No.830: Last Week at the Farmhouse // The Work of our Hands

*“Farmhouse Exterior with Chickens” by Hans Andersen Brendekilde*

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It was a big, big week on the farm – the preparation and execution of our first broiler processing of the year! Spread over two days, this was the culmination of twelve weeks of focused tending. We worked hard, invited friends to help/learn the process and enjoyed the sweet satisfaction of a job well done. I can never adequately express how farming has changed my life for the better, but this section from Wendell Berry’s essay, “A Defense of the Family Farm” shares a glimpse:

…By the dismemberment of work, by the degradation of our minds as workers, we are denied our highest calling, for, as Gill says, “every man is called to give love to the work of his hands. Every man is called to be an artist.” The small family farm is one of the last places – they are getting rarer every day – where men and women (and girls and boys, too) can answer that call to be an artist, to learn to give love to the work of their hands. It is one of the last places where the maker – and some farmers still do talk about “making the crops” – is responsible, from start to finish, for the thing made. This certainly is a spiritual value, but it is not for that reason an impractical or uneconomic one. In fact, from the exercise of this responsibility, this giving of love to the work of the hands, the farmer, the farm, the consumer, and the nation all stand to gain in the most practical ways: They gain the means of life, the goodness of food, both natural and cultural. The proper answer to the spiritual calling becomes, in turn, the proper fulfillment of physical need. (p.166-167)

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ cutting up old greeting cards. I’ve been on a decluttering spree this month and I finally tackled my pile of cards. I keep everything sent to me…and it’s getting a little unruly at this point, ha! Anyway, I kept a few of my favorites (especially from my deceased grandmothers) but got rid of a ton. I also cut down the fronts of some to make tags for gifts and/or reselling thank you notes.

+ a blooming peace lily! I got this plant as a free gift from Fast Growing Trees years ago and have narrowly killed it multiple times. This is the first time she’s bloomed and I’m so excited.

+ selling 25 unneeded items for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: fifteen books, four pieces of clothing, four cloth napkins, a DVD, and a piece of curriculum. After shipping and fees, I made $101.27!

Reading //

this quote from my Abraham Lincoln biography, With Malice Toward None:

Yes, Lincoln warned, the spirit of the mob was abroad in the land; and once murderous passions were unleashed, mobs were apt to terrorize the entire country, burning innocent and guilty alike, until all the walls erected to defend the people were obliterated. When that happened, when “the vicious portion of the population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last.” (p.47)

Mob thinking/mob rule/mob violence came up on more than occasion in my reading this week! The more history I read, the more I see how human nature is the same throughout the ages.

Toward a Politics of Beauty from John de Graaf at Front Porch Republic
On the Texture of Things Past from Daxxton McGee at Circe Institute // “If the world is pretty, it tells man something about the world and his place in it; it confers a hopeful and reverent tone and demands that he do well to guard against decay, disorder, or pure industrialized pragmatism. However, if the world is ugly, it tells a man that he ought not even notice; he ought not bother to care; there’s nothing worth saving anyway.”
Making the Long Haul, like a Tree from John Cuddeback at Life Craft
Towards an Economy of Love from Patrick M. Fleming at Humanum // A review of Wendell Berry’s Home Economics. (I finally finished!)

New Additions to The List //

The focus seemed to be different ways of looking at war this week.