Time is one of our most precious gifts. We have no idea how much time we will have on this earth, and we will never get it back. Here on the farm, we are daily struggling with time management, seeking to improve our efficiency, cutting out the useless waste, and reminding ourselves to take the time for important things. We cherish this time of year as new life is being born, seeds are being planted, and the dull brown landscape has transformed into a carpet of green. The rebirth of leaves, flowers, and fruit add natural beauty to the landscape. We anticipate and hope for another good season of abundance for our family and others.
Our family compared the month of May to a sprint as we prepared for our oldest daughter’s graduation party, started moving animals daily, repaired fences, prepared and planted the gardens, continued clean up around the farm, painted various projects, stained and put up a lot of trim, scrubbed the house from top to bottom, weeded gardens and hilled potatoes, sowed an experimental plot of 14 different types of seeds mixed together, continued with our daily chores, and prepared for our first vacation in five years. This month has been exciting, fun, rewarding, humbling, exhausting, and extraordinary.
Last summer our family participated in several farmers markets and craft shows. While I’m glad we had the experience and enjoyed the process, I realized that the time involved was way more than I could sacrifice during our busy growing season. I have learned that a person can only do so many things well, and with all the running, I wasn’t able to do as many things to save our family money. It also added more work for my husband, and he was not able to do his projects that save us money during those times.
Last year was the first time I had really stopped to calculate all the time spent in these markets. I figured my time in preparing, loading, unloading, setting up, the time at the market, taking everything down, loading it up, and finally unloading and putting away all those supplies. I was shocked! At the end of the season, I reminded myself that our business was not started out of a need for extra money, but as a way to serve people.
I’m so passionate about our products and the stories I hear as people use them, that it really motivated me to get out there and help more people, but as my children get older, I realize that I need to be a better example of covering my time in the price of our products. Rather than increase our prices and continue doing the markets, we have decided to be done for now. Our prayer is that people will appreciate our desire to sell quality products at the lowest possible price and continue supporting us even though it may not be as convenient. Most importantly, we believe that the Lord either will grow our business or he won’t. We are so thankful to all the people that continue to buy our products and share our story with others!
This spring we are expanding our gardens and trying a few new experiments on the farm. We are carefully prioritizing all the work and counting the cost and time it takes to do something. One experiment that has finally paid off is our homemade chicken feed. After years of testing out different recipes, we finally have a soy-free recipe that we love. The chickens are growing very well and finished this week. Because we raise them without soy, they take a few weeks longer than the factory farmed chickens, but we are okay with that. Last year they grew so poorly with one of our experimental feeds that we ended up butchering in December, two months later than we had expected. Chickens should only take about 7 to 9 weeks, but these took over 3 months! The Lord provided a few nice days in December, and the kids and I did all the butchering for the first time. The chickens still tasted great!
In order for my husband to focus more on our house projects this spring, I have taken on more of the farm work. I have been helping our son, Aiden, with managing our new turkeys and have made a few very costly mistakes. We have lost 11 out of 15 birds because of my inexperience. This has been a great reminder to think things through more carefully and seek my husband’s wisdom more often. A few simple mistakes such as location of birds and temperature were to blame.
I have also been helping put up portable fence rain or shine. It has been going very well most days, and we are very satisfied with the results of moving animals daily. Unfortunately, one rainy day, I had moved the cows and sheep in the morning and in my busyness, I forgot to check on them in the afternoon and left them on a critical area (the terrace) a little too long. The area is recovering nicely, but my husband has been good about keeping me on track and helping a little more than I had hoped he would have to. Next time I may need to set a timer!
Although the farm was bursting with blooms this spring, we didn’t see a single honey bee on our farm, until we were blessed with two more hives this spring. I was emotional as I witnessed the first honeybee pollinating our apple tree and strawberries. We are very concerned for our pollinators and have been working diligently to help them by planting more native species, educating others, and as always, avoiding all chemicals, even on our yard. We are praying that the bees will thrive on our farm.
This month I learned a valuable lesson. I was sick for the first time in a long time, and though everyone was more than willing to help me, chores and routine work still needed to be done. After finishing the milking, I cleaned out the sheltered area my cow sleeps in as usual. I knew the cows and sheep needed salt and mineral out in the pasture, but my flesh said it could wait until the morning. Knowing that wasn’t right, I prayed for forgiveness and asked God to help me with my laziness. My prayer was answered, and while delivering the minerals to the animals on the pasture, I placed the containers close to a badger hole, heard a little noise, and looked down to see a lamb stuck in the hole. My husband was close by and came quickly. He struggled to pull the doubled over lamb out of the hole, but it was fine. My lesson was don’t put off for tomorrow what should be done today. Had I waited until morning, I’m pretty sure that new little lamb would have died.
One of the best gifts we ever received was inspiration from the Lord to throw out the TV. We have nothing to boast about in this epiphany because we truly loved television. Our hearts were changed to the fact that we were being very influenced by what we were watching and that we needed to guard our hearts, especially our children’s. As I think of all that time we will never get back, I’m reminded of a quote by Stephen R. Covey that I read recently. It stated, “How many on their deathbeds wished they’d spent more time at the office -or watching TV? The answer is No one. They think about their loved ones, their families, and those they have served.”
It has become obvious over the last several years of a TV/video game free home that our children and our marriage have benefited greatly. In their free time our children love to read (sometimes too much), participate in numerous outdoor activities, learn new skills, and grow their own businesses that they are passionate about. It has revealed so many talents that I don’t believe they could have discovered if we were living the same lives we used to.
We struggle daily with temptations and anything good is of the Lord and not one bit us. I love this Bible verse that the Lord put on my heart as I was writing this: “So then, be careful how you live. Do not be unwise but wise, making the best use of your time because the times are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”
There are numerous ways in which we guard our time and make the most it. Our number one priority is to seek the Lord in all things. In the last few years I have learned to pray for at least a week if possible before committing to anything. What has surprised me the most is how many times I fully expected that I had to do something, but received a “no” in the end. For the first few days, I was just sure the answer was “yes”. It is not until that time comes that I see how the Lord protected me from putting too many things into my life. At times the opposite happens, and I feel led to do something I didn’t think I could accomplish or have time to do.
A few other things we have found helpful are to make lists daily, keep things organized, put things away when we are done with them (a daily struggle!!), designate specific days for certain tasks (washing sheets, mopping, etc.), go to bed early and get up early (sometimes getting to bed early is the biggest struggle) and most importantly (especially for me) is to fuel our bodies with clean, nutrient dense foods. By choosing good quality, nutrient dense ingredients, making our food from scratch, and growing and sourcing the best herbs for vitamins and minerals, I have gained hours of productivity. I’m a much better servant when I’m not tired and undernourished.
This growing season, along with all my responsibilities as a wife and mother, I plan to focus more of my time doing tasks that save money, working hard on our farm, preserving the harvest, finding ways to help others, assist my husband with the farm work to ease more of his burden, and relish my time with family and friends.
The Lord has really put it on my heart to teach and enlighten others about how our food has changed over a short period of time. We are reaching more and more people with our website and newsletter and LOVE to hear your stories about how natural, clean foods have changed your lives. Please help spread the word and keep those stories coming! Since spring has arrived, we look forward to the work that lies ahead and to blessing others with our products. Homesteading and farming are not simple tasks, but when you enjoy the work you are doing and get to feel a great sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, it is completely worth it. This spring we pray that you are encouraged to grow great food, find and get to know a great farmer to buy from, slow down and enjoy each day, and be blessed with abundant health.