Thursday, September 29, 2005

Seeking freedom....

In our journey here on the farm, we have been seeking freedom...freedom from relying on others for things that we can do for ourselves with God's help. I have seen this mentioned on several blogs lately so it seems that other hearts are being stirred as well. Just when we begin to congratulate ourselves on achieving freedom in an area, we are brought up short (isn't God faithful!) and shown another area that we need to work on. It has amazed us how many times this has happened!

For instance, when we began raising chickens for eggs we felt independent....but we still buy feed.... When we began raising our chickens for meat and butchering them ourselves we thought "freedom!"....but we were buying the chicks. When we bought some calves and raised them for meat we felt "we did it!"....but we still bought the calves. We began raising our own veggies several years ago but realized we were still buying the seeds. And the list goes on...

God was gently showing us that we weren't as free as we thought! We have been taking steps over the years to change this where we can. Will we ever be completely free? I don't know...I hope so. Each year we try to walk a little more in that direction with God's help.

Historically, this seemed an achievable thing...in fact it seemed to be the normative lifestyle for most agrarian folks. If they needed something that they didn't raise they were able to barter with someone else to get that item. Surely this is achievable again....

Last year we started taking eggs and incubating them and raising our own chicks....it was very successful. This year we robbed eggs from a guinea nest and raised the young ourselves. This year we will breed our milk cows to a black angus bull and raise our own meat.

We began saving seeds several years ago. Do we produce all of our own seed....no.....but each year we get a little further along. We learned a lot about seed saving and why every farm should be doing this ....it goes much deeper than the cost savings, the independence issue or the desire to disengage from "Big Ag". But, that is another post for another day.

We aren't "there" by any means but each time we do a little more for ourselves there comes a satisfaction that is hard to explain. I believe it comes from fulfilling God's original intent for our lives. Each step on this journey takes us a little further towards our goal...greater freedom from the world and it's system and a deeper reliance on God. We praise Him for this great journey!

10 comments:

  1. First, congrats on the capture - that's very exciting news!

    Second, I've seen a lot of talk on different blogs about saving seeds. We have a couple of heirloom tomatoes, which I assume we can save the seeds from, would you be able to recommend a good source for finding out what we need to do? Book or website? Thanks!

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  2. I am thrilled for you. You are farther along than we are at this point. We have raised guineas. I have one setting now that I need to get the eggs in the incubator. They won't survive the frost.

    Inspiring post!

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  3. Gwen, Try Seed Savers and Baker Creek on the side bar of my blog. Also try this site and scroll down to the articles on heirloom tomatoes and seed saving, http://www.biblicalagrarianism.com/


    Tom

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  4. Gwen,
    I agree with Tom, Seed Savers is great and so is Baker Creek, I'll add some others to my post on seed saving in the next few days.

    Books: My favorite is called Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth...this book is published by the Seed Savers Exchange.

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  5. Farm Girl,

    You're a lot closer to your ideal then we are, that's for sure. I'm not complaining though; it seems to me the goal shouldn't be to get entirely free of everyone, but to establish a community of close-knit people who help each other. Not so much independence as inter-dependence - does that make any sense?

    Anyway, another great post. My bread flopped by the way; but the beer should be very good!

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  6. Balestacker,
    Exactly! We want freedom from the world's system but would like to be connected to other independent folks...hence the bartering thing.

    If we lived closer, I'd barter you bread for beer!

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  7. May I interject? Absolutely -- to Balestacker, and to TNFG's response. We should be totally independent from pagans and ungodly systems, BUT absolutely dependent on God, and therefore, inter-dependent on one another as believers.

    Great post!

    JFC

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  8. Wow! We're just starting on this journey. We do have heirloom beans (the originals in our family came around 20 years ago from an elderly lady in one of my father's churches), and we save okra seed each year, but so far, that's about all. Thanks for the inspiration, even though it's hard not to get antsy and discontent with how much we have to do and how slowly it seems to happen!

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  9. JFC,
    You are compeltely right! Wish there were more like-minded folks around us!

    Bradshaws,
    Each year you will find that you are able to do a little more...we always wish we could do it all at once but God is using this time to build patience, and keep us from wearing ourselves out completely!

    Blessings!

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