The Eighth Sermon to the Dead

This weekend was lovely. We spend a lot of time hanging out at home, letting the animals explore under supervision. The back pasture is rather steep, and forested, so it was with a bit of trepidation we let the horses graze up there. We need not have worried, as they had a wonderful time. The goats had a wonderful time in that pasture. I'm pretty sure they'll eat all the bushes, brambles, and grass down so we won't have any sort of fire hazard there.   The chickens also had a great time, wandering around the upper pasture and the our yard, eating bugs and generally having a good time. We have three sets of chicken, and two of them are out wandering around on their own. The layers are wandering in the upper pasture, and the 'blues' (blue orpingtons) are wondering in the lower pasture. Our Dark Cornish (velicoraptors) are not allowed to wander, as they're generally too slow moving and too sweet to not get hurt. As for the humans, we sat around some, ...

We've been moving for about 3 days now, and I don't think we've made a dent yet. Nevertheless, the house feels like home. Soon, it will be Empyrean Acres, our farming home. Now I'm sitting in an arena, watching people learn now to ride and exercising their horses. Once we're done moving, I'm probably going to start taking lessons. I've never had a desire to ride horses before, however living with horse people makes it look appealing. I don't have any desire to do any competitions, but riding on a trail would be fun.

It's been 10 days since my last post. I've been keeping up with the meditation. We celebrated the Eucharist on Sunday in our new space, which was wonderful. Saw some new faces. This move is kicking my butt. We sign papers on 5/22, and close 5/29. It can't happen fast enough. Our landlord is moving back into his house, so he's chomping at the bit to get back up there. It's causing stress and complications as he tries to move animals in before we've moved our animals out. Animals are always unpredictable: they have their own behaviors, diseases, and issues, and they rarely stay right where you put them. I just want to kick the dust from my feet and get to our own place. When I'm already stressed, complications cause me more stress. So rest, relaxation, etc are difficult to come by. Work is gearing up for our next phase of the project, the phase that starts letting the whole company in. I'm gearing up to help support the whole system once the contractor...

Today I've been thinking a lot about the Permaculture. It combines a lot of ideas that I am interested in: renewable energy, greywater and rainwater storage, soil regeneration and restoration, food forests, trees and garden design. Careful use of resources, respectful approach to life, and thoughtful planning. It provides for the needs of human beings, and other forms of life. Waste becomes resources, productivity increases, work is minimized, environment is restored. Holy cow is that a paradigm shift. I've been raised in a culture, a business culture, of resource extraction and efficiency. That science, rationality, and engineering will produce the best life humans can have. While that may be true, it seems mainstream science has actually stopped with principles developed during the industrial age. Efficiency, redesigned as the least amount of work, became the goal. Waste was discounted. Now, though, I've come to a new business, with a new understanding of waste. In ...

It's spring, and we have goat kids! They're cute little balls of fluff, and the last time I saw them they'd mastered backing up but going forward was a bit of a mystery. I don't have a lot to write today. The boys are home from Hawaii, the goats have been born, I'm building a chicken coop, and Paddy will be working a lot this week so I made the menu. I'm immersed in the day to day, so the astral, celestial, and divine has to be found in the farm, the kitchen, and the airport. It's always there. It's always responding to the divine within me, reaching out, making connections. If I let it.

This was a very busy weekend out at the farm. On Saturday, we tried to melt aluminum. We ended up destroying the forge. Apparently, there was moisture in something, and we had some explosive boiling of copper in a used crucible. The flower pot was destroyed. Later, I went to the funeral for a brother here at my local lodge. He was an older brother, but a recent mason, only since 2006. The funeral had a good turn out of Masons, probably 35. I wasn't there for the opening of the lodge of Sorrow, nor was I able to get an apron, as they didn't have enough. But I was able to march in with the brothers, and attend the graveside burial. The words are archaic, and yet full of meaning. "We have called the roll of the workmen, and Brother N. has not answered to his name." The ideas may seem simplistic these days: Life eternal, removed from sight but still existing, the eternal Grand Lodge above. Never the less, it makes those left behind think: What will I leave behind?...

Penny and Clover eating foliage I like goats. As far as our animals go, they're very productive and not very drama filled. You basically put them on pasture with enough  greenery, and they just eat, poop, give milk, and breed. But there's more to it than that, of course. They get parasites. They need their hooves trimmed. They break their legs. Like every animal, they have issues. Compared to the smaller ones, though, they seem to have less. Maybe that's just because I have less of them than the smaller ones. Also, we generally don't kill the goats. They are milk goats, not for meat. So, they have babies, and they eat grass, and that's about it. Last weekend, our little goat Robert (that's him, orange on the back of the llama) broke his leg. He's what we call a Wether, a castrated male goat. As such, his job is basically to take care of the intact male goat, called a buck.* We have two other wethers, so he's sort of redundant as to his purpose....

Cute little soon-to-be bastards Raising rabbits for meat is a whole different kettle of fish from raising chickens. Rabbits start out as pink little wiggly fingerlings, and slowly grow into the cutest fluff balls imaginable. While young, they eat and eat and eat, until they are about 5-10 pounds. They never really lose their cuteness, always being fuzzy and generally passive if not affectionate. There is a brief window, between 120 and 150 days, where they are absolute bastards. This is called puberty. They start to go from being 'safety in numbers, why can't we all get along' to 'You inna my space and I'm gonna kill you!'. Then, after 150 days, they become all about survival again, and are fine to deal with. Still solitary, a little annoyed at being bothered, but much less annoying. Coincidentally, if you're raising meat rabbits, you slaughter them between 120 and 150 days. Rabbit meat is lean, delicious, and generally not eaten in the U.S. Producti...

Raising chickens may seem like an odd occupation for a Gnostic. There is nothing more hylic than the little feathered automatons that make up a major portion of our food supply. Per Captia consumption in 2012 shows Americans eat about 250 eggs and 60 chickens per year. So, these little birds are a major reason Americans, at least, have physical bodies at all. The average american chicken is raised in a factory farm. That means they're kept in facilities like the one in the picture: Long rows of chickens, 5 to 10 hens in each chage, packed as closely together as possible. The facility pictured here is an egg production facility. Hens produce eggs for 1 to 2 years, after which they are processed for dog food or chicken broth, or simply suffocated with carbon dioxide and discarded in landfills. Male chickens are of little utility to these facilities, so as chicks they are sorted, and the male chickens are disposed of in cruel manners. You can find more information about the process...