Tomorrow

It's 6:55pm and I still have a list of to-do's a mile long....

In exactly 12 hours, we'll be receiving our first batch of 100 heritage breed chickens to slaughter under State inspection.  I've been working for the last 2 years towards this day.  I've begged, borrowed and bled to get to this point, and I'm not exactly looking forward to it.

The work is something I've been doing for a while, illegally, I'm told.  It's messy, bloody and smelly, but the work doesn't scare me.  My crew of two helpers have been helping me for at least a year, and I'm confident in their proficiency and skill.  The crew doesn't worry me.  The tools are all sound and in good repair.  I've maintained them, sharpened them, scoured them, and sanitized them, they will get the job done.  Food borne illness?  Nope, we use good practices and the birds will go from sentient creatures to ice cold food ready for the fryer in a matter of minutes.

What is it then?  Why have I woken up from a fitful sleep at three in the morning, off and on for months?  I've done everything to prepare, I built the building to quality standards, I bought quality equipment, I'm working with quality people and producing a quality product.

I'm scared of the power of the State.

I can control or mitigate almost every other factor, but the State can take all of my work, all of my preparation and all of my efforts and by bureaucratic fiat, bring it to nothing in a moment.  That's what worries me.

When we embarked on this whole farming adventure, the State was not really a factor in our plans.  It has inserted itself with alarming frequency and vigor at various points along the way, though, and it always sets wrong with me.

Leave me the hell alone!  That's how I really feel.  That's what I really want to say to the man who will show up at my butcher shop tomorrow.  I can't though, not if I want to run a legitimate operation and feed people legally and make a living for my family.  That sits wrong with me too, and so I'm sitting here not looking forward to tomorrow. Thanks a lot Upton Sinclair.

Oh well, turn it over to our Lord and our Lady and drive on.

Hail Mary...

My alarm just went off...again.  It's 1:30 in the afternoon (it was only a slight after lunch siesta, so keep your judgements to yourself), and like almost every single time my alarm goes off, I do the same four things: 1. Say to myself no, except in my head it sounds more like, "mnooaoooh!" 2. Turn off the alarm with a fat, clumsy finger, that could never figure out guitar chords and 3. Begin praying three Hail Mary's.  Generally I get through the first one, and most of the second one. And the third one...well, sometimes I make it that far and sometimes the bag-monster eats me alive. 4. Realize that I have something I should have been doing about 10 minutes (or sometimes 60 minutes) ago, and spring out of bed in a foggy state of self-flagellation and panic.  

And that's my life in a nutshell.

Systems in place to foster good habits? Check.
Following along the proactive path to productivity by working the plan?  Not so much.
Beginning new tasks with my own fiat to God's will and a plea for help from His mom? YES!...sort of.
Then reality hits and it's all I can do, to hope that while I'm trying to play catch up from the get-go, the all-holy Theotokos will look down and say, "When is that guy going to learn? Oh well, he's one of mine, here you go," as she directs streams of grace flowing from the side of her Son directly to my dumb self.

Anyways, here we go, post #1 of the Catholic Family Farmer.  Say a Hail Mary for me, if you can spare it ;)

Let not many of you desire to be teachers...

I told my classes yesterday that I would not be returning to the school next year.  As is to be expected there was a range of reactions.  All this week, there have been little things, a sight, a smell, a person that have been triggering memories of incidents or conversations that have taken place over the last four and half years.  One such "trigger" happened while I was subbing for a co-worker.  During the prayers of petition that always accompany the beginning of this particular class, a young freshman asked that her classmates remember her brother who was being inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity this weekend.  "He is an incredibly bright student who has a very promising career in politics ahead of him."  This is how one of my colleagues who taught him and keeps in contact with him even since graduation from high school describes him.  I, however, had a very different experience.

It is the second or third day that I began working as a long-term substitute at the school I am about to leave, a bit over four years ago. I am seeking to prove to the students that such things as black and white (and red for that matter) actually do exist - in other words we are speaking of moral absolutes.

    PhiBetaKappa Student: That may be true for you, but it is not true for me.

    Me:  So there is no such thing as truth.

    PBK: Right.

    Me: Except of course for that assertion.

    PBK: Yes, the only truth is that there is no truth.

    Me: So then how does one determine what is right and wrong for oneself?

    PBK: By what benefits oneself.

    Me: That's dangerous thinking, my friend.  What if I believe gassing Jews benefits me?

    PBK: As distasteful as that may seem, if you truly believe it to benefit you, then you have a right to pursue    that as far as you are able.  The Jews, of course have a right to keep that from happening to themselves, if they believe it is right to repel you, or even, when they are able in their own turn, to gas you and your kind.

     Me: So then "might makes right"?

     PBK: Yes.

     Me:  You are defending the Holocaust?

     PBK: No, I'm defending utilitarianism.

     Me to the rest of the class:  Can you all believe this?

     Class: (Tentively nodding their heads, one girl speaks up): He's making a good case for it.

BELL RINGS

Later in line waiting for lunch, dumbfounded, I speak with a fellow teacher about the incident.

     Me: I cannot believe that these kids are actually embracing utilitarianism, at least verbally.

     Teacher: Really?!?

     Me: Yeah, they were defending th--

     Teacher:  That makes me so happy!  They're listening!  I've been teaching them what utilitarianism is, and   he's internalized it...it's his now!

     Me - mouth hanging open

     Teacher: This is the kind of thing that makes it all worth it...you'll see.

Catholic schools have given to the world bright luminaries such as Isaac Newton, J.R.R. Tolkein, and Anjeze Bojaxhiu, but we have also educated Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, and Athanase Seromba.  Which road will this young man choose?

Why I want to be a farmer.

Fr. Wolfe explains why I want to be a farmer.

God grant him happiness in this life and the next.

Thank you Lord for my children, who keep me out of too much trouble.  I was at the grocery store last night, and there was a 50 something man wearing a sweatshirt with two completely nude pole dancers plastered across his back fat.  I caught up with him in the dairy section and asked him to take it off (it was a zip up thing).  He kept asking what I meant, then why.  He explained that if I didn't like it I should just not look at it.  I queried as to where he was raised and then suggested he go back to that place.  As he took his leave I kicked his ankles.  Rage clouds a person's judgement, I guess.  I'll have to go back to the store for the rest of the stuff I forgot tonight. 

Wasting Time

So right now I'm babysitting a class of highly motivated high school juniors.  Being a substitute provides a lot of opportunity to waste time, in fact it almost mandates it.  I fear that I'm going to miss such outings, as well as things like Spring Break and three day weekends.

Blogging is hard...

So it's been almost two months since I last posted...and before that I only posted a handful of times.  If anyone is reading this, thanks.  I've come to the conclusion that much like Olympic speedwalking, blogging is harder than it looks.  There are several reasons for this.  

First, one should have something to say.  This may be an optional thing for many, but for me it means that I have to also try to think of a clever way of saying it, in which I overthink and over-use ideas, words and concepts to the point of not saying anything at all.

Secondly, I found that when I posted something in the past, I would check my stats several times an hour to see who was viewing.  When in the course of  a week I had 3 views and 1 comment, I began to experience the beginnings of an existential crisis.  I found not posting to be a much simpler solution to overcoming the dark pit of despair than posting more.

Finally, there seems to be an inverse correlation between the amount of time you spend on one thing (ie milking cows) and the amount of time you spend on another (ie sleeping).    I've attempted to explain this concept with a graph.    

In the last two months I've: made 125 pounds of sausage, 50 pounds of jerky, 40 gallons of yogurt, 10 gallons of kefir, 3 pounds of cheese, bought 30 chickens, 3 cows (well not exactly bought) 8 rabbits, 20 high capacity magazines, 2 firearms, 1200 rounds of ammo, hit 3 deer, burned one television in a bonfire, turned in my resignation at one job, signed a contract for another, taught my children how to slackline, shampooed my living room carpet, and entered 1 blog post.