5 years, 3 children, 1 homestead under continuous development, 5 Baptisms, and infinite love and gratitude for my beautiful wife, the mother of my children.

Happy Anniversary Kitchen Marm

A beautiful, rainy Memorial Day

God bless this land for what it has given me and my family

George Wyndham once told me that he had seen one of the first aeroplanes rise for the first time and it was very wonderful but not so wonderful as a horse allowing a man to ride on him.

- Chesterton, Everlasting Man

Instead of trying to make 'Libertarian' happen, just recognize the word-game you are playing and disconnect your ego from that term

The term is owned and it's not by you

No one is such a poor judge of Christianity as those who are near it but not quite near enough

From Chesterton's Everlasting Man

Joe Norman I too am reclaiming all of the neglected spaces. They are the least productive, least beautiful places on our property

It took me YEARS to cut through the dense, ugly, BS left by our home's previous owner when he decided to stop mowing and pruning certain areas

In fact I have not yet fully worked through it all.

One of my biggest lessons in moving onto a little land is just how much work it

And sometimes it's nice to mow in order to steward our little slice of creation to be a lovely place for the children to play

There is a balance to be achieved, and doing *nothing* doesn't strike it

This time of year is so very sweet.

Like a glimpse of heaven.

Hungry chickens staring at me in the barn

Added a bit of buffer to the railings on the main bridge

It is easy to think land just *is what it is* when you've never tended any for any period of time.

A grassy area unmowed (by machine or beast) will not be a grassy area for long.

It is perhaps an irony that the only way you can enjoy an unmowed lawn is by having mowed it.

In a very interesting book by Alan Watts on Myth and Ritual in Christianity, he makes a claim that the role of Mary will only *increase* over time.

It's a really interesting analysis in that its conclusion is in line with a strain in Catholicism that expects Mary to eventually

Decay is not entropy

Decay is life