No.909: Last Week at the Farmhouse // Taking a Break

*“Farm Women at Work” by Georges Seurat (1882-1883)*

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When our boar, Fred, died last fall, it felt like failure. My big plans to scale our pork business, keeping a steady production going with two sows, disintegrated in my hands in one miserable week. I was devastated to lose a beloved animal but I also mourned the loss of what I thought I was meant to do. The aftermath was disorienting and confusing.

But God works all things for good. What I thought was disaster is turning out to be an unexpected blessing.

We’re using the next few months to take a break, pay off debt and regroup. I’ll work on some much overdue home projects. I’ll have the time to putter around and carefully tend to my garden. I’ll have the brain space to cultivate the beautiful, not just the functional. I’ll dream and make plans. And then we’ll start again, refreshed and ready to provide the healthiest and best-tasting chicken and pork we can.

Hoping to document 52 weeks of good things!

Five Good Things…

A season for everything. // Despite the break from broilers and pigs, we are definitely still beginning our busy season on the farm. Add in all of the moving parts with the kids’ schooling and activities and work schedules…and it’s a lot! Thankfully, after years and years of overwhelm, I am finally learning the lesson that to everything there is a season. The mantra I keep repeating to myself: “Lean in and get enough sleep.”
Four pigs off to the butcher. // And our easiest transport yet! (Compared to our first experience, we’re getting pretty good at this farming thing, ha.) Processing day is always bittersweet; we are sad to say goodbye but are also so proud of the product we produced. This is also the first year we offered whole hog options for buyers and I’m hopeful that they love the meat as much as we do.
Operation “Keep our eleven hens alive!” begins. // I clearly have been living under a rock. This week, I mentioned to my husband that I wanted to drop into Tractor Supply and pick up a handful of chicks to round out our hens for the year. No big deal, right? I was so wrong. Apparently, there is a chick shortage. Even my go-to hatchery in Pennsylvania was completely sold out for the season! So Operation “Keep our hens alive!” is in full swing around here. I spent many afternoons filling the barnyard with fresh woodchips and fortifying the fencing from that pesky fox.
Another licensed driver in the house! // Two down, four to go.
A fun afternoon adventure at a Lego convention. // We took the four youngest to a Lego convention and it turned out to be so fun. The different models were incredible – plastic pieces can be an art form! – and my littlest boys were very inspired. We bought a few mini-figures from the vendor area as a memento and they already want to go back when it returns next year.

Frugal Accomplishments //

got a truck full of free woodchips when our next-door neighbor had a tree removed
finally planted in a Jiffy seed starting kit that we purchased years ago but have never used (trying pumpkins!)
shopped the sales on ThredUp for my daughter

This Week in the Liturgical Year //

March 25 was the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord.

Reading //

It is Not Good to Read (Only) Alone from Nadya Williams at Front Porch Republic // “Reading together with people we love makes a good book even better, more memorable, more enjoyable for much the same reason as a delicious meal consumed with those we love tastes even better.”
A Poem For Your Saturday from Pleximama
this quote from The Hidden Power of Kindness:

Although you cannot carry out certain works of charity, your soul is a garden in which you may plant the fairest flowers of loving thoughts. Especially at prayer, when grace is most ready to assist your efforts, try to weed out all bitter memories, all severe judgments, all suspicions, and all resentful and angry thoughts, and in their stead plant in the rich soil of your soul the noble sentiments of charity. Carefully cherish and tend these gentle thoughts so that they may thrive and fill your day with their perfume. Try to fill the whole of this present life with such thoughts, and you will not only do good to those around you, but you will also share in the good that others do. (p.132)

New Additions to The List //

The Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O’Connor by Jonathan Rogers
A Prayer Journal by Flannery O’Connor
The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
The Last Hurrah by Edwin O’Connor
A Declaration of Dependence by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Watching/Listening //

Uncommon Grace: The Life of Flannery O’Connor on PBS
Lectures 1-3 of The Wisdom of Fulton Sheen at The Pursuit of Wisdom at Ave Maria University // Finally got to enjoy this after sharing it in this post!

Loving //