability. Don’t believe me? Pick up a grandchild. That’s a deadlift. If you don’t do it correctly you will probably injure your back.
There was a time when my hands were covered in callouses from deadlifting, the pull-up bar and from gymnastics rings. I became monstrously strong in a short period of time. But as much as I admire the program and its benfits, I don’t crossfit anymore. I have a farm.
I reached a point in my Crossfit career where I wanted to do more than just the main page WOD. I would practice skills like juggling or tumbling. I cut a big oak log out of dad’s woods to carry on my shoulder as I walked through my neighborhood (true story…total dork!). I would use a rotary mower to mow the grass while wearing a weight vest…for time. Yeah.
But things are different with a farm. Now I walk/jog to the barn, grab a 60 pound bale of alfalfa, deadlift, power clean and rest the bale on my shoulder then walk a half mile over an obstacle course, up and down hills to feed the cows. And because I’m almost late for work I have to do this work for time. I have to make decisions about firewood. Should I make one trip up the hill with one big log or should I make 10 trips up the hill with firewood-sized chunks? And because I have 10 other things to do today this too is for time. I pull up fence posts, drive in new fence posts, string electric fence all for time. Then it’s back up the hill to the house in time to fill a wheelbarrow or two with wood to stack next to the wood stove before it starts sleeting (for time). I have to process 100 birds for time. Water the chickens for time.
Everything is for time. Crossfit measured my ability to perform a given amount of work in time. Farming is only a little different. Not only do I have to work hard, I have to get my work done or something might die! But Crossfit also emphasized the importance of rest and proper nutrition. (Clearly this had an effect on me. It’s why we started growing our own food!)
In one of my very first posts on this blog I referred to the action of the livestock working our soil as Crossfit for the farm. The cows, pigs and chickens create a varying and seasonal but intense pattern of disturbance and massively increased microbial action after which the land recovers, heals and becomes stronger than it was before. The varying workload involved in caring for the animals seasonally keeps me both fit and entertained. The hardest part is limiting sugar intake so I can recover more fully between workouts…I mean…chores.
Let me state clearly, I’m not for or against Crossfit. I promise you, the main page WOD is not for everyone. It is probably not for you. It’s for the athletic elite. But if you are planning to move to a farm to begin your adventures in agriculture, I strongly encourage you to consider your physical condition. Maybe find a program that not only builds strength but also builds endurance. ’cause you’re gonna need it. Also pay attention to your diet, rest and sleep cycles. The whole farming adventure can be stressful. Lack of sleep or proper nutrition only compounds the issue.
My kids ask me how I seemingly always win. Let’s be clear. I don’t always win. Munchkin is anybody’s game. But if you involve a sheep or a Mario or a Settler of Catan, I do pretty well. Or at least my kids think I do. Some of this is due to luck. Some of it is due to experience (30 years with Mario), but most of it is a recognition of strategy. I know where I’m trying to go before I begin. I figure out what I need to do. I’m prepared for bad dice rolls. The kids don’t stand a chance…yet.
Also included in the title is the notion that I feel that I’m ahead on points in life itself. That is not a joke. I have already won. I married Julie. Nanny-nanny boo-boo. Besides, I’m always harping about vision. Knowing where I am going…figuring out I need to do to get there. I am prepared in case of curve balls. You can see why these kinds of games appeal to me.
We are enjoying playing Agricola. When you first set up the game you will likely be intimidated by the apparent complexity of the board but it’s really not so bad. Here is a finished game played in family version. It takes up a lot of room.
Each round you send your people to work for you. They can gather clay, rock, lumber or reed. They can bake bread, fetch livestock, expand your family, sow crops…you get the idea. Any action you take this round prevents someone else from taking that same action this round. Additional resources pile up weather you take them or not so you might try to hold off taking that big pile of wood this turn because it will be even bigger next turn…if nobody else takes it. Whatever else happens, you have to have enough food available to feed your people at harvest time.
Then there are key strategies to employ to help you maximize your points. Keep in mind there are only 14 rounds and 6 harvests…and harvests come faster and faster as the game goes on. Stone houses are worth more than clay huts or wood houses. Grain is easy to sow and harvest but grain is only useful up to a certain point. There is zero return in points on your investment in plowing more than 5 fields. Fencing is cheap and will wait till later. More people helps you get more resources and more points…as long as you can feed them.
So…what comes first? Well. If you don’t plow fields, build stone houses or fence barns in you won’t get many points. But if you don’t eat, you’ll have to beg for food. And nobody wants that. It takes away 3 points at the end of the game.
I feel the early part of the game comes down to one key strategy: Create a flexible food generation machine. A fireplace allows you to make food from anything. If that is not available, build an oven and bake bread. Once you can feed your family, everything else falls into place.
OK, Chris. You like Agricola. That’s nice. How about we bring this back to the real world?
Agricola does not allow me to assign a specific one of my meeples to a specialized task but real life allows that additional complexity. Julie, the kids and I are not interchangeable. Any of us could get stone, clay or reed. No doubt. But we can do so much more! And each of us are different…different motivations…different desires…different strengths. How can I leverage these differences to give our family an advantage in the game for generations of players still to come?
The current strategy (still early in the game) is to build a revenue-generating engine. If we miss payments at the bank we lose points. We can’t afford to lose points. We don’t particularly want to make payments. So we have to work hard, right now to secure our financial future. All of us chip away at the same set of chores day after day…feed, water, gather eggs, haul firewood, cook, clean, fold. There is no assigned cook. There is no assigned dishwasher. There is no assigned egg gatherer.
But the time will come when our farm grows to the point where Julie and I will have to step back a bit. We will have to specialize. We may move from field work to administration, accounting or sales. The current strategy is focused on accumulation (knowledge, skill, resources). The later strategy will be utilization. Efficiency. The kids may take over portions of the farm to run as their own business units. One may keep pigs, one may be an auto mechanic, one may raise cut flowers. The current unification and generalization makes sense. The later diversification and specialization may make sense. But the strategy will evolve as the game continues.
The difference is that the kids, Julie and I play Agricola against each other. In real life, we are a team. A winning team.
But there are not awesome days too. Days when you forget to put the milk away and there is no chicken feed in your warehouse and that project you’ve been working on gets delayed and your spouse gets sick and the house is a mess and the cow like literally kicks your butt. Try not to smile as the cow’s tail hits your face (happened). Don’t inhale a bug when you laugh your way through the pasture (happened). Be polite to the internet company when they say it will take 4 days to fix their service (but you’ll be billed for the whole month). Even if you didn’t have the cows things would go wrong. That’s life.
Chism Heritage Farm 