My Grandfather's FarmAs It Is Today

Dateline: 30 September 2014

Photo by Paul Cyr
(click to see enlarged view)

My Aunt Carolyn recently sent me the picture above. It shows my maternal grandfather's farm, on Forest Avenue Road in Fort Fairfield, Maine, as it looks today. 

I sent the picture to a cousin and he wondered if I might be mistaken. That's because the old place looks a whole lot different than it once did. The red barn with silos was never there before. Neither was the long back addition on the white house, nor all the other outbuildings and additions. There was only the house and the red-roofed barn in the foreground.

The barn on the right was the only barn on the farm when my grandparents owned it. I remember the barn very well.
(photo by Paul Philbrick)

My grandfather died in 1971. My grandmother sold the farm a few years later. It changed hands several times before an Amish family (the Yoder family) from northern New York state bought the place and moved in back in the summer of 2007.

Near as I can determine, Noah and Lovina Yoder, along with their 11 children, were the first Amish family to settle in Aroostook County, Maine. Noah is a farmer and a carpenter. He builds barns and furniture. I'm pretty sure all the buildings and additions to buildings on the farm have been made since the Yoders arrived. It is great to see.

This DownEast magazine article, featuring Noah Yoder's story and that of the Amish in Northern Maine, is particularly good. The picture at the top of the article of the Amish boy making a snowman shows a little bit of my grandfather's barn. Sadly, the article reveals that Noah's 22-year-old son was killed in an auto accident one winter. He was a passenger.

This Web Page shows pictures of an Amish barn raising in Easton, Maine, which is right next to Fort Fairfield. If you look closely you'll see that the barn is not a traditional post and beam structure. It turns out the Amish rarely, if ever, put up post and beam barns anymore. 

These days, Amish barns are nailed together using 2x6 lumber. You can learn more about the specifics of how Amish barns are made in Maine from This Link. 

I have a lot of memories of my grandfather's barn. Back in the July issue of my 2010 Deliberate Agrarian Blogazine I told the story of helping him repair potato barrels, and getting split ash hoops from the indians, and nearly blowing my hand off with a firecracker I found in the barn. Click on that link and you will also see a picture of my grandparents back in the day (there's a picture of me too, back when my memories were fresh and real and lodged themselves into my brain).

The barn was built by my Uncle Clyde Kennedy (author of The Hard Surface Road: A Memoir of the Great Depression) after WW2. Clyde married my mother's sister, Aunt Dawn. The lower half of the barn is a potato cellar. If I remember correctly, the upper floor of the barn is concrete (it would be the ceiling of the potato cellar). I'm pretty sure this is right because I recall there was a rectangular concrete hatch in the floor. Maybe more than one. I think they were there to unload harvested potatoes through.

Anyway, there is a little bit of a secret in that barn. One of the concrete hatch covers has my grandfather's name in it: P.O. Philbrick. The letters were written in wet concrete by Uncle Clyde, and there is also a profile drawing on the hatch (made in wet concrete) of my grandfather's head. Uncle Clyde was an artist and I was always amazed as a kid by the excellent likeness of my grandfather.

If I ever make it back to Fort Fairfield I would like to stop and see if that little secret is still in the barn.

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You can see a film clip showing the beautiful farm country of Northern Maine (including my grandparent's farm) from an aircraft in This YouTube Movie. It also shows some Amish boys plowing fields with horse teams. 

My grandparent's house looks pretty much the same on the outside
(photo by Paul Philbrick, December 2013

Planet Whizbang ProfileAnd My AdviceFor Economic Independence

Dateline: 29 September 2014

Yours Truly, back in 1997 BB (before beard).
Marlene took this picture for Farm Show magazine.

A man in Georgia contacted me a couple weeks ago to see if I would be interested in answering some questions about my homestead business for a book he is writing. The book will contain some profiles of people who are generating income while living off the land. 

I don't live off the land entirely but, as anyone who reads this blog knows, Planet Whizbang is a successful homestead business that allows me to live on my land, full time. 

Everybody's situation is different, but I know how I got to this point in my life. If someone else can benefit from my example, then I'm more than willing to share what I know.

I agreed to answer a a series of questions in writing. If a verbal interview were part of this, I would not have been as interested. Having questions in writing allows more time to give thoughtful answers.

It remains to be seen how my Whizbang profile will eventually end up in the book, but I thought I would share with you the last question, and my answer to it...

Question: What advice do you have for someone considering leaving a "real job" to become more self-sufficient? 

Answer:   A person or family can become more self-sufficient while working a wage slave job to pay the necessary bills. It’s just a whole lot more work. But it is a practical way to make the transition. While working the wage slave job, you can seriously pursue the elimination of all debt. You can’t be self-sufficient if you are in debt. Simplify your wants and needs in every way possible, while acquiring tools and skills of self reliance.

Beyond that, develop an entrepreneurial mindset and look for small business opportunities. It is almost impossible to pay the industrial-world bills with a small farm these days. But it is entirely possible to create a home business that pays the bills and allows a family to live a down-to-earth, more self-reliant lifestyle on a section of productive land. I know it’s possible because I’m doing it.

Being home, on my land, with  my family around me, not dependent on a job to pay the bills, and living a contra-industrial lifestyle is my definition of success and freedom. 

It all starts with having a personal vision of what you believe is the right, and true, and best way to live your life, then embracing the vision one step at a time. 

As a Christian, one of the key Bible verses in my life has been Proverbs 3:5-6... “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.”  That is, essentially, my story. 

The Biblical concept of being faithful with small things is also critically important. In other words, do the best you can with what you have. Everyone’s story is different. Don’t compare. Don’t covet. Be brave. Work hard. Enjoy the adventure. That’s my advice.

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The term,"economic independence," as found in the title of this blog is a misnomer. I don't think anyone in the "civilized" world can be economically independent these days. But you can be independent of a so-called "real job," and that's my point. More and more people are pursuing and achieving this form or economic independence. It's great to see, and I'm looking forward to reading the new book. I'll be letting you know about it here when it is in print (it will be an e-book).

Birth Of An OrchardPart 4Forlorn Reality

Dateline: 26 September 2014

Futureman, on the way to the orchard
(click pictures to see larger views)

Lyle Stout sent me an e-mail wondering how my orchard was doing these days. It's a good question, and this blog post will answer it, in a round-about way.

For those who don't know, I wrote about the orchard of my dreams in the following blog posts…

Part 1: Getting Started (April 2013)
Part 2: Layout & Planning (April 2013)
Part 3: After A Summer's Neglect (November 2013)

Back in the spring of this year I spent several hours over the course of a few days working more at leveling a circle of ground around each tree, and laying in a heavy mulch of hay from old round-bales that were on the property (as explained in Part 3). I also planted some comfrey around the trees. And that was the last I've seen of my orchard.

Life gets real busy around here in the spring and doesn't let up until late fall. The orchard is quite a distance from my house, on the new land we bought a few years ago. Out of sight, out of mind. I've come to realize it's not the best situation for getting an orchard started. It would be a whole lot better if the orchard were right near my house. But there is no land right near my house for an orchard. It's a bit of a conundrum.

Anyway… yesterday was a good day to go and see my forlorn orchard. Marlene had a lunch date with a friend so it was me and Futureman (my grandson), home alone, looking for something to do together before his nap time. 

We took the "back way" to the orchard, which is to say, into the woods behind our house, down into the gully for a distance, then up out of the gully into the field where the orchard is. We were not in a hurry. 

After finding a good spot to cross over the creek I found a steep bank, quickly climbed to the top, and encouraged Futureman to follow. He made it up the bank quicker than I expected.

I set him on a moss-covered rock outcropping at the top and took the following picture…

Then I sat on the rock while Futureman explored around the area (the cow was in his pocket)…

From there, we headed into the top of my field. Here's a picture of the field from the wood's edge…

My field is full of goldenrod. There are no animals. There is no crop. I'm still trying to figure out what best to do with it. I kind of wish it was all woods. I'm partial to woods.

The goldenrod is well over my head in parts of the field. This next picture shows Futureman on my shoulders…

Another selfie in the goldenrod jungle…

We found our way to the orchard and this is an example of what the apple trees are looking like…

It may not be immediately evident from the picture, but the apple trees have grown pretty well, despite all the weeds that surround them. The old hay mulch only suppressed the weeds a little. A thick mulch of wood chips would, I'm sure, be better, but I have no wood chips. The tree trunks have thickened nicely. There are too many branches. Pruning is needed. The ring of fencing has kept the deer from browsing… for now. 

The comfrey root cuttings I planted in the spring have established themselves. Comfrey will help with weed suppression, and it is supposed to mine nutrients from deep in the soil.

I planted three comfrey plants around each tree, several feet out from the trunks.

So my orchard isn't looking all that great, what with the weeds all around, but it's not a lost cause. Futureman and me headed back into the woods down below the orchard…

One of Futureman's favorite things to do is throw stones into the stream. There is an abundance of stone on this land. He can busy himself for a long time throwing the stones. When the stone makes a big splash, he laughs. When I throw a stone into the water so that it splashes on him, he's startled. But then he picks up a big stone for me and wants me to throw it, because he likes getting splashed.

Our little hike allowed me to check on the trees I planted earlier in the spring. Some have died. Some have lived. This little oak tree has done the best of all…

Futureman loves to play in the creek. I dare say, there is nothing he likes more than throwing stones in the water. But maybe there is something he likes more…

When we got almost home, in the woods directly behind our house, I lifted him up to grab the hanging rings under a tree fort my kids made years ago. To my surprise, he was able to hold his weight and hang there. He laughed with delight at this new experience…

And that's the story of me and Futureman going to the orchard. We had a good time together. And he had a good nap afterwards, dreaming, I suppose, of big rocks and the wonderful splashes that big rocks make in the water.

An Old AgrarianMystery Tool

Dateline: 26 September 2014

(click pictures to see larger views)

I bought the above tool at an antique shop earlier this year. It is in good shape and didn't cost much money. I had to have it. :-)

I know what the tool is called and what it was used for, so it's not a mystery to me. It is an agrarian tool, for sure. 

I'm thinking this may be a real mystery tool to a lot of people who read this blog. Then again, it might be that a lot of readers know exactly what it is.

The tool is 15" long. The blade is thin but rigid, and surprisingly sharp along the bottom. It is 2-1/4" wide at its widest point. The handle has a comfortable, ergonomic fit in my hand.

I'm not sure how old the tool would be. My guess is that it was used in the late 1800's into the early 1900's. There is no reason it couldn't be put to use these days, but few people would have need of it. 

Any guesses?

Clothespin-Making UpdateSeptember 2014

Dateline: 24 September 2014

(click pictures to see enlarged views)

I am still working at making clothespins outdoors under the tent. Good fall weather is in the forecast for the rest of this week and I hope to finish up this year's first production run of clothespins from the 300+ square feet of ash lumber I bought three weeks ago. 

I'll be finished (hopefully) to the point that the wood halves are made. Then comes tumbling, sorting, sealing, assembling, packaging, and all of that.

My plan was to mill a second batch of wood into clothespins before the cold weather gets here. But my plan was also to start making these in early August, not early September. I lost a month of productive clothespin-making time. So it looks like I will just have a single production run of clothespins this year.

I'm making these clothespins part time. Every day until about 1:00 I have to tend to the Planet Whizbang business. Then, weather permitting, I work under the tent until dark, which is getting earlier and earlier at this time of year. 

But I need to dig potatoes. I need to get the garden cleaned up for winter. The raspberries need to be thinned and tied up. Garlic will need to be planted. I have firewood coming this weekend. It will need to be split and stacked. This is an especially needy time of year.

Making clothespins is incredibly tedious work. But I came up with a way to make the hours spent at the table saw go by a lot easier. In the picture above, you can see a portable CD player on my table saw. I bought a copy of Wendell Berry's book, Jayber Crow, on CD. I tuck the player inside my shirt, plug the ear buds into my ear sockets, and put my hearing protectors on.

The book amounts to 15 hours of listening time. I'm about half way through. If the book finishes up before I finish the saw work, I have I Am Hutterite to listen to.

I've mentioned in the past that I'm not much of a novel reader, but listening to a novel is something different. And Jayber Crow is something different in a novel. Were I to have bought the book to read, I surely would never have finished it. I would have bogged down in the poetic wordiness and self-conscious philosophical ramblings of Port William barber, Jayber Crow, recounting his life story. But the man who does the reading does an excellent job of it, and the story holds my attention pretty well.

Wendell Berry is clearly a master wordsmith and I marvel at his talent. Jayber Crow is considered by many to be the best of Berry's fictional works, but I'm still undecided about what to think of the actual story line. I enjoy hearing of the chronicle of life as it once was, and would be, in Port William through the decades, along with stories about the many colorful personages of that small rural town. But the one-sided love story between the bachelor barber, Jaber Crow, and the much younger Mattie Keith Chatham is just plain weird. I'm to the point in the story where Jayber "marries" Mattie (who is already married) in his mind and vows to be true to her. 

Well, anyway, about those clothespins….

The picture above shows a box of clothespin "flitches" that have been milled. The next step will be to rip the many clothespin halves out of all the flitches. I estimate that box in the picture will render around 900 clothespin halves, which would, of course, equal 450 finished clothespins. When I get done, this production run should yield over 10,000 clothespins. That sounds like a lot, and it is, but I don't think my supply will last long, based on the number of people who have signed up for the Planet Whizbang newsletter, and are awaiting the announcement that the clothespins are finally for sale.

Clothespin Confusion

I put together 30 of my Classic American Clothespins, sealed them with tung oil, and gave them as a wedding gift last month. The bride's mother e-mailed us later to say it was "the best wedding gift ever."

She furthermore said that when her daughter opened the gift, all the country wives that were there oohed and aahed, realizing how special the quality clothespins were. But the groom's mother, an urbanized woman who does not hang up her laundry, didn't get it. What was the big deal?

This is typical, and it is interesting to see.

I see it when I tell people I am making clothespins as a business venture. Some people respond with  excitement, enthusiasm, and genuine interest. When this is the reaction, I know that person uses clothespins (and they know that all the store-bought clothespins are junk).

And other people respond like the groom's mother. They seem  a little confused. "You are making clothespins?" There is no interest. No enthusiasm. They don't use clothespins. They can't relate. They think to themselves, 'That's dumb.'

This "clothespin confusion" may, I believe, explain why the several woodworking magazines I contacted about my clothespins have no interest in them. 

I sent clothespin samples and the specifications booklet I put together for woodworkers who want to make their own heirloom-quality clothespins. What a great woodworking project, right? Well, apparently not. I got absolutely no response from any woodworking magazine I contacted. Obviously, none of the magazine editors line-dry their laundry. 

Always Count The Cash

23 September 2014

There are times when I pay people with cash. For example, when I buy firewood from my neighbor, I always pay him with cash. When I pay someone with cash, I always count it out for them. And if someone gives me cash without counting it out, I count it out for them.

I always count the cash because I've heard stories about problems arising because the cash didn't get counted. Someone bought something and handed a wad of cash to the seller. The buyer had counted the money beforehand, and the seller assumed that the amount was correct. Neither party counted the cash during the transaction. Then, later, the buyer counted the cash and found it was short. 

I have a friend who bought a utility trailer from another friend. He paid with cash. No one counted it at the time of the transaction. Later, the seller found he was short some money. It was an honest mistake on the part of the person who handed over the cash. But it was an awkward and embarrassing situation that could have been totally averted by simply counting the cash.

With this in mind, I've always told my sons that if they pay an individual with cash, the cash always needs to be counted out when it is handed over. This is what is known as "wise fatherly advice." 

Nevertheless, my youngest son recently bought a used car and handed the seller some cash in an envelope. He counted it beforehand. The seller took it without counting it. A little while later, the seller called my son to tell him he was short $100.

It wasn't a major crisis. My son doesn't know what went wrong, but he assumed that the mistake was his and got the $100 to the seller. Nevertheless, it was an awkward situation that never would have happened if if my son had followed my advice (which he has heard more than once over the years).

I'm wondering…. 

Does anyone reading this have a story about a problem that arose because the cash didn't get counted? 

Or, can you recollect a time when you ignored some wise fatherly advice, and later regretted it?

Jersey Royal Potatoes

Dateline: 22 September 2011

In my previous blog post, I mentioned the current newsletter from Wood Prairie Farm up in Bridgewater, Maine. Some of you may have clicked on the link and found your way to Jim Gerritsen's mention of Jersey Royal potatoes as seen in the following YouTube film clip…

If you enjoy gardening, you'll enjoy learning about some of the UK gardeners and growers in that film. But at 23 minutes in, the subject of growing Jersey Royal potatoes on the Channel Island of Jersey is discussed.

The Jersey Royal is a small, thin-skinned, kidney-shaped potato that is traditionally grown on steep slopes. The potato is not grown across the slopes, as you might think, but straight up and down. 

These steeply sloped fields are known as côtils. Côtil is a Jersey Legal French word, which is to say that it is unique to the island of Jersey. 

Working a potato côtil on the Isle of Jersey

The original name of the potato was Royal Jersey Fluke. It was discovered and propagated in the late 1800's by a Jersey farmer. You can read the story Here.

If you watch the movie above, you'll see Jersey Royal potatoes are dug by pulling a digger from the bottom of the côtil to the top using a winch and cable. That's kind of neat.

Another unique thing about these potatoes is how they are propagated. The seed potatoes are carefully selected, arranged in wooden stacking trays, and sprouted, then planted by hand. The stackable trays really caught my eye.

If you find all of this as interesting as I do, you'll want to watch the following YouTube movie too. It shows in more detail how the seed is packed in those nifty trays, on a commercial scale, and prepared for planting. You'll also see that not all the Jersey Royals are grown and harvested on steep côtils.

I'll probably never get to taste a genuine Jersey Royal potato. But I've tasted plenty of young, thin-skinned, just-dug potatoes from my own garden, and I can't imagine a potato tasting any better.

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P.S. Most people like to grow big potatoes but if a Jersey Royal gets bigger around than 50mm (2 inches), consumers don't want them. This Article  tells of how up to 50% of the Jersey Royal crop this year was a failure because it grew too big for market.

Potato Recess(and good home cookin')

Dateline: 20 September 2014

(photo link)

In Wood Prairie Farm's current newsletter, Jim Gerritsen writes that "Northern Maine is one of the last areas in the United States where schools are closed so students can help with the potato harvest." In Bridgewater, where the Gerritsen farm is, the schools are currently on a three week potato harvest break, also known as "potato recess."

I've mentioned this agrarian tradition here in the past and, should I continue to write blog posts in the years ahead, I'll likely mention it again, and again. 

My family roots are in Northern Maine. My mother's father (the man on the cover of This Book) was a potato farmer in Fort Fairfield. My mother picked potatoes every autumn for all her growing-up years, starting at a young age. She would recollect about how hard the work was, but how good it was. Most people who grew up in Aroostook county have a lot of potato-picking memories.

A few years ago, Yankee magazine published an article about Potato Recess in Northern Maine. It's a good little article. And this Facebook page... Have You Ever Heard of Potato Recess?… has the recollections of people who do.

I grew up in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York. It was a long way from Fort Fairfield. But I always knew what was going on up there because my Grandmother Kimball subscribed us to the weekly Fort Fairfield Review newspaper. The Review was an old and venerable publication that I grew up reading and admiring. 

In fact, in the Walter-Mitty-like imaginings of my youth, I dreamed of one day publishing a small-town newspaper just like the Fort Fairfield Review. I even saved copies for awhile, thinking that I would need them someday as a guide and example when I finally did get around to publishing my own Review newspaper. But I digress.

When potato harvest was big news in The Review, my mother would say that she wished I could go up to Maine and pick potatoes. The problem was, of course, getting there and back, not to mention being absent from school in New York for a couple weeks. So it never happened.

But my mother did find me a job picking potatoes in New York. It so happened that Les Ready, and older man in our rural community, grew a couple acres of potatoes every year. My mother heard that he needed help with picking and let me know about it. 

I was probably 18 or 19 years old at the time and picking potatoes sounded real good to me, especially since there was a chance to earn some money. Me and an older woman who lived up the road, along with Mr. Ready, picked potatoes all day.

We didn't pick them into handled baskets, then put them into barrels, like they do in Aroostook county. Instead, we picked them into wooden crates that Mr. Ready had made. 

It only took one long day to get Mr. Ready's potatoes picked. I remember it being cool and sunny, which is good working weather. I picked as fast as I could and Mr. Ready seemed pleased. The older woman was a steady picker and good help too.

What I remember most was lunch time. Mr. Ready's wife and daughter made lunch and it was a big deal. We all sat down to lunch at their dining room table. I was amazed at all the effort that had been put into the meal, and it sure tasted good. 

Many years later, my business partner and I were doing some remodeling work for Carlton and Esther Badman, an old farm couple in our area. Carlton told us not to bring any lunch. "Esther'll make dinner for us."

Well, I guess so! I think we worked there three days, and every day at noon we all sat down to a big home-cooked meal at the kitchen table. 

Carlton and Esther, and Les Ready, and his wife have all passed on. And with them has gone an old tradition of feeding the help a good noontime meal. 

Okay, so I've covered Potato Recess in Aroostook County, my onetime dream of being a small-town newspaper publisher, and old-time rural hospitality. I reckon that's enough ruminating for now.

P.S. After writing this, I am thinking that I've written it all before, in a past blog post. After nine years, it is inevitable that I will start repeating myself. It's what old-timers do. I may be "only" 56 years old, but that's close enough.

The Christian DoctrineOf Work

Dateline: 17 September 2014

In This Recent Broadcast from Generations Radio, Kevin Swanson says that when the Pilgrims came to America there were no jobs. But there was a lot of work to be done. That's something to think about.

There is always work to be done, and the Bible makes it abundantly clear that God's people should be workers. The doctrine of work is clearly expressed throughout scripture.

Some Christians think that work is a curse God put on mankind in Genesis 3. That's where Adam ate the forbidden fruit. In response to Adam's sin, God declared, "By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread."  But a full reading of the passage where this happens does not indicate in any way that having to work is a curse from God...

Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food, until you return to the ground…

Clearly, Adam was not cursed (and all mankind after Adam was not cursed) with work itself. The ground was cursed and, as a result, the work of growing food became hard (painful toil). 

Evidently, when God originally put Adam in the garden "to tend and keep it" (Genesis 2:15), the work of tending and keeping was not toilsome. The soil produced food without weeds. I assume there were also no plant diseases, and bugs were not a problem. Imagine for a moment how wonderful that must have been!

The work of tending and keeping the garden in Genesis 2 existed before Adam's disobedience. In fact, God Himself planted the first garden in Genesis 2:8. God is a worker. We are created in His image. We are to be workers. Work is not a bad thing. Work is good.

The Christian doctrine of work is most clearly expressed in Exodus 20:9, where God says to His people: "Six days shall you labor and do all your work." 

That admonition is part of what is commonly known as the Fourth Commandment. But few people realize it is part of the 4th Commandment (if they even know what the 4th Commandment is).

The 4th Commandment is more commonly expressed as, "Remember The sabbath, to keep it holy." While it is, of course, important to remember the sabbath and keep it holy, it is equally important to work six days. Why is the six days of work part of the Commandment left out? 

The commandment to work six days and observe the sabbath on the seventh was modeled by God Himself when he created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh. 

Here are a couple New Testament Bible verses that speak of the doctrine of work:

For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If any one will not work, let him not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work in quietness and to earn their own living. (2 Thessalonians 3:10-12)

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12)

You will be hard pressed to find a Christian doctrine of sports, or entertainment, or amusement. And the whole modern concept of retirement is also not found in the Bible. But the doctrine of work is there. Six days of it. 

Six days of work, a day of rest. Six days of work, a day of rest. Six days of work, a day of rest. That's the biblical doctrine of work.

Also, notice that in the verse above, the apostle Paul says that Christians should work with their hands. This implies physical work and creative, productive work. Of course, in that agrarian age (before electricity and the internal combustion engine) most work was physical. And gardening— the fundamental calling of all mankind—is certainly physical. But I'm sure there were some jobs in that day that did not require manual work. Paul advised against such jobs.

Now, I'm sure that there are some people reading this who are thinking that a person can go overboard with work. I mean, too much work isn't good, right? There has to be a balance, right?

Well, working six days out of seven is not balanced. But that's what God says in the 4th Commandment, right?

That said, Christians are certainly not called to be working machines, toiling at physically hard work from sunup to sundown. We obviously have other responsibilities besides working six days of the week. For example, we have responsibilities within our families—to raise our children and teach them. 

But can this be done within the paradigm of work? Sure it can. In fact, that's the way God designed families to operate… with mothers and fathers teaching their children while involving them in the daily routines of work. The work of the home (a home economy) was, after all, the cultural norm in an agrarian culture.

This way of life is, however, not the cultural norm now. These days, for a great many people, work is a job away from their families, doing things that are not creative, not truly productive, not satisfying, and barely physical. Working many hours a day in a sedentary office-job comes to mind. 

Speaking of which, I left my job as NY state employee 19 months ago. Many of my co-workers were confused about me leaving. They wondered aloud why I would want to leave a job that paid so well for doing so little. They questioned my sanity for leaving a job that offered so much security and so many benefits. Hardly anyone leaves a state job until they've put in at least 20 years (so they can get a good pension). "You gotta be crazy to leave this job," one person said to me. And I listened to stories about a couple of crazy people like me who, in years past, left the job early, then later regretted it.

If not following the industrial-world expectations about having a job is crazy, then call me crazy. I now work a whole lot harder than I ever did when I had a job. But I'm home, around my family. I'm feeling healthier than I did when I sat at a desk all day (or paced the floor like a caged animal to try and get my blood circulating). I'm far more satisfied. My garden is right next to my workshop, which is a few steps from the door of my house. It is, for me, a dream come true to live this way. To be able to work and not have a job. It is a blessing that I am so thankful for.

I hope never to retire in the modern sense of the word. I would like to grow to be a weathered and bowed old man, working with my hands, in my garden, at my home business… six days a week, until the day I die. 

I've rambled on enough here. There is much more that I could write about work, but I have work to do. I welcome your comments on this subject.

True Costs(An Essay by Lyle Stout)

Dateline: 15 September 2014

Spring in The Country, by Iowa artist, Grant Wood

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.”
—Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac


I first came across this quote just last year – 2012. Leopold's book was first published in 1949, the year after his death. So, I am admittedly late to his party, and I doubt that he and I would agree upon theology. Yet this quote embodies much of why I have made the choices I have made in my life, and the way in which I have raised my children.

If we are disconnected from the production of those things which are essential for our survival, we become arrogant. Arrogance is a spiritual disease. If we think that our desires can be fulfilled at the mere turn of a faucet, touch of a button or click of a mouse, then we will thoughtlessly fulfill those desires without discerning the true costs. 

In Genesis 3, God declares, “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread.” That is a true cost, and I have not seen evidence that God has changed His mind. A related principle of life I have observed is that if I am not sweating for my bread, then my choice forces someone else to sweat twice as hard. Such knowledge wears on my conscience, so I garden for some of my food and cut wood for some of my heat in order to sweat for some of my bread. 

If I can't humble myself in order to meet my own needs of daily bread, then I have succumbed to the arrogant vision of the society in which we live. I have shared my vision with my family. As my children grew, they helped in the garden, helped cut firewood, and had a small dairy goat herd that they milked twice every day. The goats left when the children left home, but my children, now adults, often still choose to return home and aid me in my Quixotic journey in the pursuit of justice. May God bless them!

To further illustrate the nature of true costs, I will end with a story my father told me. When he returned to his parents' farm in 1946 after his military service in World War II, he continued to raise livestock there even while he pursued other employment. One day he was filling a hog water via water pumped by the windmill. He became occupied in other things and forgot that the hog water was filling. Inevitably, it overflowed, flooded the pen, and made a big mess that he had to clean up. As he cleaned up the mess, his father came over, leaned on the fence, and said, “You know, this never happened back when you had to hand pump the water into buckets and carry it over to the pen.”

Spring in Town, by Grant Wood