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.

Better Today

I've been enjoying William Zinsser's book On Writing Well lately. He quotes an author: "The reader has to feel that the writer is feeling good." And then adds, "Even if he isn't."

Ha! Clearly I don't follow that advice. Ahem.

I think my doldrums yesterday sparked several productive conversations today. We happened upon an article in our WoodMizer magazine on Timbergreen Forestry, a farm in Wisconsin. They take out their diseased and small trees on their 200 acres, and their land keeps growing more productive. One of their claims: "we put one person to work for every 50 trees cut in one year."

When I think about Phil, if we could make that work, that would be just about perfect. When he comes in from lumberjacking, he says, "I love lumberjacking!"

As I think about it, he says that about nothing else around the farm. Oh, he enjoyed laying block before he broke his finger. He likes our cows. But weeding, mowing, spraying, moving animals: he does it all with a good will. But he doesn't come in glowing.

It also felt productive to realize that I want him to be able to earn a particular amount a week. And, thus, we have an approximate income he should be aiming for per hour. If, with our cows, they won't produce that, either due to breed or forage quality or whatever, well, milk isn't a prudent product.

For some reason, I don't know that I'd thought of it that way before. Previously, I had wanted a certain dollar figure per year, but simply glommed on all the minor income streams and assumed it would all work out.

I think it makes sense to raise cows for beef, and maybe extra cow-calfs for other potential homesteads, plus milk for ourselves. And I would like to continue trying with chickens. At six months old or so, our Hollands have still not done anything productive, but we like them. And we like eating soy-free birds. It is worth it for us, if not financially, at least in quality.

Really, though, I spent some time on the trampoline with Joe and Abraham. It's impossible to jump in the sun with those two without laughing hysterically. We got our energy out, and fresh air in, sun on the skin, and happiness in our hearts.

Isaiah somehow accidentally jammed Phil's splinted finger this evening, and Phil again saw stars. It looks like broken fingers take about four weeks to heal. We'll have to come up with creative work opportunities for Phil.

Today the creative opportunity was to have Phil instruct Jadon on how to install a new truck alternator. Jadon did it, and the truck turned over.

That's pretty creative!

In the Right Place

The predicted rain did not come. Phil managed to get to the laundromat (where the machines ate $5 or so of quarters). He came home with a very tired finger.

I had turned some dried garlic into garlic powder: I took the dried chips and blended them, then put them through the mesh sieve and capped them in jars.

It was while I was pulsing the fine bits of garlic for the third time to make them even more fine that I realized something that should have been obvious for several years: I am struggling with the tyranny of efficiency.

No matter what I do, I am dissatisfied because it takes me longer than it takes a "big" farm. Though I liked the flavor of our potatoes last year, I disliked the physically demanding hand hilling: a "real" farm with equipment could hill it better, faster, and easier.

If I grow garlic, I hate making the beds because I know I'll have to do it again next year (pointless labor), and the weed seeds will take over. And maybe my stock is diseased, or my soil not fertile. And besides, "real" farms have specialized equipment to help the work go quickly and smoothly.

Even if we managed to cut our feed costs down so that chickens became a bit more financially viable, I would dislike raising them to sell because our processing is so inefficient. Joel Salatin can do it better, so let him!

Joel can raise pigs better, too.

I enjoyed grafting apple trees this last spring. But I can compare my 30% loss on bench grafting, and my dismal rate of "takes" on the bud grafting to the local nursery, nationally known, Edible Landscaping, where a former employee said, "I never knew a bud graft not to take."

Which makes me wonder what on earth I'm doing here?

And I wonder at Phil's lack of frustration over the process. As an engineer, he made a very nice wage. Now he has worked hard for almost three and a half years without a dollar to show for it. Anything we've raised, we've either sold at a loss or given away in failed marketing attempts.

I think I've finally reached a point where I'm sick of it. I'm angry that this is so hard. I'm angry that I feel like we have no direction. A year ago, we had our three-fold plan: fruit, limited vegetables, and dairying.

Now, our peach trees haven't done much. We think about expanding our apple planting. But blueberries require water, and our one-gallon-a-minute well is too little for that, even if our soil was good.

Limited vegetables: still haven't ever grown a decent cabbage, so I buy my kimchi and wish I could afford it daily. And my garlic complaints have been well-documented. Is there a hope for a living with kimchi and garlic? It seems dubious.

Dairying? I loved the idea. I loved raw milk back in Boulder. But we have become so unscheduled here, the idea now of even once a day milking, ten months of the year: it's like a shackle on our time. (Let alone the impossibility of finding customers: do people drink raw milk? I haven't met many.)

I commented to my mom recently that I felt like we were coming to the end of our undergraduate education: almost four years in, we were getting a handle on our life here.

But today I felt totally stymied. Worse than the beginning, because we've tried various things and they've all been found wanting.

I had gone to help Phil feed the cows in the midst of these furious thoughts. With his hurt hand, he needs a boost.

I walked back while he drove the tractor down the road, where he met our neighbors. Their car had broken down right outside our property, only perhaps a quarter mile from their driveway, and they needed some help.

Phil took the tractor over, and some time later I looked out the window to see what looked like the tractor pushing the car down the road. Why hadn't Phil simply jumped it with the van? Very odd.

It turned out that one of the rear tires had come all the way off. Not only that, all the bolts had either sheered or stripped, so there was no way to get the tire back on. Phil used the tractor forks to hoist the axel off the ground, and so, three-wheeled with the tractor acting as the fourth wheel, Phil helped limp the car to the driveway. No tow truck required.

In that moment, Phil was in the right place.

I don't know why we're stuck here in a place devoid of money-earning opportunities. I don't know why we haven't hit on exactly what suits us and this land.

But maybe I need to remember that, like the daily manna for the Israelites, we have provision for today. I bet they grew weary of not knowing where the cloud would lead them, or when they would have to move. Forty years of wandering in a small desert—I imagine they were sick of it.

But the wandering led to the Promised Land. God led them to the Promised Land. They had a destination, and they got there in the end.

I have heard that biblical patience is not the calm spirit that we generally think, but rather perseverance, holding fast until the end. In that sense, I can pray for patience.

The calm spirit kind wouldn't be unwelcome, either.

Healing

While we were grocery shopping yesterday, Phil accidentally jammed his fingers into Isaiah, including his taped finger. "I almost passed out from the pain," he said.

I suspected then that we wouldn't do much on the building today.

And we didn't.

Every time Phil takes homeopathic Arnica and Hypericum perforatum (also known as St. John's Wort), he feels incredibly sleepy afterwards. His body just needs a bit more time to heal. He had less throbbing today; tomorrow we hope for the forecasted rain. Maybe on Wednesday, he'll be ready to work outside again.

I attempted to make some more raised beds for garlic, but when I looked at the tens of thousands of hay seeds, I grew so discouraged. Maybe we need to just grow a cover crop to suppress weeds.

I've been experimenting with garlic powder. I first tried dehydrating full cloves, but that was ineffective: no visible change after 24 hours. So I have been peeling cloves while reading to the boys for the last month, and yesterday I cut up slices of garlic. It took forever. I finally broke down and bought a food processor. Even if I only use it for slicing garlic, I think it will be worth it. And maybe I can use it for sauerkraut, too, someday.

RICES for Joints

The weather, as predicted, turned colder, so though the sun was out, it was still in the 40s. We started off the day admiring yesterday's progress.

Phil experimented with the mortar: rather than a 1:3 cement:sand ratio, which is in the approved range, he tried a 1:2 cement:sand ratio. And oh, was he disappointed he hadn't tried that before! The mortar was "stickier," and he felt it was much easier to use. (For myself, tooling the joints seemed a good bit more challenging, so I am less of a fan. Except I do appreciate anything that helps Phil work better or faster.)

Phil has to build up the corners again. We had debated initially whether to build them all the way up or to do what we did in the end: build about halfway. I am so thankful we opted for the halfway. Because the wall is built up around the scaffolding, Phil has places to stand. The scaffolding itself doesn't seem quite so rickety: if there's a wiggle, the wall is right there to support us, rather than a 10' drop onto a concrete corner and protruding rebar.

I don't think Phil had to reset a single block as he built up the corner to the ninth block of 12 (counting only the 10" blocks, not the foundation or crawl space ones).

He was just about done with the mortar when our neighbor friend from yesterday stopped by to bring us a deer (already gutted! what a sweet thing!). We have a block and tackle, and Phil went to get it out of the woods. He had to jump to grab it, and somehow he tweaked a joint on his right hand. Once the deer was safely hung in the big blue barn (yay for the high ceiling, and how thankful to have cold weather!), Phil came for homeopathy. I went with him to do the last four blocks, and he was groaning with every one.

After lunch, I told him what I had learned about joint injuries: they need RICES: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation, and Support. We didn't Ice it, but he did run it under our water for some time: that's extremely cold at this time of year. He taped it to the next finger (Support and Compression). We cleaned up for the week, fed the cows (those lovely cows), and headed in to clean and bathe (my tasks) and Rest and Elevate the hand (his tasks). Somehow, that took up the evening.

In this, the fourth calendar week of laying block (in which, by my reckoning, Phil has actually placed block 14 days), Phil did a record 180 blocks, for a running total of 588. I guesstimate that's about a third of the total.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

What a great day today! It may be the last time this year with weather in the 60s, and we took advantage of it. Phil did a full bag of mortar, and built up a corner a bit: 55 blocks, and done as the sun went down.

Jadon made chocolate chip cookies, as he does regularly right now. Isaiah noticed I had dried some mint leaves, and he has been eager to try to make mint chocolate chip cookies ever since. Jadon let him have a half batch. They figured out how to cut the mint into pieces (clean out the coffee/herb grinder), and somehow came up with a quantity to add.

They were really good! Happiness for us all.

It was the second fun experiment in two days. I had frozen some small hibiscus calyxes, and made a "cranberry" sauce. Wow! It was perhaps a bit sweet for my taste, but I can't wait until next year to grow more hibiscus: I might make that "cranberry" sauce, with reduced sweetener, weekly.

And speaking of food, a fun party trick: hold your hand up and look at your left pinky. Is it below the top knuckle of your ring finger? According to a local chiropractor, 95% of people with that short pinky have a gluten intolerance.

I checked our family: the boys and I all have borderline pinkies that touch that knuckle, barely below or barely above. Phil's pinky, though, is significantly above that knuckle. (Phil has no wheat issues at all.)

And in other news, Phil and I were discussing our cows yesterday. Phil was looking at our grazing schedule, and realized that if we had had about five cows, we would have had sufficient forage to support them through the winter. Fourteen cows, though, is too much for the land.

And the shortage will perpetuate: if the land, increasing in fertility, could support ten cows next year, assuming we have a perfect birth rate, we could have 23 cows by the end of next year. We're looking at always having to buy hay.

We talked at length: what cows are the priority to keep? Which animals have the best body conformation? Which do we think will have the best production?

Of course, increasing grazing land would be another option. We have a few neighbors we could potentially ask, though that's not a priority at this moment.

So we felt extra blessed today when one of those neighbors stopped by. We chatted about hunting, and the wildlife he's seen up in his deer stand (besides deer, he's seen an enormous bear, a coyote, a bob cat). Suddenly, the neighbor said, "Are you looking for new grazing land? We should sit down and talk about that after hunting season ends!"

Isn't that marvelous!

Thanks Giving

The last month or so, I came to realize that I have needed a change. When I go out to plant or work in the fields, I constantly ask, “What am I doing here?” I am filled with hatred: for not knowing the right answer, for all the failures of the last three and a half years.

I take those failures and grimly think, “I’m still here. I endure.”

But it was the fragile endurance of a brittle bone, always ready to snap.

Last Saturday, I headed out to prepare beds to plant garlic. Phil, recovering still from his illness, came out and asked what I was doing. "Nothing. Fighting despair."

What was I doing? Finding dozens of roots in a few square feet of soil. Debating whether my time would best be spent earning money, reading to the boys, preparing beds for garlic. And then I would think about how important right intentions are, and I would think, "No plant is going to grow well in soil that I am actively hating."

I quit then.

What makes me angry? I came to this place, expecting the earth to accept me, to nourish and sustain me. I was excited to be with the earth, to live with my family in a productive natural environment. I expected to have to build soil, to plant and tend.

But it has felt at times like a malevolence pursues me here, turning my attempts to ashes; transforming my hope to despair. Why would we lose so many lambs? Why would only perhaps a tenth of the peppers sprout? Why would my first ever swarm have the queen die, so that I had no perspective? It's like all the mistakes possible happened to us at the first, and so, because we had no perspective on proper lambing, or swarming, or planting, we had no way to realize that what we were attempting wasn't working.

I hated it. It is all failure; everywhere I look at our efforts, I see the ugliness of man. Plastic. Wire. Debris. Nature itself remains beautiful and fascinating; it's just what I touch here that is not.

Last Sunday, I picked up a book I've had for several years, The Lost Language of Plants. The premise of the book is that people throughout time have known that plants have wisdom to impart, but that our modern culture not only doesn't believe, but thinks those who hear from plants are crazy.

(Whatever you think of the premise, and there are certainly things in the book I don't agree with, I'm not willing to discount this immediately. The Bible speaks of the trees of the field clapping their hands, and Jesus says that if the people did not glorify him, the stones would cry out. That's clearly not a declaration that stones think, but I think it leaves the possibility open.)

Reading somewhat at random, I came across an exercise in which you imagine yourself as a child, and have a little imaginary conversation and give your younger self a hug. I longed to do that, and so I did. I sat out under the trees, in the dark (with the hungry-for-attention dogs nudging me every few seconds). And as soon as I imagined little blonde, curly-haired Amy, I was overwhelmed with compassion, as little Amy was so sad. “Nothing I do is ever good enough.”

I sat and cried. Is that not still the way I feel at least weekly?

And yet, as a mom, I can see that Jadon, my mini-me, feels that way about himself sometimes. But what an amazing child he is. I have so much compassion for him: his failures are so tiny compared with his triumphs and abilities. Why can I not have compassion for myself?

In my imagination, as I hugged little Amy, I said, “Let’s be kinder to ourselves.”

I have heard that same comment repeatedly from friends over the years. I've written about it here. But I couldn't really grasp it until I could see it as both a parent and a child. What a load lifted.

That night, I went to bed and prayed for sweet dreams.

Within two minutes, I was plunged into my worst recurring nightmare, in which I am on a boat with my children and one falls off and drowns. It's a horrible dream, and I always wake, heart-pounding, horrified and sick.

But because I had just had that little interaction with my young self, I could suddenly see where that dream was coming from. The worst possible accident from parental oversight. Nothing I do is ever good enough, and maybe it will result in the death of my child.

I said, "God, I don't know how to deal with this! It's too heavy a load! Be with me in my fear!"

My heart rate immediately calmed, and I slept with sweet dreams, and woke cheerful in the new day.

I went and planted garlic that next day. Maybe only about 300 more cloves. But you know, each of those might be a gift someday. Maybe not. Maybe they will be shrunken and disappointing next May or June. But maybe not.

How wonderful to have no more hatred. To just be with the plants. With my family. To be present in this place. To worship God with a full heart. To ask for guidance. To expect wisdom.

To be thankful.

Chipping Away

Phil finished putting the tractor back together about 11pm last night. Four hours of work without mishap, and with the end result that the tractor works better than it has in weeks (months?). The night remained mild, and he suffered only a mild gash and scraped knuckles. It was like a hug. What project have we had that went perfectly smoothly? Such a gift.

We had hoped to finish a whole bag of mortar today, but since it still takes Phil almost four hours per half bag, and since it was almost 3pm before he was set to start the second half, we opted to send him off to replenish propane before the holiday, as well as get more appropriate gloves, a pointing tool for mortar joints, and a few other minor errands.

Really, if he had had 35 easy blocks left to lay, we probably would have tried to carry on, and hope for the best in the propane department, but because he had only 20 easy ones before he has to build up corners, and corners in the dark and cold sounded exceptionally un-fun, I think we chose well, even if 35 blocks seems like minor progress for a beautiful day.

As Phil built today, he passed my height. With the camera at eye level, the wall was just a bit shorter than me at the start of the day. But Phil built up two levels more at that spot.

The window is coming along. Yesterday we poured grout into the bond beam.

Today Phil started to build up the side. You can see the half-block, then the smooth-edged regular block. We are thankful the concrete people don't make us chisel off the normal, jutting edge, but make smooth-edged blocks for windows.

In totally other news, my bees were flying today, and I realized, with some guilt, that I have basically abandoned them since early September. I really didn't want a fiery fall sting, so I prepared extra well, even putting on a second pair of nitrile gloves backwards, so the backs of my hands would be covered. (Almost every sting this year has come on the back of my hands, where the gloves do not protect well.) I realize that such invincibility perhaps gave me an unfair advantage, but I was grateful to relax as I opened the hives for the first time in months.

I put a mouse guard on my oldest hive, but I could not make the guards fit on the other two hives. I'll be interested to see if that makes a difference. I wonder if it's not usually so cold to make the bees entirely hibernate.

I needed to take the feeder trays off two hives. I had considered leaving them on as a layer of insulation, but on the whole, I think it's better to take them off: less space for the bees to heat.

The Daffodil hive had probably about 50% of the upper deep filled with honey (hopefully the bottom was entirely full, but I didn't check: they had put propolis on the cracks to seal it tight for winter, and how mean to break that bond now). The Damaris hive was much better: it appeared entirely full on the upper deep, and had the most activity at the front entrance.

My oldest hive, the Celadon hive, had almost no activity at the front entrance. But when I pulled off the cover, the bees bubbled up from the inner cover. I figured that if there were that many bees hanging out up top, they were probably going to be just fine.

Abraham prays almost every day that God will protect the queen bees through the winter and that we will have "a lot of honey next year" (along with much milk, and many berries). I have had a good deal of guilt for neglecting the bees all fall, but I feel hopeful now: they appear hearty for surviving the winter.

I do hope his prayer is answered.

Tuesday's Fun

Phil and I headed out to lay block in the morning. In his first half batch of mortar, he laid 36 blocks, which finished a level on the long side and started another level.

After lunch, we needed to do some grout, but both batches ended up stuck to the back of the mixer. When that happens, it's a painful half hour of gradual scraping the back of the mixer to loosen the compacted sand and peastone, covered with concrete: it's horrible. And three of the last four batches we've done have had that same problem. Argh!

The extra hour we spent trying to scrape the back of the mixer meant that it was 4pm by the time we were ready to mix up another half batch of mortar. I had been watching the sun, thinking it was probably too late, and when I stopped Phil and said, "It's a bit after 4pm: do you really want to start another batch?" he opted not to. Too bad: to have the will and the strength to carry on, but lack the daylight!

He did put down the metal mesh that will offer stability after the fourth row of blocks, though: he is ready to go for the morrow.

Or at least, so we thought. He was driving the tractor up to the barn and parked it for a bit to fetch something. As he approached the tractor he realized that the slow drip the hydraulic line has had for some time had suddenly become a steady stream.

Without a tractor, construction pretty much stops. So Phil is up in the barn (how thankful we are for the barn!) now, hoping to get the tractor ready for the morning.

Monday's Progress

Phil was ready to go Monday morning. He began drilling holes in the lowest level of 10" blocks, and inserting anchor bolts.

These will, somehow, be part of the structural wood floor. The anchor bolts are large pieces of metal with a curved end inside the concrete block.

Then it was time to grout the cells. I could not believe how sore my forearms were! Lifting buckets of sand and peastone was agony. I have no idea why: I would have thought four days off would have left me less sore, not more.

The process wasn't as bad as I had feared. Phil would mix up a batch and drive into our enclosure. He'd pour off grout into our two black tubs. We'd carry them over to the scaffolding. From there, I used a metal feed scoop to put the grout into each cell, while Phil used rebar to pound it carefully around each anchor bolt.

I had originally expected that one batch would be sufficient. But the corners took in grout and took it in, until we finished three batches. We debated whether to do a fourth batch, but didn't feel confident we had quite enough space to finish it.

And so Phil transitioned to laying block. He has reached a level of proficiency (and, for the moment, corners high enough) that it is simply fun. He ended up working a while after dark, but finished around 6pm or so. (We watch the days getting shorter. Two weeks ago it wouldn't get dark until after 5; now the sun sets before.)

Some of the blocks he had to cut in a unique way: we didn't receive 10" knock-out bond beams, so he had to cleverly cut the regular block in order to knock out parts of it. Two of the blocks broke, but I was actually impressed it wasn't more.

At the end of day, he had laid 33 blocks more: eight to finish the long side, plus two more rows finished on the short side.

Hunting Season Begins

Phil was sick for the last three days. He finally turned the corner on Saturday afternoon, when he was able to sit up again.

Late Saturday night, I got an email about the proper homeopathic remedy for flu from exhaustion: Gelsemium. Too bad I didn't get the email on Wednesday: the other remedies I tried weren't quite right.

It's hunting season here now, as of yesterday. Phil has taken three shots at bucks on the land, but apparently his scope isn't quite right (and shooting downhill is different than shooting on the level): no hits yet. Plenty of trucks up and down the road, though.

As disappointing as it might be that we haven't made progress on the building, and as sad I am that Phil hasn't felt well, it was a great relief to me. I planted the rest of the osage oranges along the fence line; I finally managed to clean and vacuum (which I had done weekly all year until about a week or two ago): the cleaner space is welcome to us all.

And the little bit of extra space has given me a chance to think about what I want the next year to be like. I haven't had the mental space to even think about that. No real conclusions, but it's wonderful to be able even to think about such things.

Sixty-Six and Sick

On Wednesday, the weather warmed at about 11am, so Phil got started. He mixed up a second half batch at maybe 3:30, and was bringing down a few loads of concrete blocks when he knocked over the scaffolding. Next time, we'll move them out of the way.

Thankfully, no damage was done.

Phil's batch of mortar didn't end until long after dark. At the end of the day, since he had to simply put blocks down between the walls, he had done 66 blocks. Very visible progress.

But Wednesday morning, we both felt a bit ill. Tired eyes, draggy, a bit dizzy, sore throat. It wasn't horrible (obviously, as we were able to work all day), but it was definitely an off day.

I went to bed with the boys and slept for ten hours. And woke up only to sleep again. By 1pm, I no longer felt like the only thing I desired in the world was a warm blanket and a pillow.

Phil, though, has continued to sleep. He got up at one point and everything went black: he didn't quite pass out, but that was a new experience for him.

The boys haven't minded an indoor day. We cleaned up a good bit, and have continued through the Ramona Quimby series. I read most (all?) of the Ramona books as a girl, but don't think I've read them in order. It's been quite fun to share them with the boys.

Some Days Are Like That

I partially woke in the middle of the night enough to notice that Phil was not in bed. In the morning, I asked if he had been up until 4am, and he said, "Something like that. But I finished my book!"

He had been reading Jane Austen's awesome Annotated Pride and Prejudice. He mentioned little insights throughout the day: the annotations make the book even more stellar, more understandable, than the basic text.

If his one vice is to stay up most of the night once every half decade or so reading classics, I'm okay with that.

But we did get off to a later start than the last few days. (The overhead sun, making shadows of the back corners, tells the tale.)

It was just as well. The .3" of rain had made our little road and ramp impassable. I was impressed that Phil attempted to get down with the tractor: he didn't get stuck, quite, but it was a close call.

First thing to do, then: spread a layer of peastone to ensure safe(r) travels.

He then mixed up a half batch of mortar and started to do the third corner.

But it was as if the mortar was bewitched: everything went wrong. Apparently, a few pieces of peastone got scooped up with the sand (my fault for trying to scoop close to the gravel pile). The little pebbles were too small to see, perhaps the size of a raisin, but a single bit in a joint makes it impossible to compress the joint to make it level. After a few times, Phil started to watch more carefully for anomalies, and did find a few large gravel chunks.

Then, his arms were more tired today. In order to make sure he didn't just drop the heavy blocks into place and smush the joint into oblivion, he would hold it a bit longer: just long enough for the mortar to fall off. This happened over and over again.

He had one corner block that he worked on for literally 45 minutes. (I did many dishes and fed all the boys lunch, and he was still wrestling with that single blasted block.)

The next block was one that I had cut to go around rebar. He was lifting it out of place for about the fifth time when the block simply broke in two. It was tired of being set down and picked up and decided to refuse to do so again.

He had two other blocks break on him while working. The mortar was either too wet or too dry, but no matter how he adjusted it, it wouldn't work better. That corner's foundation happened to be a bit higher than the other three, so even trying to determine with the story pole whether the joints were correct or not was difficult.

In four hours, he set 21 blocks. At that point, he was totally demoralized (and out of mortar, which would be, I suppose, demortarized), and so he was done. I had been watching a few of his attempts, and I would have called it quits, too.

What is the line at the end of the (rather nasty) children's book about the boy who has the bad day? Some days are like that, even in Australia.

Playground in the Boonies

Before laying any block today, Phil and the boys put up the new scaffolding. Happily, it stacks, so we now have a double-high place to work. Phil climbed up first and stayed low: "This is really high."

The rule is, if anyone is on the top, no one else can be on at all. (Except if Phil and I are working together.) The boys all took a turn going up: Joe didn't go all the way (I was just as glad), and I spotted Abraham, who did well. Isaiah loved to climb to the top just because he liked the risk, and Jadon went up a few times to help. It's our personal climbing wall!

Abraham came up with an idea for a teeter-totter. Phil helped him put the pieces together. Then he and Joe had a great time for a little while. (I wouldn't really recommend this entertainment device: one child lost part of a fingernail, and another child got a foot-long shallow scratch down the leg, and very torn shorts. But for a little while, this was quite the popular amusement.)

Phil worked on the southwest corner today. The forecast called for rain in the evening, and as the rainclouds moved overhead, we were hoping we wouldn't get soaked.

Well, Phil did finish 42 more blocks (six half-highs initially, 28 blocks to finish the corner, then eight more full-sized at the end to finish off the mortar ("Oh, it goes so much faster when it's not a corner!"). I pulled plastic over today's work, as lime-based mortar should not get wet for 24 hours after being put down. And then the rains came!

Phil needed my help a bit less today. Jadon became his Johnny-on-the-spot, even carrying a block from the sand pile all the way down to the work space. It probably weighs more than half his weight!

He made us cookies, changed the lecture, charged batteries, found tools, even tried his hand at mortar. After the light began to fail, he snapped a picture of Phil and I in action: Phil had climbed up to the top of the scaffold and fitted the block over the rebar. I grabbed it before it hit the mortar, then Phil climbed down as fast as he could and fitted it in place. (His yellow sleeve is just visible behind the corner.) I'm watching to see if the joint will settle too much.

When not assisting, I started to make garlic beds for next year. I made two 3' wide beds, about 10' long, with 3' of walk space in between. I've tried 1' aisles the last few years, but I've read about the benefits of lots of space to move, so I'm going to try that. I'm not hurting for space, so I might as well try something new. I got about 300 bulbs in the ground; hundreds more to go.

Sunday Thoughts

A few random bits that haven't fit in well elsewhere.

The welded plates on the back of the tractor bucket make an amazing difference in switching implements. Phil can bring down something on a pallet, then switch to the bucket to carry buckets of sand and mortar, then switch back to move a pallet of block. It takes a few seconds. What an awesome bit of fabricated metal.

Phil had tried to fill the propane canisters a few days back. He and all the boys showered. For some reason, one of my sons takes half hour (or so) showers. It's a family joke. By the time he had finished, I was deep into some task or other, and by the time it was done, I was too tired to go shower.

Phil woke up, groggy, this morning to ask if I wanted him to run to town. We had run out of propane, and to cook or bathe with warm water, I would need propane. I opted to let him sleep. And so I taught Sunday school, somewhat covered in grey concrete dust, hair pulled back severely to hide the grease. But, as I suspected, Phil turned over and went back to sleep. An hour more rest for him seemed like a good exchange.

We love our eight-seater Toyota Sienna. After church, we picked up up two more scaffolds. The last one shipped to us, so we hadn't really reckoned on how large it would be. We shuffled the boys so they were two in front, two in back; pulled out one chair and stuck it in the back, and the scaffolds fit. (Before we made it home, we also picked up a new propane canister, and many groceries: it felt a bit like a clown car, the amount we stuffed in there!)

I tried to take cute brother photos when we got home from church. It was late enough, though, that the places I hoped would work well had the worst possible lighting.





***

I've been thinking about Snowman's death. As I wrote to a friend, in some ways, even in the sadness, there was still blessing. He died when it was dry enough to actually dig a hole (if it had been more wet, we would have had to leave him in the barn, which is yucky). He died on a day when we didn't have much going on, so it wasn't a matter of trying to balance construction with funeral, or building with crying. And I'm thankful he died before the real hay feeding started, which reduced our financial hit.

And it's helpful, having had sad losses on a semi-regular basis since we moved here, to realize that it's not weakness or inability to farm that makes me cry. It's a right response to a sad situation, a right response to living in a fallen world. It's helpful to say, "I can grieve about this, but it won't break me. I can be thankful he was here, and sad that he's not here now, and wish I can do more but not regret that I didn't." Maybe that's perspective I'm gaining. It's not as emotional a loss as some of the earlier ones. I didn't end the day feeling shattered, just tired and drained.

***

Maybe I have written this on the blog already: I've searched back through August and haven't found a mention of it. I have written to friends and talked about the metal building so often, though, I want a record of it here, too.

The metal building was like a microcosm of the farm, or of my life (I hope). We had the metal building here for over a year: an attempted excavation; a bad concrete pour before we were ready. Workers who wouldn't come. Extra funds for concrete that took time to earn. Nothing happened.

All last winter, Phil was sawing boards (and chipping branches). That was building the building, but I couldn't see it. It felt wasted to me. When the excavation for the foundation happened, and Phil built the formwork with the logs he had sawed, he was building the building, though the lined trench didn't show above the ground.

Even pouring concrete: that four hours was dramatic and exciting, but there was not much to show above the ground. Four hours was a fraction of the time spent filling in the hole for the foundation. But both were needed.

Actually building the structure felt like incredible progress, and it took less time, I would expect, than cutting down boards to form the foundation.

How faithless of me, though, through the winter and spring, to feel like nothing was happening. It was happening. It all needed to happen for the building to be done.

Right now, I hope, this farm is in the foundation stage. We've had messes; we've had sorrows. But when, someday, we have income from our fulfilling work, that will be the finished building. Now, maybe, we're still "sawing the boards." It's not pointless; it's not wasted, even as those form boards, now used twice. It's just early, and the full "structure" isn't up yet.

Maybe the foundation isn't even finished being poured. That's okay. I'm not known for patience; maybe that's what I'm learning now.

Saturday's Labors

We knew the weather would be good on Saturday, so as soon as it hit 40 (sometime before 8am!), Phil headed out to get things ready for the day. We could still see our breath at first, but by the time we were ready to actually mix mortar, the sun was shining and the air too warm for jackets.

Before we got started, the half-highs were not finished.

Phil did 32 of those quickly, plus one more knock-out block to finish the half mortar batch. One block on each corner needs about 2" trimmed off, but from the outside, that joint is elegant looking.

Phil was pleased that once the corners were set, the middle gets done so much more quickly. He found a rhythm.

We poured another batch of grout along the south wall: all we can do until the ramp is done.

Then, after some discussion, Phil started started to build a corner six blocks high. I had first suggested doing just two levels, then building between (it would pump up the daily total). But that destroys the rhythm: get in the groove, then break to shoot elevations, wrestle with the size of the joint. One of the joints on the corner kept squishing too flat. We had to lay that block four or five times: set, take up, thicken the mortar; set, take up, add more mortar; set, take up, and so on.

The corner has a funny shaped block, which requires no trimming or cutting but offers a smooth edge on the outside.

The lowest level had seven total blocks (a corner with three on either side); the second level had six. It was like magic. The third level had five. And so on. Each level stepped back a half block on either side.

The 27 blocks in that corner took four hours to put in place.

Only about two or three courses above the half-level, Phil started to use the scaffolding. That clued me in that one set of scaffold won't be sufficient.

At the end of the day, the scaffold was roughly at the height of the future floor.

We could stand on the scaffold and look out the "window" (between the rebar) to see the little stand of autumn trees.

Besides general support person (stand on the top of the scaffolding and fit a corner block over the top to hand down to Phil; tool the joints; bring blocks and snacks), my other task was to cut out the blocks. The half highs were easy; the full-sized took longer. And the poor angle grinder that I'm using runs through the batteries rapidly: I can do about twenty before the battery dies.

I also stack 20 blocks per pallet, ten cut and ten whole. The tractor moves those into the work site.

The last shipment of blocks didn't come on pallets (which was fine: $14/pallet adds up quickly). The stacks aren't terribly stable on our uneven slope, so I can see that it will be a bit of a challenge to get them stacked without a tumble.

At one point, I was unloading and had a start: apparently a snake appreciated the rough edge of the blocks and used it to shed his skin. I didn't want to touch it to remove it, so I repeatedly gave myself the heebie-jeebies: a glance out of the corner of my eye every now and then always surprised me.

Phil gave the three olders boys a job at the end of day: take trowels and knock off the little dollops of mortar that fell onto the ledges. The especially tricky bits needed the chisel and little sledgehammer.

Jadon had played so nicely with Joe, with the little brother laughing hysterically at the older brother's antics. When Jadon had to start working, Joe came to watch.

At the end of the day, Phil had laid 60 blocks, bringing the weekly total to 121; the full number to 279.

It's impressive to me to look back at the photo even from 24 hours before to see the progress!