2012: A Year in Review

Phil, Isaiah, and I looked at the retrospectives from the last three years this morning. What changes have come to Spring Forth this year?

The unedited view of our farm, from a point just below the blue barn, standing on the driveway.



In animals: I killed my worms. In bovines, we had two calves born. One calf died and so did our bull, so we hold at 14 cows, no meat. We sold all sheep. Phil misses them. Our duck pets were killed, as were the three baby ducklings new to the farm. In chickens, we lost all but but rogue white Leghorn, and 73 Hollands chicks and births. The other 27 birds are in the freezer, and we should probably compost their feathers one of these days. We plan to do birds again next year.

The guinea survived another year. His little wheetles have become a farm constant, as he is now the oldest survivor on our farm, dating to the first October we lived here. Happy third birthday to him.

Our single beloved Tiger cat was replaced by lousy mouser but pretty and unannoying Cadbury.

And good mouser but incredibly annoying Mr. Bigglesworth. We have learned to exit and enter the motor home rapidly in order to keep the cat out. When he gets inside, we've learned to wrap him in a towel to get him out without scratches. I like that he growls when we feed him a mouse.

Bitsy gave birth to nine puppies in February, sadly adding nine unwanted dogs to the over-saturated puppy rolls. (We're sufficiently embarrassed.) We kept Shadow, Phil's friendly companion. That was the largest non-food livestock expense this year: to fix two girls was almost as much as buying a new calf. But the peace of mind that comes with no more unwanted offspring: maybe not priceless, but cause for thanksgiving.

The bees were the best livestock success this year: we tripled our hives! They are hibernating now. I hope to add supers early this coming year in order to actually get some honey. I think I would rather have honey than more hives—new swarms would require buying new hives, and I think I'd rather see a return on investment before I put more money into them.

In major projects, Phil finished the big barn. Almost not a day goes by that Phil doesn't rejoice. Instead of needing hay bales delivered a couple of times a week, we can get hay delivered once or twice a month, which is less stress, and much nicer for our supplier, too.

The last few days, Phil has been assembling a work space for himself. What a relief for him. Maybe our equipment will last longer, too, being under shelter.

And the driveway is cleaned off now, except for one batch of fencing logs. When those are either installed or put in the barn, we'll have an open driveway! So much better than the construction zone we had for a year and more.

Phil also put in cross-fencing on the neighbor's land. That was a bigger project than he expected, but it is nice to have much less to manage when moving the cows.

And we've started (and temporarily stalled) on the underground storage structure. Phil goes back to the doctor in a few days: I'm guessing even these three weeks of rest won't prove enough, as he still gasps when people tap it. He can touch his palm again, but not straighten it up all the way.

As for growing, there was nothing dramatic like 400 trees or 10,000 daffodil bulbs. But in retrospect, I did a good number of things, mostly on the cheap.

Bit by the permaculture bug, I ordered tree seeds and started what I could. My homemade potting soil mix did not offer great success: next year I'll buy potting soil, and not fiddle with making my own. (Penny-wise, pound foolish. The vegetables I started did almost nothing.) But I had 24 or so pawpaws come up, about 40 jujubes come up, six mulberries grow several feet high.

Three little pineapple guavas.

And I had about 35 osage orange seeds sprout, root, and get transplanted along the edge of the property. More fruits are fermenting now: next year, I'll be sure to catch them earlier, before they root through the bottom of my tree pots.

I ordered ten elderberries, full of hope. I had four die in my poor potting soil, but the other six survived. I hope to multiply them next year. I love elderberry syrup!

I ordered 200 blueberries. They haven't thrived, but most of them have stayed alive.

I planted 100 comfrey plants in the orchard. Twenty died, but I replaced them and extended the planting. I'm hoping to extend this next year, to have more dynamic accumulators in the orchard.

I planted the 600 comfrey bits in the greenhouse, then began filling in the spaces that didn't take. I didn't quite finish before the year ended, but I am so pleased to have that bit of good growth, multiplying and making new plants for next year.

The blackberries next to the comfrey were a disaster. Well, they grew beautifully, but they didn't set fruit, and the weeds took them over. I've decided I don't like blackberries in my greenhouse. (I plan to pull them this coming year, and grow vegetables for us. When we had the failed market garden, I got out of the habit of buying vegetables, and I look back now and realize how much I've missed the range of colors and tastes of vegetables.)

The peaches, transplanted to contour, had a rough year. One or two are beautiful, full of buds.

Strong in trunk, tall in stature, waiting for the coming of spring.

More, perhaps, were chewed by cows (or chickens), knocked about and broken. Are the peaches really happy here? Perhaps we'll pull them and put in more apples. We're talking.

We harvested some delicious plums, and a bushel or so of tasty apples. The apple trees themselves grew. I can't touch the tops of them all now.

We pruned in the spring, and I think the shapes look more properly "apple."

The understory, in some rows, is a lush orchard grass.

The trunks of the trees nearest the road are astonishingly fat.

The trunks down slope remain slender.

My moon bed was, in many ways, a disappointment. I had hoped for an orderly flower and herb garden. I did have flowers and herbs, but mostly I had weeds and more weeds. Better success next year.

I grafted 360 trees: 270 bench grafts, and 90 bud grafts. Of the bud grafts I've checked, I don't think any took. But I have probably about 200 little trees. That was the most intensive weeding I did this year. I'm not a big fan of weeding. Maybe a deep mulch would be better....

Twenty-two of those went to our former stone fruit orchard. Finally planted in a fertile circle, with a good layer of peastone at the base to keep back weeds, and a ring of daffodils and comfrey at the outer edge, we look forward to some startling growth from the apples. The cover crop, too, planted maybe six weeks late, sprouted. It's not up very high, but I'm thankful it's up.

From our window, we see a bit of green on the tips of the trees. Is it mid-winter growth?

We had the cows up in the future garlic patch, and Phil tilled for me. But I didn't plant the entire area to garlic. And without a cover crop growing, that was a waste of soil fertility. Ah, well, if you knew it all beforehand....

Phil looks back on the year with a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of progress and hope for the future. The pastures he manages improved this year. The fourteen cows that didn't die are in better condition than last year (and we hope for a good calf crop in the next couple of months).

For me, I don't know why I don't look back on the year with more joy. Writing it all down, it doesn't seem like a bad year: we learned more, and tried more. I've appreciated, this December, a chance to read, to become inspired again, to get some inspiration about what went wrong, to remember what went right.

And maybe it's okay that not every year feels like a triumph. Maybe it's enough to say God stretched me this year. And sometimes stretching hurts.

Friendly Christmas

What a delightful week we've spent. On Christmas Eve, the boys woke, jittery, so I made them do school. "Most children in America do not have to do school on Christmas Eve," said Jadon. True, but most children in America don't get to play outside through gorgeous weather in October.

Christmas Eve marked our 12.5 year anniversary. A gentle snow fell for a bit in the morning, just enough to whiten the grass, before a gentle rain fell for the rest of the day. Jadon and Abraham made an enormous batch of chocolate-chip cookies, and Abraham watched while I made fudge.

A friend from church hosted a party, and the boys couldn't wait to attend: as an adult open-house, I had promised them they could watch a movie in a room by themselves, a great treat indeed. The boys' cookies were well received.

From there, most of the party headed to another friends house for a low-key Christmas Eve service with carols by guitar and the Christmas story. Here, too, the boys were excited: these friends took one of our puppies, and we were happy to see Tess. (She was happy to see us, too.) During months of Bible study, the boys enjoyed playing with the play kitchen, and they happily stayed downstairs for hours.

Jadon was wired when we reached home, and I wondered, as midnight came and went, if he would wake everyone up to open stockings.

The stockings were hung by the window with care, and it took me over an hour just to stuff them with 20-odd little things, plus one or two highly-anticipated things, almost all from Phil's mother.

The boys had joked about rising at 7, or 5, or 4, or 12:30am! Happily, they weren't quite that eager. Abraham woke first, calling out, "Merry Christmas, Mommy." Which then woke Joe. "Merry Christmas, Joe." That woke Jadon. "Merry Christmas, Jadon."

I was so excited to open presents, that when Phil suggested we all go back to sleep, I suggested we wake Isaiah. That was not easy—he's a good sleeper!—but finally all were awake and ready.

The great thing about stocking stuffers is that they take a while to open, and then they take the rest of the day to actually use and enjoy. While we ate our way through three boxes of gluten-free muffins, a special treat, along with leftover cookies (and fudge), the boys put together their little Lego sets, set up the Spiderman figurines in various configurations, "talked" with their long-anticipated beanie babies, and played new board games.

Then we headed to our long-time friends' house, to share Christmas evening with the friends who enticed us to Virginia to begin with.

I had another open house to enjoy on Wednesday, while Phil stayed with the boys. It rained heavily almost all day, so at last the plants have sufficient water. Thankfully Phil was able to open the next paddock for the cows to graze: the rain made tractor travel too treacherous.

What a very friendly Christmas season this has been.

The Wise Men and Herod

How many times have I read the Christmas story? How many sermons have I heard? But as I was preparing my Sunday school lesson this morning, a verse jumped out at me that I'd never seen before.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts therof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.

In my mind, the wise men and Herod have been a nasty, but cut-and-dried part of the Christmas story. The wise men leave Herod, and they worship, then Joseph takes Jesus and Mary to Egypt, and then Herod, some time later, remembers that the Wise Men haven't returned, and so comes and kills the babies in Bethlehem. As I understand it, Bethlehem was a small town, maybe a few dozen baby boys killed then. Awful, but not heart-pounding.

Today, though, I realized that's probably a naive reading. Herod the Great was insane—he murdered his beloved wife, and many other relatives, to keep the throne. He wouldn't have waved good-bye to the magi and forgotten about them! He would have sent spies to trail them.

And guess what? A star that guides to the house would have been visible to the spy, too. Even if he somehow hadn't managed to keep sight of the entourage of foreigners bearing expensive gifts.

The internet gives the distance from Bethlehem to Jerusalem as a little less than five miles. As a child of eight, I could run six miles in an hour. An athletic man could cover that distance in less time, certainly; trained assassins, fully armed would probably take an hour, even if they had to stop and ask for directions.

The wise men sleep at some point after they worship, and are warned to return a different way. Did they get up in the night and leave? When they pointed their camel's noses away from Jerusalem, is that when the spy headed to Herod, to tell him that he would have no first-hand report from the magi?

While evil intrigue begins to work in Jerusalem, Joseph, warned in a dream, takes his family, buys passage for a trip to Egypt with the recently-given wealth.

And then Herod comes. He "slew all the children." Male and female. But maybe he had wind of the night escape. Perhaps the spy was there, saying, "This was the house! They were right here!" But the occupants had fled.

And so, in a rage, the killing spread "to all the coasts thereof." As I read that, the killing followed Jesus and his family as they escaped.

How terribly important for Joseph to take "the young child and his mother by night," to leave immediately, not to wait for morning. Immediate obedience on the part of the earthly father kept Jesus alive.

I look at this story in awe of how the pieces work together: wise men, possibly told by Daniel 400 years before to watch for the star that would tell of the birth of the King of the Jews. The people who know that the Messiah would come to Bethlehem in the land of Judah, and the census that sends Mary there for the birth. The wise men who bring gifts to pay for the flight to Egypt, which fulfills the prophecy both that "out of Egypt have I called my son," and, horribly, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."

I don't know what to do with this story. It terrifies me. I want Jesus to be in danger enough that the prophecies are fulfilled, but not actually at risk of his life. I want gentle fulfillment, not ferocious pursuit that ends horribly for those the angel didn't come to warn.

Chainsaw Troubles

In order to use our composting toilet, we need wood chips to compost into. And we are getting low. Phil's finger is growing stronger, so he headed down yesterday to chip, only to find that the chainsaw wouldn't start.

In dismantling it to determine the problem, a fuel line (or some such) broke, so he took it in for servicing.

Now it could be that the gas to run it had gone bad. Apparently gas has a shelf life. Perhaps the issue was that he didn't use it for a time, and that gummed up the motor. I've been thinking of late about how rarely we know what the last time is. When Phil used the chainsaw last, I doubt he thought, "This is the last time I'll use this in 2012."

More poignantly, I doubt I will ever pick up my sons again during singing at church. After ten years of holding a son through at least part of service, my son-holding days are done.

Now I get hugs around the waist, or the neck. I was up the driveway yesterday, and Isaiah ran up and gave me a hug, followed closely by Joe. Isaiah held on, and Joe held on, and then Joe said, "I'm hugging everyone! You and Isaiah both!"

How many more times will I have a little boy run to give me a hug?

It's easy to note the first times: first smile, first tooth, first step, first book. The lasts, though ... that's a rare thing to note.

***

While he's healing, Phil has been rereading one of his perennial favorite series, The Ralph Moody Collection. When he read the first, Little Britches, he was reminded of how many things young Ralph did. Not always successfully (like the time he broke nine toes at once), but the boy was with the man. Phil's been thinking how to include the boys more in the tasks around the farm. I don't know that they will be enthusiastic about that, but that is a part of this life that I hoped for, and I think it will be good to come to pass.

***

Phil, eternal optimist, laughed a bit at my list of books in-which-I-don't-measure-up. "Amy, we're not really farmers yet. We're pioneers. Every one of those people had a house to begin with. Maybe not a nice house; maybe a house that needed work. But the basic infrastructure was in place. And most of them already had at least some skills!"

Oh, right! If you've watched your dad use a chainsaw from your youth, you probably know about basic chainsaw maintenance, for example. But if you start a venture without infrastructure or skills, it'll take some time to get both in place.

We really are doing pretty well, given that.

Why Is Nature So Stressful?

I was reminded today of a book I read five years ago or so, Last Child in the Woods. I remember little about it other than the premise that children today don't get much outdoor experience, and we should give it to them.

This was one of the prompts that eventually led to us living here.

"Going out to be in nature is so restful, so centering, so clarifying." I read something like this today; I've heard it said elsewhere.

So why, when I go outside, am I angry and stressed?

It bothered me to realize this. I have had walks to the back of the property that left me feeling hopeless and furious. And yet, just thinking about it, I love the property. I like the streams and the slopes. I like the large hardwoods. (Maybe not the pines so much.)

I started to think about other books, other visions. Before we moved, I imagined a life of self-sufficiency, like John Seymour. A life of reasonable financial success, like Joel Salatin. A life with a beautiful balance between rest, serving the community, and personal learning and fulfillment like Scott and Helen Nearing. (Though that one I was willing to be patient for: they had no children and, obviously, didn't homeschool.) A life of nature walks with the boys, like Charlotte Mason. A life of community blessing, like the Celtic Christians; a life where we sat under our own fig tree.

But that isn't what has happened yet. Without even our own eggs, I feel less self-sufficient now than in Boulder. (But it could be coming soon: perhaps soon we'll have our own beef, our own milk. Next spring our own vegetables. It could be.) The reasonable financial success: I hack away at the root of bitterness that keeps trying to take root about this, and tell myself that it will all work out in the end. But who wants a bitter root springing up? Bah!

Our life is balanced in that we are surviving, paying our bills, and occasionally seeing our friends. But it's not a lovely split like the Nearings. Unlike them, I would not currently write a book about our life called The Good Life. (The Refining Life, perhaps.) Nature walks with the boys? We could all learn together, I suppose, but it can be a challenge to identify a tree by its bark alone in the winter, or try to find the leaves 30 feet overhead in summer. We don't do nature walks, let alone nature journals.

Did I mention the fig tree isn't doing very well?

No wonder nature is not restful for me! Just going outside reminds me of all the things we've tried that haven't measured up. The forest reminds me of all the thinning that needs to happen that hasn't yet.

I'm not downhearted about this. This isn't meant to be depressing. It's more a realization: of course I've been tired and discouraged! My dreams of four years ago have not come to pass. But that's freeing, too: what of that vision should be scrapped, and what renewed?

I have hope that nature will one day again be restful and renewing, and that I can go to the woods and feel blessed and not stressed.

Reading Days

Phil met a friend for breakfast last Wednesday. The rest of the week he was incapacitated with a migraine. Was it MSG in the sausage? Or some additive in the bread? Hard to know. It's not as if he had pressing work to accomplish outside, as he continues to wait for his finger to heal, but I do hate those migraines!

In the meantime, I had a good time: Christmas party on Friday night, Christmas coffee with ladies from church on Saturday; reading to the boys, reading to myself.

But none of that makes for terribly interesting blogging.

Happy 12/12/12!

The boys and I counted the seconds to 12:12:12pm on 12/12/12. We did a happy dance for a little bit, rejoicing in our silliness and togetherness.

I have been getting some overdue reading done. Phil has been researching lumbermilling. He's found helpful information online about laying out roads and managing logs with forks.

He's kept his finger taped since his exam yesterday. The doctor's gentle probing increased his pain: he said that his finger felt every step he took as he walked down to water the cows.

And a moment of bizarreness: I was sitting in my chair reading last night when I saw a mouse dash under the dresser. I have no idea where it came from. A bit later, it dashed next to me and under the dresser again. Perhaps it was disoriented. I tried to keep my feet off the ground.

I went to bed hoping that no little mouse feet would run across my face in the night. That would be too disgusting.

Joe mumbled this morning, "Mom, there's something on me." He couldn't tell, in his just woken state if it was an animal. I pulled him aside and found

the string of our sleeping bag "comforter." He has probably touched it nightly for months. How funny that he would suddenly wake, wondering about the mysterious thing on him, a bit like a mouse tail.

Eww!

Phil's Finger

The day for Phil's appointment for his finger finally arrived. It had felt better after ten days, but hasn't improved much since then.

Phil asked yesterday if we were going with him to the appointment. "When it first happened, I thought about someone touching it, and the idea of a doctor poking and tugging made me think I would pass out. What if I pass out at the doctor's tomorrow? But, no, that probably won't happen. It feels so much better now than it did at first."

The idea of keeping four energetic boys entertained in the waiting room for some hour or so didn't sound overly appealing, so we stayed home.

Phil and the doctor were sitting in chairs, talking about his injury. The doctor, trained specially in sports medicine, touched various places on the finger. Phil said it felt like a bruise or a pinch: it hurt, but it didn't hurt.

Then, suddenly, he said, "I'm going to pass out now."

And the doctor said, "Oh! Put your knees up! Put your head down!" But they were sitting on chairs, and how do you bring your knees up on a little chair? How do you lean back when sitting against the wall?

Phil didn't pass out then, or at all. He stopped to get an uncharacteristic candy bar on the way home, and arrived safely.

The good news is that he doesn't need surgery. He has strained the ligaments around the second joint of his right hand ring finger.

The doctor said that it was good that he had buddy-taped it, with ring finger and middle finger splinted together. Except he had it splinted like that for two days; the doctor said they recommend three weeks.

Hmm.

Even that mild probing must have been traumatic. Phil slept for over three hours after he told me about his appointment.

We've never had a situation where Phil is entirely unable to work for over a month.

Financially, it doesn't make much of a difference (thankfully). But emotionally: he wants to work! To have building and lumber-jacking ready, and no ability to accomplish them (or anything else involving hand movements)—it's a frustrating place to be.

The Lost Language of Plants

Today I finished reading my fun book of the last few weeks, The Lost Language of Plants.

I enjoyed much of it. Some of what I enjoyed most.

• The world does not generally operate in an evolutionary, "survival of the fittest" way. Rather, it operates on a "support and mutual benefit" way. Author Stephen Harrod Buhner offers many examples, such as pollinators (can you think of anything as mutually beneficial as a honeybee pollinating an apple tree?), or an insect that will eat the seeds of a plant, but never eat them all.
• The view of the earth, whether evolutionary/survivalist or mutual benefit, will affect how you live. If you want survival at all costs, it does not matter if you grow GMO crops or use antibiotics at every illness, even for growing animals larger, faster. But if you want mutual benefit, you look to the plants and nature for medicine.
• Various animals use plants as medicine. One scientist tracked a pregnant elephant and noted the regular diet. Then the elephant went miles away to eat an entire tree, at which point she easily birthed her baby. The local women use the same tree for the same purpose.
• Plant genetics are fluid. They change based on what is happening around them.
  Today, with the human genome mapped almost a decade ago, this should not be a surprise. We know that humans have about 20,000 genes, about 1/5 the total originally expected, based on the number of gene expressions in the body. The body changes according to what is happening around it. (One of the reasons breast milk is better than formula: the woman's body changes milk based on the immediate needs of the baby.)
  Buhner's book came out before the human genome project completed.
• Plants can communicate with humans. Be open to it.
• In the end, plants will, presumably, end up being the medicines we need, perfectly suited to us.

I read Buhner's first edition Herbal Antibiotics years ago. On the few occasions my sons have seemed to have a sore ear, I mix up the olive oil with garlic, drip some in the ear, and put them to bed with that. I've never needed a second dose.

Rest Days

Friday morning, Phil said, "I wonder if I should go to the hospital. I checked yesterday, and my range of motion is reduced. I can't straighten my finger, and I can't bend it to my palm."

Well, he hasn't gone yet.

His dilemma has been whether to work when it feels okay, and then stop at some point after it starts to throb. But, really, that's not exactly "rest," even though anything less than full tilt seems like restless rest.

If a typical joint recovery takes two to six weeks, and he's not yet actually begun to rest, we might be here a while.

I try not to be frustrated. He tries not to be frustrated. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we don't.

On Friday, he took the older two boys out to make a wooden window frame. In retrospect, it would have been better to have it finished before building up the window: the edge ended up needing some slight shaving. Then, when he went to hoist it into place, it somehow overshot. Thankfully, it didn't fall to the ground outside the structure, but I had to stand under the heavy thing and hold it upright, an uncomfortable position even when not supporting a hundred-pound window frame.

Thankfully Isaiah was there and raised the tractor bucket so Phil could stand in it and raise him to the proper level.

And then it was in place, and we were done for the day.

On Saturday, Phil commissioned the boys to help him clean up the driveway. Only a few wooden posts, and all the driveway will be ready for mowing. I am excited to see how it will look without a row of construction and farm debris and homeless leftovers.

This season offers little visual delight. Red-brown soil, beige grass, gray skies, leafless tree trunks with a few ugly pines: there is little cheery color. Even my comfrey is wilted and done for the season.

I admire my stalwart stinging nettle, though, when I go out to dump compost. Still fresh and green, like a bit of spring tucked away.

More Planting

After Phil worked on a little project outdoors in the morning, we were both dragging. I hadn't done much but sit in the heated indoors, and I would have been content to go on sitting the rest of the day. But Phil suggested we plant trees: maybe not the whole other row, but just some of them, and we could quit if we got too tired.

And it would only take 10 more to finish the slope.

We finished those ten. Phil's finger continues to throb, so Joe would put down the outriggers on the backhoe, Phil would dig, then hold the tree. I would shovel compost, sprinkle kelp, place daffodil bulbs and comfrey cuttings (till we ran out). Then Phil would use the backhoe to push the soil back in. That required only a bit of shoveling at the end. Which was good, because I am sore!

But that was a good day. These robust holes please Phil. Hopefully they will please the trees, too.

Finally, in a completely unrelated comment: I didn't wake up today feeling so tired I just wanted to go back to bed. I had skipped taking cod liver oil two nights ago, and it shocks me what a difference that makes. Besides my grumpy attitude yesterday, I felt bone weary.

Last night I took a double dose (a teaspoon) of fermented cod liver oil, and I woke up feeling alive, rather than like death warmed over.

My mom takes it, too, and she said that if she skips a day, she can feel it within hours: her joints ache, and then she remembers to take it.

We prefer this to some synthetic vitamin D produced in a lab. Not only is it natural, it's combined perfectly with vitamin A, which helps the body absorb both properly.

I'm cheap, and I order the liquid and line the boys up and give them a dose, too. We like the orange flavor the best, though cinnamon isn't bad (it is strong). Also available in capsules, though those, understandably, cost a bit more per dose.

It is winter, and as I understand it, the sun at its zenith is not high enough in most of the United States to produce vitamin D. If you're feeling extra tired, or a bit run down, you might try cod liver oil.

"It's Been a Great Year!"

Based on my previous post, you can guess that I didn't say the words in the title.

I sat in the office a bit ago, crying. This has been such a hard year! Snowman died, and earlier, Denise the calf. Our well-loved cat Tiger vanished. We lost our laying hens. We lost 75 chicks to predation before we butchered the unproductive last 25. One of my swarms never established. We lost Isaiah's beloved ducks!

Add to that, the continued disappointment of the not-growing raspberries and the unproductive (though readily rooting) blackberries, the continued wait for the apple trees to produce (the boys ate through about $50 worth of apples in two days: we are all ready for trees to bear), the entire lack of milk for the last 18 months, the utterly disappointing garlic harvest ... I make these depressing lists in my head. See! It was a hard year!

Well, yes. Sort of. But no, Phil said. It's been a great year. We spent time with the boys. We didn't spend half the year frantically pursuing a market garden that didn't pan out. The grazing plan is working, as the pastures improve. Yes, the loss of bull and calf was sad, but the overall vigor and health of our herd is radically different than it was twelve months ago.

Our apple trees are larger! Two-thirds of the grafts took, though I watered them not once (developed for drought tolerance and survival in Lykosh clay soil: they are making it). Our daffodils bloomed. We have comfrey! We have three bee hives now, not just one. We know what we're doing as we plant fruit trees. We have an idea of what to do on the 40 wooded acres.

We finished the metal building, that sat on our ground for 18 months. We have storage for our tractor, so it's not "rusting into the James [River]." We started another building.

"That's a lot of forward progress. So when you planted trees and felt so discouraged, I just couldn't relate. It's been a great year."

Overall, I'd say his argument is stronger than mine. I'm glad that it is.

Mr. Fix-It

"Ohh," groaned Jadon on waking. He sounded like he was having a nightmare. When asked if he was okay, he said, "Daddy's finger is finally better and it's raining!"

Yes, it was sprinkling. Phil had gotten up early to put a pipe in a feeder creek to create a bridge, but the rain deterred him. Our tractor tires don't work well in wet soil.

The rain, though welcome, hardly registered in the rain gauge, so after breakfast, we headed out. Because the backhoe was still on the tractor, Phil and I decided to begin our day with tree planting.

While yesterday's planting felt like smiles and hope, today's planting felt hopeless to me. I knew it was ridiculous: Phil would look at a finished tree, with its beautiful ring of peastone to keep the weeds away, and a thrill would wash over him.

I would look at the same tree and see the weeds that will grow around it, and calculate the years it will be until the 3' tree is old enough to bear, and so on.

How do I begin to hope for beauty and productivity when we have yet to see it? How could I persevere for the last several years, but feel so defeated now? Too many disappointed hopes?

I'm discouraged, and it's discouraging to feel like a discouragement to Phil. Not a good way to overcome discouragement.

While we planted, I thought about fear. I don't usually think of myself as fearful: anger, perhaps, is my emotional fault. But I was fearful as I placed a tree in the soil. It might die. It might take a decade to produce.

I've never really related to Old Testament Joshua. He helped Moses, and when Moses died, he took over. God told him multiple times to be "strong and courageous." I confess I scoffed a bit: God had moved in power so many times, why did Joshua need so much reassurance.

Ah. It's because he was dealing with faithless folk. He had a challenging task before him. He had seen multiple miracles, but they were spread over decades; it's easy to forget the wonder in the day-to-day plodding.

I get it now. "Be strong and courageous." If I hear that every day for a while, I think it will not feel repetitious.

By our twelfth tree, the last tree in the row and the last tree for the day, I was rolling up the tape measure when the tractor stopped. "I just killed the internet," said Phil. We were digging near the trench with electrical and water lines. We knew well where the line of the trench was, but had forgotten that the internet line was on top of the ground, and cut a different angle.

Now the line was cut in two.

I would have called our internet provider. We've had a repairman out before. But last time the repairman came, Phil watched his technique. The repairman needed to replace the line last time, but then used a splice technique. Phil drove to Scottsville, then Charlottesville, to get the needed repair tools and pieces, but fixed the internet cable in a short time once he returned home.

Hence, you are able to read about Mr. Fix-It.

Blocks Again

Perhaps the finding of the downed oaks provided sufficient inspiration; perhaps the Hypericum perforatum and Arnica montana homeopathy healed Phil's finger extra fast; perhaps both.

With the return of gorgeous weather in the 70s, Phil returned to block laying. I was impressed: he managed a full 20 corner blocks in a few hours, and until about the last four, his finger was fine. Then it was tired, and so he finished for the day.

A bit later, I remembered the hundreds of daffodils I dug up this spring, intending to plant with apple trees this fall. The apple planting has seemed little more than a pipe dream, and so I thought I would just bury the bulbs in the greenhouse, as most have white tips poking out. They need soil.

Last week, I had considered planting, and even went so far as to check spacing and such. But it was too much last week. Hooray for improved mental health! I went and talked to Phil.

Phil went up, put the newly repaired backhoe on the tractor, and we headed out to plant.

For the first time since we moved, we have everything the book recommends: large holes, compost and kelp to go in the hole, daffodils to surround the hole, comfrey bits to plant just outside the daffodils, and peastone to cover a two-foot diameter space around the trunk of the trees.

It was delicious to plant today. Phil dug a hole at 14' spacing on the swales we made last year (how much we've learned in four years!). I placed the tree. We tossed on kelp and well-aged compost, placed daffodils and comfrey around the edge, then backfilled. How much easier to place a ring of daffodils around the tree with the earth already opened! No more bulb planter! And a thorough ring around the outside not a limited twelve. After all, if I'm just going to place bulbs in the greenhouse, I'd rather place extras around the trees.

In digging the holes, we dug up some of the daffodils we planted last year (we had left spaces for peaches at 10', so we were offset). We could not believe the lushness of the growth! What had been golfball sized bulbs last year now came up as groups of bulbs, with long white roots, in clumps the size of baseballs. How gratifying.

The next two days are more ideal tree planting days, the last ones this calendar year. I'm excited to plant some more.

Fallen Oak

Every year since 2007, we've walked to the back of the property in early fall. But this year we were busy building, and we skipped that walk.

In retrospect, what a blessing.

With Phil's recovering finger, we've talked about the next stages of building. Once the block is done, then comes roofing and flooring, and then framing. While we have no capacity to create concrete blocks on the farm, we could potentially saw lumber for joists and such: it's just a matter of time.

And since time always feels in short supply, I was leaning towards purchasing lumber.

As we look ahead to the various expenses we might yet incur, though, the option to saw our own lumber started to look more appealing.

Then I looked at flooring, too. I had it in my mind, vaguely, that I'd heard some ad on the radio for wood flooring that starts at $2.99/foot. But when I went to look at actual prices, I realized it was more like $5/foot for the board, and then up to another $10 for installation. That starts to be real money!

How to avoid a five figure expense?

If we think that Phil would like to lumberjack for a living (which, the more I think about it, the more I like it), we would need to put in a solar kiln to dry the wood below the ambient air humidity. I think wood here naturally goes to about 12% humidity, which is fine for wood framing, but to put in a floor, the wood needs to be at 6%. Two or three weeks in a solar kiln gets it that dry, and by all accounts the wood turns out better via the solar method than an industrial method.

All of this information was knocking around in my mind. It's like planning a family vacation or doing Sudoku: which piece fits where and when?

Yesterday, while I folded laundry for a few hours, Phil hiked to the back of the property for the first time in many months.

He came back, shocked. At least ten large oaks had fallen, probably from our tremendous wind storm in June. They didn't snap off: they fell over from the roots up.

This is partially preserving them: they aren't flat on the ground, but rest, like an open umbrella, with their round root ball now vertical and their crown on the ground. The bulk of the tree is suspended, safe for a short time more from decay.

Getting the oaks out and turning them to lumber just became a high priority. When he went back today, he counted 16 downed oaks, the smallest diameter 18", the largest 30". Because this property has been logged in the past, there are access roads that would require minimal clearing to get to these behemoths.

I have asked God (as, perhaps, have you) to show me what will grow here. How can we earn a living from this ground?

When we had exhausted what felt like every other possible solution from dairying to market gardening, from bees to pigs, Phil broke his finger. That freed up his time to research a forester who is making his forest pay. It freed up my mental space to look at what we're doing to see how well it's working (or not). And it released me from the pressure to hurry, hurry, hurry on the building. It will finish in God's time.

If Phil needs a week or two to rest his finger, we're thankful it's not an eye or a heart. If we need a month or two to skid lumber and saw it, that may be a better return on time than anything else we've done thus far.

If we had walked in early fall, I would have been furious to see those downed trees. "Here is yet another thing to keep us from building! Here is more waste! Nothing ever goes right! Argh!"

But to find them at the very time we were just starting to think about the feasibility of sawyering (perhaps along with fruit trees, bees, and beef) ... that feels like direction.

And I'd prefer direction to fury any day.

For me, it's another Thanksgiving.

Christmas Preparations

Phil has kept himself busy. As the weather has cooled, the heater we have this year has not proven quite adequate for keeping our little trailer warm. In order to potentially run a second heater, Phil put in another circuit to the panel so we wouldn't pop the breaker. We haven't needed two heaters yet, but it's a comfort to know that if we do, we'll be ready.

He then put a suspended light in the barn so he will be able to work in evenings.

Also, we got our Timber Green Forestry DVDs. Phil spent a full day watching the entire set, trying to learn as much as possible about how to earn a living on always more healthy forests. We've talked a lot.

The boys and I have had a good time doing Christmas things. I don't often do much for Christmas. But we started chocolate advent calendars from Grandma. I read a classic from my childhood, which was also a classic from my dad's childhood, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. A favorite author of mine, Linda Sue Park, has a gorgeous picture book The Third Gift. And today we finished rereading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, my personal favorite. I love how the boys laugh out loud, and how the end brings me to tears.

The three older boys are doing a Jesse tree, as we plan to review the Old Testament stories looking toward Jesus as the sprout growing out of the stump of Jesse (from Isaiah 11:1-2). I really extended myself and put up three unique construction paper trees.

The older boys have been extending themselves in coloring their little pictures. Isaiah set the bar high, adding detail and overlaying pencil colors.

Jadon, to help relieve Abraham's pressure to measure up to his older brother, created a creatively colored version. "We're all different, and we don't need to be the same," he was subtly communicating.

And Abraham put his chin up, took his time and meticulously colored in his medallion.

A final Christmas joy: I've taught Sunday school this last semester. Today, the coordinator had an amazing craft for us: advent calendars made from paper plates, torn construction paper, and tea candles, stuck on with elmer's glue and glue sticks.

This was a good bit more ambitious than my normal coloring page. And my ten students were already more antsy than they had been in months. But instead of my normal one helper, I had an unprecedented three! Three weren't even scheduled! I mentioned to one how amazing that was, and she said, "That must be the Lord's provision." And it was really true. Even writing ten names in Sharpie on the bottom of ten plates would have been more than I could have managed.

Today we lit the first candle at home: two millennia ago, the hope of the Jews, waiting for their Messiah; hope of us, waiting for the return of Christ.

Chickens in the Freezer

Phil's injured finger gave us a great opportunity to process chickens, which we've considered doing for some time. At 26 weeks, a good month and a half after the hens should have started laying, we decided it was time.

We processed a hen first, to see if the egg-laying parts were developing. If they were, we were happy to leave the remaining hens and a sole rooster alive. After all, we didn't move to the country to eat store-bought eggs!

There was no development of eggs whatsoever.

So we butchered the roosters, and we butchered the hens. Phil did the actual killing, Jadon scalded, and Isaiah plucked and delivered to me. (Finally smart, I set up my eviscerating center in the motor home, where I had heat, hot running water, and music. Brilliant!)

Not a single hen had more than a collection of eggs the size of a pea (her tiny ovary).

What went wrong? Why are we facing another year without eggs?

Looking back, we had Rhode Island Reds laying last May. We introduced a group of Barred Rocks and White Leghorns from the same hatchery at that time. Immediately all egg production stopped. The Leghorns eventually began laying, but when we processed birds last fall, we killed all the others: the Reds had never resumed laying, and the Rocks never started.

We figured the Rocks introduced something to the Reds. Too bad, but that happens.

This year, we ordered Holland chicks from a different hatchery. But to have them also succumb to the same complete infertility—we wonder now if the Leghorns were carriers for some virus: they weren't affected, but they affect all others.

It's disappointing enough to bring tears to my eyes. Phil bleached the various parts of the hen hut and the brooder. But if the Leghorns were the issue, they were there all the time.

And if it is a virus, is it now on our land? Are we destined to pump hundreds of dollars into birds that will never lay, in the vain hope of having home-grown eggs? Eggs are the low-lying fruit, the easy starter for urbanites and neophyte farmers alike.

To have failed two years running, despite top quality feed, rotational grazing, all the sun Virginia offers ... as I said, it brings tears to my eyes.

On the positive side, I can, in some ways, be thankful that 3/4 of the original flock died through predation and accidents months ago. If we had 100 birds that we'd paid to keep for over half a year without eggs, that would have been a blow even more bitter. (The carcass size was not worth six months of feed.)

And I'm thankful we didn't wait longer to process.