Six Arrows Farm Update

The first snow has come and gone...the transient herald of nearing abundance!  Wood splitting, trimming iris, bringing in potted plants, storing away the last of produce fill the fleeting time.  Charlie and Sam moved the hens up the hill and into the big bright hoop house.   All summer this place has been a desolate storage space; too hot to stay in and dreary with the dust of last winter.  Now, permeated with the spicy fragrance of a new deep cedar bedding and filled with subdued clucking, it takes on the cheery aspect of the sunshiny winter hen-house.  

Five of the hens were still in denial...evading grasping hands to wander aimlessly across the empty pasture and deposit eggs in forlorn tufts of dying grass.  Mama caught them and the boys locked them in with their more resigned companions that night.  Whether they became sensible and heeded the call of food and shelter remains to be seen.

Inexorably the splitter lays open the pale splintered hearts of cured logs and we heap them up, raw and lifeless.  Yet these dead shards of life yield to us warmth and cheer in the sultry breath of fire.  Again the Creator at once reminds us of ever present mortality and the promise of redemption.  Everything is redeemed on the land.  What falls asleep will awaken.  That which dies gives birth to abundance.  The privilege of the husbandman is to reach with reverent mortal fingers into this heart of creation and feel it beating with a vitality from the divine hand that we are powerless to recreate.  It it is granted us to nourish, prune and care for it and in turn receive from it divine gifts of life and nourishment.

Here comes a time to heap up in your heart the abundance of these blessings, along with the severe mercies.  Blessings...what a great many there are and how gracious is our Father.   And yes...the severe mercies...these wounds from the knife of sorrow.  These too are a gift, because when they make our well run dry, pain cuts deep and strikes into the true life flow of the heart...the love of God.  So He makes pain a servant that masters us to drive us back to the greatest gift...His redemption and the springing of joy from ashes.  Thanksgiving does not deny pain.  It is the antidote to it.  So when you are counting up the mercies of God, mark together the blessed and severe, the joy and sorrow.  They both mark the road to eternity, and both glorify Him through us...joy when we praise Him and sorrow even more when we praise Him.

Last night Daddy observed that these last days of fading warmth are another gift to add to the account.  The time is ripe and short...every hour, every minute, becomes a period of grace for the last work of the season to be completed.  Times like these remind us of the days when we first essayed to name our farm enterprise.  Among the titles eventually abandoned was the epithet "NeveRDone Farm".  This is life...the pleasure of living for man is found in his work...that which is incomplete until his appointed time.

"There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God."

~Ecclesiastes 2:24~

These are just a few of the things on my Thanksgiving list this year.

What are some things one yours and would you care to share them?

A blessed and merry Thanksgiving to everyone!

Six Arrows Farm Update

Are you hungry?  How many times a day does your body "ask" for nourishment?  Upon whom do you depend for food?

Life on a farm brings us about as close as we can get to the root of physical provision.  When your hands make room in the dirt for a seed that grows and clears weeds from the ground around a blossoming plant and severs the ripe fruit from the stem, you can't miss the wonder of "our daily bread."  On the farm, we learn that food is not something that will perpetually line the grocery store shelves.  It is a precious gift from the Creator to His creation.  A timely, daily, miraculously enduring reminder of our dependence on what we cannot truly guarantee for ourselves.

In a small way, the power of provision comes home when we feed our animals every morning.  Here the hogs come running to greet us, barking ecstatically, tearing up the deep rich soil of the forest floor in their mad haste like a crowd of play-weary children to the abundant table...because they know we bring dinner.  A mass of pig weed from the broccoli patch or the leavings of fresh veggies from our own meal sends their whimsical little tails wagging.  Yes...pigs wag their tails in joy.  They keep time with the curly little appendages while they plow trenches through dirt with their shoveling noses or strip leaves from the stems of vegetation with their pearly teeth.

There are the chicks, still mildly adorable in their half-fluff, half-feathered state, half submerged in the verdant sea of emerald pasture, stretching tiny stout legs with a lazy "cheep" and a hazy blink of the eye in the morning light before they waddle a foot for a tasty morsel of clover.  Even after the last vestige of cute "chick-ness" has melted away into the clumsy fatness of "chicken-hood," there will be a smile of satisfaction on my face every time I see their enthusiasm for fresh grass. 

The infinite satisfaction that accompanies the sight of contentment in a living creature should not surprise us.  Food, when abundant, can become the most vapid and commonplace element in a day, but the lack of it for any amount of time is disconcerting and detrimental, while great depravation can become a source of panic and even insanity.  As surely as you will become full after eating dinner tonight, so surely will your belly beg for more tomorrow morning.  In this way we are never permitted to forget our indebtedness, in recognition of which fact generations have preserved a tradition of thanksgiving prayers before every meal.  A farmer is in some ways like a father to his beast, and how imperfectly yet lucidly does this reflect the granting of life we have from our Father.

 

I think of this often.  Does the fruitfulness of a vine ever overwhelm you?  Do the life-giving veins of a leaf beat a stained glass window hollow for you?  Can the tenacity and forgiveness of herbage to freshen in rain after drought enthrall you?  Will wind rushing down the breath of a storm to cool the day make you want to run with it to the end of the earth?  Does the hap-hazard rocking-horse-plunging of a pig in sheer jollity make your laughter overflow?

In time long past, God asked Job this question:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me, if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements—surely you know!

Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone,

when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb,

when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band,

and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said,

‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

Have you commanded the morning since your days began,

and caused the dawn to know its place...?”

from Job 38

How much of this can you or I bring about, or preserve until tomorrow?  The question knows its own answer, as we should.  We could ask in return:

“O Lord...what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” from Psalm 8

The wonder is not that there is hunger and even dire want in the world, but that there should be a yield to our need at all.  I will venture to repeat the words of my forbears in this.  There is nothing you or I can do to deserve our daily bread more than another, so be like the chick who waits with certainty on us for his food and the pig who rejoices unstintingly at the coming of dinner.

Eat with thankfulness on your lips today, for no man can truly know where his next meal is coming from apart from the bountiful provision of our heavenly Father.

“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”

Psalm 34:8

A Six Arrows Farm Update

We have a new list...well...The List this time of year really takes on a life of its own, so I'm not sure whether we have it or it has us. In any case, this list comes a size large, so you have to make the time grow into it and "fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run" as Rudyard Kipling advises. With categories for the farm, a fast approaching open house and various individual projects, it looks something like this:

Freeze cornbread for the Cornbread Salad

Wash the floors

Cut the dead tree down

Make dinner

Clean the kitchen

Quartet rehearsal for a wedding

Plant tomatoes

Weed and mulch gate flower bed

Make dinner

Clean the kitchen

Plant foxgloves and wisteria vine

Throw in a load of laundry

Put in the pig fence

Make dinner

Clean the kitchen

Burn brush

Order bread making supplies for market

Teach music lessons

Make dinner

Clean the kitchen

Clean out the neighbors goat barn

Weed the strawberries

Fix the chicken waterer

Make dinner

Clean the kitchen

Cook chickens for Chicken Cherry Walnut Salad

Write the farm update

Call about a stock trailer

Make dinner

Clean the kitchen

Get field stone for the root cellar

Clean the garage

Hill the potatoes

Make dinner

Clean the kitchen

...

Notice the consistent and regular nature of dinner and clean up? In the near-frenzy of work on the farm, one of the few things that maintains sanity and regularity is mealtime. The fact that suppertime during this season is rarely at the same hour shouldn't come as a surprise. The kind of regularity our meals lend is of a different type. Whether it happens at five or eight, it gathers us together, comforts our stomachs, clears our minds, reminds us of the Provider of our daily bread, inspires aspiring cooks...and common table courtesy usually enforces a blessed silence for a short time (in most of us at least).

And then there is the kitchen, that place most of us know every inch of. Dishcloths are often a reliable barometer of the advancing state of one's kitchen. Ours are mostly threadbare and tend to be either mortifyingly grubby or bleached clean, with very little time transpiring between the two states. In a proper sense, perhaps our kitchen could be called threadbare. At the very least, it is well used. We know we are busy when the plates and cups go from the drainer to the table without touching the cupboard shelves. With at least three and more often eight people using the space regularly (mostly at the same time), it would be a stretch to say that there is a place for everything...or that everything is in its place. From a practical perspective, the geographical layout is deplorable and more than one of the outlets is finicky enough that you have to "nurse" it to get electricity (perhaps related to the frequent blown fuses; usually the result of trying to run three waffle irons or two crock pots at the same time). In spite of these minor glitches, this is where we are perfecting the art of efficiently feeding a large family on a healthy, economical, sturdy and even palatable diet. :)

Our kitchen is no bigger than it ever was, yet as we grow and change, it remains the hub of activity in our household. The attraction it commands it is as palpable as it is enigmatical. No one has ever really been in our home until they have come into the kitchen; preferably at the high tide of production when most of the doors and drawers are open and something is splashing over the top of a pot while half a dozen knives are clattering and at least three conversations are in progress. It is one of the less "beautiful" places in the house, but I can't tell you how many deep conversations are held over that battered counter, how many tears have been shed into the old stained sink, how many merry laughs have rung from the jumbled cupboards. Who could count the cups of coffee, loaves of bread, cans of tomatoes, burnt pies, broken mugs, favorite cookies, caramelized onions, mountains of dishes, saucepans of gravy, cut fingers, soggy hands, watering eyes, tingling noses and savoring tongues that are laid to its account. Never for a moment believe that kitchen work must be drudgery. Only drudges can make it so. Families can tear down the walls that divide them and establish the cornerstones of society while building the structure of a cake or reducing a mountain of dishes.

Around the old traditions and familiar habits of the home grow the changeful days, full now of new life, new plants, new gardens, new chicks, new pigs, new projects, new businesses. We even added a new bread variety for the Farmer’s Market along with the standbys and favorites...the common man’s Whole Grain Pumpernickel! My favorites are still the Rosemary Garlic with cheese in it and Aubrey’s famous Cardamom Braid. As you can probably imagine, by late morning every Friday, just walking in the house will make you hungry.

While your back was turned the woods tangled themselves together in a summer jungle and the grass grew rank and file all over the heated soil. The iris unfurled his shimmering walls and donned his feathery waistcoat and gold lined lavender suit. Leaves on the tree heights cast back the sun's golden eye from their smooth faces and shimmer on the breath of May breezes. The cool regal halls of the forest echo with a myriad chorus of birds and shelter the secrets of their nests. Every bit of the world, the vast sky, the fine dust of the blossoms of fruit, the jeweled feathers of the rooster, just shout "Glory!" day and night. This is the time when the farm is at its best, greenest, cleanest, when the shadows dance through hours of golden sunlight, while the bee hums his own tune at every flower. Here you can learn from the growing things what it is to be busy while at rest. The peaceful and idyllic surroundings disguise a ceaseless hum of energetic industry in the folds of their splendor. In fact, whether most know it or not, no one could truly enjoy the apparent glory if it were not for the apparent presence of effort.

Signing off to clean up for dinner!

Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows

A Six Arrows Farm Update

I threw the windows open this morning to let in spring and I wish you could be here.  The quiet sky is casting a soft gray blanket and filtering gentle light over a brown world misted with hazy green.  Things can't wait to come alive now.  Everything is reaching and striving and opening into the warmth.  It is all so vulnerable and hesitant, soft and new.  Composers have been writing music for spring for centuries.  Some of my old favorites...Vivaldi's Spring, Mozart's "Spring" String Quartet, Copland's Appalachian Spring are dedicated in title to the season.  But even these fall short of the real symphony that swells between last year's death and this year's life.  The story of spring is almost too delicate for any expression louder than a whisper.  While seemingly cavalier, the relentless and yet winsome power obviously on display makes carelessness and pomp equally graceless.

Poetry meets prose where pleasant weather meets reality.  Talk goes back and forth, some eager, some dubious.  What does a Minnesota grower do with a March Spring?  The orchard owners are justly concerned that an April or early May frost will kill the buds which are so enthusiastically bursting.  Last year, a similar weather pattern eliminated much of the fruit crop in this region.  On the other hand, if the frost wipes out the first of the weed bed in the garden before it goes to seed, we will of course be grateful.  And a lengthened growing season with good rain and sun can only help most crops.

Daddy announced a desire to do some brush clean-up over lunch and the prospect of grubbing around out of doors was so tantalizing that I enlisted myself almost before he finished laying out his plan.  I love to be in the middle of it, when all the world is living the first creation again; when the newborn green creeps up like an old friend and fills my senses with memories come alive; when my eyes drink the lush colors to their dregs.  I glory in the comical way the hens peck and cluck out their satisfaction across fresh turf while the rooster crows stentorianly simply because he can.  I am mesmerized by a single bud, standing there willing it to grow when I know for a surety that I can do nothing to make it mature or drink when I water, and yet it surely will because it lives avidly in obedience to it’s Creator.

To tear away at the old to make way for the new; to rake out, sweep up, and carry away what is chaff and press down and train up and feed what is good is in our nature.  Man is made neither as a foreign creature to destroy, nor a passive member to let lie the world in which he is established.  He is made a husbandman to make it better.  All around the farm are evidences of “natural” decay.  The beauty of untouched wilderness is not in its native disorder, suffocation, and barrenness, but in the potential it is blessed with: a will to grow and come alive under the hands of skilled and diligent caretakers.  That which languished in rampant chaos begins to take on the beauty of shape and form.  The accumulation of death and decay are set aside to give way to redoubled life and strength.  

The soil obeys the laws written in it and knows the hand of man as it’s appointed ruler.  It responds with fertility and abundance under a good steward and withering and desolation under a lazy or greedy man.

Proverbs 20:4 says “A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.”
So here we go to "plow in season".

Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows

Six Arrows Farm Update

A strange time of year this is, this place between winter and spring.  When a traipsing up the garden path through crusty snow and over hard earth this morning, my shoes were suddenly bogged in soft mud.  After that I left funny wet brown marks in my boot tracks over the frozen white path to the sun-drenched field where mud reined (temporarily) supreme.  Tomorrow is “promising” another rush of the Minnesota winter diet, so I won’t let the mud go to my head; but it is encouraging to realize that Spring grows close.

Warm mornings like this are a hay-day for the hens.  The hoop house will get positively hot by 10:00 unless it is opened, and unlatching the door is releasing a tide of vociferous clucking inmates, heads cocked askew to fix beady eyes dubiously on anything that moves.  To them, everything is something to be examined and pecked at.  Of course the predominant passion among chickens is food.  However, they are not the sort to do anything in particular except fight for it.  Tricks are above their dignity, not below it.  They are superficially proud of laying eggs, since it is something they tend to do every day; and yet they insist on crowing about it. Water is of little import, however much they may need it to survive, since they are nearly as likely to drown themselves in it as drink it.  The one thing they have in their favor is that every one of them can sincerely claim to have been an adorable little ball of fluff at one time.  Say what you like, I must venture to think of chickens much as I ever have: they are remarkably deficient in intellect…quite stupid in fact; and therefore especially needful of protection and care.  Raising chickens lends new understanding of responsibility.  Chickens, in large numbers, are profligate ingrates.  They won’t be herded, protected, loved, petted or named.  They disregard attention, mistrust friendly advances and deliberately run in the wrong direction for absolutely no reason whatsoever.  The somewhat “unaccountable” part about the farmer-chicken relationship is the fact that the sheer stupidity of chickens makes them all the more worthy of special care and protection.

This is the paradox of creation that men so often misunderstand.  Those nature shows on TV that emphasize the “survival of the fittest” and “natural selection” often miss the endless occurrences in creation of the sacrifice and tenacious guardianship on the part of the strong and able for those which are most likely to die.  More often than not, the pouring out of life on the part of the “fit” is carried to what some might consider “excess”, that the “less fit” may have a chance to survive.  And, yet, after all, this reflects the true spirit of the Creator for His creation.

Another aspect of life that comes out of life on the farm is an understanding of work ethic.  I was considering this while helping to prepare dinner the other night.  Aubrey initiated the trial of a new recipe, and most of us lent a hand in carrying out the effort to one degree or another.  Cooking like this happens in record time and I imagined with trepidation how much harder it would be to do the things we do so often together alone.

I know…I have touched upon that “dirty word,” WORK, which no one wants to discuss.  Frequently visitors to the farm are intrigued by the nature of the operation and overwhelmed by the recognition of how much work it must require from us.  We try to remind people that the work divided among eight able-bodied team-members is not nearly as daunting.  However, there is much to be said for an understanding of how work “works.”

When someone expresses a wish to help on the farm in some way, we often wonder if they know what they are asking for.  This is not out of pride, since we don’t believe that farming is an elitist life-style that requires excessive amounts of schooling or intellect, any more than most other occupations.  What is true of every other kind of work is true of ours: One must be able to recognize what truly needs doing, and be willing to do it with a will...without being asked.  Great quantities of time, energy and expense are wasted every day trying to hammer recognition of what needs to be done into people and then convincing them to do and finish it well.  Work is not the activity which happens between eight and four every day and consists of doing only as much as is required with the least expenditure of personal commodities like time, intellect, or energy.  Work is the thorough investment in the life that is given us through doing what needs to be done, early or late, tired or not, with a good attitude. It is a gift given to man by His Creator, not a curse to be avoided.  The antidote in many cases is investment.  For example if someone truly realizes that eating a good dinner sooner than later tonight requires some pitching in on their part, they are very likely to do it, unless their dependency on the diligence of others is fostered.  This is of course a somewhat superficial level of investment, since work must often be done when there is no prospective personal gain.  The one who then recognizes the virtue in doing something simply because it must be done has gained a whole new understanding of true work-ethic.

The reader would be mistaken to assume that the Six Arrows team has accomplished a perfect balance of work ethic.  Every day the division of our labor is challenged and augmented with some new project, especially as spring approaches.  And just in case anyone wonders whether our diet consists solely of whole foods, the picture on the left demonstrates that the Six Arrows benefit from a treat, such as made-from-scratch buttermilk waffles often enough to keep our spirits bright on the last of these cloudy winter days!

Cheerio!

Craig, Karen and The Six Arrows

Six Arrows Farm Presents at the Athlete Lab

Last Friday, two thirds of The Six Arrows gave a presentation about Six Arrows Farm at The Athlete Lab, Kate Klaers’ gym in the Twin Cities. We would like to extend an especial thank you to Kate Klaers for inviting us to her gym! Kate has invested in her clients, we can see they are truly her friends and she has a passion for healthy and responsible living.

The message at the gym that evening was healthy food. Our part was to present our farm story. We really enjoyed revisiting the path God has taken us and reviewing our methods in providing food to our customers and our family. By His grace, we are thankful for the wisdom we have received from others who are good stewards of the land and animals.

A few slides from our presentation...

1998...

The Lenz Men at Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in Virginia in 2003... 

The Hens and their Eggmobile...

Pigaerator Pork...

 After our farm presentation, Kate showed the film, FRESH. We couldn’t have planned it better, the movie featured Joel Salatin, the farmer the Lenz “boys” visited in 2003, to learn about raising poultry, hogs, and cattle. Joel Salatin is a farmer practicing sustainable agriculture, who understands his responsibility as steward of the earth including “respecting the ‘pigness’ of the pig, the ‘chickeness’ of the chicken, the ‘cowness’ of the cow and the ‘tomatoness’ of the tomato”! :o) We have personally learned and benefitted so much from Mr. Salatin; he has developed so many wise and practical methods that are very helpful for farmers trying to practice alternate and sustainable farming. On the flip side, the film also interviewed farmers who know first-hand the regrettable state of the current poultry, cattle, hog and crop industries. Industrialized agriculture has had consequences we’re sure farmer’s didn’t imagine. The film discussed farmers who are producing antibiotic-resistant bacteria through over-medicating their animals. When animals are placed in huge factory farms, they must use chemicals and antibiotics to keep the animals alive! When farmers use antibiotics as a means of disease prevention rather than treatment, the danger of promoting mutant, antibiotic-resistant bacteria is almost inevitable. Also, when land produces one crop, repeated over many years, this can be a proponent to problems, like the development of the soybean aphids infestation. There seemed to be an especial focus on raising pigs that we particularly enjoyed. :o) Much of what was communicated we know to be very true. However, as with most films, we have a little disclaimer…not every view portrayed by the film can be endorsed by Six Arrows Farm.

Once again, a big thank you to Kate Klaers for hosting us and all our gracious listeners! Now we are really excited for Spring!

Moving the hens to their warm winter quarters...

 You would be surprised how warm it is in this hoophouse on a cold day. Because the light plastic allows solar heat to penetrate all day the house is still fairly warm even at night. Our hens LOVE digging through their deep bedding during the winter months searching for grains or bugs. This process of disturbing their bedding surface enables the chips to compost creating additional heat. Our job is to keep the right bedding depth maintaining a healthy carbon-nitrogen ratio so their home is always clean and sweet smelling (that distinct sweet pickley smell that a farmer especially appreciates :o) ).

Sam makes sure his birds have a clean new home.

From the Six Arrows Farm Update this week:
"We have both turkeys and chicks growing in the brooders, but not together. They are very different even at this young age. You can tell from the pictures that their respective personalities are unique. Cheerful or Austere, Fluffy or Fuzzy, Simple or Clever, Absent or Curious. The incredible diversity that reigns in even the world of poultry is wonderful testament to the infinite mind of the Creator."

Processing Day!

Prep time...

Eight happy workers who keep the process going
Some who take it very seriously... And some who don't...

A table for packaging and selling... And our lovely camera lady to record it all...

This is why you never see her in many of the pictures...she is always behind the camera...but I caught her this time! :)

Thanksgiving Turkeys...

The turkeys are growing in leaps and bounds...

They have finally learned to obey the fence, although they continue to insist on sticking their heads through the netting to graze the other side of the fence. It’s always greener they say. Of course when they do stretch their necks out to reach that blade of grass and happen to touch the fence, they jump and jerk in an offended and surprised manner. These creatures are definitely not birds of the air.
See this undecided chap on the right, surveying the ground suspiciously after forgetting that it existed for a whole night? Turkeys especially like to roost, and always struggle with which side of the pen to get off of. I wish you could have seen him sway and flap on the edge of his perch before toppling over and making a nose-dive on the earth at his companion’s feet. They always get up like a cat… “It was deliberate, nobody panic. I meant to do that. Carry on you good fellows!”
These turkeys haven’t been “hybridized” as much as the broiler chickens, and are therefore closer in nature to the original turkey kind than broilers are to the original chicken kind. This makes them better grazers and hardier. This is why we have them on a day-range system. In this system, they get far more freedom in grazing, since they use the pasture efficiently, and we don’t have to move them as often! Being good grazers also makes them better to eat! There are more Omega-3s in animals the eat fresh salad!