Killing Time

When we moved to Abingdon, it was a step toward "the country." Abingdon itself is pretty rural compared to our upbringing in the suburbs of Dallas and then subsequent life in the suburbs of Austin. (Heck, Bristol was rural compared to those places!) We're on a whopping three-quarter acres of hillside, but we're hoping to make the best of it. We've planted a garden with several lettuce types, carrots (not doing so well in this rocky soil), peas, corn, potatoes and pumpkin. We're running late, but still hope to get some green beans and squash in around the corn in the "three sisters" method. We also have blueberry and cherry bushes, and two cherry trees. We won't get blueberries until year three, but we're hoping for cherries this year.

I never had "farm" animals growing up; only a plethora of furry house-pets: cats, a dog or two, and a rabbit once. But since we moved here, I've wanted to get some animals, starting with something small like chickens, then moving "up" to goats, pigs, and cows, etc. Even though my boss is famous in our circles for being the World's Worst Chicken Farmer, several other folks in our community have made a pretty good go of it. One friend, in fact, has begun selling us his farm-fresh free-ish-range eggs. They're delicious!

I mentioned in my last post that we have been reading Herrick Kimball's excellent book, Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian. We've really been enjoying Mr. Kimball's delightful delivery of his exploits into a simple, separate and deliberate life of agrarianism. Though reading, you're first response might be, "It can't always be all that he cracks it up to be," you still come away with a sense that, "Yeah, in most ways, I think he's on to something." Until...

Chapter 17 has the ominous title, "Pulling Chicken Heads Off." Mr. Kimball, assuming you didn't read the chapter title very well, graciously includes a warning here:

WARNING: This story contains graphic descriptions that may appall and offend some non-agrarian readers.

After reading "graphic descriptions" of Killing, Scalding, Plucking, Head Removing and Gutting, I realized even more clearly how non-agrarian (read: "squeamish, sissified suburban boy") I am. But, still, this is the direction I believe God would have us move, so I'm willing to take on graphic descriptions and take them captive to the obedience of Christ.

Now, though, we're really going to get the opportunity to get our hands dirty... literally!

I spoke with our egg supplier yesterday and he was lamenting the fact that heat had claimed 10 of his birds, and that we wasn't able to take off work to "process" them. "Need some help?" I offered. "Oh, man... we were just talking last night about how we were going to need some help processing them and were wondering who we could ask. That would be great!"

So, this Saturday, the Howards are going to his house to help process their chickens. It'll be a great day of taking dominion over the earth—and getting disgustingly messy. What more could a boy ask for? :)

Stay tuned... I expect to have my own "Pulling Chicken Heads Off" chapter very soon!

[Reading] Book: Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian

Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian by Herrick Kimball
Whizbang Books, 2006

I know you've heard of this book from others, but then maybe you haven't. This is a great book!

I recently brought this delightful treasure home and then it quickly disappeared as Amy began savoring it, little by little. I managed to get some time to read more today. I'm only on the fourth chapter (Amy's way further along and regularly whets my appetite with, "Wait 'til you get the part where he talks about...!") and I just had to share one of these little nuggets of truth that many of us miss unless we're paying attention. And even then, we might still miss it because we're Moderns:

Moderns can't help but do the math: two hours of work to prepare five packages of frozen strawberries... "Wow! Those are some expensive berries you got there! Don't you agrarians realize it's cheaper and easier to just go buy frozen fruit at the supermarket?"

That is the natural conclusion of people who live their lives believing that money is the only—or, at least, the most important—standard of value.

Agrarians, on the other hand, see this sort of thing very differently. We see value in the doing of planting, tending, harvesting, processing, and putting up our own food. We see value in knowing where our food comes from. We see value in the assurance that this food is pure and safe. We see value in the incredibly superior flavor of homegrown and fresh-picked food. We see value in the satisfaction that comes with being able to take care of our own food needs and not being dependent on the industrial providers, even if it is just in part. This is freedom. This is part of what makes The Good Life good.

Preach it, Brother! Pick up this book and read Mr. Kimball's blog. He has some great things to say. We need to hear it!

--
Posted by Jim Bob Howard to Reading at 5/26/2006 08:04:00 PM

[Thoughts] Pre-, Inter-, and Post-Conference Hobnobbing

Well, another Highlands Study Center conference is behind us. I received lots of positive feedback. The title of the conference was Generations: Giving Honor to Whom Honor is Due. The speakers were top-notch and delivered powerful lectures to our crowd of over 700 people (in less than 200 families, mind you).

One of the wonderful aspects of my job is that I get to interact with godly men and families who are impacting the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or millions of lives. Of course, working for R. C. Sproul Jr. is a joy and a privilege. He is a wonderful father, a devoted husband, a caring friend and shining example of Christ's grace to men. His father, R. C. Sproul—whom I've listened to and read for years, I've had the privilege of meeting only once before, after a long trip to RCJR's house. We didn't converse much on that occasion, but this one was different. He is a gracious, godly man, who loves his son and his grandchildren with abandon. (He also loves the Steelers, but I'm willing to overlook that—indeed, it's a Sproul family trait!) Doug Phillips, founder of Vision Forum, is a man among men. How wonderful it was to have Beall and all the children with him this time! And Doug's father, Howard Phillips, is a powerhouse who understands the major challenges of our day!

Rowan and I arrived at the airport Thursday in time to see the younger Phillips family, along with Peter Bradrick, Doug's personal assistant, and Nathaniel Darnell, Vision Forum's new "video guy," exit the plane—they had half the seats on the plane. We loaded up the 15-passenger van—with Nathaniel and all of their luggage; everyone else rode in two other rental cars! ;)

After depositing them all at the hotel and making sure they found a place to have dinner, Rowan and I headed home for a quick dinner ourselves. Later that evening, I had the pleasure of a "being a fly on the wall" during a conversation between all four of our speakers on the topic of "Reformation and Revolution." It will be our next Basement Tape that will soon go out to all of our monthly supporters, who, like me, will also get to be a "fly on the wall."

In the conversation after the conversation, Doug asked RCJR to share some of his memories of great and godly men who had shared the family meal table with them when he was growing up. The ensuing conversation revealed a common thread between these two families in the way they had families meals. Both of the "second generation" families continue the tradition of a father teaching his children at the family meal table, with differences of style and content, of course. Stay tuned for a post in the near future regarding the family meal table...

Talking with RC Sr. and Howard was a treat. Both are gracious, humble men, and I count it a privilege to know them. I had a chance to talk with Howard during lunch on Saturday about the work my friend, Robert, and I had done founding the Constitution Party of Williamson County while we were still in Texas. When I asked what we could do locally to get a party going, he recruited me to run for office... almost. ;) Lunch took longer than expected, and Howard offered to skip his lunch and head back to the conference in order to keep us on track. As we continued to wait, I took him up on his offer, wrapping his meal up to go when it came. He ate it (cold) between the next two breaks with no complaint. I'm deeply grateful for his sacrifice for the sake of our conferees. (He also gave me some catering advice that I'll use next year!)

Another meal, after the conference, at the Sprouls' Jr. home was another delight. A delicious dinner cooked by Matt Clement (a local favorite chef!) and extraordinary hospitality by the Williams family of Kennesaw, GA, set the stage for engaging conversation and warm fellowship with the Phillips and Sproul families. While Rowan was playing outside with the Sproul and Phillips children, Amy and I had the pleasure of relaxed conversation at our table with Doug & Beall, Howard, Laurence & Angela, and Dakota & Samantha. The family meal table came up again here and the ensuing discussion helped Amy and me solidify some plans of our own to change the way we do things.

Later, we all roared at the banter and antics of RC Sr. and Howard as they "one-upped" one another naming Boston Braves players (the Braves left Boston after the 1952 season!). These two made quick friends and we all laughed at their stories from days gone by.

One of the highlights of the conference was the beautiful singing of Genevan Foundation, made up of the three oldest Serven children and our own Jonathon Landell (who also played piano and was our roving photographer). This talented quartet led us all in a Psalm Sing Saturday morning, with a beautiful rendition of Psalm 98.

We were touched by a request after worship on Sunday. Mrs. Serven approached me and said her children had discussed it and they wanted to get to know us better, but only had two small hotel rooms to offer as a place to fellowship. So, the sixteen of us spread out at one long table at Cracker Barrel and had a wonderful time! After that, we welcomed them into our somewhat messy (from a week of conference preparation) home. What a joy they were! Our only regret is that Marcus (the patriarch of the clan) was unable to be with them. However, a great treat, especially for Rowan, was when Rebecca, Nathan and Elizabeth let him join in as tenor on singing "Genevan Song," which was featured on the SAICFF 2005 Jubilee Award-winning documentary, "A Journey Home," directed/produced by Ken Carpenter at Franklin Springs Family Media. Rowan just beamed! Thanks, guys!

Speaking of the Carpenters... Amy had the pleasure of getting to know Ken and his lovely wife, Devon, at the Franklin Springs booth during the conference. During their conversation, they worked out to spend some time with us on Monday before they headed home. We met them at Java J's for coffees and danishes and pleasant conversation, while the children enjoyed the board games provided. Then it was back to our house for lunch. Again, a delightful visit was had by all!

This is a conference our family will never forget! And we can't wait to see all of our new friends again.

--
Posted by Jim Bob Howard to Thoughts at 5/10/2006 01:41:00 PM

[Advice] Build a Log Home and Be Free!

To fail to plan is to plan to fail. — Some Wise Fellow Somewhere

I have a plan... well, a vision, actually... OK, for now, it's still a bit of a dream. But, I'm in the process of planning out my vision to make my dream a reality.

Though I was born in one of the wealthiest, most free countries ever founded in the history of the world, by the time I came along, most of that freedom had been lost, stolen, given away and otherwise squandered. We have given up our freedom for security; we've given it up for convenience; we've let it slip away piecemeal through various tax, building and zoning codes; we've squandered our freedom on the altar of personal peace and affluence. I've heard that in California, you can actually take out a 90-year mortgage! In order to have the house we want now, we're actually willing to make ourselves slaves for the rest of our lives, paying a multiplier just a little less than our interest rate times the sales price just for the privilege of living in it now (On a 100-year mortgage at 7.5% would cost 7.5 times the loan amount). But is it "living," when we're owned by the house we own. We actually enslave our children with our endless debt, just so we can have what we want when we want it.

Enter Skip Ellsworth, fourth-generation log home builder. Forty years ago, having grown up building log homes with his father, Skip started teaching others how to build log homes the right way. The "right way" to build a log home and Skip's philosophy of life have inspired tens of thousands of people to build their own homes at a fraction of the cost of other stick-and-mortar site-built homes. Skip has now passed the baton on to his son who, every month or so, invites about forty would-be log home builders to Skip's 7000-sq. ft house (Maurice Minifield's home in Northern Exposure) outside Seattle to teach them Skip's way of building log homes.

Now, Ellsworth and his co-teacher, Steve, know alot about building log homes; not just Skip's way, but how others have done it, how the kit home folks typically do theirs and why you want to avoid them like the plague, what makes a "log" home and when it becomes something else. They have a bias toward actual logs (as opposed to perfectly round 'dowels' made from trees, or so-called 'D-logs') because trees have an outer protective ring which naturally helps fight insect infestation; making a dowel or a 'D' out of them removes that protection, as does rough-hewing them into square beams. Additionally, logs have a God-given beauty to them that is destroyed when you make them all look the same: they taper from one end to the other, they bow, they have knots and branches, they 'check' over time and have a strong, rugged beauty to them that you lose when they're no longer logs. Once you start on the path toward log-home building (that is, building with actual logs), you find that there are several building techniques that have been used over the years, and a couple more that are used by kit home makers.

All of us who had Lincoln Logs™ growing up know about the 'chinked' method of building with logs: cut a notch on the top and bottom of the log, near the end, so that each layer's notches fit into the next layer. In this method, all of the 'load' is on the corners, which have been weakened by the notching. Any variation of the 'chink' to make the logs fit together will weaken the logs, right at the point that they're supposed to be holding up the weight of the house.

Kit builders use various 'cuts' into the logs to make them sit on top of each other, each of which contributes to splitting the logs over time (sometimes it's a very short time). Even though the weight is more evenly distributed down the length of the log, the weight from above pressing on the 'cut' below causes the logs to split. What you want is a full intact log on each layer, that is in full contact with the log below it to allow for equal weight distribution throughout. The only way to get logs to sit perfectly on logs is to 'cope' the top log so that it perfectly fits the log below it. This is called the Scandinavian Chinkless method. It's a very meticulous process if done right. Which is why kit home makers and even custom log home builders aren't likely to use this method.

So, the strongest wood-on-wood home is a Scandy. And to have it done right, you're going to have to do it yourself. But there's still a problem: rot. When wood gets wet and stays wet, it rots and disintegrates. Wood is of course very porous and 'wicks' water like the wick of an oil lamp pulls the oil up to be burned by the flame. When two pieces of wood are in constant contact with each other, water will be wicked to points of contact and stay there. Go to an outdoor lumber yard in the summertime when there hasn't been rain in a couple of weeks. As you lift dry boards, you'll see water between them. This water, over time, will rot both pieces of wood, so even though you have a stronger, more evenly-distributed home with a Scandinavian Chinkless home, you still have to figure out a way to keep the moisture out (or let it escape) so that your walls don't fall down from rot on the inside.

Ellsworth and Steve are all about energy conservation. "It's just that it's our energy we want to conserve." So their goal is to teach you the best, easiest, cheapest, fastest, lowest-maintenance, longest-lasting log home building methods and techniques. The object is to get a CO (certificate of occupancy) as quickly as possible so that you can move in to your debt-free home.

Now, they're also about quality construction, which is why they teach the butt-and-pass method. Using this method, you can build with "green" logs and your house won't shrink and it won't fall down. It doesn't settle. You don't have to use telescoping plumbing fixtures and leave big gaps behind the headers of your doors and windows, because the logs aren't moving, even though they'll shrink toward their own center over the first year and continue to expand and contract with climate changes. This is also one of the quicker ways to build.

Wallace Falls Lodge was built by Log Home Builders Association members. All of the wall logs were put up in two weeks by Tim and his daughter (who was nine years old, at the time!) during Spring Break. Then Tim put the entire roof on by himself in another ten days. You can see from the pictures that the place is beautiful, and well-constructed!

One of the great things about the LHBA is you only pay for the initial class. After that, the meetings are free for members to share plans, critique scale models; network for land deals, free mobile homes to live in while you build, sign up to help someone who's ready to build in order to learn hands-on; swap tools, etc. All the meetings are currently hosted at Skip's house in Washington, so there is the airfare, rental car and lodging aspect if you're not local. But Steve mentioned that they were hoping someone would build something big enough on the east coast (because there are LOTS of members on this side of the country, too) so that we could have some of those members meetings in our neck of the woods. I'm game!! ;)

But even if you can't make it to the members meetings, they have a "member's only" forum where Steve and Ellsworth and other "Certified Log Home Builders" share ideas, deals, etc... the only thing you can't get in the forum is face-to-face with a scale model. It's a great place to ask a question, to share your successes and get encouragement.

Do you want to be free? Build your own low-maintenance log home, debt-free. They recommend you take the class at least two years before you start building... the longer the lead time, the cheaper it's going to be; and the less frustrated you're going to be.

If you go to the class, drop me a line (especially if you're in the Mid-Atlantic, more specifically, Southern Appalachia). I'd be glad to compare notes, critique your scale model and swing a sledge to help you make your dream a reality.

Two tips when you go to class: (a) take some slippers to class (Steve says: "There are two kinds of people who take this class. Those who wear slippers, and those who wish they had."); and (b) don't forget your lunch—they have a large fridge and all the standard kitchen appliances, which you're welcome to use.

FREEDOM!!! —William Wallace

--
Posted by Jim Bob Howard to Advice at 4/19/2006 08:41:00 PM

[Poetry] How Did You Die?

by Edmund Cooke

Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful?
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven soul and fearful?
Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it.
And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it?

You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there-that's a disgrace.
The harder you're thrown, why the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye!
It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts;
It's how did you fight and why?

And though you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the Critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he's slow or spry,
It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,
But only, how did you die?

--
Posted by Jim Bob Howard to Poetry at 4/13/2006 04:35:00 PM

[Poetry] The Telephone

by Robert Frost

"When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head against a flower
I heard you talk.
Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say—
You spoke from that flower on the windowsill—
Do you remember what it was you said?"

"First tell me what it was you thought you heard."

"Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned my head,
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word—
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say—
Someone said 'Come'—I heard it as I bowed."

"I may have thought as much, but not aloud."

"Well, so I came."

--
Posted by Jim Bob Howard to Poetry at 4/12/2006 02:00:00 PM

[Poetry] It Couldn't Be Done

by Edgar Guest

Somebody said it couldn't be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing and he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;
At least no one has ever done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing and he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.

--
Posted by Jim Bob Howard to Poetry at 4/06/2006 04:45:00 PM