Running Around like a Chicken With Its Head Cut Off

Those are a bunch of chicken heads, huh?  This is the sight that greets us most Saturday and Sunday mornings as we walk out to milk the cows.  On weekdays, it is still dark and they are mostly milling around the hen house or still roosting.  On the weekends when we milk about 2 hours later, those birds are impatiently waiting for breakfast.  They are cackling and clucking all piled up by the gate.  We press through the flock, trying not to step on them.

Looking at the photo above and all their heads, it reminds me of many people who talk to me about chickens, telling me when they grew up butchering chickens, they'd chop the birds head off and the bird would run around with no head.  We don't do that.  We slit the artery and let the bird's heart bleed them out.  But the saying "Running around like a chicken with its head cut off" is an interesting visual that people use to describe themselves or others.  It represents chaos.  Lack of planning or organization.

Do you ever feel like that describes your life?  It's funny.  I try to be efficient and organized in my work life.  I try to plan and keep things orderly.  In a Jekyll and Hyde situation, my work around our little farm is often quite chaotic, not organized, not well thought out and woefully inefficient.  In our current viewing of the Canadian series "Heartland" on Netflix, the character Jack Bartlett made the following quote:

"If you act like you have 15 minutes to do a job, it will take you all day, but if you act like you have all day to do a job, it will take you 15 minutes."  - Jack Bartlett from "Heartland"

You know, Jack is 100% correct!  Oftentimes, I have a bunch of projects that I feel like all need to be done.  With limited time, I'll just dive in and start working hard without planning.  I'll rush to do the heavy-lifting and hard work without stopping to think and get organized.  Inevitably, that results in numerous trips from the barn or pasture back to my workbench in the garage to get supplies I need.  While great for burning calories, it burns up the day and I end up not being productive.  As Jack mentions, it takes all day to do a job that could have taken 15 minutes had I spent time on the front end planning.

I give Jack Bartlett credit for that quote, but King Solomon said it first, I think:

The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty,

But those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty. 

Proverbs 21:5 New King James Version (NKJV)

Wise words indeed...

Pay attention to Your Herds

Know well the condition of your flocks,

And pay attention to your herds;

For riches are not forever,

Nor does a crown endure to all generations.

When the grass disappears, the new growth is seen,

And the herbs of the mountains are gathered in,

The lambs will be for your clothing,

And the goats will bring the price of a field,

And there will be goats’ milk enough for your food,

For the food of your household,

And sustenance for your maidens. -Proverbs 27:23-27

That's some sound advice from the book of Proverbs.  I'm telling you, you can spend as much time as you want in Barnes & Noble, but the best self-help book of all time is - The Bible.  We have been reading Proverbs over and over.  We have to read it real slow because there is just so much there to be gleaned.

We pray every morning that God would enable us to be good stewards of the animals and the land that He's entrusted us with.  We try to do as verse 23 above states and know the condition of our flocks.  We pay attention to our herds.  In fact just yesterday I was in the pasture and was checking up on Annie, our Nubian momma goat.

To be quite honest, I think having triplets is a little more than ol Annie bargained for.  I noticed that she left her kids out in the pasture and she 'high-tailed it' away from them the first chance she got.  She was enjoying eating hay around the round bales for 30 minutes of peace without the kids.  All of a sudden, it was if she remembered, "Where's my babies?"  She began 'baa-baa-baaing' and soon I saw three little heads pop up out of the grass way out in the pasture where they had been napping.  Then in their best imitation of Secretariat, ran full-throttle to momma!

Photo finish?

Happy to be next to their mother, they swarmed her, getting all tangled up in her legs.

Happy Kids

With the reunion and greeting out of the way, the three found what they were looking for - a late afternoon snack!

Goat milk - it does a body good

The only problem, as we discussed before, is that the math doesn't work out.  With 3 kids and a goat only having 2 teats, there's always someone left out.  I guess I should tell you that we finally named the three kids.  We have one buckling and two doelings, so it seemed appropriate to name the little boy, "Buckwheat."  Staying with the Little Rascals theme - and they are little rascals, we named one of the little girls, "Darla" and the other "Jane".

Buckwheat, Darla, and Jane trying to not be the 'odd man out'

Somehow, they are all thriving.  When we put them in the barn at night, we pick them up and they all have fat little bellies, so we know they are getting plenty of milk.

Learning to Share

There's only one problem - for us, that is.  Back to verse 27 from Proverbs above, it states that, 

"And there will be goats’ milk enough for your food,

For the food of your household,

And sustenance for your maidens."

Until we wean the kids, there won't be enough goats' milk for our food, the food of our household, and sustenance for our maidens.  Fortunately we have plenty of cows' milk to satisfy that need.  Until we wean the three hungry little kids, we'll just have to be patient for the goat milk!

Give Me Just Enough, Lord!

Wisdom.  Do you ever feel like you need more wisdom and understanding? Perhaps you have a big decision that you need to make and you really don't know what to do.  Maybe you, like me, just need guidance and direction to help you navigate through the "shark infested waters" present in normal, day-to-day life.

If you can relate to that, well, I've got great news for you.  The Good Book says the following:

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  James 1:5 (NASB)

All you have to do is ask!  As a family, we've started a new practice that we've incorporated into our daily lives to gain that wisdom that He gives.  It is a cool idea that I wish we would have done a long time ago.  Each night, we sit down at the supper table and thank God for His Provision.  We talk about what has gone on during the day and enjoy each other's company.  We've always done that.

But here is the new wrinkle that we added.  At the end of the meal, we pull out the Bible and turn to Proverbs.  It is a great Book - full of values, morals, and standards of right living.  It was written primarily by King Solomon.  You'll remember God told him that he could have whatever he wanted. Instead of asking for riches, revenge over his enemies, honor or long life, Solomon asked for wisdom. As a result God gave him all of the above!

Image Credit

So here's what we do.  Proverbs has 31 chapters.  There is a chapter for every day of the month.  Each day we read one chapter.  Yesterday was December 21st so we read Proverbs 21.  We divide the total number of verses by the number of people eating with us - so it keeps our mathematics skills sharp, too!  Then each person reads their allocated verses.  We read them slow, because there is so much wisdom to be gleaned.  We repeat those that are particularly noteworthy and ruminate about them a little bit.

Some of them are even funny!:

It is better to live in a corner of a roof Than in a house shared with a contentious woman. Proverbs 21:9

A constant dripping on a day of steady rain And a contentious woman are alike.  Proverbs 27:15

Image Credit

Some of the Proverbs are just loaded with great advice.  Take this one for example:

8 Keep deception and lies far from me,
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with the food that is my portion,
9 That I not be full and deny You and say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or that I not be in want and steal,
And profane the name of my God.  Proverbs 30:8-9 (NASB)

Give me just enough, LORD, the Proverbs asks.  Too little can be hard and too much can be ruinous. Our intention is to keep this going each day, reading over and over and over wisdom that will help us and sustain us throughout all the days of our lives.  Our aim is to leave the supper table filled with nutritious food, but also filled with wisdom.  Eating good meals and devouring wisdom as well. You are what you eat, you know?  I know I want to have a continual feast!:

All the days of the afflicted are bad, But a cheerful heart has a continual feast.  Proverbs 15:15