The Ins and Outs of Chickens

April 27 – We had a brush fire last Wednesday evening. I was riding my bike back from work when I rolled up our gravel drive at just after eight p.m., and as I headed towards the blue garage I noticed a trail of smoke billowing up behind the old barn. The thought crossed my mind that Joe might be back there – burning off some leaves or eliminating one of the many piles of trash on the property. But, then the adrenaline began to kick in, fueled by biology and the hidden memory that smoke of any form is not good for forests and humans … or old barns – for that matter. Old barns that seemed to be precariously close to where the smoke trail ascended.

I hurriedly dismounted from the road bike, switched over to the mountain bike and peddled through the yard. As I swerved to the east side of the barn and stared down into the creek bed and across the way I could see a ring of fire moving outward in all four directions. It looked like what happens when you put a lighter underneath a piece of paper and light it right in the middle: glowing orange at the very edges pushing ever-outwards leaving a black emptiness behind. Uh-oh.

Thankfully, my fears were larger than the present danger. And in the next hour, we managed to contain the fire – thanks mostly to Grandpa Joe deftly maneuvering the Bobcat in between trees and dumping piles of dirt on the source of the fire. I will not mention in this post just how many similar brush fires have been ignited on this land in the last three months.

Secondly only to the excitement of fire is the thrill of now having all eight of our chickens in our A-frame chicken coop. The movable coop is working fairly well, so far. Although, movable is really a relative term. The earth is movable, I suppose. And while the coop is a bit more manageable than that, it usually requires Anna and me together grunting and pushing and lifting. Although, just this morning, I found a new technique which makes the process potentially a solo person job: a combination of pushing the dolly down with the left hand while pushing against the boarded frame with my right. Farmers must exhibit the deftness, strength and flexibility of samurais.

I told our insurance agent about this chicken coop today, and she laughed when I said A-frame. “Why?” I wondered. But, I had forgotten that what is abnormal and bizarre to others is commonplace in our family. I swear that we have not purposefully set out to live the life that falls under the labels of “hippy,” “granola,” and “different.” It’s just what happens when you throw our two lives together: a mishmash of sustainable living, SoCal culture, Christianity, Putnam County, farmer’s markets and living off the land.

Anyhow, the “girls” are doing well – nestled away in the frame at night and pecking at dandelion weeds during the day. They seem to do a good job in mowing down the lawn, although it’s hard to tell given the extravagance of those weeds all over the place (again with the hippie-thing: we don’t spray the yard).

I was not too pleased, however, when I bent down to pick up a slug in the coop – thinking I had found a delicacy for the chickens. When my fingers went to pinch the slimy slug, they instead went through. It was then I realized that this nice, oozing mess was nothing less than – you guessed it – chicken s&%! I mumbled the very same thing as I stepped outside the door.

With still much to learn, this is Wes signing off for the Kendall family. Until next time … be well and live well.

Signs of Life

April 17, 2010 - We are well into the growing season now, albeit the early pubescent stage. Outside in the garden, little shoots of spinach, snap peas, loose-leaf lettuce, and even a few broccoli plants are snuggled in the rectangular beds Anna has fashioned. Rather than till up a large portion of the front yard this year, Anna has laboriously carved out about ten smaller beds - working in old manure from the old barn as fertilizer, turning it into the soil through shovel, rake, and one of those handy weed extractors that is like a eagle claw at the end of a pole with two handles.

She has also been finishing up the chicken coop this past week - including tacking up chicken wire around the open frame. Much to her dismay, she's learning that the malleable nature of chicken wire makes for one great way to frustrate yourself, especially when your "self" likes clean, seamless, modern lines. I tried to help her a bit this past Thursday evening - pulling the wire down or over or up while Anna used the staple gun to fix the barrier in place.

At one point in this stapling process, Anna said incredulously, "The learning curve is so high with this whole process." And shortly after that, she began talking about how she would build the next one. She is destined to build the world's most efficient, modern, and attractive free-range chicken coop.

I, meanwhile, have gotten back to painting the house ... finally. By the end of last fall, I had managed to make my way around the perimeter of the house, coating the old boards in tan and the trim work in a deep ruby red. However, the ladders I had only extended up to about twenty feet or so - not enough to reach the four corners of the house that come to points at "never eat soggy waffles." So, as winter approached I gave up.

Wise move. Wise move because this week I called Jeremy Black, a friend and man of many talents, one of which is as a general contractor. I asked Jeremy if he had a ladder that could get me up to the twenty-five foot range. "Oh, yeah," Jeremy assured me. "Are you going to be around tonight," he asked while editing about twelve hundred wedding pictures he had taken (one of his other talents).

And so I ended up meeting Jeremy on this past Tuesday just after dinner, and within an hour we had two twenty-five foot ladders up against the east side of our house with a walk board running the length between the ladders - making a perfect platform to finish painting the apex. And after we had the ladders up, I ended up drinking a root beer on the front porch with Jeremy - soaking up the natural leisure of dusk. It's all about the value of friendship.

Yeah, it's been a beautiful week in so many ways. Begun with Wyatt's fourth birthday party - celebrated with family out in our yard - and ending today in an opportunity to ride in the DePauw Little 5 alumni race. In the middle: bright, endlessly sunny days; the discovery of Greencastle's best pizza (in fact, it rivals any pizza slice I've ever had); some great moments wrestling with Wyatt and Elise yesterday; and even the opportunity to say congratulations to Brad Stevens in person on Tuesday.

I am blessed.

Wes

A New Season

March 9^th: I slay thee poplar and return thy sage and pale yellow meat from whence it came: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Thus spoke … me. At a quarter to 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the splitting axe found the last two hearts of timber, the last to be chopped for this winter.

Choppin’ wood has become a topic of conversation with a few members of our church, and a kind man brought it up in the narthex after the service of worship this past Sunday. He asked me if I was still burning. I told him I was, but the end was near. It was then I, the pastor, made my own confession: “You know, I thought this wood burning stuff was pretty manly in December. But … by the time February rolled around, I was done with being manly.” Once again, I managed to say something that I would never say if I actually possessed forethought. Thankfully, my friend laughed with me, not at me.

I am not the only one ready to disavow myself from winter and its chores. Spring is flirting with our long-buried hopes, and is wooing us with fairer days. This past Friday temperatures reached into the 50’s, and it was its own kind of intoxication. It just so happened that the sublime day was also the day we had committed to being outside and doing work.

Early in the morning, Gramma Lis came by to deliver a heaping bowl of steel-cut oats to our table. We sat mixing berries and syrup into our own bowls, talking and trying to determine what was to be done, who would watch the children, and what we would eat for lunch. Confusion was beginning to sprout, at which point Gramma Lis insisted on taking the kids into town and freeing us to do some work. We were freed by a sacrifice.

Without the responsibility of caring for our children, Anna and I hopped in the truck and in a few minutes we were on Manhattan Road. The chicks are soon to arrive, and we were in search of two necessities: chicken feed and sawdust. After a few calls to grain mill operators, Anna discovered that while Greencastle’s feed store does not carry any natural chicken feed, Cloverdale’s mill does. So it was Anna and I parked our petite 4x4 truck amidst a row of F-250’s and Silverado’s in the chalky gravel lot, and walked into the store looking exactly like what we are: ignorant, eager and overwhelmed. But, despite our foolish searching for chicken feed amidst cat, dog and bird food, we were soon wise enough to consult a man who clearly could help – he decked in Carhartt® overalls and a hat the color of a John Deere tractor and emblazoned with the sort of agri-business logo that stand guard over Indiana bean and corn fields. It wasn’t long after that I was throwing a 50lb bag of Homestead Poultry Developer into the bed of the truck. Do you think me a fool to say I was thrilled … or proud?

It was mid-morning when we returned back home. Still released from parenting, Anna and I stepped out into the yard. I carried a bow saw and pruning shears in opposite hands and headed towards the fruit trees that line a grassy drive between our garden and the eastern field. Anna carried a ladder and a lopper towards the street. For the next two hours we pruned and trimmed bushes and trees – breaking for lunch and then beginning again, this time with Wyatt and Elise playing in the yard and Gramma Lis joining the work.

To me there is such sweet satisfaction in honest labor; it was pure joy to feel an ache in my shoulders as I sawed the tops of the undisciplined and unruly fruit trees – a reminder again of connections so often severed, the vital connections: God, creation, being human.

By grace we now have many opportunities to rebuild and maintain those connections – a work decreed by God, our given discipline in the wide field of grace, mercy and perseverance. It won’t be long for the tiller to be put into action, the hoe to break the ground, the back to bend in the picking of weeds. And, likely, it won’t be long before the thrill of working the land lessens and the drudgery of the work wears me down – like the chopping of wood lost its manliness. Even still, for that first day, there was pleasure in it. Standing in the top of a pear tree, listening to the doves chortling in the near woods and watching Wyatt and Elise chase after each other, I believed that I too could be a farmer, that I could husband the land faithfully.

~Wes

The Cost and Value of Wood Fuel

“To me the winter would be well spent if I did nothing but gather wood to burn in an open fire, where I could watch its sublimation into smoke and ashes.”

-Harlan Hubbard, Payne Hollow

The winter has been harsh as has been broadcast upon the television news and in local papers. We have not been immune to the ongoing freezing temperatures, the snow-packed roads and the absent sunshine. Currently, there is a good five inches of snow upon the ground, the third such covering we have received this year. Besides making commutes into town difficult, the cold winter has also meant a greater need for a warm home.

Normally, to heat our home we would be dependent upon some form of gas – run through a pipeline to our home or housed in a tank. Indeed, we have such a tank on the western side of our house, but we have used its gas only sparingly this year.

Instead, we have been reliant upon a wood burning furnace on the eastern side of the house. Or, more directly: we have been reliant upon the dozen or so trees that were felled and cut into two foot long logs. Much of the wood is poplar, but there is also plenty of oak and hickory and even the remains of a persimmon tree that just last winter had left a host of seeds upon the driveway and in front of the porch. That was the first one we cut down. Another fell to a bolt of lightning this summer. Several more were felled to extend my father-in-law’s runway that is just south of our property.

I have found the use of wood as fuel to be a type of good work. It is a chore to be sure (although not nearly as much of a chore as burning wood inside a home or the chore it would have been for the early settlers to fell the trees and cut the trees with only hand tools). On these cold days, it requires either Anna or I to dress in heavy clothes both early in the day and later in the afternoon or evening, to push the wheelbarrow to the wood pile and to gather a dozen or so logs. Sometimes it also requires us to chop a thicker log into quarters. And, finally, it requires us to push the wheelbarrow back to the furnace, to open the metal door, and to deposit the wood – letting the fire do its work of consumption, turning the hard material into energy and heat.
Still, as much as the logs strain my back, there is satisfaction in this labor: satisfaction from having a hand in the whole process, satisfaction from the physical exercise that strengthens my body even in the lethargy of winter, satisfaction from the involvement of my senses.

What I mean by this last satisfaction, this arousal of the senses, is the connection and pleasure derived from all facets of wood fuel. There is the thrill of hearing the heavy axe sink into the log and the true feeling when the blade hits the heart and splits. There is the primal arousal of the smoke’s smell rising into my nose, the hot flames warming the hands and face as logs are placed into the inferno. Finally, there is the witnessing of the fruit of the labor: smoke pouring out in a snake-trail from the stack.

But, perhaps most importantly, heating our home through the use of wood has made me conscious as a consumer of the fuel. There is only one and a half cords of wood left as I write. That is supposed to last us the rest of the winter (if the cold persists, it won’t). We have probably been through another sixteen or twenty cords. I have not been keeping an accurate count. Still, for the first time in my life I have a general sense of the resources I am using and need to survive a winter in Indiana. I am gaining awareness, which is the first step in living responsibly.

New Beginnings

Here it is...the latest chapter in our story. This is the "temporary" house in which we will live. I use quotation marks because if we think about it realistically, our initial two to three year estimate begins to look more like 5 or 7...I dare not let my mind go beyond that.


It was originally built in 1885, and was perhaps a school house. The wooden handles on the doors indicate whoever built it was of a higher social class, and the music-themed woodwork in what will be our main bedroom leads us to believe that was some sort of parlor, entertaining space, or music room.

This house requires massive amounts of work. We are working to get it finished by the third of February...the day our furniture arrives from Owensboro. Who knows if we will succeed. I won't go into the details here, but plan to give before and after pictures of the rooms as they come to fruition.



Most recently, it was inhabited by a gentleman I knew and loved as I grew up in the farmhouse next door. He supplied our family with milk and honey and I carried over fresh baked pies...He was a cultivator, something to which I very much aspire.

The barn sits on perhaps my favorite part of the property -- just down a lane filled with mature fruit trees and berry bushes.


The inside is the best part and has me dreaming of the day we can afford to have it reworked into a modern home. It has a full basement, amazing loft, and although looks a bit shoddy from the outside, is quite structurally sound (from what we can tell). And who wouldn't want to reclaim that wood on the outside for a future ceiling?

All of this is a fantastic opportunity that would not be possible were it not for my parents' purchase of the property...and willingness to hold onto and rent it to us until we can afford to buy it from them. We are in a good situation here. In more ways than described here. We are so grateful.

~Anna

Exports and Imports

With the Olympics only hours away now every major media is full of stories about the rising influence of China upon the global stage.  Tonight, ABC's Primetime is looking at the role China's growing urban economy is playing on the entire world in a special hosted by Bob Woodruff titled China:  Inside Out (read more about the special here).  The show is taking snap shots of four specific countries throughout the globe influenced by China's growing demand for energy.  

Fifteen minutes of the special were spent in Brazil, which now exports vast amounts of its soy production to China.  The obvious question is, "why?" especially considering that just a few years ago China was able to raise and supply all of its soy needs.  But, as China's economic possibilities have exploded - lifting 600 million out of poverty in just 30 years (the greatest such surge in recorded history) - China's culture has moved from an agricultural, rather energy independent culture to an industrialized, energy sapping culture.  Thus, the extra soy is going to feed steers and other livestock, which are being slaughtered to feed urbanized workers.  

And with the growing industrialized economy come other costs.  For one, although China is home to 20% of the world's population, China only holds 10% of the world's arable land (China:  Inside Out).  As more land is dedicated to industrialization that 10% continues to decline.  On top of that, there's this:  all the construction and development is dependent upon the one thing we are all learning is not dependable, oil.  

Which then leads to the question, "Why China change so quickly and place itself in long-term risk?"  The answer to that question is built off of two ironies.  

First of all, China, the minor 20th Century political adversary to American democracy, is changing so quickly because America is making it grow.  When Nixon went to China he did so during a vanguard period, throwing open the door to Chinese industry at the very moment China was actually letting their own doors open to the world.  That small change in two country's foreign policies have since created a codependent relationship of supply and demand.  

We - as we continued to drown Soviet Russia in our spending and full-bore economy - expanded our notion of sufficiency ... and coincidentally expanded China's notion of productivity.  Even after the Soviet economy collapsed, ours continued to charge ahead, and our insatiable demand for more and more goods at cheaper and cheaper costs birthed China's own capitalistic economy.  For instance, China's current one day exports now equal what China exported in an entire year in the late 1970's - exports that end up in countless malls and - perhaps most notoriously - in low cost Walmart's throughout America (China:  Inside Out).  

It gets worse.  Our addiction to consumption leads us into habits of borrowing both personally and nationally.  This is the second irony, one too poignant and potentially disastrous to laugh at.  The money Chinese men and women are making off American consumptive habits is - in part - going back into the US economy to finance further American spending.  Chinese individuals and Chinese businesses are buying bonds to finance federal spending, and they are buying interests in US corporations to influence long-term plans.   

The overall effect is a symbiosis of exporting.  The Chinese economy and people export material goods to satiate American demand.  We all hear about that.  But, let's not forget the first export that we've happily sent around the entire world:  the American economic system and lifestyle which suggests happiness through materialism, which has in part motivated Chinese men and women to migrate from farms into cities, to buy cars and televisions.

This, unfortunately, reveals some of the truths we prefer to hide from ourselves.  Eugene Peterson who has lived as pastor, teacher and prophet has been attentive to America's destructive materialism for a number of years now - gathering wisdom and corroboration from other modern prophets like Bishop Desmond Tutu, Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Wendell Berry.  In an interview from the late 1980's regarding the impoverished state of American Christianity , Peterson said:

"It is useful to listen to people who come into our culture from other cultures, to pay attention to what they hear and what they see.  In my experience, they don't see a Christian land ...

"They see a lot of greed and arrogance.  And they see a Christian community that has almost none of the virtues of the biblical Christian community, which have to do with a sacrificial life and conspicuous love.  Rather, they see indulgence in feelings and emotions, and an avaricious quest for gratification.

"Importantly, they see past the facade of our language, the Christian language we throw up in front of all this stuff.  The attractive thing about America to outsiders is the materialism, not the spirituality.  It's interesting to listen to refugees who have just gotten into the country:  what they want are cars and televisions [and from the Romanian visitors I've known:  blue jeans].  They're not coming after our gospel, unless they're translating the gospel into a promise of riches and comfort." (Eugene Peterson's interview with Rodney Clapp in Christianity Today, published The Contemplative Pastor:  Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction).

As the 2008 Olympics prepare to begin, the world is about to see a China unveiled that will be radically different at first glimpse - a culture from the other side of the world.  But, upon closer inspection the China that people will see in the years to come will be the last thing the world needs:  an American economy of industrialized consumers.  For, as Bob Woodruff's special said explicitly tonight, the very reason why Chinese families are leaving their farms and working torturous jobs and saving their meager pay is - in the end - to live like Americans, to have the ability to eat more meat, to buy the latest technology and to have the world at its finger-tips at low, affordable prices.

It may appear that the dragon is rising, but - in truth - it is the bull and the bear that are moving China into the 21st Century.  So help us God.  

Little Farm Boy

300 Acres & 300 miles

300 acres of woodlands, a log cabin, a pond, two dogs, three deer, a turkey, one rope swing, and some good Foster's ... stir it up and you get one heck of a brief retreat from the (small) city of Owensboro.

Anna and I were kindly invited to join another couple out in Ohio County (east of Owensboro) on Saturday afternoon. After thinking about it for two seconds, we said, "hades yes!" It was grand. We enjoyed a wonderful meal prepared by our host (meatloaf, ceasar salad, mashed potatoes, asparagus and fresh bread) out on the wooden porch, listening to bird song and the subtle chirp of crickets. To top it off, we enjoyed some great cheesecake (two slices for me ... hehe) and a bottle of Red Truck wine (a white from Sonoma County).

Yes, it was all incredible, and I give such good thanks to be together with those friends ... in that place.

One thing also stuck with me ... that time, that place, they were inconsequential to the rest of the "world" in the sense of productivity or importance. For all intents and purposes, for an evening we had disappeared, dropped off the world or gone into some Bermuda triangle in between Louisville, Indianapolis and Nashville - an abyss devoid of art and entertainment, politics and religion, industry and commerce, just a wide space of creation and us under the darkening sky. Some people may be frightened by such isolation, by such a lack of relevance. Not me.

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Anna takes off tomorrow for an art fair up in Milwaukee. She is going to take a class in precious metal clay - learning how to craft and bake clay into jewelry. Somehow this clay is transformed through refining into valuable metal. I envy her opportunity to see definitively and artistically the Refiner's Fire.

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I'm going to stay around for two days - hopefully finishing up a sermon for Sunday and getting Wyatt's bedroom painted (yes, we are notoriously bad for doing house improvements in any timely fashion).

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Then, I'm off to Greencastle with Anna's dad and on to Chicago Thursday to catch up with Andy LaDow - an incredibly gifted, humorous and satirical friend. He's being kind enough to see to my visit.

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Friday I venture on up to Milwaukee to rejoin my wife and son. That same day we'll pack up the xA and travel the great distance back to Indianapolis for my mom's wedding this upcoming Saturday.

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Sunday: back in Owensboro ... to preach and hopefully tend to a garden in our own backyard.

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By the end of it all, those 300 acres are already going to be a distant memory, and I will shortly be in need of another stay in anonymity.

Wes