Our Father of Benevolence

(Here is a wonderful reflection on The Lords Prayer (Matthew 6: 9-13 and Luke 11: 1-4) , paraphrased by Malcolm Street, a member of  the Bread for the World board of directors from Fort Worth, Texas. The prayer was said at one of the sessions of the November board meeting).

Our Father, Father of all benevolence, We are in reverent awe of you: your Goodness and your Grace, your Mercy and Forgiveness, your power and might, your humble and gentle heart.

We pray that your reign of love be realized, made real, in us and that your desire for Good be pursued by us, as it is already so in the saints who have preceded us to heaven.

Just as your earth yields bread for our bodies, give us a Word from you to nourish our souls.

Release us from the debt we have incurred by acting as if we were God and not you, as we will forgive the debt of those who have tried to lord it over us.

O Lord, dont lead us as you did Jesus, into the desert that tests our faith; But if it must be so, deliver us from falling away from you in the time of trial.

We long for your Kingdom rule over us in love, your power in us that frees us from our sins, and for Christ, who is our only hope of glory.

And Lord, we go on to pray that you would bless our deliberations here today that they may bear the fruit of blessing to those on the margins, yes even beyond the margins of hunger and poverty.

Lord, may you give bread to the hungry and a hunger for you to those who have bread.

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New On Our Reading List Critter Tales

Leigh Tates new book, Critter Tales, is out! 

In it, she chronicles her first-hand experiences with many types of livestock on her five-acre quasi-rural homestead in the southern Appalachian mountains. If you read Leighs blog, you know that she is working to maximize self-sufficiency for herself, her husband, and their animals. Most of her livestock-related posts are on goats, chickens, and more recently, bees, but the book also covers llamas, pigs, guinea fowl, guard dogs, and farm cats.  

Were regular readers of Leighs blog because she does very good research and combines that research with valuable insight from her own experiences. Were definitely looking forward to reading her new book.  

In the interest of full disclosure, were helping her promote the book partly because were hoping to win a copy.  The other part is because we dig her stuff and think you would, too.  If youre interested in winning a copy yourself, check out her announcement post for more info.

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Blessed are They

Fort Tryon Park, New York City

Weve occasionally published posts about the Beatitudes, including a great reflection from Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes, an interesting perspective from Rev. Aimee Moiso, an insightful interpretation from Franciscan scholar Ben Baran and a picture of the words of Matthew 5:3-12 at Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

Rabbi Daniel Polish,  author of the book Bringing the Psalms to Life, refers to the Beatitudes in a reflection in the Jesuit publication America magazine on the topic of finding happiness in the Psalms. The piece, which quotes the writings of English poet John Donne, is the first of a four-part series published by America on the Book of Psalms

Here are some excerpts:
"The first word of Psalm 1—and thus of the entire Book of Psalms—is ashrei, probably the same word that Jesus used in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12 and Luke 6:20-22). The translation Donne read renders this word as “blessed.” And thus Donne writes in his sermon:

How plentifully, how abundantly is the word Beatus, Blessed, multiplied in the Booke of Psalmes? Blessed, and Blessed in every Psalme, in every Verse; The Booke seems to be made out of that word Blessed, And the foundation raysed upon that word, Blessed, for it is the first word of the Booke.

Trust in God and happiness seem closely aligned in many of the Psalms. This is the thread Donne might have us find running through the entire book. Indeed we read of ashrei from the beginning of the book to the end: “Happy are all they that take refuge in Him” (Psalm 2:12). And “Happy is the one that hath made the Lord his trust” (Psalm 40:4).

Donne argues that the very character of the book as a whole is suggested in the very first word. And he might well be right. But interestingly, the correct meaning of that first word is really not “blessed” at all, with all of its theological connotations. Today most translators would render ashrei as “happy.”

Read full article by Rabbi Polish

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Another reason loop siphons beat bell siphons

If you are just getting started with aquaponics, you are probably reading all you can about the miracle of the bell siphon.

Well, they arent miracles they are physical science in action and while they do fall in the nifty, keen-o, fine-o category we have found several problems with them.

Add one more to that category.........root intrusion from the grow bed!

We recently stepped out of town for a little over two weeks.  We had someone periodically peek in on our systems and feed the fish a few times.  We were shocked when we got the panicked phone call that one of the systems was over-flowing on the grow bed and loosing water in the fish tank.  While we had a good bit of rain in our absence and that might explain an over-all higher water level we do have overflows installed to take care of heavy rain.  Also, rain wouldnt explain why we would loose water from the fish side of the system.  What fun to troubleshoot from 1500 miles away!

Every thing was humming when we left town.  The plants were uber happy and the fish appeared to be happy (hard to tell when they are smiling) so all should have been good. What happened?

Well, the plants were so uber happy that they grew like crazy and even though we had the bell siphon guarded, the roots grew into the siphon itself.  The entire thing was so totally clogged with roots that the siphon could no longer drain.  Now you know it is a serious root blockage if water, one of the most persistent and powerful forces on earth couldnt make it through that root ball!

So, we will develop a new guard to protect the bell siphon from roots.  But, this has only reinforced our decision to stick with loop siphons on all of our other systems.  The design of the loop siphon does not allow for root intrusion and all of the other systems utilizing this design had no problems with roots.

So, bell = bad
Loop = good

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Update on the Row Cover Chicken Tractor

Last fall, we wrote about a chicken tractor we built to fit directly over our (at the time) only garden bed.  We hypothesized that the inherent stiffness of the woven wire fence top would provide some structural integrity, and help shed the snow off to the sides before it could pile up.  Unfortunately, we put too much faith in the fencing material, and one heavy snow was all it took to buckle it.  When we got some time this spring, we made a few improvements to it that will hopefully help it survive this next winter in a little better shape.

When it happened the first time, we put a stick in the middle to hold up the wire.  It worked for a while, as long as we only got snow in increments of one inch or less.  (Also, we didnt figure out a good way to close off the ends in time, and our kale died. :-(  In the spring, we found that covering the ends with garbage bags and holding them in place with sticks was a workable redneck solution for the coldest nights.)

When the heavy snow came, it pushed the stick right down into the dirt and buckled the fencing anyway.  (An unintended consequence of double digging in the fall!) Time for some repairs!

In the spring, we bolstered the structure with a 2 x 4, in which we cut grooves in the ends and screwed it into the hoop parts.  We couldnt find one quite long enough, so the far end has a couple of bridging pieces to cover the extra distance.  A real craftsman would have found the right length board, and put it in the center of the hoops!

We also upgraded the mechanism for moving the chicken catcher piece.  Its now fixed to a rope that goes from end to end, suspended from the main beam by screw-in eyelets.  Now we can just pull on one part of the rope to herd the chickens toward us, and on the other part to give them more room...and all from the comfort of the door side of the tractor!

Heres a shot of how the eyelet hangs at the door end.  Doesnt look like much, but it was cheap, and it works pretty slick.  Those are our two primary concerns.

How do your chicken tractors or row covers hold up in the snow?  Have you had to make any improvements to their structural integrity?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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Helping Wood Reclaim Its Former Glory

Some weekends, The Lab is a little bit like a firehouse.  We wake up on a Saturday morning, lounge around the kitchen making crepes or putting extra raisins on our oatmeal (because, hey, its Saturday!).  Then all of a sudden, the call will come in.  Not a call call, but an e-mail from IFTTT that reads something like Free wood!  60 feet of weathered cedar fencing, stacked in driveway at [address two miles away].  Will take down posting when gone.

The kitchen erupts with activity.  Pancakes and oatmeal start flying around; some even lands in our mouths if were lucky.  We throw the crosscut saw, drill, hatchet, and crowbar in the station wagon, make sure the ratchet straps are still in there from last time, and peel out of the driveway prepared to do battle with enormous fence sections and other zealots of the Craigslist free section.  (Its close to, but not quite, the level of activity that ensues when Katie finds a large spider in a cupboard.)

The only catch is that the wood usually looks like an 85-year-old former boxer.  Jagged, beat up, dirty, limbs falling off...you get the idea.  And who would want to make a shelf or a table out of an 85-year-old former boxer?  Well, we would!  All it takes is a little elbow grease and/or some specific tools, and that old wood will be back in shape in no time.  It might even have some extra character scars to serve as an artistic reminder of its former life.

In case you have the same vehicle for hauling reclaimed wood as we do, 60 feet of dismantled cedar fencing is about the maximum that a Saturn SW2 can hold.

Our first step is to dismantle the wood down to the raw boards.  Pull nails, remove screws, toss scraps into the burn pile.  The bent, rusty nails and screws will add up quickly, but can be taken to a scrapyard to recover some of the cost of your effort if theyre not reusable.  Other folks say that burying them around fruit trees will help replenish iron in the soil, but beware of anything thats not rusty-looking, since it probably has some kind of corrosion inhibitor added, such as a zinc- or polymer-based coating (or both), which will keep the iron from getting into the soil while adding toxic (zinc) or plastic junk to your dirt.

Then, the boards.  Occasionally, a board will be fit for use as-is.  If its not too splintery or dirty and the intended application isnt too cuddly, the board can go directly to any number of reclaimed wood projects.  But what if we need a closet shelf that wont snag sweaters, a nightstand that doesnt go bump in the night, or counter top to use as a kitchen workspace?

Enter the bench top planer.  (It works just as well on a garage floor or in an apartment living room as on a bench top.)  We got it for $50 on Craigslist, and its the key to getting the wood from something someone would leave in their driveway for free to something Katie would allow in the house.  This particular planer can handle boards up to 5" thick.  For boards that are thicker than that (e.g., a 1 x >5), we set up our router table to be a jointer or just use a hand plane.

Usually a single pass will take off all the surface splinters and dirt.  A second or third pass takes out most of the remaining dings, leaving just a few artistic nail holes.  (Top = before, bottom = after.)  Its important to measure the new dimensions of the boards once they look nice, since the planer can remove anywhere from 1/32" up to 1/8" per pass.  Projects dont fit together nearly as nicely with an extra 1/8" on the end of every board, even if you do cut the wood square!

For Jakes projects, everything at this point gets screwed, glued, and called done!   The shelf boards in this closet shelf are sections of old cedar fence planks that are probably too thin for almost any other application. (Maybe shimming door jambs would be ok.)

For Katies projects there are a few extra steps like sanding and/or staining.

This is Katies end table before sanding.  What a beaut!

2 x 4s seem to be the most readily available form of free wood, which is great if you want to build a butcher block-style counter top or something similarly sturdy.  This thing will be heavy as heck, but able to withstand plenty of pounding!   In the background, a pile of unusable wood is visible.  Those are boards that are too warped, too short (i.e., scraps), or occasionally, too punky.  But for us, its a beneficial side effect of collecting free boards because it provides a continuous supply of bone-dry firewood for heating the workspace.

What steps do you take when working with abandoned wood?  What are your favorite reclaimed wood projects?  Let us know in the comments section below!

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We Have a God who Promised to be With Us

Bishop Lawrence Reddick, senior bishop of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and presiding prelate of the 8th Episcopal District, offers this New Years blessing and greeting for 2016. Bishop Reddick is a member of the Bread for the World board of directors.

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