Look at All the Birds

When my wife and I got into homesteading one my requirements was that we raised birds. I love chickens, turkeys, quail, you name it and I love them.

Monday we got our Turkeys after a fun trip to West Virginia, and today our we received our first batch (of the season) of baby meat chickens. Our goal is to continue to use the turkey and chickens to fill our freezer, trade for other meat, and simply give away to the shut in’s in my church. So far we seem to do well at keeping them alive, until the harvest 🙂

Below is a picture of our makeshift brooders. The Chickens are on the left and the Turkeys on the right. We have many things going on that I can’t wait to share with the world.. this is just the beginning.

Monday Free Write

This week has already proved to be busy for me and it’s only Monday.

On the Pastor side of life I am preparing to conduct two funerals this week. One is for a friend who died of Covid. I was his Pastor, but most importantly we were friends and I will miss him terribly. Update.: I now have Three funerals..

I will also be recording some Bible Studies that I will put our for my Churches over the next few weeks.

On the farm side of life my wife, kids, and I got up early to drive to West Virginia to pick up baby turkeys. This Wednesday our baby Chickens will arrive. I am excited to raise these birds simply because we will eat them. Some may shutter at that thought, but farm raised birds are the best eating.

As a Dad I am stoked and can’t believe my oldest and only son will be fourteen tomorrow. He is such a cool kid! He plays video games and a wicked guitar. I can’t be more proud.

Well I’m pretty tired, but I wanted to get a few thoughts out there. Cleaning out your thoughts before bed is good..

Until next time…

The Perfect Album

This pandemic hasn’t been all bad. I restarted this blog, film a lot of sermons, and get to work on my farm. Another love that was rekindled was my absolute love of music. I got to thinking the other day if I were to put out a CD of my favorite 12 songs what would that look like?

In the day of “playlists” it’s not to hard to do, but if I was about to record a cassette or burn a CD what would be on it? So as a fun entry I give you Jimmy’s Super Mix Tape Vol 1. Only Rule is you can only use a band/singer once.

Side 1

1. Roam by B-52’s
2. Sweet Up and Down by Dave Matthews Band
3. But Anyway by Blues Traveler
4. Bringing On The Heartbreak by Def Leppard
5. First Kiss by Kid Rock
6. Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran

Side 2

1. Take It Off by The Donna’s
2. Did You Mean It by Third Day
3. Fire Woman by The Cult
4. Long Way Back Home by Barenaked Ladies
5. Three Little Birds by Bob Marley
6. Some Of It by Eric Church

I know that if I made a Vol 2 it will probably look different, but that’s the fun of it all. Maybe sometime I’ll do a 10 Movie Marquee of the Movies that I’d show if I owned my own theater.

If you come across this and feel inclined I’d like to see your Vol 1. I also hope I may have exposed you to a song or four you’ve never heard.

The Ice Harvest

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be writing on my laptop today. My little town got rocked with ice and no power over the weekend. Luckily power came back Monday evening. So for your reading pleasure, here is a quick play by play of the weekend..

Saturday

We woke up and got the farm ready for the storm. All the animals were taken care of and we actually had 15 new baby bunnies. We came in to fix some breakfast and make a plan… the power goes out. I went and pulled out the generator and it didn’t work at all. Needless to say frustration has set in. I booked a two hotel rooms for warmth and WiFi so my wife do here counseling sessions with a solid WiFi feed. The kids and I would crash in the other room until she finished. We got checked in took a deep breath and then the power went out at the hotel. The day ended with us back home bundled up.

Sunday

Still no power, but we took care of the animals and went to a neighboring town and found a room for us to relax. We had been told it could be Tuesday before we got power back. The kids were having fun as we ate lots of pizza and burgers.

Monday

We just kind of hung out and drove around killing time hoping we would regain power. About the time we were about to grab another hotel we got word the power returned. I have never been so happy to be in my own bed.

Now we are hearing that there is another storm coming.. we are prepared… it think 🙂

I hope to write more entertaining content in the coming days!

Just Add Pepper

Today was a big day on the ol homestead. A few months ago we started raising rabbits, Silver fox to be exact. They are the sweetest and most calm rabbits I’ve ever encountered. The goal was to raise them for meat and to sell breeding pairs to other farms.

So far we have done well on the sales part, but we hadn’t eaten one, until today. My son and I processed our first rabbit. We cleaned it up real nice and cooked it with vegetables and a chicken broth. I gotta admit it was good.

Part two of this was we kept the pelt in good condition and will tan it to make something out of it. My wife and I want our kids to know that we value the life of all of our animals, especially the ones we consume.

Rabbit, Carrots, Onions, and Chicken Broth

It was a great experience to teach my son how to live off what we have raised and took care of. Now we are waiting on our girl goats to give birth.. then we order the meat chickens and turkeys. The simple life is defiantly for me.

Shalom!

You’re the Inspiration

One of the questions I get as a minister is “what inspires your sermons?” and “who do you like to listen to?”

I normally give a quick answer, but I figure I should give some kind of response.

When it comes to my sermon writing it’s actually pretty fun for me. I have viewed sermons as songs on a great record. I try to have my sermons done at least tow months before they are given.I try to preach in series form in order to tell the story. So I think of a topic or whats going on in the world (not politics) and start reading scriptures. I then break it into four parts and prepare them. The process then happens this way

1. Draft the sermons with content (Bible)
2. Read them and take out and/or add new stories or verses
3. Make Bullet points to have as a guide. I do not read my sermons as a manuscript. By the time the sermon makes it to this point I have it memorized.
4. Preach it. All personal stories and “jokes” happen live. It’s good to also know your audience.

So yeah that’s it..

The next question is who do i listen to. I listen to whoever I come across. I don’t really have one person I follow per say. I know that’s boring, but it’s the truth. The cool thing about COVID-19 in this regard is most minsters are putting Bible Studies and Sermons online. I fins that I look for guys and gals like me who have small congregations and listen to them.

As for my inspiration on my communication I have a different track. I love to Watch, Read, and listen to Stand Up Comedians and Wrestlers when it comes to working on how I tell a story. Here’s a top 10 list of people I listen to often for style.

1. Jim Gaffigan – Comedian
2. Kevin Smith -Director/Writer
3. Dusty Rhodes – Wrestler
4. Penn Jillette -Magician/Comedian
5. Nick Hornby – Writer
6. Mick Foley- Writer/Wrestler
7. Chris Jericho – Writer/Wrestler
8. George Carlin – Comedian
9. Mitch Hedberg – Comedian
10. Eugene Peterson – Pastor/Writer

So there it is. I have never shared this before, so if you’re reading this…. Enjoy! Feel free to ask questions or not.

Until next time…

Say Anything

Growing up we didn’t have a lot, but my Mom always made things fun. One of our favorite things to do was rent movies. I remember renting VCR’s until Mom finally bought one, and man did we watch movies all the time.

Mom feed my love of Pro Wrestling by always letting me get the newest tape when it hit the shelf, but she also knew I had a dry and somewhat dark scene of humor. It was at this time she brought home Better Off Dead starring John Cusack. I loved his performance and needed to see more. Over time I watched One Crazy Summer ans Say Anything.

My love of movies followed me as I worked in Music Stores and Movie Theaters. It was while I was working at the Music Store I went with a friend to Raleigh to see a movie called High Fidelity. I didn’t know much about it, but I was so surprised when I saw that John Cusack was in it. This became and still is my favorite movie and I’ve even read the book by Nick Hornby.

Fast forward to 2019 my wife surprised me with tickets to see High Fidelity as it was playing on the big screen. However there is a extra surprise.. John Cusack would be there doing a Q & A and Photo opps. Then I looked at my ticket to see again, my awesome wife, had gotten me the photo opp.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the movie on the big screen again and laughed at John’s wit in the Q&A. I regret not asking a question. I simply had to many and couldn’t figure out what I wanted to ask. I actually had butterflies as I waited inline to get my picture with him. Once it was my turn I walked up to him and we fist bumped. I told him thank you for the stories he told. Boom, Picture taken and that was it.

John Cusack and Me at the High Fidelity

I have always heard you should never meet your heroes. Well luckily I have had nothing but great experiences.

As I close I wanted to give my Top 5 John Cusack Movies (Today 🙂

1. High Fidelity
2. Say Anything
3. Grosse Point Blank
4. Grace Is Gone
5. Runaway Jury

*Honorable Mention: 1408, Max, One Crazy Summer

Thanks for reading! Unitl Next Time….

Time to Catch up

Last week was good, but very busy and this week seems to be following the same path so I thought I’d do as some call free writing, but I call mind purge

Last Tuesday I started my forth semester of seminary. I am working on my second Masters Degree. I like learning and I have major plans with this degree… more on that later.

I reverted to handwriting my sermon and Bible study notes as opposed to typing them out. I found that hand writing them brings me closer to what I am communicating. That may sound weird, but It’s cool to have notebooks of my handwritten stuff to access. Without sounding morbid, I was thinking that it would be cool to pass them down to my kiddos and hopefully one day grand kids.

I reached out to my Buddy Brandon for recommendations on games to play. I have always been a casual gamer. However, when I find one I really like I go all hardcore gamer until I beat it. I’m thinking about buying Spider-man for PS4. I LOVED the Batman franchise so between that and his recommendation I’m confident this will be a win.

I have regained my love of music here lately in that I like to sit and actually listen to song to relax. I listen to all kinds of bands and singers, but for some reason I have found that the sounds of Avril Lavigne. Some may find this odd, but I like Sk8er Boi and that’s just something we will all have to embrace.

We did a lot of work around the homestead this past week. We moved the goats to our second pasture. We also bought five new goats to grow our heard. This makes for a busy morning milking. We did have a victory as we were able to sell all of our baby bunnies so that was helpful in the acquiring of the new goats.

I must say before I wrap up, returning to the blog universe has been very therapist and has brought the fun of just writing for fun back to me. I am learning the importance of time as i get older. It may sound like a cliche but there is no such thing as not having enough time.. if it’s important you make time.

I hope to post more soon..until next time.

Resolution Smesolution

The past week proved to be a longs and busy one, so I am excited to be typing this entry. I’m not putting pressure on myself to write “x” amount of times a week, but I do enjoy writing and as with most things the more you put something off the more likely I wont do it.

As the new year hit I wanted to set some goals for myself. I used to do a blog series called 30 X 30. This was my 30 goals by the time I turned 30 years old type of thing. The concept had many forms as I grew bored with the goals I set and realized I didn’t care. When I created this blog I thought about bringing it back, but I knew I wouldn’t stick to it. Then I came across a blog post by my buddy Brandon about Seven Day Experiments.

I thought to myself, this is brilliant and quickly let him know this too. My mind raced on how I could make this something I’d not only like, but also actually do. I made a list of things that I may like to accomplish or do different and instead of sharing the whole list I figured I’d share the one I’m currently working on.

Read Every Word in 90 days

As most have figured out I am a Pastor. Again I’m not like most Pastor’s, so don’t worry I am not judging you as I write this..

Every year some of my Pastor friends share their goal to read the whole Bible in one year. I applaud them for this desire, however I fail every time.

So I decoded to make a commitment find a plan that works for me. I found on the Bible App YouVersion a plan that would challenge me to read the entire Bible in 90 days.

How is this easier than reading over the year?!?!?

Well I get up before everyone in my house everyday. Normally I scroll the internet or play a game on my phone. I looked at how the plan and the daily reading mapped out and it comes to about 45 minuted of reading each day. I already read the Bible so why not do my reading then, and at the same time accomplish a goal.

So there it is. I’m about 10 days in at the moment and at this time I can see this being the best Bible reading plan I have encountered.

So as I continue this I will be working on Goal 2..

Until Next time….

Sunday On The Farm

I have always had a great love of Sundays. As a Pastor it’s my day to do my thing by preaching the Churches I serve, so needless to say after two sermons and then uploading one of them to YouTube I’m spent.

While I am pretty tired, one of the things I enjoy doing is working on the farm and that’s what we did this afternoon. We spent the afternoon moving out egg layer chickens into their thunder dome.

This the chicken tractor my wife and I built. The plastic house on the side is where they will lay the eggs.

The inside of the tractor and a glimpse of the Chickens, feeder, waterier, and the heat lamp.

We just got back into the egg layers as something our younger daughters can do. I mean who wouldn’t want to go out in the mornings and collect breakfast?!?!?! This is also our way of keeping chickens until we get our next batch of Meat Chickens and Turkeys in the spring.

So there it is… just a small glimpse into our Little Light Farm, LLC (yep i own the name and business part if it all) I’ll post about the bunnies soon as well as the new goat pasture. This is a busy time for us, so it’s nice to be able to document it all.

Until next time….