Blackberries and Plums, and Thoughts on Mammon

A few days ago, the three younger boys joined me in a hunt for blackberries next door. Abraham had been stung by a nasty something on his forehead right before we left, and despite a baking soda plaster and the homeopathic Apis, he was in pain. (A second dose of Apis when we returned took care of the burn, and I heard no more whimpering.) The bushes we found were not loaded. There were a few, but overall it was a bit of a bust. There is one bush growing up into the metal building that is loaded. That gave us more in the one spot than all the rest we had hunted among the weeds and brambles.

The plums have been a rare treat. Most aren't bigger than a golf ball, and we pop a whole one in our mouth and rejoice in the natural sugar. We've almost finished all of them for the year. It's nothing for us to eat twenty at a sitting, so they haven't lasted long.

We moved the chicks outside.

They are about six weeks old now, and still extremely small. Broiler chickens would be approaching full size. These ones are about the size of grapefruits. Slow growers.

They are happy to be outside. Sadly, because of their petite stature, a few have escaped from the pen. And, doubly sad, they are not at all threatening to Bitsy and the puppies. We've had four confirmed dead. At best, we have 55 yet living. Unbelievable that, three years in, we're still ending up with loss rates of almost 50%.

Isaiah loves his ducks, though. He and Phil took the three and put them in the stock tank. They swam around happily, ducking their heads. Dandelion has not lost the funny tuft of feathers on the back of her head, and when she bobbed her head underwater, the feathers stood out like a bad case of static hair.

After about two weeks of dry, hot weather, the garlic is almost cured. I've started cleaning and clipping the best bulbs. There are not many, but I try to feel undaunted. I've been enjoying the small cloves of the garlic harvest in my cooking: three small heads gives a good amount of flavor for a stir fry.

We headed up to get minerals today, the long five hour drive. It was a good time of conversation about where do we go from here. With the enterprises we have going currently, it's hard for me to imagine we'll ever make money. So where does that leave us? In a construction trailer for the rest of our lives?

That wouldn't be the end of the world. We've had an interesting life the last three years in this trailer; three more years in here wouldn't kill us.

I might stew about a lack of free time to pursue "my own" interests (as if the bees and the apple grafts and reading great books to the boys, writing on the blog and photographing my world were not enough): how foolish. Everything I do has intention, and if I can't imagine having enough time to watch a movie or read a few books for fun, well, I should be thankful for such strong purpose.

It was striking to me this month: I have my bad days on the farm, especially days when there's an animal death or plant death. Overall, though, I think I manage a challenging life with thankfulness and perseverance.

But every time I pay the bills, I fall into a funk. If Phil says, "Are you okay?" I have only to say, "I just paid the bills" for him to understand that no, I'm grumpy and irritable.

How foolish, though. Our needs, and many of our wants, always have been graciously provided.

So enough with the money worries. We've been reading lately about how people can't serve both God and mammon. If I'm falling into a funk when I pay the bills, despite witnessing God's provision for the twelve years of married life, I'm clearly not trusting God. He provides. He leads.

May we continue to be good sheep, following his lead.