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Raw Milk, Community and "Striving to be a Good Shepherd" with Glastonbury Farm
256 Plays9 months ago
On this interview I had the privilege of interviewing Curtis and Rose Weisenburger of Glastonbury Farm. We spoke about raw milk, the story behind the name Glastonbury and more. Near the end of the episode we addressed a blog post written by Rose titled, "Striving to Be a Good Shepherd." I was really impressed when reading this post and want to encourage you to read the post too.
Read "Striving to Be a Good Shepherd" by Rose Weisenburger
Check out Glastonbury Farm!
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For more information about Little Way Farm and Homestead [https://www.littlewayhomestead.com]including the farm, podcast, and upcoming events, check out https://littlewayhomestead.com/.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guests
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Little Way Farm and Homestead Podcast. Little Way Farm and Homestead is a regenerative and educational farm in southeastern Indiana. Motivated by the Catholic faith, we strive to inspire, encourage, and support the development of homesteads and small-scale farms in faith and virtue. I'm Matthew. And I'm Carissa. We're excited for you to join us on the podcast.
00:00:23
Speaker
On this interview, I had the privilege of interviewing Curtis and Rose Weisenberger of Glastonbury Farm. We spoke about raw milk, the story behind the name Glastonbury, and more. Near the end of the episode, we addressed a blog post written by Rose titled, Striving to be a Good Shepherd. I was really impressed when reading this post and want to encourage you to read the post too. You'll find a link to the post in the show notes.
00:00:47
Speaker
We also want to mention that we are expanding the content produced by Little Way Farm and Homestead. If you want to write about your experiences and reflections with farming, homesteading, and the Catholic faith, and have those considered for publication on the Little Way Farm and Homestead website, then we invite you to send submissions to us at hello at littlewayhomestead.com. And with that, let's begin the episode.
Backgrounds of Curtis and Rose
00:01:19
Speaker
Well, Curtis and Rose, thank you for joining us on the Little Way Farm and Homestead Podcast. We are extremely excited to have you all here and to learn more about Glastonbury Farms and how you all got into the position you are, both as homesteading and as farmers. Hey, Matthew, good to be with you. And we are very honored to be a part of this podcast.
00:01:40
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for having us. Absolutely. Well, let's start off with a little bit of background. How did you get into the farm life or into the home setting life to begin with? Did you grow up doing this? Was it a newer venture as you got older? Paint the picture for us.
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, so my wife and I kind of have different stories when it comes to this. I grew up kind of what I would call suburban country, you know, striped lawns, but still lived out in the country with a little bit of a wooded lot. But I always had a passion for farming. I don't know, God planted that seed from the time I was just an infant.
00:02:18
Speaker
And so I guess for me, I didn't have much experience except for more of the bigger agriculture. I worked for a neighbor farmer a little bit, but mostly it was just the passion that I had. And then my wife can talk about her side of things.
00:02:37
Speaker
I grew up on what I would call a hobby farm. We raised animals, some for our own consumption, some to show at the county fair. My dad got us into 4-H at a young age. I'm the oldest of seven kids. And so part of growing up was
00:02:55
Speaker
A big part actually was every year raising an animal for the county fair or several. Some years it was a pig, a couple of pens of show poultry and some market rabbits and my horse that I would take and show different glasses. So I had exposure to agriculture and I come from an agricultural family. My grandfather who lives just down the road or that I grew up down the road from was a dairy farmer.
00:03:23
Speaker
Um, and now as a green farmer on a large scale, some of my cousins on my mom's side also are still in agriculture, but it was never growing up. It was never more than a hobby. Really. It wasn't our bread and butter. My dad still had a nine to five. My mom was a stay at home mom, but we, we homesteaded. If you could call it that strictly for the novelty of it kind of just to, you know, we had chickens to have eggs, you know, save a little bit of money maybe, but mostly for fun. So that's my background.
Show Animals vs. Meat Animals: What's the Difference?
00:03:52
Speaker
One thing that's interesting, because we source a lot of animals for meat purposes and we look for certain breed lines to bring into the farm and in the farm business, one thing that we run into often are animals with a distinction that they are for show versus being for meat.
00:04:07
Speaker
That's something that we don't really talk about too often on the podcast here. And we don't really, it doesn't really come up as often, I think in the homesteading round, because people are just thinking, well, I get animals for me. Could you talk just a little bit about what it means to raise animals for show? And like, what are, what are people looking for? I don't even know what, what they're looking for when they talk about show animals and like characteristics for show animals.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's really two different worlds. And we found that out as aspiring homesteaders. And I didn't even realize it even having come from that background of like the show, the show world is all about. You have in each, in each species, in each breed of animal, like.
00:04:48
Speaker
Angus beef cattle or Rhode Island red poultry or Berkshire hogs, you have what's called the standard of perfection that this board, whoever that and how well, however old that may be of people have determined what the perfect animal looks, what the perfect Angus steer looks like. Very detailed descriptions of the breadth of their body and the size of the loin and the length of the leg and the angle that they're
00:05:17
Speaker
Their legs, you know, the whole, every, every last bit of the animal, you can imagine color, you know, temperament. And then the idea is you, you seek out and then you try to raise and also make, it is, it is for a meat. I mean, especially if you're in, like I said, Angus steers or something. Um, but if you're, if you're raising show poultry, like Bantam poultry, for example, it's really just about trying to find that perfect example of the breed and then.
00:05:45
Speaker
You make them all pretty and you take them to the show and do all these crazy things. You're blowing your cattle out with a giant hair dryer. And, um, it's, it really is a different world. And we found that out because we were interested in short horn cattle because Curtis's great grandfather, August raised short horns, not far from here. And so we thought, well, that's great. That's a, they're a dual purpose breed. Let's get in short horns. And we contacted, uh, a breeder in Southern Ohio.
00:06:14
Speaker
and went to his farm and we were kind of taken aback because they've got like CGI Photoshop edited posters of these cows that look like, you know, mega groomed and like they're, they've got this air conditioned barn. And we were like, I don't, I'm not sure you guys are doing the same thing we wanna do. Something is not clicking here. I mean, this looks more like MTV or something like that, not to bring that into the podcast, but it was just flashy and all about,
00:06:43
Speaker
Um, they were show show and Hollywood. I mean, they were raising them for beef too, but they were show cattle. And so somebody finally tipped us off. They said, Oh, you're not looking for the, a modern short horn. Those don't even make milk hardly. You want, you want a heritage short horn. Yeah. And so that kind of, that kind of was a turning point for us when we realized the value of the heritage, um, movements and different breeds and preserving. You know, dual purpose animals, chickens and cows and, and, uh,
00:07:12
Speaker
raising them for something other than show, for a homestead, for a family. And that's kind of the route we've been trying to go with Glastonbury Farm is preserving genetics and helping to cultivate breed selection based on the homestead like it was back in the day with the short horns or with chickens or things like that. We're not looking for just all egg layers, but one that have a good carcass value after they're done laying their eggs. We're not just looking for
00:07:41
Speaker
Um, you know, we're not looking for shiny hair and a showy cow. We're looking for one that puts on flesh pretty easily on grass and can produce good milk and as a good mother and has good calving ease. So I don't have to call the vet out and have a $500 bill for the, for the calf to be born. So, um, yeah, it's two different worlds, honestly. I hate to use the word sustainability, but it really is about,
00:08:07
Speaker
you know, let's not have to have a giant flock of meat chickens and egg layers. Why don't we have a flock of 60 birds that can do both? Or, you know, let's not raise a herd of beef cattle and a herd of dairy cattle. Let's raise heritage milking short horns so we can milk the heifers, raise the steers for beef and have them flush out relatively quickly. And yeah, it just makes sense economically, um, for a family on a, on a farm to have those kinds of heritage dual purpose breeds. And that's how it always was.
00:08:36
Speaker
Traditionally for the homestead, I think the new, the, the hyper focus on certain breeds of, you know, there's these egg layers that can produce over 360 eggs a year, or, you know, the dairy cows that give eight gallons a day. Like that's just, it's not natural so much as it used to be in back in the day.
00:08:55
Speaker
I think it's a great call out. I think it's something that over time people are really going to have to make a decision. What do you want out of the homestead? Do you want to make a farm with a unique specific farm enterprise or do you want to make a homestead that is self-sustaining or low input or nearly no input potentially as well or something slightly in between in the middle and maybe you have certain goals of working towards certain things over time?
00:09:21
Speaker
That's it's definitely on our radar as well. And we were thinking more and more about the importance of the right breed line, not just because we're, you know, purists of a certain breed, but because we're thinking, well, what's the most economical? What's the most sustainable? What's the most beneficial? And frankly, what also is going to help us have a good time doing this both on the farm aspect and the home setting aspect. I think there's something to that.
00:09:44
Speaker
But for you all then on the farm, talk to us a little bit about that. Cause it's really interesting to hear that idea of being very aware of the genetics, especially in this space where many people are trying to figure out, you know, which animals do I want to bring out? Maybe they're working with little capital and they're trying to figure out what's the best, I don't want to say compromise, but like, what's the best value that they can get for their dollar? What are you all doing? And well, yeah, let's just start there. What are you all doing at the farm?
Glastonbury Farm Operations
00:10:11
Speaker
So a quick summary is kind of our main enterprise right now is we do raw milk herd shares. Currently my wife and I are hand milking to cows that have had their first calf within the last year. And so that's been actually quite life-changing for us and has brought in a lot of customers into the farm. There's a huge need for this around here and
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, so that we do that and then we also have red wattle pigs we have
00:10:44
Speaker
Sheep, we have south down sheep. We have bees usually, except for in the winter. Sometimes they get killed off. Let's see, what else do we have, honey? Some chickens. We're doing research in the chicken world. We have a little bit of everything right now. We probably have 60 total, maybe 40, maybe 40 layers at the moment that are actually laying.
00:11:09
Speaker
but we're sort of always on the lookout for the perfect chicken. We haven't decided what that is, but last year we raised some just Cornish Cross meat chickens, but we're really interested in finding the ideal for our climate and our farm and just our kind of
00:11:28
Speaker
business model, I'll call it the right dual purpose chicken. So we're not quite there yet on that one, but we have an ample supply of eggs right now. Actually going back to the milking part and kind of giving a broader summary of what the farm is going for, what our goals are.
00:11:48
Speaker
I think when we first started, we were thinking, you know, we're going to sell more beef and we're going to do a really big production. And I think in the last year or so, we've kind of honed in on we want to do things that.
00:12:01
Speaker
nobody else really does in our area specifically. And we want to have repeat, if you want to call them customers, I'm going to call them friends because we're building culture with them. They come in, they bring their kids over and they hang out with my wife for an hour when they come to pick up their milk. That's not just a storefront that's building real Catholic culture. So we want to sell our
00:12:26
Speaker
we want to sell our pigs, our beef, our milk, our eggs. We want families invested in our farm and not just passing customers that come by and pick up 18 eggs and buy some pork off of us or whatever. So yeah, I guess we've kind of found the more that we can entrench
00:12:50
Speaker
culturally speaking with these families and the ways that we can help them find nutritionally rich food and kind of hit all the different areas, you know, eggs, meat, milk, my wife's even been making some butter and things like that. So that's kind of been
00:13:07
Speaker
the big overarching theme of a Glastonbury farm in the last year.
Why is Raw Milk in Demand?
00:13:14
Speaker
The milk thing is really interesting right now. Obviously it's highly contentious across the country, state by state, potentially even municipality by municipality.
00:13:23
Speaker
It is really an interesting topic that continues to come up. The demand is obviously there. People are, they want it. And then you have all these stories and I don't want to wade too deep into the health portion of the raw milk, just the aspect that people really are searching for it right now. And I think it's nearly undeniable that milk is in some ways a backbone of societies for, you know, a millennia. I mean, for, for as long as we can really think of it. And you see this throughout all the world and.
00:14:04
Speaker
from store bought milk and I always thought it was lactose intolerance, never got tested for it, but what do you need to get tested for if you have the same reactions every time you partake of dairy from the industry produced dairy. And then we were exposed to raw milk a couple of times in our life and every time that I was exposed to it, I never had the reactions that I had before.
00:14:15
Speaker
I am just curious you know what what do you think it is about the milk specifically that really is drawing people to the farm or to seek you all out
00:14:28
Speaker
So just on a personal level, I was really intrigued by that and wanted to find out more. So I did a lot of research and then we just started drinking that and buying the cheeses and whatever else we could from other people. And then.
00:14:42
Speaker
Later on, we got these dual purpose cattle. We decided, well, we should be doing this for ourselves. So that's the big reason for us. But then, like you said, especially as young kids, I mean, how many times when you were a kid, did you ask for a glass of milk? And all these families are raising kids and probably, I don't know, I'm just gonna throw out a ballpark number.
00:15:02
Speaker
15, 10, 15% of what calories they take in a day is probably through dairy or even higher than that, you know, just through milk. So I think families that are concerned about what's going into their children's bodies, you know, they start looking around and they start saying, well, I would like something that's not being fed pesticides and terrible, you know, not that all the different
00:15:28
Speaker
industry produced foods for cattle are terrible, but some of them are, you know, and I don't want I don't know what this particular gallon of milk had in it. If I just go and buy it at the store, you know, did it have antibiotics at some point, etc, etc. And then you can go to the pasteurization and the homogenization and kind of what it does to your gut health and things like that. But yeah, I guess I'd be do you have anything to add to that, honey?
00:15:53
Speaker
I mean, I really like Sean and Beth Doherty are a Catholic homesteading couple in Ohio here and they are big raw milk and hand milking and I'll call it a micro dairy advocates. But Beth has this theory that cows were made for humans. They have rarely have more than one.
00:16:12
Speaker
offspring at a time, you know, it's, it's kind of rare for a cat to have twins and they have four teats. Uh, most other animals, their teats are sort of designed for the amount of young they have. So her theory is that God made cows for humans as well. And milk is just amazing. I mean, you do research on it and it never ceases to amaze me. Like just, it's a, it's a living food, you know, and that's why homogenization and pasteurization is so damaging to it because, you know, we have, we have quality control on our farm and
00:16:42
Speaker
milk by hand and we take a lot of care to make sure that everything is sanitary and clean but except for pasteurizing and then the amazing thing is that you know we're bottling this amazing product that can kind of fend for itself you know like it's got this good bacteria in it and you can culture it and you can make all these other amazing dairy products out of it
00:17:01
Speaker
And if bad bacteria gets exposed to it to some degree, it can kind of fight it off. And I think it does that in our bodies too. And it's just so nutritionally rich for us. And, uh, yeah, it's just, I dunno, it's, it's become a big part of our, our diet and just a big.
00:17:19
Speaker
conversion for a lot of our customers, you know, they come to try it. And then I, I've never heard anybody say they didn't like it. I've gotten all capital letters. This milk is amazing. And, uh, you know, we, we just, yeah, we've seen again and again, families coming back with, you know, raving reviews and, and just like Curtis said, the culture is really important too. I think knowing where it comes from and just bringing your empty bottles back and getting
00:17:44
Speaker
filled ones that you know were milked by hand and put in the bottle that day, that morning. There's something about that that's just very real. That's the way it should be. And going back to kind of how it's impacted us, it is honestly, it has made us more spiritually disciplined as well. Because when you have to milk at 5am and 5pm twice a day by hand, it's like,
00:18:10
Speaker
Okay, well, you're here's your plan of life now, you know, you know, when to wake up and when to go to bed. And I'm probably not fully enough to roll out of bed for matins at three o'clock in the morning. But the cows don't the cows don't sleep in you got to roll out of bed milk the cows, the cows and sometimes we can pray the divine office in there to make enough time. So
00:18:29
Speaker
So I guess for your listeners, Matthew, I know you got a lot of homesteaders type people, maybe some who are aspiring to start farms or whatever, I would highly, highly encourage check into Sean and Beth Doherty, keep listening to this podcast and really dive into the micro dairy side of things, whether it's with a cow or sheep or goats or whatever, but like having the responsibility to milk
00:18:56
Speaker
uh your animals and the intimacy with which you bond with those animals and then the intimacy you know and the culture that you're developing with the quote unquote customers i hate that word because they're really friends is
Catholic Homesteading and Community Revival
00:19:09
Speaker
life changing and it has turned our farm completely from what are we going to do to make money to how do we get more cows because we have so much demand we can't keep up
00:19:22
Speaker
The community aspect of it is fascinating. I'm very interested in the milk aspect because it does seem to help bring people to the farm. They seek it out. I don't think it's an anomaly anymore to hear someone will drive an hour or more to go pick up milk for the day.
00:19:39
Speaker
And frankly, I don't find that to be unreasonable at all. If the closest that you have for farm produced goods is an hour plus away, then I kind of just chalk up in my mind, well, if that farm can produce a lot of your goods that you would otherwise go to the grocery store for, then I don't really think that's too big of a deal because if you just sum up all the time that you'd spend driving to the grocery store, maybe having to go to a restaurant afterwards to feed the family and time shopping, et cetera, I think it adds up.
00:20:06
Speaker
probably is a better use of time in some ways if it's possible. But you do mention friends a few times. You talk about the community. What are your thoughts on homestead produced goods, farm produced goods from a Catholic couple, a Catholic family, and how that does impact the community? And why is it making a difference?
00:20:28
Speaker
I think there's something about, like my wife was talking about how milk is alive when it's given to our friends every week here. It's alive. That's why it can't stay on a grocery store shelf for three weeks or whatever. And people want to come get fresh eggs. Now, when you butcher a pig or a cow or things like that, people can come by once or they pick it up just straight from the butcher if you took it to a shop.
00:20:57
Speaker
you know, and then you might not see them for another year till they come by. But there's something about the renewable, fresh, and I would call them living foods that you can't get, you just can't get anywhere else. And it's the way that things used to be all the time, you know, you used to go to the farmer's market, you used to go to the local farmer, you know, even go back to the Middle Ages.
00:21:24
Speaker
Everyone that's how everyone got their food right was from the local farmer and you had to get it on a weekly basis you didn't store it up for a year at a time or three weeks at a time you didn't go grocery shopping once a month. And because of that. I think.
00:21:41
Speaker
the people who are in that position have already kind of realized there's something broken with our relationship with our food. And I think they come here because they realize this is the way that it should be. And maybe not everybody can do milking or everybody can raise chickens or pigs or whatever, but
00:22:06
Speaker
everybody can know a local homesteader and everybody can can support that and I don't know what else would you say? Definitely and like you were saying there's no shortage of people to interview right now there's a massive massive explosion of this
00:22:25
Speaker
culture of homesteading and you know there's Catholic homesteaders and there's the hippie homesteaders and then there's just people that you know think it's cool and and yeah there's there's this whether you're whether you're Catholic or not but especially if you're Catholic I think there's this this drawback to the land and to the idea of
00:22:46
Speaker
Being your own means of production, which is also Catholic and something counter cultural at this point, unfortunately, but you know I see a wide gamut in our, in our client base of there's people who you know they'll laugh and they'll say you know you know better you than me with the milking and whatnot and.
00:23:04
Speaker
They wouldn't be caught dead having milk cows on their farm. They can just never see it and they don't desire it whatsoever. But then there's people in between and there's people that say, once my kids are a couple of years older, we might like to get a cow too and maybe you guys can help us out. And ideally back in the day,
00:23:23
Speaker
You know, everybody had their own milk cow. Everybody made their, you didn't really sell eggs because everybody had their own eggs and these living foods, you know, you just brought them inside because that was just the milk you were going to drink that day. Or, um, you know, you made your, you made your own maple syrup for the year, or you had rendered all the lard from your hogs. And that's what you used to cook with. And you made your own butter and your own cheese. So.
00:23:47
Speaker
And of course, there's always been people that haven't been able to do that, you know, the elderly or religious, you know, there's people that that that may not have the means to do that for themselves and to have their own farm. But that's where that those small communities come in. So I think we're just kind of trying to to step
00:24:06
Speaker
to step backwards slowly. We're so far removed from that world where the majority of the population has their own means of production. And now we're at vast minority can actually produce these things like raw milk and eggs and good wholesome real food. And so it's just, I think that's why we like the micro dairy. We'd like a couple more cows, but you can only get so big. And the goal obviously, number one is to get food on our own table for our own children.
00:24:34
Speaker
and our own family and our own guests, but, you know, a couple more cows and, and, uh, it's just great to have, you know, a fan, we have a family visit, uh, or come by the farm every day of the week right now, at least one to pick up milk and you get to talk to them and they get to kind of partake in your, your lifestyle a little bit and become almost a part of the family. So I think it's just sharing that culture with people, sharing our faith. And yeah, at this point, I think that's as close as you can get to, uh, helping people.
00:25:04
Speaker
get back to the land even if they can't physically yet.
00:25:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're on to something there. It's something like a desire for real and what's natural and to be a part of productivity. And I think there's something there about community. Obviously, people eat, people need to eat. And so there's this conversation about good food and the ecology and how food is produced. But there's definitely something also to just the community that can form around a dinner table.
00:25:34
Speaker
or the culture that can be produced from, you know, a balancing a lifestyle that's influenced by the seasons and the time and what the needs are of the animals and the gardens and, and, and whatever else. That's super neat. What about glass and berry farms? Where's the name come from?
The Meaning Behind Glastonbury's Name
00:25:56
Speaker
Well, I'll try to keep the story short, Matthew, but the, I'll try. The root of it is I'm kind of an Anglophile. I love all things English, English history. Don't ask me where all that comes from. My wife is actually half, half English, I guess. Her father was born in England. And so there's a lot of connections for our family there.
00:26:24
Speaker
But Glastonbury, for those who don't know, Glastonbury was the original site of Christianity in England, the
00:26:35
Speaker
tradition holds that Joseph of Arimathea in about, I think it was like 37 AD, ended up via France, ended up in Glastonbury. And there's a long story there about him being a wealthy merchant, which is why he had the new tomb for Christ and why he had the influence and the ability to go talk to a man like Pilate and things like that. And I could talk about this for hours. This is my passion.
00:27:01
Speaker
The gist is that Glastonbury became this home for Christianity during the early persecutions, and it built this beautiful waddle church, which is dedicated to our Lady of Glastonbury. And there was Eusebius, who was a church historian, talks about it as the Vestuste ecclesia, which is the ancient church, and he's writing in the 300s. And so some say
00:27:31
Speaker
This may have been the first above ground church, you know, because a lot of the Roman churches were, I guess were homes, you know, and then they were they were repurposed as churches, but this was built specifically for for a church and became the center of Christianity in the English world and most of the Celtic world, you know, Ireland and northern France and things like that.
00:27:52
Speaker
And through the ages then, of course, you go through the persecutions, it stands, and then you get to what happens when the pagans reinvade England several times. Of course, then you have the legends that arise about King Arthur, and then you have Alfred the Great, and you have all these great English, I should say, I should say British figures,
00:28:21
Speaker
But it really spoke to me because I feel like we're sort of living in a similar time where the pagan tide is pushing back against what was once Christian again. And Glastonbury is on the very kind of the western edge of the British Isles.
00:28:36
Speaker
way that they would talk from what was happening when the pagans were pushing against them is that they had nowhere to go. The sea was behind them and the pagans were in front of them, ready to slaughter them. And so all they had left was hope and the Blessed Virgin, faith in God. And I feel like that's kind of where we're at today. And
00:29:02
Speaker
I feel like Glastonbury was always this place where the rebirth would happen, right? Like they would push and push and push, but they would never cross that boundary. They would never destroy Glastonbury. They never took Glastonbury. And then eventually the surge would go back the other way. And then the next wave of pagans would come, but then they would push them back. And so I hope and pray
00:29:25
Speaker
And my wife kind of inspired that name to be for this farm based on the thorns, because there's a thorn tree in Glastonbury. There's a cool story there about the staff of Joseph of Arimathea when he brought it there and planted it on the Isle of Avalon, as it was called. But long story short, we want this farm to represent the place where the tide stops and turns.
00:29:51
Speaker
and goes back the other way and a place where Christians, specifically Catholics, can sort of retreat to and regroup and charge back.
00:30:05
Speaker
And so that's kind of the inspiration for the name. What a story. That's fascinating. That's absolutely beautiful. My follow-up question is when people ask you, when they visit you at Glastonbury farms, you have to tell the whole story.
00:30:22
Speaker
If they're here for dinner, uh, they'll get, they'll get a half an hour, uh, earful of, of the story. Yes. I love that. That is such a cool story to bet, to back the name truthfully. That is so neat. That's so funny. I just think of, you know, when, even when people talk about us and that we talk about little way farming homestead.
00:30:43
Speaker
We're like, oh, you know, St. Therese of Lisieux and this story. And, you know, we can give like a, a three second paragraph, but the richness and not only because, you know, not that we're knocking anything about the story, there's much more there. It's just easy to digest it super quick. But the story of Glastonbury is super interesting. It gets historically very deep and it's wonderful. That's so neat. I didn't know that. So I appreciate you sharing it.
00:31:07
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. It makes an easy trap for people to stay here for an extra half hour.
00:31:15
Speaker
Well, I want to switch gears just a little bit here, and I was looking through you all's website, and I saw an old blog article on there that I think is really interesting, and we've got a little bit of time left in the conversation here, and I want to kind of point it in this direction, because I think it's very important. I think you've already hinted at it in many ways, but it's very important. So I want to read just a little bit from this article that you all had posted. I think it was written by you, Rose, on your website called Striving to be a Good Shepherd.
00:31:45
Speaker
I want to start with the first paragraph, and then I'll read the last paragraph in a half or so. So you start with, there's a pattern I've noticed in home setting when you have a new idea for a venture. You crunch the numbers, do a couple online searches to answer questions, work it into the budget, prepare the tools, and decide when to begin. Then you jump in, and you realize you may have underestimated all of the implications of such a venture. But that's too bad, because you're standing in the middle of a stall at 10.58 PM on work night,
00:32:14
Speaker
surrounded by 10 wobbly, poopy, ornery day-old Holstein bull calves, attempting to bottle feed them one at a time and fighting a slobbery losing battle to teach them to suckle. Okay, let's stop there before we go on to the back part, because I think that sets up a great bit of scenery. What do those nights truly look like? Because I know that many of us have experienced them. They're very uncomfortable in the moment. The reflection later is hopefully
00:32:42
Speaker
very helpful, but what do those nights really look like? What does it feel to be in that situation? Talk through that for us.
00:32:51
Speaker
For me, it's where the rubber meets the road, I guess. It's never what you daydream about or what you sit around the fire and relish over a hot cup of tea. Like, wow, I love homesteading. It's the best. I love it. This is so idyllic. But I think it's what forms that grit that allows you to continue doing it. And more valuable than that, it's what
00:33:18
Speaker
really just forces you to trust in God and to lean on God's providence because when you are down to nothing and you're just feeling your own wretchedness as you're standing there in piles of manure, whether it's, we need to clean out the pens today, so let's go get the skid steer and muck the stalls and then it turns into a 12-hour project and you had other plans for the day and they've all been shot and you're not even gonna get to bed before midnight
00:33:46
Speaker
the cows get out the cows get out and and you're you're screaming at your spouse and just questioning everything i think that's it's really just it's kind of a what doesn't kill you makes you stronger but it's it's just god testing us i think because
00:34:04
Speaker
Obviously, we've chosen this difficult lifestyle for ourselves, or maybe he chose it for us and we just agreed. Or maybe our spouse chose it for us and we just agreed. But ultimately, it just puts you in these positions where it's like, okay, I'm going to do this.
00:34:24
Speaker
I'm going to do this. There's no choice. When you've got these hungry calves standing around you, you can't let them starve. For one thing, you had to pay for them. They're completely helpless. You need to try to make money off this venture, even though you're deeply regretting it maybe at that point. But yeah, it's these inflection points and these breaking points.
00:34:47
Speaker
Hopefully you come out just as virtuous and not needing confession, maybe as much as you did beforehand, but sometimes you don't. But yeah, I don't know. For me, it's...
00:34:59
Speaker
It's not the part of the farm that I love the most, but it's necessary because it keeps sharpening you and it keeps challenging you and forcing you to grow. And if you're not getting better, then you're probably getting worse as a Christian, as a farmer, as a parent, as a spouse.
Spiritual Growth Through Homesteading Challenges
00:35:18
Speaker
So I think it's just these trials that God gives us.
00:35:21
Speaker
I think it's like a second vocation is how I would kind of phrase it because, you know, when you, when you find your vocation, whether it's priesthood, religious life, marriage, whatever, you're going to have crosses that are specific to that vocation, right? It's going to be the children are up at 3am crying their head off or.
00:35:40
Speaker
My spouse was just, you know, I was irritable towards them today for whatever reason, or they pushed my buttons or whatever, right? There's always going to be something in your life, in your vocation. And so homesteading farming is a second vocation where there's this dichotomy, there's a beauty to it, and there's something you love about it, and there's something you're attracted to, but at the same time,
00:36:10
Speaker
there's a lot of suffering, genuine suffering. It's not just like my wife was saying, the cup of tea by the fire and you're just, everything's idyllic. But there's almost something idyllic about the suffering because it is the cross and it is a vocation in a certain sense where
00:36:31
Speaker
One, you're humbled constantly because your project fails, or your animal dies, or something gets sick, or things just don't go the way you want. And that's the first lesson of homesteading and farming.
00:36:45
Speaker
that I wish more people could learn because we live in such artificial environments where we can control what the temperature is in the house by the push of a button, let alone everything else. Well, when you're on the farm, you can't control much. I guess going a little further, it gives you, just like a vocation would, it gives you so many opportunities for virtue.
00:37:11
Speaker
and you fail a lot of the time, you know, or you don't do it without complaining. But you notice little strides, you know, over the years, okay, hey, we're getting better at this. And okay, hey, I'm complaining less, or whatever, you know, and praise God for every little step that happens. But it should be the same as what's happening in your vocation, you know, you realize you're not perfect, you have these habits, you have these problems, but the crosses
00:37:39
Speaker
really do change you and you're up against the wall like my wife said. You have no option. You can't leave your vocation. You can't leave the cows to die. You can't just give the cows the silent treatment. You can't ignore your kid crying at three in the morning. No, yeah. So I guess that's how I do it. Yeah. There's no return policy typically on a livestock.
00:38:05
Speaker
Not generally. There is a butcher though. You can take them to the butcher. That is true. There is a maybe it's an out if you will. But you finish up that article though in a way that I think is really wonderful and I'd love to hear your expanded thoughts on this as well. You write
00:38:23
Speaker
The best thing about being a Catholic homesteader is when we do everything we can and a calf still dies, we can and hopefully already have been offering our sufferings, frustrations, late night feedings, early morning filthy jeans, aching backs, and every other little cross along the way to our father. So, however many cows may be left at the end of this week, I pray our labors are fruitful both spiritually and temporally. It's not so bad getting to live like the shepherd.
00:38:52
Speaker
I read that to my wife and it was, it was emotional for both of us to read that. And I think because it hits, you know, the first part of, you know, the first paragraph really, it's very relatable. We've all been there. Maybe we don't think about it as much, but there's those moments where you almost sit there and you think,
00:39:09
Speaker
Why am I doing this? We didn't, we didn't have to do this. We could be buying our eggs from the grocery store. And frankly, when you buy them from the grocery store, you know, all, you know, things aside about maybe the nutrition, the taste and everything else. But the reality is it's still got calories in it. And I didn't have to feed the chickens to get it. I didn't have to worry about predators to get it.
00:39:32
Speaker
It was pretty, it was, yeah, it was great. I just bought them, brought them home and put them in the, in the fridge. But there is something there about labor. There's something there about productive labor. And there's something there about aligning our life with the seasons and ultimately in a way that strives to be in greater communion with God. You wrote that it's beautiful. How do you, you know, where you are now, I think that was written about a year and a half or so ago. How, what's your reflection on it now?
00:40:03
Speaker
Um, well, first of all, there weren't many calves left at the end of that week. I will tell you that that was a, that was an interesting try. We don't, we don't raise bottle calves anymore. Much praise God, because there's just better ways to do it. And that's why we let our, our mother cows raise their own and it goes much smoother, but that doesn't mean we don't still experience loss. Um, and heartache and those just kind of wrenching moments where you just.
00:40:29
Speaker
It's just, you're just frustrated. You feel defeated often. Um, you know, something dies or something breaks or some massive expense comes along or, you know, you just kind of kind of feel like everything is breaking down at the same time, maybe. But I guess going back to the, to what I wrote in the article, like, and like Curtis said, it's just, it's about accepting those crosses that God sends you. And if you look at, if you think about the shepherds, you know, and in the Bible and in the old Testament and, um,
00:40:59
Speaker
They didn't have easy lives. First of all, they were scorned by society for being the rough and ready crowd and not the most sociable people. They probably smelled terrible most of the time. They were lonely. They didn't have a lot of friends. I'm sure they were a rough crowd and they had a rough life.
00:41:19
Speaker
taking care of a bunch of sheep. Sheep are not the easiest animals to take care of. I mean, let alone calves. Sheep are different animal, literally. But with the losses, with the heartaches, with all those things, it is great at the end of the day. I say this a lot of times with
00:41:41
Speaker
You know, you see people suffering terrible losses, whether it's the death of, you know, an untimely death of a child or a family member or dealing with cancer or going through incredible trials, much worse than what we experienced on the farm a lot of times. And it's like, how could you do it without the faith?
00:41:58
Speaker
Um, and specifically without our Catholic faith that teaches us that suffering is meaningful because we can unite it to Christ suffering on the cross. And it's not a, it's, it's not a punishment. Our, our priest actually preached about this last weekend, which was great. He's like, it's a, it's a reminder. It keeps us grounded because if we didn't have these losses and these sufferings and these crosses, we would, we would forget God and we would prop ourselves up just because we're human. And we, we do that, you know, we, we forget, we forget that.
00:42:28
Speaker
You know, our weakness, like St. Paul says, our weaknesses is when God is God's greatness is shown, you know, he, he shines through our weakness and it just invites us to constantly trust in him. And I don't know, I guess, uh, I feel like it's been going pretty well on the farm. It's been a lot more small crosses, like having to wake up at four 30 in the morning when it's 20 degrees outside or 20 below some days, sir.
00:42:54
Speaker
You know, today the hydrants were frozen. So we have to go haul buckets, do a bucket brigade back and forth to get water to the cows. And I can't complain too much about those crosses. It's not the worst, but, uh, you know, I just pray that we always have that perspective of, um, never, never turning it into, you know, poor me or why me or this is so hard. And, you know, God, God doesn't favor us and our farm is, you know, cursed or whatever. It's, it's much, it's much more of just.
00:43:23
Speaker
God reminding us gently with the smallest little sips of suffering that He can give us usually to trust in Him, to lean on Him. And to give hope to your listeners just quickly. We have, the farm has become, we learn from our mistakes, thanks be to God. And we make fewer and less costly mistakes now.
00:43:48
Speaker
And actually, I would say the farm is now has turned a corner in the last year. And I should write more blog posts because that's really that's a really depressing one. Yeah. I mean, obviously there's a good spin to it, but I should I should tell some more of the stories because there's been there's been equally tragic trends of events, but we've had some great successes, too, and huge blessings. So just to encourage people who are considering the vocation of being a homesteader, a farmer,
00:44:18
Speaker
Just expect that you're going to have some bumpy roads in the first couple of years, but it, you know, you're always going to have potholes. You're always going to have problems. You're always going to have crosses and sufferings, but number one, you change, which makes it easier. And number two, um, the situation on the farm gets a little bit better every year. And so, you know, the light is at the end of the tunnel. You'll make it through, uh, keep it going. Yeah. For sure.
00:44:47
Speaker
Well, you all have a wonderful story to share and, uh, this was awesome. This was wonderful. Thank you for being here and thank you for taking time out of your day and out of the farm to be here. Where can, if people want to find you or connect with you all, whether to buy maybe some food locally or just to connect with you for advice or recommendation or community, how can they get ahold of you?
00:45:06
Speaker
Well, they can visit our homestead. We like real in-person contacts, if possible. We live in Northwest Ohio, but you can find all your information at glastonburyfarm.org. And we have a website there, or you can email us at glastonburyfarm at gmail.com. And we'll get ahold of you through there and stop on out. And we always are looking for more friends to join our
00:45:36
Speaker
As I say, our, our culture and our community that we're blessed to form here. Great. Well, thank you both for being here and have a wonderful day. Thank you. You too, Matthew. Thanks, Matthew. Thank you for joining us on another episode of the little way farm and homestead podcasts. Check out the show notes for more information about this episode and be sure to tune in next week.