“We need a place where the children can make a lot of choices to develop their character.” This was one of our core reasons for shifting from the suburbs to rural-adjacent property. We sought an environment for a child to safely explore, build, and enjoy the outdoors. No more speeding trucks or playground confinement.
That was the vision,. Reality has been both better and different then expected. There has been less exploration, and we’ll get to that later. There has been far more animal management and building opportunities. When you think about it, you may realize it must be so,. We had no idea what we were getting into with livestock. We made small choices, they have had big ripple effects.
Let’s talk about chickens, for example. They require clean water, feed, and shelter. They scuffle about after the bugs and lay zee eggs. Often they use a good nest box provided by the menfolk. Other times they just find their own spot and lay eggs. Sometimes they are clean, sometimes they make a mess on them. The cleaner their nesting spaces, the cleaner the eggs. So we made a deal. Kids, you run the feed and the water for the chickens. You go and find their eggs and bring them in. I’ll pay you a nickel per fowled egg and a dime for every clean egg. We didn’t tell them where to look or how to improve the ratio, but we do sell the clean eggs to cover our feed costs. Given a good incentive, the two oldest have made adjustments and the rate of clean eggs has increased moderately.
The original plan was the two boys would alternate each day who runs the chicken chore and who runs the dog chore. We rapidly discovered that one son would take the easy way out and routinely leave extra work for his brother the next day. He would skip filling the feed and water “because they are good for today.” Of course it was good for today, your brother took care of it yesterday.
So we updated the sequence to alternated each week, and the work load evened out. A quiet lesson was imparted on taking care of your own responsibilities. Small choices on repeat each day, adding up to problems solved or problems created.
It’s meat chicken time of year for us. The spring is a great eight week window of moderate temps for the fowl to prosper. This year it required a new chicken tractor (pictured right) to expand the number of birds we can run successfully. After I built it, the two boys put two coats of paint over it to increase the longevity of the chicken tractor. Why? Because this time they each purchased five chicks and will purchase their share of chicken feed, share in the daily responsibility of the birds, and help with the processing and freezing of the birds. Not because they need to do this to eat, but because they are planning to sell the frozen bird to customers in our circles. Small choices turning into character defining actions, with positive upside for the responsible and diligent party.
A modern tractor has been on the agenda for several years. This year we put the funding together for it, and it raised attention to a different issue. For six years now we’ve enjoyed a functional and capable septic tank system. A septic tank is the sewer system for the house, and we greatly value functional indoor plumbing. Jenny required that the septic tank be located and evacuated as part of the get-a-tractor program. Solve it now before it backs up in the house eventually, which is wise.
The real problem was our ignorance of the location of the tank. It’s not on the survey and ended up over 200ft from the house. Jenny had an guestimate location based on grass growth and soil topography, but nothing reliable and nothing I want to commit limited bandwidth too.
In that limited bandwidth time, we’re taking down a lot of the electric fence runs. This is to reduce maintenance requirements and reduce the barriers to exploration for the kids. So the oldest son comes up to me in the shop. He’s redolent in his profitable task of pulling up now-defunct t-posts from past projects, and earning $1 for each one he returns to the stash.
“Dad, do you have any other jobs for me?”
“Yeah, maybe. If you can find the septic and dig it up to the point we can get it pumped out, $100 for you, but only if you complete the job.”
“YES!”
“You don’t know where it is.”
“I’ll find it!!… … … Can my brother help too?”
“Sure, if he wants.”
“Can he make his own $100?”
“Yes, good question, but only if you get it dug to the point we can get it pumped”
45 hours of man-work by the boys later, accompanied by the young bucks and happy Molly, they dug up and revealed both lids to the septic tank. They received their crisp Franklin’s as the septic truck turned back onto the road a week later. Lot of time to quit on this project, but they stuck to it together until the end, growing character all along the way. A good investment for all parties.
While we’re here, I want to show you a fruit tree at a friend’s place here in Parker County. They moved into this place and run their own homestead. At one point this was an established peach tree, and it took some comprehensive damage somewhere before they moved in. The trunk is carved out in the center, yet continues to produce flowers, then buds, then fruit.
This tree is quietly making the small choices and producing big opportunities. We’ll do the same, and continue the work on raising Wood children to do likewise.
