Fair Fun, Words of Wisdom
It’s Rich Valley Fair week. I remember as a kid circling fair week on the calendar and looking forward to it all year. The kids have been as excited about the fair as I was growing up. It’s been a good change to our summer rhythm. Eating fair foods has also been a good change in the rhythm for Amy, giving her a few evenings out of the kitchen at dinnertime.
Hallie caught a chicken at the fair on youth night, so she got to keep it and add it to her coop. After receiving her pay from this week’s chicken processing, she paid off the remaining $100 of what she owed on her chicken enterprise loan. It didn’t leave her much spending money left for the fair, but she felt relieved to finally pay it off. Proud of her.
We didn’t break any records killing chickens on Wednesday, but we got em done. Again, thankful for the hard work of those who came to help. Our crew was on the light end with several vacating out of town and school getting ready to start back up. Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Peggy, who have faithfully devoted themselves to our farm-to-table endeavor and become pillars of the processing crew since we started raising chickens on pasture over 7 years ago, were among those missing on Wednesday morning. Uncle Jimmy went to the hospital last weekend and is expecting to be released early next week. I told him that having heart surgery was a poor excuse for missing a chicken processing day and that we expected to see him on Wednesday morning bright and early. Ha. The surgery went well. Continued prayers for Uncle Jimmy’s recovery. Although Aunt Peggy wasn’t there on Wednesday to personally inspect each bird, Stefanie made sure that every chicken was held to the Aunt Peggy standard.
We slaughtered almost 260 chickens and cut up over 100. As we emptied out 4 shelters for Wednesday’s harvest, we filled two of them back up with the last of the chicks out of the brooder, so that means we’re down to moving 20 chicken shelters daily instead of 22. For the next several weeks, we’ll be emptying out shelters for harvesting without filling them back up with more chicks from the brooder. Let the countdown begin. We’ll get one more big batch of chicks in a few weeks, but it felt good to empty out the brooder.
Although our chicken processing crew was missing several regulars, we were thankful to pick up one of our regulars from last summer. Henry, who stayed with us and worked on the farm last summer came back up to Virginia to help with the chickens and enjoy an evening at the Rich Valley Fair. He still knew how to do it. We were all excited to see him and grateful for his help. Update on Henry, he recently graduated high school down in Charleston, SC and will start his first year in college in Florida this fall.
I added more bedding for the pigs in the barn. The pigs in the woods need to be moved to a new paddock. Hopefully I’ll get that today or tomorrow. Thankful for more rain showers and the green grass produced by them. Our cows continue to move through the fields, turning that green grass into delicious and healthy protein.
I didn’t do any book listening this week while farming. If I listened to anything at all, it was likely the latest album from “The Red Clay Strays.” I’ve been reading some from Ecclesiastes in the mornings before getting going. Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon who was supposedly the wisest man in the world. He was the king of Israel when the nation was at it’s strongest. He had it all: wealth, wisdom, women, power, pleasure. You name it. Anything and everything the world had to offer was at his fingertips. Solomon begins the writing by saying that it is all “Meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
Where is meaning to be found? Are we just chasing after the wind? Here’s some words of wisdom from Solomon from Ecclesiastes:
2:24 - “A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?”
3:12-13 - “I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their work - this is the gift of God.”
3:22 - “So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work.”
5:18 - “This is what I have observed to be good: that is is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them.”
8:15 - “So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.”
Meaning is not just found in what our work produces, but in the work itself. If we’re doing the right work and working for the right things. If we’re laboring for the things of this world that are here one day and gone the next, we are laboring in vain. Or to put it in Solomon’s words, “just chasing after the wind.”
This was encouraging to me, as my motivation to work has been in gradual decline. I used to live and love to work. I like to work, but not like I used to. I don’t know if I’m just tired or getting older. Probably some of both. I miss the energy of my younger years. I don’t want my passion to fade. And I don’t want my work to be dependent on how I feel. I want to work hard for the right things whether I feel like it or not. Hopefully rather than fading, my passion and energy are just being transferred into the next generation. I needed a renewed mindset in regards to work. To work diligently and joyfully. Doing the best I can, at whatever I can, while I can.
Have a good week.
Will