A springtime walk (video)

Late this afternoon, the clouds moved out for a while and the sun shone. So, before doing my evening chores, I took a walk (accompanied by two younguns) and shot some video.

Homestead objectives (part II)

I made a list of some of our main objectives thinking that I would write one post describing them. Then, I started and determined that such a post would be quite long, longer than I had thought it would be. So, I’ve broken it down into individual posts focusing on the individual objectives. The first one I covered was to grow and harvest good food.

The second objective I’ll discuss is to grow together as a family.

Homesteading provides opportunities for us to be together and to work together that would not otherwise be possible. I’m very blessed in the job that I have because it allows me to work from home. It’s also not full-time work. The income it provides is less than many families spend just for food each month, but it allows us to be together. We have made choices about how we live, and we appreciate the advantages that come with it. Sure, it would be nice to still have the income I had before we moved here, to still live in our big, red-brick house, but I would be gone much of each day and several evenings every week. I wouldn’t be around for us to eat three meals together as a family like we do now. I wouldn’t be there every night to help get the children ready and into bed and to kiss them goodnight. We wouldn’t be together as we are now. Our children are growing up with their daddy as an every day part of their lives. In fact, Malchiah and Naomi have always had it so.

We homeschool our children. There are too many influences in the public schools that we do not want them exposed to. Our children do not watch TV or play video games. They don’t go out to eat or to movies. They don’t do many of the things that most of society thinks of as “normal.” They aren’t deprived, though. They have 57 acres of woods and fields to run around in. They have great imaginations and are able to use them. They have responsibilities and jobs and are learning the value of working. They have been around and know about the process of live, its beginnings and endings. They are developing a healthy respect for and understanding of the purpose of the animals God has created. They are learning about proper stewardship for the things God gives us responsibility for. 

Ideally, schooling is a natural, normal part of life. We try to make that so. We also use some specific curricular tools and have “lesson” time for the children. They’ve been read to since they were just wee little things, developing a love of reading at an early age.

Our children are wonderful blessings, and God has given us a great responsibility in raising them properly. I wish I could say that we do it well. I know we don’t do it as well as we should. But, I can’t imagine the additional challenges that we would face in this task if we lived in different circumstances. When I was young, my family was financially poor, but we were rich in many other ways. We worked hard raising, harvesting, and preserving food. I didn’t always appreciate the work when I was young, but I do now when I look back upon what I learned through it. I want my children to learn some of the same lessons and to not be selfish, in-debt consumers.

We have extended family here. My parents living next door on the farm is a wonderful thing. It seems so uncommon to find extended families in our culture and society. Yet, that is the model in the scriptures and in many cultures. There is a strength and are great blessings in having an extended family. Our children are being blessed in ways they don’t realize yet just by having their Mammaw and Pappaw  and Uncle Danny living here with them. It’s also something that benefits my parents and Danny. I wish I could’ve grown up with my grandparents in the same way. There is so much more I could’ve learned from them.

I think that every homesteading adventure is unique, because each individual or family interprets and creates it in the ways that make sense to them. We thank God all the time for the opportunity we have to live here, to be together as a family. The are long-term benefits that we haven’t even imagine. Working and playing together, eating meals together, just being together, is incredibly important to us, and we are grateful that it is so.

The cast of characters

Since I'm going to be talking about my family in many of my blog posts, I thought it would be expedient to introduce everyone that lives here.

My wife, Anne, and I have been married for over eighteen years. She's a great blessing in my life for which I am very thankful. God has blessed us with four wonderful children. They have all been born at home, the last two here on the homestead. Jessica will be 12 in January. She loves horses and has a great interest in drawing. She has quite a few drawing books she spends time with working on her drawing skills. She also loves to read. She does a lot to help with the jobs and chores around the house and in the garden. I hope to acquire a horse for her benefit sometime within the next two years. I think it would be good for her. She has ridden Josey, our cow, but only when I was leading Josey. Besides, that's not quite the same.

Our middle children are our boys. The older is Ramiah. He's 7-1/2 years old. He has a lot of creative ideas and loves machinery and tools. He loves to build things when he has the opportunity. Malchiah is our third child. He just turned five in November. He is energetic, generous, and loves to have fun. He's been my helper since he was just a little guy, and he still loves to be with me doing chores or when I'm out working. If the work involves using a tractor or other machinery, Ramiah also clamors to be with me. It's really something watching these boys grow into young men. I pray that I can guide them as they need.

Our youngest is Naomi Shalom. She'll be three in March. She's a curly-headed little darling, cute as can be and knows it. She's almost always happy and spoils me rotten. She too wants to go do chores with daddy. If she doesn't get to go she is mightily disappointed. She loves to help around the house.

Anne, my beautiful wife, does so much to keep us going. She takes good care of me and our children. She oversees most of the food preservation. In fact, she canned nearly a thousand quarts of food this last summer and fall. In previous years we froze a lot of the food we harvested, but this year we tried canning most of it. Next year we intend to dry as much as possible. She's also the one who does the bulk of the homeschooling of our children. She does so much, and I appreciate her greatly. She has quite a knack at finding good deals at thrift shops and on Ebay.

I'm Darryl. I do a lot of different things around here. I take care of the animals, which right now consists of a cow and her calf and half a dozen turkeys. We have had goats and chickens until this last summer, and we'll probably have more again in another year or so. I'm building our house, a timber frame with strawbale walls. You can read about that project in my other blog, Cedar Ridge Farm. I mow, rake, and bale our own hay and cut firewood among other things. My income generating job is teaching an online class for Illinois State University. It doesn't produce much income, but it is enough to pay bills and allow me to be at home to do my real job. I'm blessed with this opportunity because of the 26 years I spent in school from Kindergarten through my Ph.D.
My parents, Garry and Connie, live about 200 feet from our house on the farm. When we bought the property, there was an unfinished, one-bedroom cabin the previous own had started. It was enclosed and had electricity, but that was about it. We mentioned to my parents that this was for them, and dad grabbed ahold of that idea like a bulldog on a bone. They moved down here from Illinois the spring after we moved, rented a house in town, and remodeled and finished their house. It's a blessing having them here. Dad helps me with many different jobs that I need help with with, like baling hay and working on our house. You can probably read about some of them on his blog. I help him as I can, too. Mom does her best to spoil our children, and they encourage her in that endeavor, I'm afraid.

A friend of mine from college, Danny D. Smith, also lives here. Danny and I met and became friends in 1987 when we both worked in the kitchen at Ambassador College in Pasadena, California. We kept in contact after we both graduated. After we moved here, he sold his home in the Raleigh, NC, area and moved her in the spring of 2004. He bought a small double-wide mobile home and put it across the driveway from our home. He takes care of his mom who lives with him. Our children love Uncle Danny. You'll often find one of the boys or Naomi (or all three) with him, using his tools or trying to "help" him. He enjoys our children and is very generous with them.