Katie and I are reading “You Can Farm” by Joel Salatin, and in addition to being a really interesting read about how to start farming, he is a pretty funny writer.

Here’s the funniest passage I have read so far:

Certainly I am not opposed to land ownership, but at the outset I think it is necessary to debunk the myth that it is the prerequisite for farming. The back-to-the-land hippies soon learned that there was more to successful homesteading than building a dome home, planting two rows of adzuki beans, free ranging some laying hens and lying on a yoga board 30 minutes a day.

I had never heard of adzuki beans before, but I surmised that they were some kind of Asian cuisine bean that was all the rage for hippies some years ago (this guess was somewhat correct).

This is also funny because there is a whole community of dome homes on IH-35 on the way from Austin to Dallas (somewhere close to Waxahachie I think).

This past winter I made our first compost bin with some wire mesh and wooden posts that were left in our backyard by the previous family that lived here.

It has done okay, giving us one large batch of compost, but it was on the small side, about 3 ft x 3 ft x 2 ft = 18 cubic feet, and it was always filled to overflowing.

Well, I found some old boards in the backyard and used some of the cedar planks that used to adorn our living room wall to make a new compost bin of much greater size: 4 ft x 4 ft x 4 ft = 64 cubic feet! It is amazing how size in volume grows so quickly even with just a little bit more on each length.

Here is the new one engulfing the old one:

With beehive in the background:

Today is the solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, and I was reflecting this morning upon the Gospel of Matthew, where Peter walks on water and promptly begins to sink.

I’m a lot like Peter. Some psychologists surmise that Peter had a sanguine-choleric temperament like mine, which would account for his tendency to stick his foot in his mouth and behave impetuously. That certainly happened when Peter asked Our Lord to call him out onto the water and began to walk, only to look around and realize that the waves were high and change his mind about this whole water-walking business and begin to sink.

Jesus is so good. He is at the disposal of Peter. He calls Peter onto the water when Peter asks. He gives Peter the grace of faith to walk. Then, He lifts Peter from the water when Peter begins to sink. What a good Lord is Our Lord. If you feel like you’re sinking today among many waves, you can imitate Peter and cry out with abandon, “Lord, save me!” And, He will. YKC!

Thank you all for your prayers and phone calls and compassion in this difficult time for Devin and me. We promise to talk more when we’re ready and share all the details then.

Please share our news with others and ask them to pray. And, please know that we feel your prayers amazingly and are assured of the happiness of our child in the arms of God.

I stumbled across this article yesterday and was so saddened to read about the difficult decision shared by this father and his wife.

Reading about this couple’s experience made me think about the crazy ethical questions we’ve created for ourselves with our modern fertility practices.  By separating procreation from the marital embrace shared between husband and wife, through IVF and a variety of other practices, we’ve created “extra” embryos with whom we don’t quite know what to do.  Frozen babies.  Multiple babies in one womb.  Babies donated to research.

In the case of this couple, they became parents through the use of IVF and then, were delighted and frightened to learn that 4 of their 5 embryos had implanted in their mother’s womb.  They ultimately chose to abort 2 of their growing childern, and, as I read, I couldn’t help but feel so sad for the 2 children whose lives were spared.

Because, what if those twins-who-used-to-by-quadruplets will have to deal with emotional and psychological issues?  Will they feel subconscious guilt that their two siblings died so that they might live?  Will they feel some fear that, if they aren’t good enough, their parents might reject them, too?  Will they feel grief for the brother and sister they never knew?

I can’t imagine the difficulty of this couple, who joyfully awaits the birth of their twins, even as they grieve the loss of other twins.  How very confusing and sad.  Lord, help them, and Sts. Gianna Molla and Gerard Majella, pray for them.

We have had some good discussion with our friend JR in the comments of the post on our visit to my uncle’s farm.

Blair posted a video that I recently heard about of Father David Konderla on EWTN!

Father David was the associate priest at St. Mary’s University parish at Texas A&M when I was in school there.  He heard my first confession and concelebrated the Easter Vigil Mass where I received Confirmation and First Eucharist.

Then when I moved to Austin after graduating, he also moved to Austin and became the diocese’s first full-time vocation director.  I began discerning God’s call to the priesthood at that time, and so I met with him and other young men discerning for a few years.

Now he has switched positions with Father Mike Sis and gone back to A&M as the pastor of St. Mary’s.  May God bless him and all Aggie Catholics!

Katie and I have finally stopped trying to escape the truth: We are becoming about as Bohemian as you can get.

Why? Well, what do you think is missing for our backyard that already has a vineyard, a garden, a compost pile, and a hive of bees?

Chickens, of course!

more…

Katie and I inspected our Ambrose hive this weekend and were very happy to see that our bees had drawn 7 more frames of beeswax comb in the new super we put on last week, and they were filling all the cells with nectar to make into honey!

We have to wait for them to dehumidify the nectar from 80% water, 20% sugar to about 20% water, 80% sugar, then they will “cap” the cells with wax, indicating that the honey is ready.  Isn’t it nice of our bees to tell us when the honey is ready for us to take? 

Of course, we are leaving an entire super of 8 full frames for their consumption over the winter, plus whatever else they store in their brood supers, so they should have plenty, too.

I took a short video of our bee hive entrance so you can see the activity.  Our bees didn’t try to sting us at all, once again; they are the most docile bees imaginable!

Katie and I are doing our part to feed alien insects and worms–are you doing yours?

This video shows the large hornworm that Katie found eating our tomatoes.  She was unable to remove the worm itself due to its super-worm strength from outer space, so she had to break off the entire branch and dump it in the compost pile.