The Big White Farmhouse

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Soooo….I went down a bit of a rabbit hole.  It started with this article which linked to this article, which shared this quote:

Taleb uses legendary Italian writer Umberto Eco’s uncommon relationship with books and reading as a parable of the most fruitful relationship with knowledge:

The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with “Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?” and the others — a very small minority — who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.

Guys.  There’s a name for my piles of unread books!  It’s an anti-library!

I actually have a Storygraph account that I use to catalog all the books I’d like to revisit.  If I’m reading a book and it references another interesting one, it goes on the list.  If I read about a historical figure to my children for school and realize I know very little, I add a few books of my own to the list.  If I hear about how a classic novel or religious text influenced someone’s life, it goes on the list.  And on and on and on.  As of this writing, my list stands at almost 1600 books. (!!!)  Realistically, I will never finish all of those books in my lifetime.  But it stands as representation of my humanity, a constant reminder of the virtue of humility.  The more I know, the more I realize all I don’t know.

Anyway, I thought I’d share a few of my latest additions to The List:

• The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams by Philip Zaleski // Hillsdale College recently provided a free video series on the Inklings and I want to know more about this group!
• Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler // A title on a reading list that I’ve never heard of before.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful by Joseph Pearce // I heard about this from the Clear Creek Abbey bookstore.  The monks read this during refectory.
• Mightier Than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America by David S. Reynolds // I just bought Uncle Tom’s Cabin and this looked like an interesting book to pick up after.
• Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self by Manoush Zomorodi // A surprise find and something that connects with the video from The Commonplace below.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ a busy week on the farm!  We’re definitely hitting the crazy part of the growing season where there is so much to do and never enough time.  Our tasks were filled with moving animals around: pigs rotated on pasture, broiler chicks out of the garage and onto pasture, etc.  We held our noses and mucked out the chick area.  (My least favorite farm chore!)  We picked up twenty new hen chicks and got them all situated in the brooder.  We dug trenches and planted seed potatoes and I also hardened off marigolds and some tomatoes to plant next week.  It’s a little early, but the future temps look promising and I need to get them out from under the grow lights!

+ finding an outfit for a fundraising gala.  Between losing some weight and not going to fancy events…ever…I needed a new dress!  Thankfully, I found a beautiful dress and shoes, new without tags, for a deal on Poshmark.  I love the secondhand market.

+ turning off the heat for the season and playing my favorite game of the year: “How long can we go before turning on the A/C?”

+ selling eight unneeded items for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: five pieces of clothing, a pair of sandals and two homeschool teacher guides.  After shipping and fees, I made $49.47!

Reading //

• A Guide to Booklegging: How (and why) to collect, preserve, and read the printed word from School of the Unconformed // The article that started all of this reflection!
• The Accidental Community from Heather Hawkins // This was so cool.  I would love to do this someday!
• The Philosophical Act of Wonder from Rachel Wooham at Circe Institute // “Recently, as I spiraled into motherly worries about my children’s spiritual development, it occurred to me that as long as they continue to call, ‘Look!’ something very good is taking place in their souls. This marveling is the harbinger of wisdom.”
• Home Economics by Wendell Berry and his 1982 essay, “Getting Along with Nature” // I’m reading this book slowly and have really been thinking about this paragraph on page 20:

To make this continuity between the natural and the human, we have only two sources of instruction: nature herself and our cultural tradition.  If we listen only to the apologists for the industrial economy, who respect neither nature nor culture, we get the idea that it is somehow our goodness that makes us so destructive: The air is unfit to breathe, the water is unfit to drink, the soil is washing away, the cities are violent and the countryside neglected, all because we are intelligent, enterprising, industrious, and generous, concerned only to feed the hungry and to “make a better future for our children.”  Respect for nature causes us to doubt this, and our cultural tradition confirms and illuminates our doubt: No good thing is destroyed by goodness; good things are destroyed by wickedness.  We may identify that insight as Biblical, but it is taken for granted by both the Greek and the Biblical lineages of our culture, from Homer and Moses to William Blake.  Since the start of the industrial revolution, there have been voices urging that this inheritance may be safely replaced by intelligence, information, energy, and money.  No idea, I believe, could be more dangerous.

• The Power Of Doing It Yourself from April Jaure at Hearth & Field // “In my reality, learning to craft these simple, but crucial items taught me to be attuned to the present moment, which is to say that it taught me to be present to my own life. I had been so accustomed to living life in my head, I’m sad to say that if it weren’t for motherhood and the necessity of acquiring some practical skills, I think I could have lived my whole life without being truly present for any of it.”

Watching/Listening //

• How to Get an Oxford English Education for Free from Benjamin McEvoy // Barring the crass first line, this was a great video.
• How a nearly blind schoolteacher invented the comic medium from matttt // A recommendation from one of my sons.  Very interesting!
• Contemplation in Mother Academia (Or, You Need to Be Bored) from The Commonplace

Loving //

• All the electrolytes! // One possible side effect of carnivore is muscle cramping and it’s generally due to mineral and electrolyte imbalances.  I haven’t really had any issues, but to avoid this possibility, I try to have an electrolyte drink daily.  We have a variety of brands in the house, from LMNT (pretty good, but I only use 1/3 to 1/2 a packet at a time) to Nuun (my favorite, but actually has little of the important stuff) to Jocko Hydrate (my husband’s favorite).
• this quote from Henry Ward Beecher:

A little library, growing every year, is an honorable part of man’s history.  It is man’s duty to have books.  A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessities of life.  Be certain that your house is adequately and properly furnished – with books rather than furniture.  Both if you can, but books at any rate.

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I recently finished Grace Olmstead’s book, Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind, and while it wasn’t a 5-star read, it has made me think about what it means to belong to a place.  I am the daughter of a military officer. In my eighteen years of childhood, I lived in five states (some multiple times, but in different cities) and ten different houses. When people ask me where I’m from, I always awkwardly hesitate, then reply, “I grew up in a military family. I guess I’m from everywhere and nowhere.”

I think that statement is why I’m so attracted to the idea of old-fashioned community and putting down roots. Growing up the way I did, the only roots I knew were my grandmothers and extended relatives, hours and hours away.  I was always so jealous of the comfortable way they knew their neighbors, their favorite businesses.  I was always in awe of the way my grandmother would read the obituaries, telling me entire family trees and stories about how she knew the deceased.  What is that like?  To have history with a single place?  To know it and its people inside and out?

I want to place deep roots into this farm and this community.  I want to plant trees for future generations to enjoy.  I want to support my fellow farmers.  I want to offer our products, time and talents to those that need them.  In a world that increasingly feels like a concrete jungle of isolated individuals, this often feels like a lost cause.  But I’m stubborn and I want to try.  Like Hadden Turner said, “If I don’t care for my local area who else will? There are millions of people looking to care for the globe, but few to care for the places that are right in front of them.”

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ SPRING BREAK.  I had a ton of work to do outside, but the rainy weather forced me inside to rest instead.  An unexpected blessing.

+ going off carnivore for the first time in 60ish days.  I’ll keep this brief because nobody cares, but here are my observances: Fresh fruit was super sweet and I felt nothing negative.  I ate a tiny bit of Easter candy, could feel the sugar surging through my body and immediately felt terrible.  On another day, I had a fresh biscuit and while it didn’t make me sick, it sat in my stomach differently than when I eat carnivore.  So going forward, I’m steering far away from white sugar, will occasionally have bread products and will have to be careful not to eat my weight in fruit, ha!

+ decluttering like a crazy woman.  I started by simplifying my dresser drawers, asking all the questions: Is it too big?  too old?  never worn?  I moved on to my closet and even completely organized all of my resale packing materials while I was in there – I no longer look like a hoarder and a fire hazard!

+ planning the end of this school year and looking ahead to the next.  What a weird space to be in as we start phasing out students and working through the last time of each grade with the youngest.  I’ll never have another first grader!  So bittersweet.

+ reaching 100 days on my “50 pages a day” reading streak on Storygraph!

+ selling nine unneeded items for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: seven pieces of clothing, a pair of sandals and a book.  After shipping and fees, I made $88.10!

Reading //

• Where You Are Is Where You Are from Hadden Turner at Over the Field // SO good and inspiring.

You are not responsible for the whole world — far from it. But you are responsible for the local places in front of you: the local people who you relate to, the unique buildings, art, and beauty that you enjoy every day, and the local environments and habitats that surround the place you dwell. Where you are is where you are — and what you are responsible for. This is a burden heavy enough for us. This is a burden that matches our limitations. This is a burden that we can faithfully discharge. And this is a burden that will present us with a lifetime of opportunities for doing good.

• The Conservative Case for Remote Work from Public Discourse
• Keep Your Money Close from Jane Clark Scharl at Plough // “What am I giving up when I hand my money over to Amazon in exchange for fast delivery and a wide range of mediocre goods? And why do I feel a stab of guilt when I hit that ‘buy now’ button, even when the purchase is a responsible one, meaning it is built into my budget and is something my family needs?”  There’s a great list of alternative ideas at the end of the article too.
• On the Importance of Place from Dale M. Coulter at First Things

Watching/Listening //

• Christ the Logos: An Interview with Andrew Kern from The Commonplace // A beautiful and inspiring conversation.
• Easter at Ephesus sung by the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles // These are Sr. Wilhelmina’s sisters.  My husband says that their beautiful voices put him right to sleep, ha!

Loving //

• How My Grandma Taught Me to Live in the Light of Resurrection from Stacey Huneck at Radiant Magazine //  “As a young girl, my faith had the fortune of taking root in this fertile soil through the witness of my grandmother.”  So beautiful.  I hope to be that grandmother someday.  (Just like mine!)
• From Slave to Priest: The Inspirational Story of Father Augustine Tolton by Caroline Hemesath, OSF // Really, really enjoying this book.  After reading about Augustine’s efforts to catechize the local children, I stopped to ponder the lovely section below.  Our actions matter!

“Oh no, Father, they can’t read,” replied Augustine.  “They have never been to school, and their parents haven’t either.  The children will learn by watching and listening.”

“Watching and listening,” repeated Father Richardt.  “What do you mean?”

“Well, Father,” explained the youth, “the children must hear us say the prayers and the catechism and watch us do things like going to church and see how Mass is celebrated and how we do things in church.  They must watch us receive Holy Communion and go to confession.  They have to hear the priest read the Epistle and Gospels and listen to the sermons and instructions.  That is the way they will learn.  That is the way I learned.”  Augustine recalled the many times he had “celebrated Mass” for his alley playmates and how they had participated as Mass servers, choir, congregation, and communicants.  (A true Montessorian!) – p.97