Nesting Boxes, Bone Broth, Wrestling, Losing

This week on the farm…

Some of our laying hens started laying eggs this week. We weren’t expecting any eggs for another couple weeks. Pleasant surprise. The kids helped me put together the nesting boxes. They’re excited about checking for and gathering eggs. I’m wondering how long it will take for the excitement to wear off. 

Amy spent a lot of time in the on-farm kitchen this week making broth. She made one batch of beef bone broth and two batches of chicken bone broth. Making a batch of broth is a three day process for Amy. Day one, she gets it started and lets it simmer for a day. Day two, she strains it and puts it in the fridge. Day three, she skims the fat and puts it in quart containers. So good. Especially this time of year. 

For the most part it was a relatively slow week. Amy didn’t have any meat deliveries. I didn’t make any trips to the processor. Amy kept the cabins cleaned, and I kept up with the cows and pigs. Instead of using the slower week to tackle farm projects that have been on our to-do list all summer, we focused on to-do lists around the house and projects that aren’t farm related. Amy called it “fall cleaning.” With four growing kids and winter on the way, she thought it best to sort through and organize jackets, gloves, and boots. Putting away clothes outgrown and getting out the next size up. 

My non-farming focus this week has been towards kicking off the youth wrestling season. With the time change and darkness arriving around 5:30, coaching wrestling gives me something to do in the evenings through the winter months. This week was our first week of practice. I’ll be coaching two practices a night, three nights a week. I’m getting too old for this. This week was a little more involved with getting mats and everything set up and communicating with parents. I was also asked to speak at church this Sunday, so preparing a message has been another focus unrelated to farming. It’s always stressful to know what or what not to say. I’m glad I’m not a real preacher. 

The sport of wrestling made a huge impact on my life. It probably helped prepare me for life as much or more so than anything else growing up. When you step out on the mat, it’s all you. There is a vulnerability that comes with wrestling that is unmatched by other sports. It takes guts to even step out there in the first place. No teammates to lean on. No one to blame when you get your tail kicked. Losing hurts a little more in wrestling than it does in other sports. As I competitor, I hated losing. As a coach, of course we want to win. But one of the most valuable life lessons wrestling taught me was how to lose. How to respond to getting your talk whipped. How to get back up and keep going. Life is full of falling down. Life has continued to kick my tail. Wrestling taught me to keep getting back up. I’m thankful to have other coaches equally as passionate about wrestling to help out again this season.

Speaking of losing, I’ve been listening to “My Losing Season” by Pat Conroy. This is his college basketball story, not about wrestling. It’s filled with some rough locker room language, but it’s a captivating story with an underlying theme of perseverance. Here’s a few quotes:

“I believe with all my heart that athletics is one of the finest preparations for most of the intricacies and darknesses that human life can throw at you.”

“Though I learned some things from the games we won that year, I learned much, much more from loss.”

“The great secret of athletics is that you can learn more from losing than winning. No coach can afford to preach such a doctrine, but our losing season served as both a model and template of how a life can go wrong and fall apart in even the most inconceivable places. Losing prepares you for the heartbreak, setback, and tragedy that you will encounter in the world more than winning ever can. By licking your wounds you learn how to avoid getting wounded the next time.”

“It was the year I learned to accept loss as a part of natural law. My team taught me there could be courage and dignity and humanity in loss. They taught me how to pull myself up, to hold my head high, and to soldier on. I got dizzy from loving that team. And I never told them.”

“That year my relationship with God was direct and personal and conversational in nature. I was losing him, and I wanted him to help me. Though there was majesty in his silence, he had finally managed to send me a good game. I considered this a good sign. All season long I would look for signs of his eminence and concern in my daily affairs. I prayed hard and only gradually became aware that this fierce praying was a way of finding prologue and entrance into my own writing. This came to me as both astonishment and relief. When I thought God had abandoned me, I discovered that he had simply given me a different voice to praise the inexhaustible beauty of the made world.” 

“I did not want the evening to end just yet. I needed time to memorize what happiness felt like because I had experienced so little of it. Looking up into the night sky, I saw the Milky Way. I instantly thought of God and how I was afraid I was losing my faith in him and the immensity of the fear and cowardice I felt when I thought of facing the world without him.”

Have a good week.

Will