To Re-ignite a Blog and the Pensive Turtle Returns

How to begin: A new Focus

Peace be with you,

     The last I used this blog as a platform to keep you, my friends spread around the world, abreast of my adventures was the summer of 2015. My how much has changed since then. I've pondered re-starting this blog numerous times, but each of those times the subject matter was far too personal to me or those closest to me to put so publicly. A change of focus is now needed. The original post were more a catalog of my frequent adventures and musings of an engineer working on an exciting rotational work schedule in Central West Africa, and of a newly confirmed Catholic and apprenticed farmer. While life is still full of daily adventure, it is, for a season, not of the same caliber or sensation as those days in Africa or Texas. The musings however are still there and it is to those I wish to write and share with some biographical chronicling to flesh out context.

Overview of 3 Years:

     Three years ago I was still a brand new Catholic of less than a year living and working on a farm in Central Texas. While the newness of being Catholic is ever present, I've also grown in faith and understanding such that I am more sure and confident, and hopefully gracious, while still having the zeal of a convert. I owe this in large part to the Grace of God working in my life through frequenting the Sacraments, the love and encouragement from fellow Catholic Christians, the patience of my spiritual director, study resources of the Institute of Catholic Culture among others, and the time in prayerful silence spent waiting on God.

     Nearly three years ago I met an incredible catholic women to whom I was engaged, for a time, to be married. We called of the engagement for multiple reasons, some of which only became clear in the aftermath. It is interesting how you can often know something before you can express fully the knowing; and that you can act rightly on that knowing with the little you can express. I think this is very human, very relational in scope, and I can easily overlooked, ignore, and undervalue the balance and tension of knowing and knowing why. 

     Well, when dreams are dashed and there is but one thing left in your hand, though a dozen voices may distract, do the one thing left to you! I returned home to Alaska the autumn of 2016 to work with my dad in the family business, spraying Urethane Insulation. Glamorous! Right?! Haha! Not so much, but it is good.

    I returned home telling my dad that I was going to work for him for 2-3 years and then I wanted to move on, really move out of Alaska again for a warmer more temperate farming climate. Yet, Alaska in her perilous beauty, untamable wildness, and remote vastness was balm to my weary and worn heart and she wooed me back to loving being here despite the rugged harshness of the wilderness, literally and spiritually. There is a tenacity and delicacy to life under the midnight sun and northern lights. (More on that to follow in subsequent posts) In addition, I came to enjoy the working relationship with my dad and I really enjoy the lifestyle and opportunities that seasonal tradesman labor can afford me in Alaska. Finally, ff no small importance, 2017 and the first half of 2018 where spent in discernment of a possible vocation to the priesthood which has had a profound impact on who I am today. While at this time I don't intend to write further about my previous engagement nor my discernment of the priesthood, they are part of my story and certainly color my thoughts and actions which is the content of what I will write.   

Inspiration and content:

    One thing about the work of spraying insulation pertinent for this post is the idea of "Repetition without Monotony." When you combine:

• 1) The time spent developing human interests and personal study of a single non-dating man in the evenings or during the slow winter months 
• 2) The beginnings of a prayer and interior life - very beginner 

with

• 3) A job that has an almost meditative quality of repetitive action with high awareness to multiple changing factors

You have a setting for rumination of ideas within the daily work routine that exercises mind, body, and soul should you take the time to foster the habit. I like that. I dare say I thrive with that kind of work, pray, study atmosphere as they all inform the other... and my poor dad as the sounding board for my menagerie of thoughts. Disclaimer: Not every day of work is of this quality and must be pursued attentively lest it slip away into the monotony of the urgent now; plenty of days my mind is on the worries, cares, and stresses of the day.

It is primarily from these working reflections that I wish to write about in this reboot of a blog. The topics will be varied and include: 

• Science and religion
• Theology and philosophy,
• Current events and news, 
• Human sexuality and love
• Contraception and theology of the body, 
• Art and literature, 
• The purpose of life, 
• Faith and reason
• Hobbies and the outdoors, 
• Farming and the environment, 
• Tradition and reform
• Politics and economics 
• Apologetics and history
• Culture and food
• Virtue and friendship
•  Sacred Scripture and catechetics
• Truth and Catholicism

Yikes! Perhaps I am guilty of being pretentious... To keep from biting off more than I can chew, the pace will be one post a week to be written by Sunday evenings unless I have three or more lined up and ready to go. I wish to make it abundantly clear that I am an amateur in all these things. That is, one who loves, practices, and cultivates these things while it is not my trained profession or education. Also, much of what I intend to write is based off of questions posed by friends to me, or questions that I ask of myself and of those around me. Humor is a good cure for taking oneself too seriously so I hope to take a jovial and lighthearted tone, being the first to laugh at my own absurdity. I write too for my own sake to order and work out my own thoughts, and sometimes to put some rambling idea to rest. 

Finally, what I write is sure to be controversial (if we're honest, there is controversy at the heart of all of us), politically incorrect (being p.c. is a moving target anyway), and not much in vogue (being in vogue seems highly overrated). Agree or disagree with me all you like. Constructive criticism is gladly welcomed. Investigate for yourself. Come to your own conclusions. God gave me and you reason, intellect, and a will but its up to us to develop and use them or to let them go to waste. 

First up for the weekend: Journeys, Longing, and the Catechism   

God love you,
~Andrew

Farm life, Bees, and the Ancient Faith

Hello family, friends, and loved ones,

A couple of weeks ago I shared a link on facebook about why it is hard to become a Catholic from a non-catholic faith background. I fully intend on writing more on why I converted but for the past weeks I've pondered what direction to head as there are so many reasons to give. I wrote an draft post on the reformation dogma of Sola Fida and how it is not scriptural or historically correct. However, in writing that post I got the sense that it was not where I was meant to go as I was drawn more into the depth of the Eucharist and its setting, the Mass. In the weeks following my life as been full of farming and in my spare time delving deep into ancient Christianity and beekeeping.

Farm life in the spring

This spring has been a most marvelous spring both in the beauty of creation and the amount of rain we have received here in Central Texas. On Holy Thursday of Holy week we butchered yearling lamb which for me at least certainly had spiritual significance and I think will be a practice I hope to implement if and when I have my own sheep heard. On the second day of May we had our first spring lamb born.

First lamb of the season. By the end of the first week there were over a dozen and now a month later we have A LOT of lambs running around. 

Sheep in the fore ground with the breed heifer heard in the background watching the antics of the lambs.

This spring we have also been setting eggs and hatching out chickens from our heritage Deleware chicken flock. This is a process in which we collect eggs for a week before placing them in the incubator. There the eggs are kept at around 100.0 degree Fahrenheit and 45-55% humidity for 3 weeks with an increase in humidity during the last week. Around day 10 in the incubator we take the eggs out and "candle" them to check for fertile and infertile eggs as well as for any other defects.

The eggs in the black hatching tray are at 19 days. Jeremiah and I have taken them from the blue trays where they are rotated for the first 18 days as the embryo develops.  

We were running between two to three batches of chicks at a time. The bottom tray will soon be full of cheeping little fluff balls while the eggs above have another week of incubation before hatching. 

Day 10 candling involves putting the egg against the end of a flashlight and observing the contents. When and egg is clear like this one, it means that there is no embryo growing and is an infertile egg. If the bottom of the egg were completely shadowed, then we would have a fertile egg.

The chicks have hatched and are dry! Time to check for defects, count them, out and take them down to the warm dry brooder for their first meal and drink of water.

Spring in Texas is truly a beautiful time of year. The meadows are full of many bright and vibrantly colored wildflowers, Bluebonnets (which are legal to pick), Indian Paintbrush, Crimson Clover, Yellow Clover, wild Mustard, and many many more. However, one of the biggest highlights for me was the discovery of wild blackberries growing along the hedge rows. One afternoon Jeremiah, the other apprentice, and I were out setting up a portable electric fence when I noticed a blackberry growing along the fence line. Later that afternoon we returned and spent several hours picking blackberries until we had filled several bowls to the brim. While picking along the hedge and fence lines we were able to stop and observe the other nuances of the nature that surrounded us.

Bluebonnets at sunset.

Indian Paintbrush in full bloom.

Early results show that there were more berries then we had anticipated

Found this birds nest nestled in a shrub along the fence line.

And then we discovered yet another birds nest. 

Bees  

At the end of April the farm received two nucleus bee colonies from a local beekeeper. In the week or two before the bees arrived Grady and I spent some time in the barn building two Kenyan Top Bar Hives (KTBH) to house the bees. However, the nucleus of bees came in Langstroth frames and brood boxes. You know in pre-school when you learn that you can't put a square peg in a round hole, well this was like putting a rectangular frame into a trapezoid. Needless to say this wasn't going to be an easy transition and so we got creative. Educated with YTO (YouTube Opinion) we placed our Langstroth frames long ways in the KTBH perpendicular to the top bars and took some of the comb out of the frames and wired them onto the top bars and the hopes that the bees would start drawing out more comb on the top bars so that we could eventually remove the frames. In the beekeeping world we don't know how sound this method of ours really is, but it worked! Being fascinated with the bees I began reading lots of online resources about beekeeping as well as downloading podcasts on the subject and listening to hours of bee lectures and talks on YouTube.

The first two KTBH in operation. The mason canning jars on the fronts have sugar water in them to feed the bees and help them trough the poor foraging conditions with all the rain that we have been inundated with this spring.  

KTBH 2.0 Texas Edition - This is actually the third TBH that I built after seeing the first two in action and reading about beekeeping issues here in the hot south. This hive has a removable bottom board which can easily slide in and out and a 1/8" mesh hardware cloth tacked to the bottom to allow better ventilation during the summer while still keeping pests out of the hive. One of the wild hives will be placed in here.

The bees just built this beautiful straight comb on the top bar. Two weeks before there was nothing on this bar. 

Beneath all those bees you can see capped brood. This hive's queen has been busy.

During all this information gathering, Jeremiah discovered two wild beehives on the farm which we began devising plans of trapping and capturing. The first one he discovered living in a smashed up old blue plastic barrel in the woods. The story of how the barrel ended up there in its deformed state I am not sure, but the bees sure didn't mind making it home. Just this last week we captured this feral hive using a home-made bee vacuum. Haha! That is right. A friend who has experience in bee removal and I used a shop vac to vacuum the bees into a 5 gallon bucket as we used garden shears to cut through the plastic barrel exposing the hive. We were able to salvage much of the comb with their food stores and capped brood and wired this said comb onto frames. When we poured the bucket of bees onto a spare bottom board positioned at the entrance of their new home we were very relieved to find the queen alive and well in the midst of the teeming bees.

This is a video of the plastic barrel hive. I have never tried uploading a video before to blogspot, so we shall see if it works.

Caleb and I prepare our equipment and the hive for operation extraction.

With the generator roaring in the background and the whir of  the vacuum we start opening the barrel. Caleb is on the right with the smoker which masks the bees alarm pheromone. The bees were still very unhappy about the whole process.  

Disclaimer: Due to very angry bees, our camera man had to wisely seek refuge in the truck as he had no bee suit on and hence there are no pictures until the end of the evening.

The bee are crawling up into their new home. We placed the hive in the same spot the barrel was in so that any field bees returning would still find a home. In a couple of weeks we will seal the hive up and transport them to the bee yard with the other hives. 

The second feral hive on the farm has taken up residence in a metal fence post made from oilfield tubing. I can't exactly go cutting into this hive without destroying the hive and the fence so instead Jeremiah and I positioned a TBH nucleus box/trap that I made over the hive entrance forcing the bees to go through the trap to access their hive. Since there is very limited space in the fence post we are thinking that the bees will expand into this box. We have yet to see if this will actually happen.

The experimental trap. Instead of trapping a swarm of bees which are looking for a home, we are luring an existing colony into a spacious addition.

Ancient Faith

Since writing about why I became Catholic I came very close to releasing a second part I drafted addressing the issue of the Protestant doctrine of Sola Fida and how this is not what the bible or the earliest Christians teach. However in reflecting on the Eucharist and its setting in the Mass, especial around Easter time I felt my attention and heart being pulled in a much different and much less confrontational direction. The beauty of Divine Liturgy and its declaration of the gospel continue to blow me away and overwhelm me. Much like the bees, I have been reading both books and online articles pertaining to the Catholic faith and spirituality, listening to hours of Catholic and Orthodox podcasts and sermons on a wide range of topics, and watching many YouTube lectures about the faith. Additionally, I have been trying to make it much more consistently to confession now that the church I regularly attend has a time a working person can actually make it too! While at the very first it can seem scary and daunting, this practice is really a gem of the Christian faith.

In beginning to explore the depths and richness of the Catholic Tradition, the first weekend in May I drove up to Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey which is an hour south east of Tulsa Oklahoma. The Abbey is a Benedictine Monastery of Solesmes Congregation. This was not any kind of formal retreat, though I fully intend on returning on a retreat later this fall, Lord willing. I first heard about this Monastery in an article on modern movements in the church in general toward intentional communities in the monastic mode. At Clear Creek, there is a community of lay faithful who have moved from various towns and cities across the US to this rural Oklahoma setting to be fed and nurtured by the monks and nuns and to live out the rule of St. Benedict in their own daily domestic life. After low mass, I was invited over to breakfast by a very dear old women who mostly certainly displayed the hospitality of a benedictine.  

The Church and Residence Hall as they currently stand.

The eventual plan for the abbey once construction is complete

In addition to visiting a Monastery this month, I have also visited an Eastern Rite Catholic Church twice, spurred on by my reading of history, the early church fathers and particularly, the eastern fathers and monastics of the Church whom Catholic and Orthodox hold in common. What is an Eastern Rite Catholic Church? To put it the best I know how, an eastern catholic church is a Uniate Orthodox church. Still don't get it? I didn't at first either. To make a lot of complicated history, theology, cultural, and political events and realities majorly overly simplified, the Eastern Catholics are Orthodox who are in full communion with the Pope of Rome as compared to their schismatic brethern who are not yet. To grow in faith and love, both east and west need each other.

What is coming from this exploring of the Catholic Christian Faith? Hopefully greater love for God and neighbor. If not, then it is all in vain. I am convinced that conversion and repentance which accompanies it is not a one time event, but ever ongoing as we are transformed and restored more and more, and more, and more into the likeness of Him who saves and frees us. The Church since its founding by Christ has 2000 years of history of men and women discovering the unfathomable riches of God showing us with their lives how to grow in faith, hope, and charity. Let us be like the saints and martyrs of old to the present!

Bless the Lord oh my soul! Worship His holy name! Sing like never before! Worship His holy name!

Why am I Catholic? - Part 1

Hello Family and Friends,

Last week I shared a link on facebook about why it is hard to become a Catholic from a non-catholic faith background. Several of you asked me why I converted and I promised to share my reasons. This last week I have really wrestled with what to write, how much to share, things to include and exclude in the narrative, and how to give an honest, accurate, and gracious response. Also, this comes on a week where I really wish I weren't Catholic as it would make my life so much easier. Despite myself, what follows is what I consider to be part one of several confessions. It is a long part one, but a short answer has the potential to not answer anything at all. I am still refining my thoughts and have already sent this to several people to read first over the weekend.

Here it is:

"Why am I now Catholic? What made me convert to Catholicism? Isn't it enough to just be a Christian in any church? What drew me and continues to draw me into the Catholic Church? What convinced me to join such and institution with so many faults and failings throughout the ages? What holds me there? - The Eucharist

My conversion got under way 20 years ago when I knew I wanted to be a follower of Jesus. Yes, I was 5 years old and my understanding was as a child's, but the experience is still there and I have had times since when that desire has been confirmed through trial. Following Jesus is indeed the most difficult thing I have done and choose to walk in; though I find He is the only true source of being and meaning in my rather existential way of thinking. I first learned about God from my parents and from a small Assembles of God church we were attending a the time. There among faithful, hard-working, average people I developed a strong desire to know the Truth about God, His Word, and His Church; from these I am passionate about advancing His gospel to the far forgotten corners of the world, and long desperately for love, unity, and harmony among my brothers and sisters in faith. Note too that I use the word conversion on purpose to describe my walk with God. My life is a continuing story of my will being converted to God's will. Surrendering my kingship to His Kingship over my life. This conversion is ongoing each and every day.

My first time visiting a Catholic Church was on Palm Sunday with my sister when I was 18. While my sister became Catholic only a couple of years after that initial Palm Sunday, it would be nearly 7 years before I finally joined. From there on out though, C. S. Lewis's "hounds of Heaven" took on a distinctively Catholic bite for which there is no good cure try as I might. This came at a time when I was question and testing what I believed and why I should believe it. I had come out of my teen years going to a Lutheran Church being steeped in some deep Protestant Theology and knew my reformation history and doctrines fairly well. I was frustrated though with how far the Protestant churches in general, and specifically in the Lutheran, had fallen away from what the early reformers had taught and practiced and wanted to find an authentic expression of Christianity that could be seen in the earliest churches and continuing through time. As such, I had been exploring various kinds of early protestant Christianity looking for that church that I thought most resembled the early church. Prior to this Palm Sunday visit I had been exploring Calvinism, but had some pretty major issues with hard line 5 point Calvinism which left me still question and exploring.

I should also note that whether intentional of not, many of us protestants including myself for a time subconsciously fall into "blink on, blink off, and blink on again" thinking when it comes to church history.  This is the idea that the church was going good up until that damned emperor Constantine started to muck things up in the 300s AD, it went to shit for a long while there in the middle when Catholics made stuff up, and then the reformers got it going good again in the 1500s AD. Restoring a very corrupt church to early church teaching. Once I realized that there was this underlying notion in many of the churches where I grew up and in my own beliefs, I rejected it. I couldn't believe such a scenario had occurred. For me to believe that would be to believe that Jesus was a liar and hadn't sent the Holy Spirit to direct and guide His Church (John 14). His life and teaching was all for nothing. I couldn't believe such a scenario had occurred. For me personally, such a view makes Christianity about worthless and a waste of my time.  History tells a different tale than this blinking church notion, but that is a topic for another post
.

Also in this search for an authentic and historically based Christianity is that it was not going to be based on my interpretations and limited understandings which are certainly full of flaws natural to a 21^st century American, privileged, white male. Nor could it be a church founded by any of the men or women I knew. People who founded their brand of Christian church based on their flawed understandings and prejudices natural to their time, place, and culture as well. Nope it had to be linearly connected across the ages and cultures, timeless, and claim basis not just in scripture but in at least the first few centuries of Christianity. It had to be rooted from the very beginning and develop over time like a vine from a seed with the occasional pruning (John 15). To leave everything up to personal interpretation is to usher in absolute chaos and leave communities of believers re-inventing the wheel constantly within their lifetime, and certainly every few generations. Splitting churches, families, and communities over differences of opinions was surely not what Jesus meant when he prayed that we would be united (John 17).
  

So here I am looking for a historically accurate church as I graduate from highschool and headed off to college. Because I knew that the last thing I wanted to do was to become Catholic and I was struggling with protestant churches, I figured that I would go to the Eastern Orthodox church since they could claim legitimate lineage from the disciples and they hadn’t gone about changing their teachings over the millennium as I thought the Catholics had. Plus the Orthodox don’t have a pope, or some other pesky Catholic stances, so this Lutheran was happy. I love the Orthodox Church and still treasure much of what I learned there. (Latin Mass, in my limited experience has nothing on an Orthodox mass for beauty and majesty of worship) I was seriously looking at becoming Orthodox when I met an amazing Catholic girl towards the end of my freshmen year of college.

No, it was not to be the ideal love story of boy meets girl and live happily ever after. We have gone our separate ways many years ago, but she got me to studying and searching out the claims of the Catholic Church. It was in prayer during Eucharistic adoration one evening with her and other youth of Denver that I knew God was calling me to surrender my pride, fear, and life I wanted and to obediently follow Him at all cost into the Catholic Church. I started in an RCIA (Rite of Catholic Initiation for Adults) program with a FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) missionary on campus. I knew this was the right path, however becoming Catholic was just costing and demanding too much on my relationships with family, friends, peers, and was threatening my future plans; I revolted. I did not want to be Catholic if it was going to be so hard. It was way easier to just ignore certain doctrines and remain a good protestant and in control of my life.

Pride and fear primarily drove me into rebellion. I told myself I was ready to go anywhere in the world including deepest darkest Africa (though I was sure He wasn't going to send me there. Oh wait…. He sent me there) and do anything God wanted me to do, but not become Catholic (oh wait... that happened too). I was very adamant and didn't want to be wrong in my protestant beliefs so I just ignored my conviction and tried to carrier on. I visited quite a variety of churches during this time and even went on a mission trip for a summer hoping to get more direction on long term international work. I wanted to be a missionary and plant churches among unreached people groups. I didn't see a place for me to do that as a Catholic. I was afraid of the repercussions of becoming Catholic on my friendships, relationships with family and loved ones, and my place in campus ministry and any future in long term mission’s work. Nope, becoming Roman Catholic and switching churches was not a part of my plan. It would ruin them in fact.

Fast forward to senior year of college in the first few weeks of the fall semester. Another FOCUS missionary and I got talking, and he challenged me on how I understood and interpreted John 6 in the light of scripture and reason.

Of all the passages I wanted to not address, this was it. I already knew the Catholic understanding held up unlike other interpretations and agreed that I needed to come home to the fullness of Christian faith found in the Catholic Church. We studied and prayed together often in preparation for me to join the church at Easter time as is customary. In hindsight, I should have converted late that fall when I was ready so as to keep me from letting my pride, fear, and personal desires drive me into revolt. Again. Yep, to my core I really didn't want to become Catholic. It was too demanding. Besides I had and have an ongoing problem with accepting authority and submission to it on a heart level even though my head can intellectually understand and consent. By becoming Catholic there is a certain amount of giving up of one’s own autonomy of belief and right to self-interpretation that I still find very difficult. I am told there is freedom in it, but I still wrestle with it.

As I graduated college and went to work, I was running away as fast as I could from the Catholic Church for the second, and I hoped last time. I was angry and wanted to follow God on my own terms. Terms which weren’t bad of themselves, except that I was the one dictating to God. I wanted nothing to do with the Catholic Church or Catholics. My sister, who had become Catholic by this point, and I were not on very good speaking terms thank in large part to this difference and my mom was beginning to go to church with my sister so that aggravated me even more. Instead, I became much more interested house churches, small intentional communities of believers, and church planting. I started diving into the Jewish context of the New Testament and the depth of understanding that can come from knowing the people and culture of the first century AD. All stuff I am still passionate about, but now I am coming from a different basis.

Then came my 26 month wilderness with the occasional oasis, Africa. My job out of college took me to sub-Saharan Africa. A lot happened during those 26 months, some highs but plenty of lows too. In some ways I am still processing the cocoon it was for me. The people I met in Africa didn’t need me, I needed that time in Africa with them. I could say a lot here and perhaps will be another post, but suffice it to say that when I left my engineering job, I immediately sought entrance into the life of the Catholic Church and the life of a farmer. If I thought the last 7 years were hard, then the really hard journey of life in the Kingdom of Heaven has begun as a member of the Church Jesus founded. Upwards and Onwards!

If you want an easier life, then don’t become a Catholic Christian!    

So, what made me convert? Of all the doctrines and in spite of fellow sinners I’ve encountered along the way in my journey of faith, it is the Eucharist that captured and called my heart into deeper communion with God and His people.

The Eucharist, which is to say Jesus Christ the Son of God, Lamb of God, the Risen King of glory and the great I AM. Jesus alone has the words of eternal life. I meet Jesus every time I enter a Catholic Church, whether I receive the consecrated host or not. That is it. This one reason above all the others is why I converted. Everything else in tension between Catholic and Protestant can be superfluous to me in the light of this one fact. It is the sum and summary of our faith uniting us with all of God's faithful here on earth and in heaven. If is the focus of the Mass, and everything point towards Christ present. God is fully spiritually AND physically present in the sacrifice of the Holy Mass. (John 6, Matthew 26:26-19, Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:15-22, 1 Corinthians 10:16&11:23-32) I am convinced and convicted that Jesus is speaking literally. This has been the understanding of Christians for the vast majority of history. I thought that surely for my Protestant expression of Christianity to be authentic and correct I would find a protestant understanding of this central tenant of faith in the writings of the earliest Church Fathers. People who were before Constantine. I wish it were so, but alas it is not the case. Starting with the instruction of Christ to His disciples, and the first disciples to their protégés the teaching on this point is un-wavering. The absolute conscience of early Church teaching affirming Catholic teaching on the Eucharist is honestly quite deafening. Especially seeing as all the other issues the early churches were struggling to address.  It wasn’t for a thousand years until you will find a divergence from this belief, and even that guy in the end affirmed the one Church’s teaching on the matter. It is not until the 1500s with the splintering of the church during the Protestant Reformation that you get a smorgasbord of interpretations regarding communion. To be consistent with the whole of our Christian heritage demanded that I be Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. For the practical reason that there are very few orthodox churches in vast potions of the US and conviction on some other uniquely Catholic dogmas (i.e. the pope), I am now Catholic.  

Why such a big deal? Read those passages I listed previously. Also, study the Jewish context of the Passover and what it means that Jesus fulfills Passover. Note too that John 6 occurred during the time of the Passover. I would recommend Ray Vander Laan (Not a Catholic) at “That the world may know ministries”. He has some excellent podcasts to listen to on the topics of Jewish holidays, and particularly Passover. I would also recommend Scot Hahn’s (Convert to Catholicism) book “The Lamb’s Supper”. Or go to the source and read what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say. You can find that online easily.Trust me, the Catholic writings from the centuries on the topic of the Eucharist could fill large libraries I am sure. There are many men and women far more learned and capable of subject than I. To get a surface understanding of all the may things that are connected and intertwined with this one sacrament would take more space then I can here dedicate to it. I am only just beginning to start wading into the waters of the church instead of just dipping my toe in testing it. I am nowhere's close to swimming yet. Ha!

The bread and wine are the true body and true blood of Christ, nourishing us with new and everlasting life to live our lives in holiness. Talk about a stumbling block to the religious and foolishness to the wise and sophisticated. I get why many disciples left Jesus at the end of John 6. In my refusal I’ve been close to walking away entirely too. It is easier to stay on the mountain with Jesus after He just miraculously fed the crowd that it is to hear that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood the next day. It is a hard teaching, who can accept it? I cannot hold to a “memorial” view of communion, nor to a “spiritually present” one in the light of scripture, reason, and history. I personally have three options which you seen at the end of chapter 6. Walk away like many who followed Jesus, play Judas and fake it until you can cash out, or confess as St. Peter did and say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal lie. We have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

My prayer right now is this: “Lord, keep my mind fixed on heaven, my feet firmly planted in soil of the earth, my heart on the cross, and my hands as instruments of charity, mercy, and healing.”

-

To be continued...

Life at Cobb Creek Farm - Hoop Coops

Hey all!

Today I want to write about the last 4-6 weeks of our Cornish Cross Chickens after they come out of the brooder houses.

Typically we catch the 3 week old chicks the night before putting them out on pasture as it is much easier to catch them at night in the dark. We just flip our head lamps on to the red light and they don't become disturbed or frantic like they do when you catch them during daylights hours. After catching them we leave them in crates in the brooders til morning. Then after chores the next morning we load them on a trailer and drive them out to the "hoop coop" where they will stay until they are ready to go to slaughter.

"What on earth is a 'hoop-coop'?" Glad you asked.

Think of a portable chicken coop in a hoop house/greenhouse type structure that is 20'x36', rests on skids, and is moved daily with a pick-up or tractor. Or better yet, check out the photos below.

The Hoop Coop (I also like the name, Chicken Schooner but this ship only has one sail)  in the rather pitiful looking pasture. These chickens are doing the most good by fertilizing as this soil is in pretty bad shape and needs some TLC. Come on perennial warm and cool season grasses!  

Every morning we pull the hoop coop forward a spot. The structure is mounted on skids that we can pull with a chain. When
we get to the end of the field we just pull it back in the other direction on new ground. From hooking up to the chain to pulling away after feeding and setting everything up, we spend 10 minutes per coop.
Also, as you can see in the photo, we have
the side walls rolled up to regulate airflow and temperature. This time of year in the cool season we have the end wall plastic on to help keep the heat in and keep the chickens out of too much direct wind.  

Around the base is our hot wire that we jumper (black cord with the white handle) over to the portable electric fence (the yellow stake). The garden hose is plugged for water. If the weather report is calling for near freezing temperatures, we bring the hoses into the barn over night and put them back out in the morning.

6 week old Cornish Cross Chickens in the hoop coop. Waters down the center with the pvc water pipe running down the middle in the rafters. Feeders running down each side with two white grit dispensers as well. 

The tally sheet. From right to left: Date, daily feed, total cumulative feed, daily casualties, cumulative casualties, total live birds, feed conversion which we tally up after they have gone to the processing facility. 

Pretty neat system, huh?

Right now we have 2 hoop coops, with the 3rd in construction and 2 more on the way. Each coop has 12 feeders at 30lbs of feed each, 6 automatic water dishes, 2 grit dispensers, and a tally sheet that we keep track of daily and per batch. On the front and back walls we have plug ins for the water so we can plug it into the farm water lines and/or daisy chain the coops together. Around the perimeter we run a hot fence that is attached to a portable fence run from the permanent hot fence. Thus far there have been no casualties due to predators, and the coyotes are around. The side walls roll up and down to provide climate control; plus the end wall plastic can be taken off during the hot time of the year and put back on during the cold season here in Texas. (I am from Alaska. It is hard to call it winter when there is no snow sticking to the ground. Sorry ya'll.) During the summers we will put shade clothe over the top of the hoop-coop to limit the green house effect and to run a misting system down the length of the coop tied into the same water system to keep the chickens from over heating - there is good water pressure and supply to the entire farm.

"What does all this mean in a nutshell?"

We can raise broiler chickens on pasture year around in Texas, cover a lot of ground with a lot of chicken fertilizer, and raise a superior tasting industrial bird then the industrial system.

Is this the perfect picture of a sustainable farm?

No, but the Cornish Cross bird is what we, food citizens, all have come to associate with the taste of chicken from the store and the industrial food system; we, farmers, can improve the soil with the bird; and we, farmers again, can make money quickly with their fast ROI and ready available market.

Is there a better way?

Absolutely. Up next in our discussion, the Heritage Delaware Chicken.

Every morning I make my way to the back of the coop to shew the chickens forward as Grady slowly pulls the structure forward. I snapped this photo before calling out to pull ahead. 

Life at Cobb Creek Farm - Brooder huts and chicks

Hello Family and Friends!

I have been remiss on writing but never worry, I haven't forgotten and have been taking some photos to illuminate my lack of description and creativity. Since I am mainly working with chickens and chicken related projects I figured that I would start there. (More on chickens, cattle, and sheep to come)

The chicks (Cornish Cross)  arrive in the mail and we pick them up first thing in the morning from the post office. To start out there life with us we keep them in a brooder house for the first three weeks where they can stay dry and warm out of the weather. After their three week stay they then head out to the field shelters or "hoop coops" where we raise them until they are ready to be processed at about 7-9 weeks of age. These broilers grow fast. Below is the process that we went through building the brooders and some of the elements of our chicken process. Starting this week we will be raising 600+ broiler chickens a week - we were doing 600+ every other week. To meet the increase in numbers we had to build two more brooder houses for a total of six houses.

Each of the brooders are 12'x12' inside dimensions and the peak is at about 7'. We framed the brooders in up in the barn out of the elements and painted them there with a cheep primer. After the primer dried we loaded them onto a trailer and drove them down to brooder alley as I have taken to calling it.

Once we got the upper roofs attached and the seams caulked and flashed we put up chicken wire over the lower roof portion as the lower part of the roof opens up to let air flow in during the hot summer days. This time of year we have them sealed down with some fiberglass along the edges to block the cold north wind. Also the two windows next to the door and the back wall open up for added ventilation and day light.

The upper roof over hangs by several inches to make sure the drip edge doesn't flow in and soak the chicks.

  

Everything up but the doors. It is almost good enough to be the new apprentice housing! Time for me to move in!
















The "Ohio" brooder box. This is a 4'x6' box that sits several inches off the floor. We then have two red heat lamps, one at each end where you see the light fixtures. On top of the box we spread a bag of peat moss to act as a bit of insulation on the top that we can then scoop off as needed in wet spots. The temperature with the heat lamps combined with the body heat coming off 330+ chicks can easily exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Even when we were having ambient temperatures in the low 20s here, the temp under their brooder box was in the 90s.

One thing that I failed to take a picture of was that we ran a sub power feed from the main breaker panel to the back of the first brooder house in the row of six and then ran power to each of the other houses. We are able to plug in several lights or fans as needed.

The water system is pretty straight forward. It is all gravity feed. Outside we have a 5 gallon bucket sitting on a pedestal with a hose running into the hut feeding a 2"x10' PVC tube that we taped with water nipples every couple of inches. Then we attach the water system to an adjustable hanger. As the peat moss bedding gets deeper after each batch of chicks and as the chicks grow we can raise and lower the water system. The area just under the water pipe gets wet more then any other place in the brooder. Additionally, the chicks lay a good amount of their nutrient load here. Hence why we have extra peat on the brooder box to spread and help lock in the nutrients and "absorb" the smell. When well managed these brooders don't smell repugnant at all. If they smell bad, we are doing something wrong.

Grady's pick-up loaded down with a ton of sphagnum moss, literally. We use
a lot of it around here. "Is that strapped down?" you ask. Nope. However,
the pallet was well shrink wrapped and we still drove safely home from Lowe's. 

Which brings me to sphagnum peat moss. We use peat moss as our bedding material for the chickens. It absorbs water and holds nutrients well keeping the chicks dry and warm. After each batch of chicks we till up the bedding to mix in their manure load and then add more bags of moss. As the bedding gets deeper it actually starts to compost in place somewhat making the bedding warm to the touch. Once we get to the point that we need to clean out the brooders, which hasn't happened yet, this peat moss will make some amazing garden soil building material. I am excited to see how it does come spring time.

These little guys venture out from the comfort of the mass under the brooder
box to get a drink, eat, and explore their new home.

Once the chicks arrive we count out 330+ into each brooder - I say plus as there is a certain percent the hatchery sends extra that they expect to die out of each batch - and we monitor the chicks as they drink out of the bell waters and run around checking out their new digs. They will drink out of these for the first day or so before going over to the PVC water system. Also after the first week we put the tubes back on the feed trays to accommodate the increased daily food needs and provide starter and grower grit in a separate dispenser depending on their age.

That is the brooders and a little on the first three weeks of our meat birds. Until next time,

Ciao!

Little Farmer thinks this brooder house is ready for chicks!

Latin Mass on All Saints Day

Today I went to a Latin Mass Parish outside of Dallas for Church. It was exquisite. The music and choir was uplifting, the homily challenging, and God was present. My heart was beating so hard with anticipation; pounding rapidly and loudly in my chest and ears as I prepared to receive the Eucharist. That never happened before becoming Catholic when I had communion in other churches. Our God is an awesome God. He is the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God.

Selah.

I doubt I will go weekly since it is over an hour drive one way, but I hope to go about once a month while I am down here in Texas. I came back singing a hymn we sung this morning that I first learned in the Lutheran Church. The classic hymns can really be timeless, much like the Latin Mass. (No, I don't speak Latin, but fortunately there is an English translation of the Liturgy with which to follow along.)

Yeah, by God's grace I am finally home in the Catholic Church. Now the journey begins in earnest.

"Further up and further in!"

New Beginnings Take Shape

Greetings friends and family,

Over a month ago I wrote about my resignation from working in Central West Africa. Well, things have progress apace. Almost immediately after returning to Alaska I was on a flight to