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Posts published by “Guest Post”

Confessions of a Steward — Water Part 2

Confessions of a Steward — Water Part 2

By Guest Post on October 5, 2023
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by Joel Salatin, Plain Values

Last month I introduced two unorthodox concepts regarding water. The first is the difference between surface runoff and the inventory of the commons (like streams, springs, and aquifers). The second is the notion that we as caretakers can greatly enhance the commons by storing surface runoff rather than pumping from the commons.

We established that one-third of all rainfall globally becomes surface runoff, which means that even a one-acre watershed in a 30-inch rainfall area will generate 10 acre-inches of surface runoff per year, or 300,000 gallons. Another surface we generally don’t think about is our impervious shelter surfaces called roofs.

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Porch Time | One Minute with Marlin

Porch Time | One Minute with Marlin

By Guest Post on September 25, 2023
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By Marlin Miller, Publisher of Plain Values

On a recent trip, we spent a few evenings with a wonderful family who lost a young child only a few years ago. We quickly became fast friends as we connected on a deep level, sharing the good and the hard as our kids ran and played. As we traveled home, I told Lisa there is a part of me wanting to skip all pleasantries in conversation from now on. She gently reminded me that not all folks are comfortable with jumping right into sharing deep, authentic thoughts, emotions, or parts of their lives. But this is what I long for- the kind of friendship built on solid foundations of hope only found in Jesus. My point is this… this life is so short, why do I want to spend time talking about weather that will change in ten minutes! A friend recently told me when he meets new folks and the conversation turns to work and occupation, he follows it up with this line… “Ok, you’re an engineer, but what do you really do?” I love that because it digs underneath the surface and asks a deeper question to which most folks give a very different answer.

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Sowing Seeds

Sowing Seeds

By Guest Post on September 18, 2023
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by Rory Feek, Plain Values

Last night, Indiana and I spent the evening in the garden weeding, watering the many rows of vegetables, and checking on how the seeds we’ve sowed this spring are doing. The broccoli and cabbage that were abundant a month ago are almost gone, and Brussels sprouts will be soon. Most of the other warmer-weather crops are just coming in. In the last week, we’ve been harvesting zucchini and squash, we’ll be picking okra and cucumbers soon, and hopefully tomatoes and corn a short time after that.

Each spring, we till the ground in the same spot where my wife Joey always had her garden, and I continue to sow seeds and grow vegetables there­—even though I’ll never be as good at it as she was. That little patch of land here on our farm was and will always be ‘her garden.’ 

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The Healing Land — Time for What’s Important Families

The Healing Land — Time for What’s Important Families

By Guest Post on September 14, 2023
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by Shawn and Beth Dougherty, Plain Values

A child comes in the back door with a full milk can; the screen door slaps shut behind him. There is the sound of a bucket being set on the bench, the clang of a bail handle against the side of the milk can. In the kitchen someone is frying bacon; the smell reaches into the basement, where at a simple counter and sink we process raw milk twice daily.

Sometimes we wonder how we got here! When we first thought we might keep a dairy cow, we worried that the chores would be too much work and that we would not be able to maintain a rigid schedule. Not only were we taking on twice-daily milking, but we would be moving our intensively grazed dairy cows onto fresh grass each time we milked. With all the other farm chores and homeschooling our eight children, were we going to have time for the added work? But while milking a cow does require commitment, it turned out to be not nearly as much work as we expected.

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Water: Part 1 — Confessions of a Steward

Water: Part 1 — Confessions of a Steward

By Guest Post on September 5, 2023
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By Joel Salatin, Plain Values

Water is the prerequisite to life. Some living things don’t need sunlight, some don’t even need soil, but all living things need water. Certainly, when we think about water, the first source that comes to mind is rain. But rain is not consistent, and most plants need water routinely. Indeed, some plants need more water than others, but scarcity is often the limiting factor in farm and garden production.

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Poisoned Youth

Poisoned Youth

By Guest Post on August 30, 2023
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by J. Pilgrim

I think of myself more as a late Gen-X kid, rather than a millennial, because that’s the movies and music I liked, but regardless, I’m an 80s kid. We’re the Nostalgia Generation. I had a Zoomer on Telegram ask me why—given the utter destruction that the digital revolution brought on society—we didn’t see it coming. The simplest answer I can give to that is that our lives were simply too exciting to realize that everything was being destroyed around us. We were being entertained to death.

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The Healing Land — God’s Will

The Healing Land — God’s Will

By Guest Post on August 28, 2023
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By Shawn & Beth Dougherty, Plain Values

Sometimes keeping milk cows isn’t about the cows; sometimes, it’s about weddings, cancer, and love.

For example: One morning almost exactly four years ago, a girl arrived on our farm. She came with her brother, who wanted some farming experience and had been doing some work around the place. That day Ashley helped in the garden, planting late carrots and cabbages, and weeding the onions; in the evening, she helped milk the cows. It turned out that she loves cows: she’d studied veterinary science in college and later worked at a dairy in Pennsylvania.

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Homeschooling and the American Founders

Homeschooling and the American Founders

By Guest Post on August 24, 2023
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How to Retrieve the Education of the Founding Fathers

By Daniel Foucachon, Roman Roads Press

“Dad had enough gall to be divided into three parts,” opens one of America’s beloved tales, Cheaper by the Dozen, published in 1948. To the audience of the day, this colorful description would evoke a commonplace pun from the ubiquitously read Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars, which opens “All Gaul is divided into three parts” (or Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres as the Latin student would have had to translate).

The chances are, neither you nor your children have read Julius Caesar and his famous Gallic Wars. However, your grandparents very likely did, and nearly every educated (certainly college educated) American for hundreds of years before that. What changed, and why does it matter?

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Lost and Found — Roots + Wings

Lost and Found — Roots + Wings

By Guest Post on August 22, 2023
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By Rory Feek, Plain Values

Each spring for the last couple of years, I’ve hosted a father/child campout for the dads and kiddos from the schoolhouse to spend an evening together, getting to know each other better, and making memories that will hopefully last a lifetime. But this year’s campout, held this past Saturday night, came with a memory I’d rather not have made.

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Small Efficiency — Confessions of a Steward

Small Efficiency — Confessions of a Steward

By Guest Post on August 15, 2023
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By Joel Salatin, Plain Values

For decades, I’ve been direct marketing our farm’s production directly to retail customers as a direct-marketed, branded product. That means our farm embraces the role of middle-man and we have a logo.

We practice craft rather than commodity. The Harvard Business Review analyzed the difference and found that although businesses can be profitable in either craft or commodity, success depended on staying in the same column. In other words, a craft trying to scale to a commodity failed, and a commodity trying to present itself as a craft failed. The differences are profound.

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