The Milkman Cometh

When Little Miss Sweetness made her dramatic arrival two years ago, she had a gastric issue which required immediate surgery. She would end up hospitalized for the first month of her life as she recovered. She also had a heart defect, which would require a separate surgery a few months later. (All these issues are now behind her, and she's a thriving two year old.)

For the first two and a half weeks of her life, LMS got all her nutrition intravenously. Only slowly did the hospital staff allow her to transition to breast milk; even then, it had to be delivered by NG tube, so she wouldn't have to work hard sucking - and so the amounts could be strictly measured.

However, from Day One, Mrs. Yeoman Farmer's milk supply was as abundant as it'd been with any of our other kids. So, as she sat by LMS's side in the NICU, day after day, and week after week, she pumped. And pumped. And pumped. For one stretch, she was regularly producing 50 to 60 ounces per day.

One of my jobs was to walk the filled-and-labeled 2.7oz milk bottles down the hall to the hospital milk room, where they would be frozen. My other job was to scoop up another handful of empty bottles, and bring them back to MYF.

Little Miss Sweetness barely dented that supply of frozen milk by the time she was discharged. When the hospital milk room packed all those little bottles into Styrofoam coolers for us to take home, we were astounded at the sheer volume. The five coolers took up virtually the entire rear-most cargo portion of our minivan! I think I muttered something about being glad we had so many chest freezers back at the farm. We were going to need them.

And the milk didn't stop coming. The doctors didn't want LMS to nurse directly, or even exert herself sucking from a bottle, until she'd had the heart surgery and made a full recovery from it. So, with the NG tube in until at least November, MYF had to keep pumping. I made bulk purchases of larger milk freezer bags on Amazon, which were soon filled and added to our stockpile. I started wondering if we might also need another chest freezer.

LMS eventually had her heart surgery, made a strong recovery, and got the green light to begin nursing directly. She picked it up right away, much to our relief. And just in time: the pump had gotten so much use, MYF had literally worn it out and the thing was now falling apart.

What to do with all that milk in the freezer(s)? We had one 9 cubic foot chest freezer packed to the gills with nothing but milk, with the overflow stuffed into other freezers wherever I could find space.

We didn't want to get rid of all of it; there was no guarantee that MYF's milk supply would remain high enough for long enough. The "strategic reserve" gave peace of mind that we'd never have to buy formula. Still, barring a true catastrophe, it was far more than we would ever need. We wanted to donate at least some of it to a family that could get some good use out of it.

But how could we find that family?

MYF began making calls. The nearest milk bank was a long ways away, and wouldn't take our milk anyway (understandably, because MYF hadn't undergone a health screening, etc). The local crisis pregnancy center, which supplies formula for mothers who need it, didn't know any mothers who wanted frozen breast milk. The local adoption agency didn't know any adoptive mothers who wanted it. None of our friends had recently adopted a baby. No one knew anyone who'd recently adopted a baby.

So, the milk sat. And sat. And sat. We were now sure we would never need any of it for Little Miss Sweetness (who was rapidly becoming Big Miss Sweetness), but it was still not clear what we should do with it.

Finally, this spring, through word of mouth, we learned of mother-to-mother milk sharing networks. One of the largest is called "Eats on Feets," and seems to operate primarily on Facebook. Mothers needing milk can post requests, as can families with milk to donate. People then connect through private messages, and arrange to get the milk from donor to recipient. In addition to the national Facebook page, there are numerous state-specific and region-specific chapter pages. This makes it easier to find local donors and recipients, so milk need not be shipped.

I browsed the Michigan listings, looking for families-in-need-of-milk that weren't too far from us. Some of the requests were very simple, just giving a name and location. Others gave a fair amount of detail about the travails the family had been going through, and the lengths to which they were willing to drive for milk. It's impossible to read these without being moved, and without wanting to help. I felt guilty that I hadn't done more, sooner, to find this organization.

I sent several private messages, through Facebook, to mothers who'd posted requests for milk. (At this point, I wasn't sure I was comfortable putting up a post announcing that we had milk. Perhaps it's because I'm male, and virtually 100% of all posts were by mothers. I don't know.) Some never responded at all, most likely because FB segregates messages from "non-friends" into what's essentially a spam folder. If you don't check it, you don't see those messages. Others did respond, but either (1) decided we were too far away, (2) had just gotten a freezer full of milk from someone else, or (3) didn't feel comfortable using milk as old as ours.

I waited for the just-got-a-freezer-full people to contact me back, but that didn't happen. So, the milk sat.

Finally, shortly before the Fourth of July, I decided it was time to make a post of my own on the Eats on Feets board. Within hours, I had three separate mothers contact me. I filled them in as to the age of the milk, and none was troubled by it. We arranged public meeting places at times that would work for us and for them, at gas stations just off the freeway.

What a joy it was to pack the milk back into those Styrofoam coolers the hospital had sent us home with! I packed and delivered roughly one-third of the milk one evening to one of the fathers, and Mrs. Yeoman Farmer made the other two trips. The last of these was to deliver to a mother who'd invested in an enormous amount of freezer space, so she took every remaining ounce I could find in every one of our freezers. This is what the back of our minivan looked like, just before MYF pulled out:

It's wonderful having our freezer space back. And it's even more wonderful knowing that we've been able to supply three families with something so valuable, it can't be purchased in any store.

I've read quite a bit of the advance press for Charles Murray's new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, and am looking forward to reading it. I plan to blog about it once I do, as I think his central premise is important and on-target.

For an excellent overview by Murray, I recommend this recent WSJ article.

Murray has also put up a fun quiz, where you can estimate your own degree of cultural isolation or engagement with the broader American culture. My results (and a link to the quiz) are below.

How Thick Is Your Bubble? Guest Score » 10 out of 20 (50% ) Result On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 9 and 12. In other words, even if you're part of the new upper class, you've had a lot of exposure to the rest of America. Quiz School Take this quiz & get your score

How Thick Is Your Bubble? » Fun Trivia Maker

Just a Couple More

If you're like me, you're probably "Nine-Elevened Out" and overwhelmed by the number of remembrances that commentators have been offering up in recent days. The History Channel in particular has been wall-to-wall with 9/11 for some time. (If you watch just one program, make sure you catch their "102 Minutes that Changed the World." It is phenomenal.) But if you'll indulge me, I'd like to offer just a couple of quick memories of my own.

By way of background, we'd just moved to our first farm, in Illinois, from California, a month and a half before 9/11. We were still figuring everything out, and hadn't even ordered our first batch of chickens. Our house was a couple of miles outside a town of 420 people, and about 7 miles from a town of 4,500. We'd met a handful of people, but still didn't have many friends. We'd decided not to hook up satellite TV, and were so far from the nearest broadcast tower that we couldn't even get signals from the antenna. We had dial-up internet, which was pretty slow.

I'd been in Washington, DC, on business the previous two days, speaking at a conference. I'd flown back to Chicago the afternoon of September 10th, and driven two hours home in my vintage Italian project car as the sun set over the prairie. Everything seemed perfect. Only after getting home did I discover I'd left my sports jacket on the plane. I called United Airlines, asked them to look for it, and went to bed late.

Tuesday morning I slept in, and it was lazy. Mrs Yeoman Farmer and the kids had gone to town for something, and I enjoyed having the house to myself. Sometime in mid-morning, I got around to signing onto AOL for the first time, to check email. I was puzzled by the welcome page, which said something about America under attack and the World Trade Center no longer being there. It seemed so outlandish, I dismissed it as some kind of speculative "what if" scenario. But after a little more browsing, I figured out what'd really happened. And was shocked to the core.

And I'd never so badly wished I had a TV. I switched on the radio, and tried to get some news, but even that reception was pretty bad. I then called Dish Network, and arranged to have satellite service hooked up. Something told me we were really going to want it in the coming days and weeks.

When MYF and the kids got home, we called one of the few friends we had in the town of 4,500 (a family from our parish). We asked if we could come over and watch TV, and they said "absolutely." We sped into town, and spent a couple of hours glued to the footage while our kids played with theirs. Particularly striking was the reaction the husband of this family had to the events. He was an auto mechanic, and about as strong a guy as you'll meet. He'd come home from work for lunch, and watched the news with us as he ate. As he was preparing to go back to work, even he had tears in his eyes.

Anyway, I'll cut right to the biggest thing that struck me about being in a rural community that day. The town of 420 had a Catholic church so small that it didn't have its own priest. The pastor from the larger town drove out twice a week to say Mass: once on Sunday, and once on Tuesday evening. I'd attended that Tuesday evening Mass pretty much every week, and there were usually about four or five other people in attendance. But on Tuesday the 11th, I counted fifty-five people in that little white frame building. It looked almost like a Sunday morning. Somehow, as the events of that day unfolded, a lot of people were getting the same idea: I need to get to church. I need to come together with other people. I need to pray. It was nowhere so pronounced as in that little town on that night. The sense of "togetherness" in that building was palpable.

Then, after Mass, as we began driving home, I spotted something strange: a long line of cars at the one gas station along the highway that cut through the town. There were so many cars, they were backed up for a long distance around the block. It looked like pure panic-buying of gasoline, but I couldn't help thinking if maybe all these people knew something I didn't. Would gas soon become scarce? Would prices go through the roof? I decided it'd be better to be safe than to be without gas, so I got in line and waited a half hour or whatever until I could top off my tank. All the employees were working to get people through quickly, but I had a chance to chat with one of them as our gas was pumping. "You could probably raise your prices and make a fortune," I commented. "Supply and demand, and all."

"Oh," she replied, almost taken aback, "we would never do that. We're just going to pump until there's nobody left or we run out of gas."

As I drove home, I reflected on how strikingly different this place was from Los Angeles. How much the community had come together. How much people seemed to be looking out for each other. And how very glad I was to be living here.

in the closet, I gave the pockets a closer inspection. And found that, in addition to my business cards, I'd also left my boarding ticket there. The date was printed right in the middle, and jumped off the paper at me: September 10, 2001.

I stopped and shook my head. September 10th seemed like an entirely different country, in an entirely different world. Everything, it seemed, had changed. And I was deeply grateful I'd be getting to spend the post-9/11 world in a rural community like the one we'd found.

Civic Pride

It's well known that Mrs Yeoman Farmer and I much prefer country and small town life to that in even a medium sized city. But cities have their place, and can be valuable for the resources they provide and their opportunities to connect with others.

Some time back, a national magazine put our state's second largest metro area on its list of "America's Dying Cities." But rather than taking the designation laying down, the people of Grand Rapids responded by putting together what may be the most remarkable production of community and civic pride we've ever seen:



Videos don't embed well on my blog, because of the narrow text template. This link will let you watch it on YouTube. If you haven't seen it yet, make sure you watch it. It is truly amazing.

An NPR story supplies more of the backstory of the video, and is definitely worth reading.

Much has been written in recent years about the decline in American "social capital." Technological changes, such as television, have led to the dissolution of traditional means (such as civic organizations) by which people used to connect with one another. That may be true, but productions such as this one demonstrate that it doesn't always have to be. Perhaps particularly in smaller cities such as Grand Rapids, there is still a thriving base of social capital; productions like this one couldn't be made without it.

And as closely as I watched it, I found no one in the video who was "bowling alone."

Don't Call the Cops

They won't come. Not for a long time, anyway. Unless it's a real emergency. And even then...who knows?

That's essentially what's happened here in our county. While most people are aware of the dramatic police and firefighter layoffs in big cities like Camden, NJ, there is a somewhat different --- and more interesting --- dynamic at work here in our little corner of Michigan.

Like most counties in our state, the territory is divided up into large townships of about 30-35 square miles. Within these, there are pockets of incorporated municipalities which are administratively separate from the surrounding township. Our particular rural township has about 2,400 rural residents, and there are about 2,300 people living in its one incorporated municipality.

Most of the incorporated municipalities, including the one we live just outside of, have a small police force. (They seem to spend much of their time camped out with a radar gun at the municipal line, where the speed limit suddenly drops from 45 to 25.) However, that police force will not respond to crimes on our property; their responsibility ends at the municipal border. We and all other rural residents are under the jurisdiction of the County Sheriff, whose services are paid for by our property taxes.

Last summer, the County announced that they would need to slash the Sheriff's budget by $2.2 million for 2011, and that they would no longer have the resources (i.e. deputies) for routine patrols or response to non-emergency rural calls. If we wanted more police coverage than that, we would need to approve a special millage on the November ballot. The money raised would be used to contract with the county sheriff or a local municipality for police coverage, or to form a new rural police force.

The assessment would've been about $150 per residence and $250 per business. Of course, Mrs. Yeoman Farmer and I voted in favor. We tend to oppose most millage proposals, but police coverage should be a no-brainer. Public safety is one of the few truly essential and appropriate functions that government provides. I simply assumed it would pass, and didn't even bother checking the election results for several weeks.

As it turns out, the millage in fact failed. Miserably. Each of the thirteen townships voted separately, and the measure only (barely) passed in one. It came close (49%) in one other township. Five other townships were in the low forties. None of the remaining seven townships, including ours, could muster a "Yes" vote in excess of 37%.

Interestingly, the one township which passed the millage has chosen not to contract with the County Sheriff for services. They are instead going to hire a local municipality's police force to cover them.

Mrs. Yeoman Farmer and I have been scratching our heads and trying to understand the election outcome. MYF's working theory is it's similar to the "boy who cried wolf" one too many times not getting taken seriously. She reasons that voters have gotten sick of being told the sky would fall down if they didn't approve an additional property tax hike, and finally decided to stop listening. That's a plausible explanation, especially given that our property taxes are supposed to be covering police protection in the first place --- and that, according to some locals we've spoken to, the county commission has proven itself less than trustworthy on some occasions. No doubt, some voters thought the County was playing "chicken" with us, and would blink if we didn't.

The County didn't blink. The first week of January, they in fact cut the Sheriff Department's staff from 223 to 187 employees. That leaves exactly two deputies on duty at any given time to respond to calls in the entire 440 square miles they are responsible for.

What does that mean, exactly? We're starting to find out. Earlier this month, when a student took a loaded handgun into a rural middle school, it took deputies 20 minutes to get there.

Fortunately, our townships are not high crime areas. But many of us are concerned that could now change. If you're a burglar, what better place to ply your trade than one where, even if you're surprised by a homeowner, it takes the cops 20 minutes to show up?

Of course, burglars know that most of us here in the country are fairly well-armed. Few would be stupid enough to break in when a rural resident is at home. Our family is especially fortunate in this regard; because we homeschool, and because I work on the property, someone is nearly always here. We're also on a fairly well-traveled blacktop road that's not far from a municipality, so lots of eyes would be upon someone carting property out of our house. But that's not true of most other rural homes; many sit empty all day, and are on isolated lanes. What better target than a house where it'll take a deputy several days to come out and even file a police report of your burglary? Just imagine how contaminated the crime scene will be by then!

Already, there is talk of putting another police millage on a future ballot; it'll be interesting to see if, as residents experience the reality of life with reduced sheriff coverage, support for a special assessment increases.

In the meantime, what's especially heartening is the grassroots response in some townships. People aren't just sitting back and waiting for the criminals to strike, or for government to act on our behalf. In the true American civic spirit, they're forming voluntary associations to address the problem themselves. Residents of one township, for example, have been extremely aggressive in forming a neighborhood watch. Signs like these:

have popped up all over the rural roads. The churches, including the Catholic church in that township, have been especially active as centers of coordination. Down in the church basement, there's a big stack of these signs that the Knights of Columbus and others have been working to distribute.

It reminds me a lot of something that happened when we lived in Illinois, and someone in our rural county began setting fire to barns on isolated properties. As the size of territory was too large for police to keep an eye on, a group of locals began organizing active patrols of roads with likely targets. I myself started taking a different route into town, just so I could drive past and keep an eye on more isolated structures. Anyway, after just a couple of weeks, one of the local patrols caught the arsonist fleeing the scene of a fire. They held him until the cops could arrive.

I'm sure hoping it doesn't come to that here in Michigan. But we're all ready to step up for our community if it does.

Saturday Morning at the Post Office

I stopped by the local post office at about 9:30 this morning, to mail a package. As the clerk was weighing it and printing up the postage, I heard a woman's voice call out from behind a divider.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "You're here."

The woman emerged from where she'd been sorting mail, and I instantly recognized her as our own rural mail carrier. "Since you're here," she smiled, handing me a bundle of mail, "You might as well take this now."

I smiled, laughed, and thanked her for saving me from trudging through snowdrifts to the mailbox later that afternoon. "I love small towns," I added.

Can anyone even imagine something like this happening in a city?

Really Big Neighborhood Watch

There's been an unusual crime wave in our neck of the woods lately. Over the last week or two, someone has set a string of several arson fires. Most of the fires have been in empty (or abandoned-looking) old barns sitting by themselves out in the country. In other words, easy targets for a bunch of teenage punks who want to see how big a blaze they can start. But over this last weekend, a couple of sheds/old barns right in the town of Loda were torched.

The reaction has been interesting. Out here, we literally cannot rely on the police to come to our rescue. Loda has no police force, and most of the blazes have been in rural Ford/Iroquois counties. In other words, the chances of a cop coming across an arsonist are slightly less than zero. So, residents are taking things into their own hands. Some of our neighbors are drawing up lists of all the known abandoned/isolated buildings that dot the open prairie, so as to better keep an eye open for suspicious activity. And some of these buildings are not truly abandoned; they sit on what used to be homestead sites, but now are simply a big machine shed housing a farmer's equipment (the farmer himself may even live in town).

Abandoned or not, what all these properties have in common is that no one is around to watch them. Our neighbors are now going out of their way to watch them. Out here in the country, all the roads form a grid; each road is one mile away from the next. In going from Point A to Point B, most of us have a fixed route we tend to use --- but it doesn't really add any distance if we instead jog down a different set of streets on the same grid. (It means some extra turns, but not any extra distance.) The general color, make, and model of the arsonist's car is known (a red, late model, Pontiac Grand Am), so all of us have been keeping our eyes peeled for that as we jog around the grid roads looking at the isolated buildings.

Despite the vigilance, the arsonist(s) hit again last night. Just as we were about to put the kids to bed, a fire truck went screaming down our road. "Go follow it!" Mrs Yeoman Farmer urged. I grabbed a large flashlight...and a large caliber handgun with a full magazine. If I happened to come across a car matching the suspect's, with a group of teenagers sitting on the roof admiring their latest blaze, I didn't want to have to rely on the police to come protect me from them.

Turns out, a lot of other people had the same idea. Up and down our road, other vehicles were coming out of driveways and following the fire engine. We found the blaze; it was about five miles north, and was an old barn. Nearly a dozen emergency vehicles, from all the tiny surrounding communities, had responded and the fire was smouldering by the time I got there. I spent some time jogging up and down grid roads, working my way home, but didn't see anything. Stopped at a neighbor's, and the teen aged son was standing in the driveway with a 12 gauge shotgun; his father was still out driving up and down rural roads looking for the suspects. Their own outbuildings didn't have night time security lighting, and the son had stayed home to make sure those buildings didn't become an easy target of opportunity while Dad was gone. We chatted for a few minutes, comparing notes, and then I went home to call it a night.

Our property has a couple of very old outbuildings that would make inviting targets for an arsonist like this one. It's been gratifying knowing that (1) our security light keeps most of them illuminated all night; (2) our two dogs bark and anything that moves; and (3) especially, our neighbors are keeping a close eye out for suspicious activity.

The latest update is that neighbors are talking with the county Sheriff's office to coordinate stake-outs of some of the more isolated buildings tonight. How to best accomplish that, without tipping off the arsonists, will no doubt be the biggest topic of discussion.

On the one hand, it's terribly dispiriting to know that a serial arsonist is on the loose in this tranquil, low-crime community. But on the other hand, it's been incredibly inspiring to watch that same community organize itself to take that arsonist off the streets.

The War

This past week, PBS has been airing Ken Burns' new documentary about World War II. The seven-part, fifteen-hour series wrapped up last night...but if you missed it, don't worry. PBS will be airing it again this fall on Wednesday evenings --- beginning tonight.

And if you missed it, I cannot recommend highly enough that you see it the second time around. It is right up there with "The Civil War" and "Baseball." An instant classic, and something I plan on burning to DVD to keep for years.

Like all Ken Burns documentaries, it is superbly written and produced. Burns is a master of interspersing archival video with contemporary interviews, and overlaying narration or interviews with historical photographs in a way that both evokes a deep emotional response and teaches intelligently. He goes for both the heart and the head, and usually manages to hit both of them dead on. The current documentary is no exception.

What is most outstanding about The War is it is told through the eyes and experiences of the people who were there. The interviews are all done with survivors; we never have historians intrude to teach lessons. When it is necessary to broaden the perspective, Burns cuts to newsreels being shown in theaters back home --- so, again, we see and experience WWII in the same way a 1940s civilian would have, and not as a history professor would lecture.

Another excellent technique Burns uses to is focus on four individual towns, building a cast of characters from those places and sticking with them from start to finish. The documentary isn't strictly limited to these towns, however, and we do meet survivors from other places. But by constantly returning to the four towns, it helps bring the enormity of WWII down to a more human scale.

And that, I think, is what this documentary does best: it shows how the entire nation experienced the war, and how it drew all of us together. WWII literally left no family untouched; I'd known that intellectually, but this documentary really brings that to life. I found myself frequently wishing I could call my grandfather, who was a career Naval officer, and ask him to tell me more about the events that took place in the South Pacific --- or my other grandparents, who experienced WWII stateside --- but unfortunately all of them have passed away. And I found myself grateful that Burns made this documentary when he did, while enough of the original participants were still living and could give a coherent account of the original events.

The images that will stick most firmly in my mind are the brief shots we see of Catholic priests celebrating Mass on the decks of ships (sometimes on small and crowded troop transport boats), and of battle-weary Marines in tattered clothing kneeling in the sand to receive Holy Communion.

Another thing that really struck me: watching these 80 and 90 year olds getting choked up and wiping tears as they recalled learning about the passing of Franklin Roosevelt. More than 60 years later, and those memories still evoke those kinds of emotions; I can't imagine anything comparable for our generation.

The only way in which I think it falls short of The Civil War and Baseball is in the music. The music in The War is nice, but it's mostly 1940s jazzy stuff and Sinatra. There is also an original score by Wynton Marsalis that is used to excellent effect. But I think the music in The Civil War and Baseball was better because those scores used a great number of variations on just one or two songs, which gave the whole documentary a somewhat more unified feel. But in the scheme of things, that is a quibble. Another quibble is the narration; I preferred John Chancellor (Baseball) and David McCullough (Civil War) to Keith David.

In telling a story this vast, some things by necessity must be left out. I did think it odd we never saw the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, but that may have been by design --- we all know that story, and it's been done to death. Others will have different specific events that they were looking for and didn't see mentioned. We got the usual litany of groups "other than Jews" exterminated in the Holocaust (homosexuals, gypsies, the handicapped, etc), but no mention of faithful Catholics (i.e. Sts. Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein). There was also no mention of "celebrities," such as JFK and PT 109, George H. W. Bush being shot down, the death of Joseph Kennedy, Jr., etc --- and the omission of these "American celebrities" was actually refreshing. I'm glad Burns stayed disciplined and kept the focus more on the ordinary people than on folks we have all heard of.

The one exception is the amount of screen time given to Daniel Inouye. Granted, I doubt the typical American knows Inouye is a U.S. Senator (though this is mentioned toward the end, almost as an afterthought), and his Medal-of-Honor-winning heroics on the battlefield (while his government kept other Japanese Americans interned in camps back home) make for a truly compelling story. But I kept waiting for even a single mention of Bob Dole; after all, both he and Inouye were severely injured while fighting in Italy in the spring of 1945 --- and the two became lifelong friends when they were recovering from their injuries at the same Army hospital in Michigan. I guess this is the only omission that really surprised me, given how hard Burns worked to keep the Baseball documentary politically balanced (Mario Cuomo got quite a bit of screen time, but so did George Will).

I know I have some readers who have ditched their televisions, and I salute them for it. But if you can see fit to drag the thing out of the closet for just one media event, I highly recommend that this be the one. It is truly outstanding, and television at its best.

Property Rights and Wrongs

A quick addendum and clarification about yesterday's post concerning out-of-control real estate development going on in Seattle:

I am a big believer in property rights. One thing we like about living so far out in the country is that there are very few restrictions on what we can do with our land or to our house; we've never even had to get a permit for any of the extensive remodeling we've had done, or for the office building we had put up on the property.

Furthermore, my wife worked for some time as a lawyer at a public interest law organization that defended property owners against unjust eminent domain takings and regulatory injunctions that effectively rendered property useless. ("Sorry, we've now classified your 20 acres of prime view property as a wetland, and we've found an endangered species of rat living under one of the trees you want to cut down; you can't build your dream house on it.") We know very well the difficulties that government regulators can cause property owners.

I can therefore understand very well the position of someone who owns a large forested parcel of land, has watched the value of that land skyrocket, and finally sells that parcel to a developer. That's his land, and his right, and there are lots of people back in my old neighborhood who seem to be eagerly exercising those rights. And if I was sitting on one of those parcels, and my kids were going off to college or I was preparing to retire, I'd be sorely tempted to cash it all in and get out of town myself.

But here's the rub: communities also have rights. This is something we've run into as we've looked for houses in Michigan --- there are zoning laws which restrict what a person can do with his property or what he can have on it. Sometimes, these are tough on small farmers; we've found a number of otherwise perfect houses, on 5+ acres, whose zoning forbids livestock. That's a frustrating dealbreaker for us, but understandable. For some people, a neighbor with goats and chickens would be a real nuisance. If enough people in the community agree, they ought to have the right to exclude people like us from that community --- just as my community ought to have the right to prevent an ethanol plant or water treatment facility from being constructed across the street.

My question is: Why should a new subdivision, that rips out and replaces the 10-20 acres of heavy woods bordering a long-established neighborhood, be viewed any differently? As a thought experiment: imagine someone wanted to take the same parcel of land and establish an organic goat dairy on it. Want to place a bet on which (the diary or the subdivision) would engender more community organizing and opposition?

What I'm questioning is why so many communities have become blinded to values other than "growth growth growth" and "maximum monetary profit." Although there are certainly local building codes, and folks must get permits for turning a forest into a subdivision, no one in suburban Seattle seems sufficiently motivated (or organized) to try to slow the developers down or insist that new home developments be constructed in a "New Urbanism" style that maximizes walkability and possibilities for interaction with neighbors. And I'm not even coming at this from an environmental angle; the deforestation is bad enough in itself, but what's possibly even worse is the degradation of community character --- and loss altogether of a sense of community by the constant construction of these massive swaths of tract homes.

Others have written much more eloquently on this subject; I guess I'm trying to say that this weekend in Seattle I had my own first-hand epiphany as to the contrast between the kind of small community we now live in (and the close-knit neighborhood in which I grew up) and the kinds of "communities" that are rapidly taking their place.

Can You Really Go Home Again?

I’m back from a brief trip to Seattle; it was my 20th year high school reunion last night. I flew out there Thursday afternoon, enjoyed a couple of days of seeing the city and some friends and family, and then spent yesterday evening at a big bash getting caught up with folks from high school. And then it was a mad dash to Sea-Tac Airport to hop the redeye back to O’Hare. I got just enough sleep to make the drive home and to do the morning chores at the farm, but I’m going to need a nap this afternoon.

Some initial thoughts:

1) I was shocked to discover things I now had in common with people I barely knew 20 years ago. One person, for instance, had moved his family to a ten acre cherry orchard in central Washington State ─ for many of the same reasons we moved to the country ourselves. I didn’t even know this person in high school, and yet we spent quite a bit of time last night comparing notes about rural life. Another person has made business trips to Gibson City to visit his company’s suppliers ─ that town is just 15 minutes from our house, and where we buy all our livestock feed. When I heard the words “Gibson City” come out of his mouth, I had to pause to pick my jaw up off the floor. Simply astounding.

2) The Seattle area has grown so much in recent years, the outlying communities are unrecognizable. Woodinville, for example, is now a solid patch of pavement and chain stores. When I was in grade school in the late 1970s, a good friend lived on a heavily wooded lot on what was then the edge of Woodinville. It was so private, we would shoot rifles in those woods. Now, that entire hillside is covered with tract homes. And our grade school has basically doubled in size. They ought to rename the place “Pavementville.”

3) Everywhere you look, driving around Seattle, there are signs signs advertising “green” this and “environmentally friendly” that. And yet, the “green” was disappearing everywhere. And the massive developments going in sure didn’t look like they were trying to minimize any kind of footprint. As my thoughts drifted back to the very green organic farm that Mrs. Yeoman Farmer and I have sweated to build up these past six years, I couldn’t help wondering how many of the people who put up these signs or buy those products would tolerate a neighbor who wanted to pasture a goat and a few laying hens in their residential area ─ as was common in all big cities as recently as the 1940s? Or is “green” becoming just another consumer product that people can purchase at a natural food store?

4) Particularly dismaying was visiting the neighborhood where I’d grown up and where my family lived for over 25 years. The neighborhood had basically been carved out of a thick cedar forest, more than 40 years ago. The roads and lots followed and respected the natural contours of the land, and many original old-growth cedars had been left near the homes themselves. Even as new houses had been added over the years, the heavily-wooded perimeter (and remaining old-growth trees in people's yards) ensured that the neighborhood maintained a quiet and private feel. But in just the last year or two, one of the major bordering landowners sold out to developers. An enormous swath of trees has been completely ripped out and bulldozed, and a road has been put in to establish a new subdivision of tightly-packed popup houses. No respect for land contours, or any existing trees --- just blow it all down, re-shape it to maximize the number of building lots, and put those houses up. My neighborhood no longer has the sense of being carved out of the forest. It now looks like one big piece of pavement.

5) About a mile or two away from our neighborhood was a huge horse farm and pasture; it took up literally hundreds of acres. Somehow, as shopping centers went up all around it, this farm always managed to preserve itself. Even when I was out to visit last summer, it was a relief seeing that piece of pasture holding out. I nearly cried when I saw what has happened since: the farmhouse where we used to buy fresh eggs has vanished, along with all the barns and outbuildings. Bulldozers have swept the whole thing clean, and are beginning to chew up the pasture.

Apparently, I’m not the only person dismayed by what’s going on out there. Just a half mile from the ruined horse farm, yet another stand of trees had been bulldozed and was being prepared for yet another subdivision. But look what someone spray painted on the developer’s sign:



I don’t usually approve of vandalism, but sometimes the truth is the truth.

Made it all the more poignant when I went to Mass yesterday evening and heard a booming homily about “stewardship.” God made the earth so beautiful, with all its complexity, because (as Aquinas explains), that way it is a more perfect revelation of God’s goodness and love than if he had only created a few simple things. And while the earth is here for us humans to use and have dominion over, when we simply exploit that creation for our own naked ambitions and profit (the priest didn’t use the same word the spray paint vandal did, but it fits) we diminish and cloud the revelation of God’s perfection. I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea.

God have mercy on these developers. And on all of us who, directly or indirectly, have fueled the out-of-control demand that keeps the trees falling and these developments coming.

Gift Horse

I got a call the other day from an elderly farmer who lives around the corner from us. Ed is a widower, well into his 80s, whose health has not been good in recent years. He can hardly walk, and usually leans on a walker when he does so. But he can still drive his pickup truck, and uses a riding lawn mower to get around his property. Come harvest time, he will be out in the fields driving a combine. Yes, he'll need help climbing up into the cockpit. But once he's there, look out. The corn is coming in.

The wonderful thing about neighbors like Ed is that they can tell stories about what the area used to be like. As a boy (before the area was electrified), he used to milk several cows each morning by hand, before school. He helped build one of the outbuildings on our farm.

Ed's farm has all kinds of fruit trees, planted decades ago, which produce much more fruit than he can use. In fact, we first met him a few years back, when he pulled into our driveway in his pickup truck and growled at my wife, "You want any cherries?"

Surprised, Mrs. Yeoman Farmer asked, "Did you bring them? Or do we need to pick them?"

Ed replied with something along the lines of, "H---, no I didn't bring them! Come on over and pick them off the trees!" After several afternoons spent picking cherries and other fruits at Ed's farm, we discovered that under the gruff exterior the guy has a heart of pure gold. He loves kicking back in his riding mower and watching as Mrs. Yeoman Farmer and our kids climb ladders and fill buckets with fruit. He also enjoys our eggs, and bringing over loads of windfall apples to throw down to our chickens.

Anyway, back to the most recent call. He told me that the wine grapes were ripe, and that some of them were even drying up into raisins, so I'd better get over there and get them if I want them. So, I found my clippers, a couple of five gallon buckets, and dusted off my refractometer. The refractometer is a wonderful instrument which measures the Brix (sugar content) of any liquid. Just smear some juice on it, look through the eyepiece while sun shines on the juice, and you'll be able to read the Brix.

It took Ed some time to climb down the steps to his riding mower, but he refused to let me help in any way other than holding the front door open. Then he put the mower in gear, and led the way to the grape arbor. I didn't want to come across too much like I was looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I did need to know the Brix of the grapes before I could make wine. As Ed began picking grape clusters (still sitting on his riding mower), I tested individual grapes from several different vines. Unfortunately, the Brix was only about half (12) of the ideal (22) sugar content for making wine. Glancing around, I immediately understood why: the vines had been planted so long ago, a stand of pine trees had grown all around it and was now blocking the sunlight. There simply wasn't enough sun getting through to get the grapes as ripe as they should be. Again, not wanting to trash the gift horse, I simply said, "The sugar's a little low, but I can fix that by adding some at the start of the ferment. These sure are delicious, aren't they?" (Indeed, the sugar content wasn't bad for an eating/table grape.)

I put the refractometer away, and we went to work. It only took about a half hour, and I only got about five gallons of grapes, but what I enjoyed the most was talking with Ed. As usual, he opined on just about everything --- and, as usual, we agreed about nearly everything. This is the most Republican county in the state, and Ed is about as conservative as they come.

Once home , I took the refractometer out to my own vineyard and tested a few of my own grapes. The Brix was very close to ideal, but it doesn't look like I'll bet getting much of a harvest this year. Because I'm not sure how well those grapes from Ed's arbor will turn out for winemaking, I hesitate to combine his grapes with mine. What I'll probably do is pick and crush mine into a separate bucket, crush his, and see how much must we're looking at (and just how my total sugar content compares to his). At that point, I'll make a decision about combining them. But given the small amounts, it doesn't make much sense to do separate ferments.

Neighbors like these are a big part of what makes country life so rich and enjoyable. I think I'm going to put Artistic Girl on the back of our tandem bike, ride over there, and give Ed a dozen eggs. He'll probably try to pay me for them, but I'm not going to let him.

The Postman Cometh. Loudly.

Jeff Culbreath's recent post about a wonderful children's book, The Jolly Pocket Postman, reminded me of something I've been meaning to post about for some time: rural mail delivery.

Do you know your mailman's name? Do you know anything about him? Out where we live, everybody knows Ron Dudley. He's been buzzing around the country roads, delivering mail, ever since retiring from the military and taking this up as a civil service job. There are many more like him in these rural areas, driving a huge territory to make sure the mail gets to everyone. In some cases, the rural mail carrier is the only human being that some isolated people see in a given day. Because of the stability of the population out here, and the stability of postal employment, rural mail carriers end up getting to know just about everyone on their route. And when mail unexpectedly piles up in an elderly person's box, carriers have been known to get out of their cars and investigate whether the resident is alright or not. If you don't know how much postage a large envelope requires, or if you accidentially don't put enough postage on an envelope, many rural carriers will afix the proper amount when they get to the post office --- and then collect the money the next time they see you.

Mr. Dudley has a new automobile which he occasionally uses on the route, but he's usually out in his old blue compact car. Picture a Ford Fiesta or something similar. The thing has no muffler, so it's louder than a motorcycle. We thought at first that it lacked a muffler because he hadn't been able to get it fixed or find a replacement part. Turns out, he deliberately removed the muffler. Why? So people could hear him coming from a mile away! As it turns out, this is a wonderful way to signal that the mail has arrived. Also, there have been countless times that I've heard the "Dudley Drone" coming down our road and I've remembered that I forgot to put the outgoing mail into our box. If I jog slowly down the driveway, I can intercept him at just the right time. We'll exchange mail, joke around for a moment, and then he'll be again droning down the road (with Rush Limbaugh blaring from the stereo, if it's between 11am and 2pm).

At Christmas time, we always bake extra cookies so we can give a dozen to Ron Dudley. Ditto for our UPS driver, Scott. He's been driving this same rural route for many years, and like Mr. Dudley knows everybody. When I'm ordering something and have a choice of shipping options (UPS or FedEx), I choose UPS because that means Scott will be stopping by in his big brown truck and we'll have the chance to talk with him.

These guys are definitely part of the glue that holds a rural community together.

Surprise Visitors

It's hard to overstate the fascination that small farms have for people who don't yet have one.

Yesterday afternoon, I'd been in town for about an hour and a half. I arrived back home at about 4:15, and shortly thereafter a car pulled into our driveway. I didn't recognize it, so strolled from the barn to investigate. It was a middle-aged married couple.

"Did you get our message?" the woman asked.

"I just got home," I replied.

"Oh," she continued, "We found you on the Internet and we were in Tuscola [about 45-60 minutes south of here] and we didn't know if you'd be home but we decided to take a chance and see if we could come see the farm."

We're listed in a couple of different online directories of small scale farmers, but she couldn't remember which one she'd pulled up. Turns out, they live in Florida but have recently purchased a 20 acre spread in Arkansas, to which they hope to move (and eventually retire on) in the next few years. They'd like to have "a little bit of everything," more or less like us, and wanted to see first hand how we're doing that. Like us, they don't want to make money at it. They just want control over their own food supply, and to perhaps sell some surplus to others who appreciate where that food came from. Unlike us, however, they also want to have horses --- and that's why they were in Tuscola. There is an Amish community down there, and they'd come to take lessons in driving horses (e.g. "horse and buggy"). They had some free time, and figured they'd come take a look at our farm.

"You're just in time for chores," I told them, which they thought was quite exciting. They followed me all over the property, as I tended to the various animals. We fed the ducks and chickens, checked on the sheep, inspected the grape vines, gathered eggs, and so forth. They admired the chicks in the brooder, and the turkey poults in the pasture pen, and were impressed with Mrs. Yeoman Farmer's garden. They were particularly delighted by the several mother ducks quacking around with their broods of ducklings.

They stayed for about 45 minutes, and then had to head back to Tuscola. I went into the house to wash eggs, and found myself thinking about why we like farming so much: apart from the rural lifestyle and good food, it's all the people we've been able to meet and share our farm with.

I should add: If you're ever in East Central Illinois and would like a tour of our farm, we'd by all means enjoy having you visit. But please contact us more than an hour in advance. We'd hate to have you show up when we weren't home to meet you.

Farming for the Future

There is a really outstanding video out about a movement of small-scale farmers in Southeast Ohio, called "Farming for the Future". Beautiful visuals, and excellent commentary from the farmers themselves about why they're doing this and what it all means. Very thought-provoking, and inspiring. You can watch the streaming video here.

These folks are actually making money at organic farming, and it appears to be their full-time occupation, which puts them several steps beyond us. Our own focus is still on producing wholesome food for our family; we only sell excess production to others. But we do know folks who are able to do this kind of thing more or less full time, and this video gives a great view of that.

Some of the farmers give eloquent descriptions of their philosophical motivations and objections to conventional (chemical-based) farming; one in particular describes the "warfare technology" most farmers employ---which I think is an apt characterization. The video also does an excellent job of showing the connection between these farmers and the community (particularly at the farmers market). One thing that's missing, though, is a sense of family involvement and how this style of farming provides harmony not only with nature but with the proper ordering of family life. They do show some husbands and wives farming together, but children are conspicuously absent. But that's a minor quibble.

Thanks to Athos for alerting me to the video.

Small Town Gas

Here's something you don't see much outside of small towns like Piper City (population ~800):

That's right --- a gas station without pay-at-the-pump. And, what's more, you don't have to pay before you pump! When we moved here after several years of life in Los Angeles, it was astounding to discover that there were still places in America where they trusted you to pump first and pay second.

The gas station/convenience store in our town (the Loda Quick Stop) had similar pumps when we arrived in 2001. They've since upgraded to pay-at-the-pump, but if you want to pay cash you can still pump first and then come inside to pay. I also pay inside whenever I'm going to buy something in the shop, like dog food. I can pump the gas, go inside and get the dog food, and pay for everything in one transaction. The owner, George, knows and greets nearly every customer by name --- and, locally, the store is usually referred to as "George's" rather than as "the Quick Stop." ("I need to run over to George's and get a case of beer.")

On 9/11, George's was the site of a very important early lesson in rural community life. We'd been in the area less than two months, and we were still being initiated into the local culture. As we drove by George's that evening, we saw a long line of cars queued up to get gasoline (remember how frightened we all were about oil disruptions?); there were easily two or three dozen vehicles, and the line snaked around the corner. I did a double-take, thinking I'd been transported back to the 1970s. Anyway, it's sad to admit, but right then I got caught up in the fear --- and decided to get in line so I could top off my gas tank.

George had pretty much his entire staff out at the gas pumps (remember, this was before pay-at-the-pump). After each customer filled up, the staffer would write the amount on a piece of paper, give that paper to the customer, and then tell him/her to pull ahead, park, and go inside to pay. They'd then reset the pump and pull the next customer in. If someone had wanted to sneak off without paying, it would've been easy to have done so in that chaos --- but I don't think anyone did. And George knew no one would.

That in itself was an eye-opening lesson, after living in Los Angeles. But what stuck with me even more was my conversation with George's young employee who was tending my gas pump. As we waited for the tank to fill, I commented that with all this demand for gasoline I was surprised they hadn't raised the prices. She gave me a look of astonishment and said, "We would never do that. We're just going to pump until we run out."

I thought about that a lot over the next few days and weeks, as reports of outrageous price-gouging rolled in from other places around the country. We would never do that. Not here. That's when I knew, without a doubt, that this place was different from pretty much every other place I'd lived before. And my only regret was that we hadn't been able to come sooner.

Buildings

The kids and I went to Chicago today, to deliver chicken and duck eggs to a restaurant in Lincoln Park. The chef very much appreciates our eggs, and once carried a case of them onto an airplane to take with him to a demonstration in Florida. Anyway, he wanted a good supply of our eggs for the expected crush of customers for Mother's Day, and we were happy to oblige.

As our van navigated Lake Shore Drive into the city, my oldest son piped up from the back seat with an observation: "Look! They're building a new building over there!"

"Yes," I muttered, dodging traffic.

"Of course!" Drama Queen Daughter agreed. "They're building another building. They're always building buildings here. There are too many buildings in Chicago already!"

I burst out laughing, and continued weaving my way through traffic, but didn't say anything.

"You're probably going to put that in your blog, aren't you Daddy?" she asked.

The only thing I could do was keep laughing.

Light it Up

Out here in the country, we get our electricity from what's called a "rural electric cooperative." There are many technical ways in which a co-op differs from a municipal or corporate electric utility, but an obvious one is price. We pay much more for electricity here in the country than folks do who live in town --- and that's even after all the private utilities jacked their rates earlier this year.

When we first moved here, I was taken aback at how high our electric bills were. And then I started thinking about it: We live a half mile from the closest main road. There's another house a few hundred yards past us. The next house after that is a mile away. And it's like that everywhere you go out in the country around here. The distance between neighbors is one of the reasons we moved here; we didn't want the noise and crowding of a city or even a small town. HOWEVER, a consequence of low population density is that it takes a lot of wire and a lot of poles to provide service to very few people. As I understand it, the average co-op has seven customers per mile---compared to 47 per mile for municipal utilities. That's a lot of overhead that must be paid for by a small number of customers. No private utility in its right mind would take on that kind of burden, which is why the New Deal created these co-ops as public-private partnerships. As much as it pains me to praise a New Deal program, or to pay these electric rates, I happily write those checks each month for one reason: it sure beats living without electricity.

What's funny is that as time as gone by, I've become increasingly appreciative of our Eastern Illini Electric Cooperative. The power has almost never gone out, and even when it has gone out it's usually been restored very quickly. In the last six years or so, we've never been more than 12 hours or so without power, even when the whole region was hammered by ice storms. When the power does go out and I need to report a problem, my call is not routed to a phone bank in India. It is answered by a local person just down the road in Paxton---sometimes by the head of the field repair department himself (who also happens to be the treasurer of our local Knights of Columbus council). There's nothing quite like reporting a blackout to a friend who replies, "Yeah, Chris, we know about that one and we're going to get it back up right away. Our guys are on their way. But thanks for telling us about it."

The EIEC is on my mind today because one of their white pickup trucks showed up in our driveway this morning. The guy had one of those measuring wheels and was counting the number of feet from the road to our meter. I came out and greeted him, and he explained that later this year they'd be replacing all the poles and wires along our road, and he was collecting the necessary measurements. Nothing wrong with the infrastructure---just replacing it on schedule before it does go bad.

And then the EIEC guy asked a remarkable question: "How did everything turn out with your well?"

"Our well?" I asked.

"Remember this winter when I was out, replacing the surge protector on your water heater, and you were having trouble with the well? How'd that turn out?"

Suddenly, I remembered. Our well had stopped pumping on a bitterly cold day, and we'd feared the worst: a frozen/broken pipe, or a dead pump. At times like that, living in the country makes you feel really isolated and vulnerable. Just by coincidence, this EIEC guy had been at our house checking on the surge protector. He stayed for quite a while, testing our junction boxe and trying to diagnose the problem, but to no avail. It wasn't his job to fix our well, but he'd gone way above and beyond the call of duty just trying. The problem turned out to be at the breaker box, with one of the switches; the EIEC guy hadn't been able to trace it that far, but our local plumber did when he came later that afternoon (again, a great example of having specific local people who will put other things on hold to help with a crisis).

I explained to the EIEC guy how it had turned out to be a bad breaker switch, and he said he was glad it was something so simple, and that we'd gotten our water back so quickly. Funny that I'd almost completely forgotten about that incident---but he hadn't. Very soon after he'd greeted me this morning, it had been one of the first things he'd asked about.

I love living here.

Bingo!

I spent Saturday evening working Bingo at our parish hall in Paxton. It's our Knights of Columbus council's biggest fundraiser, and is held nearly every Saturday. We start selling cards at 5:30, start calling numbers at 6:30, and usually wrap things up at about 9:15 or so.

Before we moved here, I used to chuckle at bumper stickers encouraging people to support Bingo to "keep grandma off the streets." True, of the 55-60 or so people who show up regularly to play, 80-90% are female and the majority look to be at least 70 years old. And, yes, some do have names like "Mabel" and "Dorothy."

But you know what? Bingo is great --- and not just because of the money it raises for our charitable works in the parish. I've been on a Bingo team for a few years now, and the more times I work the more I come to realize the biggest value of these events: building the social capital of our community. In an age when people are increasingly isolated with their individual entertainments (see Robert Putnam's classic "Bowling Alone"), Bingo brings people together.

The players start arriving well before 5pm, and many buy a light dinner from the kitchen staffed by ladies from our parish's Council of Catholic Women. They eat, get caught up with each other, play cards, show off the latest pictures of their grandkids, etc, etc. Then we start selling Bingo cards, and they all line up. We joke around with the regulars, many of whom we know by name, and explain to the newcomers how our various games are played and which cards they'll need. Sales slow down, and then at about 6pm we get a wave of players from the parish's 5pm Mass. More talking and joking around, but this time it's mostly parishioners. When sales slow again, the Knights take turns grabbing something to eat, and then the games begin at 6:30.

The social capital we're building isn't just for the Bingo players. What I like best about working Bingo is getting caught up with the other Knights on my team. Once the caller begins drawing and announcing numbers, and we've gotten the paperwork in order, there is a lot of downtime where we can talk quietly. These conversations get interrupted each time someone calls "Bingo!", and we need to go check and pay off a winning card, but we still end up with a lot of time for just sitting around and talking. With each of us living in our own orbit, and so busy most of the time, I've grown to really look forward to these opportunities to hang out and get to know the other guys better.

It's especially interesting when, on nights like last night, I was substituting on another team. I already knew the other three guys on that team, of course, but not as well as the guys on my own team. Talking with them, you discover an amazing range of life experiences. One example: the guy who grew up in Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s, with chickens and goats and all other kinds of livestock --- right there in the city ("Everybody had something back then. It was the only way you could eat, what with all the shortages and rationing.") He's retired now, and races homing pigeons. I found out all about how these races are done, how GPS systems are now used for tracking and timing, and much more. Fascinating conversation, and a window into a world I otherwise never would've gotten.

Also that night, I mentioned that we raise Icelandic sheep. One of the guys remarked that he spent a year on Iceland, in the military during the cold war, tracking Soviet planes. We talked about Iceland, and all the other exotic places he'd lived and visited. He also asked if we sell any of our goat meat, and I answered in the affirmative. "Good," he said, "because it's so hard to find anybody who sells goat. I tried buying a goat from somebody awhile back, but when he found out I was planning to butcher it, he refused to sell it to me."

"He thought you wanted it as a pet?" I asked.

"Yeah," he replied. "Thought I was going to make it a member of my family or something. Doesn't anybody eat goat meat anymore?"

"We do," I said. "It's delicious."

And so it goes, all evening. When it's over, and all the ladies have gone home, and the marked-up Bingo cards and food wrappers are thrown away, we Knights crack open a beer and turn on a baseball or basketball game, and catch a few minutes before heading home to our families.

Anyway, I don't mean to get all philosophical about something as simple as Bingo --- but I really do think it makes an enormous contribution to the social capital of our community and of our council. Awhile back, there was talk in the council of eliminating Bingo and replacing it with one big fundraising raffle each year, like some of the other community organizations do. I'm glad that proposal got voted down, and I think most everyone else is too.

Yes, it's a bit of hassle to lose a Saturday evening every six weeks...or so I thought, when I first signed up. That's the funny thing about volunteering time for a charitable organization. When you first agree to do it, it seems the primary motivation is a sense of duty. "I need to pull my weight. The other guys are doing it, so I should volunteer too." But it doesn't take long before you're actually looking forward to your team's turn to work, and spending time with the guys...and joking around with Mabel and Dorothy, as you keep them off the streets --- and keep yourself from Bowling Alone.

Adventures in Voting

Not only was today Tax Day...here in Illinois, it was also Election Day. If taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society, our family will be experiencing a lot of civilization this year. I'm just hoping that someday they move Tax Day to coincide with the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

The races on today's ballot, at least around here, were for educational offices like school board and community college trustees. Almost all were uncontested. "Choose two," and there were only two candidates. Or "choose one," and there was only one candidate. The one exception, and the primary motivation for us casting our ballots, was for the Paxton-Buckley-Loda school board. There were four candidates, but only three open seats. On one level, this election doesn't affect us: as homeschoolers, we will never send our children to the local public schools --- or any public schools. But, in a place like this, where the closest Catholic school is 18 miles away, public schools are the reality for almost every other family. School boards can make important decisions about what will be taught---and what will not be taught---to the children of those families. Two of the four candidates are friends of ours from the parish, and active in the Knights of Columbus; we thought it very important to cast our ballots in support of those two voices on the Board.

We took all three kids with us, as they enjoy the whole polling place experience as much as we do. And I still remember going to the polling place with my mother when I was a child; I think that may be the origin of my fascination with politics. As we pulled in to the Wall Township Hall, we gave them the usual high-minded words about civic duty and participation, and what a great country America is, and the value of showing up on election day. Funny, though, despite the "Polling Place" sign and American flag outside, there were no other cars in the gravel parking lot. Puzzled, we opened the door...and no lights were on. The place was cold and deserted. Had turnout been so light that they closed early? If so, why hadn't they locked the door?

We went back to the minivan and talked it over. The county seat was about 10 miles away; surely we could cast a ballot at the County Clerk's office. And perhaps they could tell us why the election judges had all left.

As we drove to Paxton, we passed the farm of one of the school board candidates. Much to our amusement, he pulled out in his pickup truck just ahead of us --- and we ended up following him all the way to town. "He's why we're doing this," I thought.

The Clerk's office was open, and the young woman immediately recognized me; I'd been in the day before, getting a sample ballot. "Can we still vote?" I asked, glancing at the clock. "Our polling place shut down."

"Wall Township, right?" she asked, astonished. "They haven't shut down."

"We walked in, the lights were off, and nobody was there," I explained.

She thought for a moment, then her eyes went wide open. "Ohhhhhh!" she exclaimed. "They moved it."

"But the polling place sign was up, with the flag," I told her.

"No, no," she said. "They moved it to the new addition part of the building, around back."

"I thought that was a storage shed over there," I frowned.

"It was. They finished it off. Sorry about that. I should've told you yesterday when you were in here."

"Can we just vote here at the Clerk's office?" I asked.

"Sorry," she replied. "You have to vote at your precinct. Sorry again about that."

I grumbled a bit, but we soon loaded the kids in the car and were cruising back toward Wall Township. We easily could've gone home. But at this point, casting a ballot was no longer about high-minded civics ideals...or even about getting two good guys re-elected to the School Board. This was now about The Principle Of The Thing. We'd already spent the better part of an hour driving all over rural Ford County. There was no way we were going home with nothing to show for it. Besides, elections are what I do for a living. I simply couldn't not vote.

We soon arrived at the Township Hall, drove around to the back, and found where the poll workers had parked. It was a beautiful, sunny day and they had the doors propped open; we were soon chatting and joking around with them. What's amazing is that they had FOUR election judges manning the precinct...and yet, at 5:15pm, my wife and I were Voter #23 and Voter #24 that they'd gotten all day. By contrast, in last year's primary, I think we were #55 and #56 at about the same time of day.

How rural is this place? Wall Township includes 36 square miles. There are no retail business establishments I know of. According to the 2000 Census, there were only 218 people in those 36 square miles, 148 of them aged 18 or older. Every single one of those 218 was white, making my wife now the only minority in the township.

UPDATE: We learned the next morning that our two friends from the parish were indeed re-elected to the school board. So, I guess all is truly well that ends well.

Coco Puff's Revenge

Yesterday morning, with considerable satisfaction, I took Coco Puff the Psychotic Ram off to the slaughterhouse. Actually, "satisfaction" isn't quite the right word. "Relief" is more like it. It's always a little poignant when we drag the sheep out of the back of the Bronco or the station wagon, and move them into the holding pen at Forrest Meats. Even when the animal is an obvious "cull," or has caused danger or damage to our farm, I can't help feeling a little sad.

Not so much for the lambs, when we take them in at the end of each year, because we never have them long enough to consider them long term residents of the farm. The rams are different. As much as I despised Coco Puff for the damage he wreaked on the fences and pasture shelters, and as many times as Coco Puff's sire, Buddy, injured and tried to kill me, they were still "part of the gang" in the pasture. A flock is an organic unity that goes beyond the sum of its parts. Seeing one member of that flock isolated and standing alone in the holding pen at Forrest Meats never fails to bring on an odd mix of emotions. Add to that the dreary, cold, rainy weather yesterday...and that only made the emotional mix more strange.

But that's all part of farm life, and I turned the Bronco for home. Later that day, the call came from Forrest Meats: Coco Puff dressed out to 62 pounds, and how would I like him prepared? I asked them to grind up everything they could, and to make soup bones out of everything else. Easy enough, they replied. I really like this place: they're a small operation in a small town, part of a dying breed of local custom slaughter operations. The building isn't much to look at, but they give wonderful service. I just wish there was something closer: Forrest is 34 miles from us. In years gone by, there were slaughterhouses closer to our town --- but with consolodation, they've been closing down everywhere. It's like everything else in rural America these days, it seems.

A storm came blowing in at about 4pm, with lightning and very strong wind gusts. As the kids and I watched from the window of my office building, the entire pasture shelter that Coco Puff had bashed the supports out of just plumb picked up, smashed, and blew over the northwest quadrant of the pasture. I muttered something under my breath about Coco Puff's revenge.

Once the winds died down, I went out to inspect the damage. It was a total loss: both the sides and roof were blown away and smashed. This left the flock with no remaining shelter from this nasty weather. And I couldn't bring them all into the barn. The one remaining shelter still had its roof, but no sides (thanks to Coco Puff). Fortunately, I'd managed to salvage those sides and stack them in a safe place, so in the spring I could repair them.

Guess what my project is for today? This morning, I got all the old manure and bedding shoveled out from the shelter area. The power drill is charging. A little later, my son and I will go out and see if we can get those sides refastened...and the flock a place to escape from the frigid wind. All I can say is: good thing no lambs were born last night.