Lessons from the Farm 2 – Persistence and Patience

Sep 12, 2025 | Creative Writing, Farm Life

We chose the hottest weekend in August! Well, it really chose us. After a good two-year run of letting our chickens be free-range until dusk, we were suddenly losing a chicken a day to hawks and other varmints. Our small coop was fine for the nights, but not a long-term solution. They were miserable! So when our 10×30 foot chicken run kit arrived, we knew we had to assemble it ASAP, 95 ⁰F weather notwithstanding.

As with most two-person jobs, one person moves a lot, while the other stands. The stand-a-lot person tends to be me. Poles need to be held in place while screws are tightened. The huge roll of chicken wire mesh needs to be balanced and pulled taut while someone zip-ties along the length. It wasn’t long before streams of sweat were trickling down every inch of my back and legs. But we were on a mission—for hours.

A bank of clouds brought relief, but soon turned into a fifteen minute downpour that completely drenched us. As nice as that sounds on a hot day, the resulting humidity when the sun returned felt like being cooked in a pot of spaghetti. But we were on a mission.

We did finish that chicken run. Persistence and patience made for a lot of happy chickens and ducks.

Writing can be a similar task. Coming back to a blank screen day after day isn’t fun. Distractions call us from every direction. It takes persistence to keep throwing ideas onto that page and patience to mix the resulting stew until the story makes sense.

God bless your writing!

Lesson from the Farm 1 – Tomorrow Comes

Aug 11, 2025 | Farm Life

Love it or hate it, farm life is real.

Loss and death lie around every corner, whether its the favorite cat that wanders off and never returns, or the champion herdsire alpaca that expires without producing an heir. Chickens and ducks fall prey to a variety of predators.

Matilda

Marigold checks out the new arrivals

We were devastated last January when our treasured milk cow, Marigold, got sick and passed away within a week, despite vet care. She had the sweetest, maternal heart, visiting new sow mamas and licking their newborn piglets. You could tell she had a sense of humor too. When milking time came, she’d glance slyly back at you and jog the opposite direction around the carport before jauntily ambling back to her stanchion and hay.

Farm life, however, is also full of intense joys. You find a stray kitten in the woodpile, and when he’s old enough to go out on his own, he sticks around. Ducklings and chicks spring up seemingly from nowhere. Three fuzzy goslings appear, toddling between their protective parents, who hiss like all get-out at anything that dares to come near. The alpaca you never expected anything from sires a princely son. And the broken down horse you purchased as a companion to your other horse now romps and gallups about the pasture with her, glossy-coated and full of life.