Serendipity, elephants, amish sausage.
This is a post from the archives of the “On Butter Hill” Substack newsletter. In an effort to streamline our online presence, I will be reposting our Substack posts here on our blog while gradually dissolving our posts there.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, shall we?
My life as a milkmaid has come to a screeching halt.
Right after Christmas, I began to feel a nudge to evaluate the direction of our farm. We are astoundingly limited in time and money. Something had to give. My husband sat, mouth ajar, one evening when I told him it was the cows. They were sold, being picked up the following day.
For us, it had always been a “never the cows” scenario. And yet, here we are. Why?
For one thing, we had arrived at a point that I would call farm serendipity. Farm serendipity is a dangerous place to be, evidently. Milk, meat, and eggs were accounted for. What more could I want or need? I had found myself saying many times in the last six months, “there’s truly nothing else I want to add or take away to our farm, it feels complete.”
Back in the fall, when our pig operation more or less fell into our laps, I sensed deeply that the Lord was asking me to walk away from some or all of the farm. It made no sense to me and still honestly doesn’t. It was like He was saying, “Here is your dream. Now give it away.” It felt cruel, if I’m being honest. I questioned…why did we even move here to this property? Start over? Spend so much time, money, emotional and physical energy to get to this point? I still don’t have the answers to these questions, by the way. These are things that are not fun to talk about as a Christian, because it sure doesn’t make the Christian life look all that appealing.
I chose to ignore these inklings for a while. The cows were dry, and it felt inconsequential to keep them happily grazing away. They weren’t costing us a whole lot besides hay, and I loved watching their bellies grow and seeing them nap lazily in the sun.
Something shifted after Christmas. Some ill (or divinely) timed comments from my husband reminded me I can’t outrun the will of God. I knew what He was asking me to do. So many of my thoughts, my identity even, centered around having these cows. I know that sounds really weird to say, except maybe to those who’ve been there. The cows changed me deeply. They reached into my psyche and brought out things in me I didn’t know were there, good and bad. What God had intended as a good gift, I had gilded in gold.
I had asked one thing of God, should this be what He was asking me to do: That the sale of our cows would be easy, smooth, and obvious that I was doing the right thing. It was exactly that. They now live with a family who has nearly more cattle experience than I do years of life, and will be contributors to their small community herdshare. I get regular updates on how they are doing, and should the time come for them to retire, I will be the first to know.
There are many, many practical outworkings in the decision to sell the cows. Our pork business needs as much of us as we have to give. Should we have kept the cows, they would calve, and thus in need of milking attention twice every single day. All the while, our first set of piglets for the business are being born and all that comes with managing such endeavors. The milking alone can take a couple of hours PER milking session (like I said, sometimes twice a day), by the time you factor in setting up, cleaning of equipment, processing of milk, moving animals where they need to be, etc. It is a whole thing. A thing I love to do, when I’m not already stretched to capacity and building a business from scratch.
Farrowing (birthing) with five or six sows in the next few months will keep me PLENTY occupied. We will now have expansive land resources to graze our pasture loving pigs on. Chore time is a quarter of what it once was. Interestingly, this decision is not necessarily one that will save us money…maybe in the long run, but for now, the pigs are considerably more expensive to feed than the cows would ever be. A little nest egg from selling the cows has helped us get some systems buttoned up for the pigs.
As wonderful as this property is for our livestock from April-November, we have been learning the hard way in the past six weeks that we are woefully ill-prepared to shelter large animals from the relentless prairie winds up on the hill. This has been a hard pill for me to swallow; admitting that as much as I love my cows, we just are not set up to provide them in the best possible way, yet. Time was not our friend in this department. Winter was gentle to us for longer than usual this year, but as we speak, it is a high of 5 degrees today, and the wind is utterly wicked. Loving animals sometimes looks like laying aside your pride and letting someone else love them better.
In obedience lies peace. I think Elizabeth Elliott says something along these lines often in her talks. The past few weeks have been such a living testament to this truth here on Butter Hill. I do hope you will continue to stick around to read of our follies and foibles as we navigate the regeneration of our hearts and this land. There is certainly never a dull moment.
I’ll share with you an article which brought me such joy as I happened upon it in the throes of these gut-wrenching decisions. It’s about Amish sausage. Ha. If you read our last post about the pork business, you’ll know that an article discussing charcuterie is going to pique my interest. It reminded me that slow, quiet things; things opposite; are a balm to the soul. It was a little God-wink in the midst of many doubts…another small way in which this funny little pork business continues to find me. I hope you’ll enjoy reading about this Amish-convert-sausage-maker in Maine as much as I did.
Until next time,
