Some Odds and an End

My Son’s New Job
My oldest son, Chaz, has less interest in agrarian things than anyone else in the family. But he has the most agrarian job. After getting laid off at the lumberyard a few weeks after school started, he landed a job at the local rat farm.

That’s right, I said rat farm. There is a man in our town who started raising rats and mice around 10 years ago to sell to labs, pet stores, and zoos. His business has grown considerably. In fact, he will be moving his operation to a much larger facility in a few months.

Chaz works half days and on the weekend while going to vocational school half days. He likes the job better than the lumberyard.

Homeschool College?
Jim Bartlett’s Biblical Concourse of Home Universities web site is well worth checking out. The internet has opened up a world of wonderful possibilities for higher education. The high cost of higher education and the debt incurred is one reason to consider alternatives to traditional higher education. But there is an even more important reason as communicated in this quote on the home page of Jim's site:

It's happening in colleges all across the country. Instead of being educational institutions designed to encourage the free discussion of ideas, universities have become prisons of propaganda, indoctrinating students with politically correct (and often morally repugnant) ideas about American life and culture.
Jim Nelson Black

Christian Agrarian Cookbook
My thanks to Rick Saenz for setting up an online cookbook where the Christian agrarian internet community can share recipes . Check it out at this link: Simple Food


Garden Huckleberries
I see that the Heirloom Acresseed catalog sells seed for growing garden huckleberries. I have never heard of this unusual fruit. I’m curious. Does anyone reading this have firsthand experience with garden huckleberries?

Here’s a link that will tell you a little about Garden Huckleberries


A Nice Book Review
My thanks also go out to Kristina Duckett way up in Alaska for her recent review of my book, “Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian.” Here’s an excerpt from the review:

if you feel God drawing you back to the land and to a simpler
lifestyle, you should go immediately and find a copy of this book. It
may convict you. It may even upset you a bit if you aren't in full
agreement. But above all, it will encourage you.

You can read the whole review at Kristina’s blog, Here is the link: Our Little Slice of Heaven

Canned Venison
After reading my recent blog post about the fun, fast way to skin a deer, 'Granny Miller" wrote to tell me how good canned venison is.

I went to her blog and found it described as “ A Journal of Agrarian Politics, Philosophy and Practice. That sounds like a nice blog, and it is. You can read about canned venison here: Granny Miller’s Canned Venison

While you are there, check out the blog titled: Husband & wife trees

Property Taxes
You’ve heard me complain about New York state’s criminally-high property taxes. Well, just this afternoon I heard on the radio that a national study found nine of the top ten highest taxed counties in the U.S are in upstate N.Y. One of of the ten is Cayuga County. That’s where I live. Perhaps I should move.

Kill Your Television
I think it’s a fine idea.
Kill Your Television

Soapmakers: Have You Seen This?
Handcrafted Rock Soap


Pastor McConnell’s Latest
Thomas McConnell, the mule-logging Missouri pastor, has written another hard-hitting and sobering analysis of where we are at in his recent blog essay. You can read it at this link: The God Behind Pagan America


The Cremation of Sam McGee
I’ve heard a well-known Christian man speak fondly of the poetry of Robert W. Service.. So I looked up one of his more famous poems, The Cremation of Sam Mc Gee, and read it aloud to my son, Robert. He listened intently. When I was finished I said, "What did you think of that?"

After a moment of thought, he replied, "What’s the point?"

I thought about it a moment and said, "Well, I don’t know. I don’t think there is a point."

I was downright impressed with his analysis of the poem.

If I Could Write A Poem
If I could write a poem, I would write something like To Be of Use by Marge Piercy. This poem is beautiful and it has a point. It begins…

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

You can read the rest of the poem (and see the fitting picture attached to it) here: To Be Of Use

Now For The End
I’ve given you some Odds, now for the end.

It is time for me to jump into work head first and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. I have been cramming a lot of blog posts into the past few days because I have a self-imposed deadline to stop blogging and focus my efforts on other things.

Focus is the key word.

I’ve told you of my agrarian vision, I’ve told you of my non-agrarian day job, I’ve told you that’s all about Faith, Family, & Livin’ The Good Life. With those things in mind I am taking a deliberate leave of absence from this blog.

I want to write and publish another agrarian how-to book in the next couple of months. Besides that, I am convicted that I must refocus time in God’s word with my children. If scripture reading and family devotions fall by the wayside, the Christian agrarian life is nothing more than a hollow shell of what it can and should be.

Perhaps we will read and memorize a portion of the Psalms as a family. Now there is poetry that, most assuredly,has a point!

I do not know when I will return for good, but I will only be, as that poem says, "just out of sight." I will report back here on March 1st.

God bless you.

Herrick Kimball