Recovering from near bronchial pneumonia takes a toll on the healthiest of people.  It zaps a person’s energy and drains motivation to do anything constructive.  After a week of sitting in my chair like a zombie I decided I had to force myself to do something constructive. Looking out the window at the winter landscape reminded me I needed to resist the urge to go out in the cold winter air where I would be sure to relapse.  I needed a mindless project that required little consideration yet occupy me enough to keep me inside by the fire.  That’s when I decided to construct a set of reproduction Plains Indian arrows.   Sounds crazy I know, but our home is decorated in a western motif and it needed a set of framed Indian arrows.   Besides, it was all I had the energy to do at the time.

Years ago I used to enjoy spending winter evenings sitting in front of our old open fireplace chipping obsidian into arrowheads.  It was a hobby I enjoyed to pass the time and after a while I became fairly proficient at it.   I had constructed a bow out of a branch of seasoned Mountain Mahogany and backed it with artificial sinew for both spring and strength. I back twisted hair from my horses tail into a very strong cord to be used as a bow string. It worked well enough and after some practice I became fairly proficient at constructing arrows accurate enough to shoot an occasional rabbits or other small game for the dinner table.  I wouldn’t have wanted to rely on my skills for survival, but I thought if the chips where down and all else failed I could use what I had learned to provide the basic needs for my family.  Learning survival skills such as identifying edible plants, constructing small animal snares and starting fires without modern convinces fascinated my innovative nature. 

Remembering these old skills that once brought me so much enjoyment I decided to see if I could remember how I   constructed arrows out of natural materials. In those days I collected such things as flint or obsidian, animal sinew, bird feathers (usually from road kills) and willow or Rosehip shoots for the shafts.  I even rendered down plants to produce die colors to stripe the shafts. Not having immediate access to most of those things I used what I could find around the place. I used a set of reproduction Flint points that I had bought a few years before. For sinew I resorted to frays of a nylon cord and when all was said and done I was satisfied with the authentic look of the final product.  Nancy wanted to put me in business selling my arrows on the internet of which I didn’t have the time, but after seeing the price of arrows in Indian craft stores in Scottsdale, Arizona a few weeks ago I thought it would in fact be a good way for someone living on the land to pick up a little extra money.

Tags: American history, Indian arrows, Plains Indians, rural life, Tri Robinson

Lesson #2 – Less can sometimes give you more – Entry 150

Nancy cooked in the open fireplace

Moving back on the ranch after several months of living in the back country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains felt like luxury. (Read entry #149) Sleeping in a real bed, taking a shower without having to heat the water over a campfire, cooking on a real stove and storing food in a refrigerator that produced normal ice cubes is something that most of us take for granted. It felt good to be home with our pack gear cleaned and stored away ready for the next time.  While we lived in the back country we had not only been making money, but we were stuck in a place where we couldn’t spend it.  We had a small nest egg that could sustain us for another month or two and the relief it gave felt comforting.  The only problem was that living a normal life does cost money without even thinking about it.  Gas for the vehicles, propane for hot water and cooking (and because we lived off the grid it also powered the refrigerator and lights).  Food is always an expense no matter where you live, and of course there are clothes to buy, household goods and things like books for the kids schooling and so on.  It didn’t take me long to realize that I had to keep looking for work.

Thinking about our next move Nancy and I made a decision.  We realized how much we had enjoyed being together as a family over the past several months and decided to figure out a way for me not to go to town in search of a real job.  We knew that in order for that to happen we had to do two things; first, we needed to down size our life and live on a fraction of what we were used to, and second, to find just enough work on ranches in the area to meet our financial needs.  We felt challenged by the idea.

The wood cook stove in old ranch kitchen

Several years before I had built an addition on our small home and in order to make the plumbing work I had added a second forty gallon hot water heater to supply the master bedroom.  The first thing we did was to turn the new water heater off and share our kid’s bathroom shower. Nancy’s kitchen had two stoves in it, one ran on propane gas and the other was a wood burning cook stove.  She decided to do most of her cooking on the wood stove and sometimes in the open fireplace.  The third thing was to cut down on our driving and other gasoline consumptions.   Living and working at home cut our need for vehicles down to nearly nothing.  Previously I had been driving an hour to town six days a week which gouged a huge chunk out of our monthly budget.  I had shot a really nice buck during the reminder of the deer season which supplied us with our meat needs, and our root cellar was still fairly well stalked with canning.  It was amazing how little it took us to live on just by being deliberate in our lifestyle. Not only that, but it was rewarding to feel like you could beat the system of status quo living.   

Snaking out logs for firewood

Over the course of the next few months I got work from three different neighbors who needed things built.  I built two hay sheds for ranchers and a small addition on an older ladies home.  I never had to travel more than five miles to reach the jobs I was hired to do and the work was honestly refreshing and enjoyable. When I found myself in between the small jobs I had been hired to do I used the time to cut firewood.  I harnessed our horse Sunday and spent days on the mountain snaking out pine logs to a place where I could reach them with the old ranch truck.  I cut and split wood not only for our own use, but to sell in town.

That fall, both in the Sierras and on the old ranch was one of the most memorable times of my adult life.  Since those days I have had remarkable experiences ministering in cities and remote villages all over the world, but looking back on that season of unemployment now I realize God used it to prepare me for a radical life of faith he had predestined me to live.  He taught us that living with less in the form of material things would actually enable us to do more with our lives together.

Tags: country living, Harness, homestead, rural life, Small farm, sustainability, Tri Robinson

House at Timber Butte

For the first twenty years of Nancy’s and my life together we raised our two children in a cabin on my family’s original old ranch.  The first fourteen of those years we lived without electricity and therefore without adequate lighting.  Because the cabin sat under huge Coulter Pines on the north slope of Liebre Mountain, we were blocked from the winter sun for at least three months of the year.  The winter snows that sometimes would dump up to three feet in one storm were reluctant to melt away even when the days started to grow longer.  The cabin’s only source of light was provided by permanently mounted propane lanterns fueled from a 500 gallon storage tank in the backyard. Although we could see the direct sunlight on distant hills we lived those winters in the mountain’s shadow.  In order to capture as much light as possible the original cabin had been built with many windows by my dad. Most of those windows had been salvaged from other structures before being incorporated into what later became our home. As the years progressed we continued to add on space and improve the cabin’s ability to

Our old cabin on Liebre Mountain

retain heat, but it was never what you would call efficient by today’s standards (or any for that matter).  The fires never went out day or night during the winter months which required Nancy’s constant attention while I was away during the day. We felt blessed having the opportunity to live the way we did, yet the winters were long and dreary, especially for Nancy who spent much of the daytime homeschooling the kids and keeping things warm.

When we decided to build our farmstead at Timber Butte many years later, we knew it too would have to endure long cold winters. Learning from our past experience we made two decisions right from the beginning. First we would build our home in a location with a sunny south exposure; and second, we would construct it for high energy efficiency. The house at Timber Butte would be a house for all seasons.

For years Nancy and I worked together remodeling and selling older homes until we could generate the resources needed to construct the house we hoped to one day build.  It would be our final home after having bought and sold properties seven different times. At first I thought I would build the house myself but realized I neither had the time or expertise needed for the quality of house we dreamed of having.  Knowing how much more time Nancy would be spending at our home, I wanted it to be designed for her. She searched the internet for several months looking at floor plan ideas until she came upon a design called “Grandma’s log home plan”.  It had just two bedrooms, but the dining room, kitchen and living room were all one large open room like our original cabin had been. This openness would make the plan much less conducive to cabin fever during times of winter confinement. . Our friend John Lane studied the concept and taking Nancy’s ideas, designed what was to become the first drawing of our future home. John also introduced us to Cliff Robbins, a builder who had extensive experience building energy effect homes in cold mountainous locations like Lake Tahoe.  Cliff not only built the house, but he and his young family became our good friends in the process.

I plan on writing more about the detail of the house at a later time, but I will say that it is the most energy efficient house we have ever lived in.  Even though it has a high efficient heating and cooling system, it is rarely needed.  Heat is almost totally provided by a soapstone stove that consumes a fraction of the firewood of other stoves we have previously owned.  One thing Nancy requested right from the beginning was high quality windows and enough of them to take advantage of the winter light because of our past experience.  We made sure that happened and the windows have already proven to be a huge blessing both for the purpose of letting in light in the winter and fresh air in the summer.  The ranchstyle overhanging porches shade the windows from the hot summer sun but receive passive heat from the lower southern arched winter sun.    In addition to this, Cliff framed the house with 2×6 studded walls, making sure to caulk every joint as well as also insolating the floor, walls and ceilings to the hilt using three different insulation products. One product that was new to us was closed cell foam, a sticky expanding Styrofoam-like substance that fills every crack.

Unless the Lord has other plans for us in the years ahead it is our prayer that Timber Butte will be our last and final place of rest.  It really is a home for all seasons.

Tags: country living, homestead, rural life, sustainability, Tri Robinson

Elk herd crossing Timber Butte

I confess – plumbing isn’t my favorite past time.  I’ve found most plumbing jobs require climbing upside down into confined spaces where tools and hands struggle to function.  Working under a sink, for example, has a way of reducing my worldview to the confines of a two by three foot cramped space forcing all of my focus to concentrate on a stubborn leak.  Sometimes a simple small problem like a silly leak can stifle long range vision causing us to miss the greater blessings of life.  This week I was reminded of this simple truth.

Every winter I try to plan a project that I can work on out of the weather. This winter I’m converting an empty room in the barn into a butcher shop.  I’ll be saying more about this venture at a later date but my point for now is to say that in order to accomplish my objective it’s been necessary to install a hot water heater, a deep sink and a drain system that has required a grinder pump capable of pushing waste about 200 yards to the existing septic system.  For a novice plumber like me it was a bit challenging.  When I tested the system for the first time I discovered one small but persistent leak which I’ll admit really aggravated me. It wasn’t a big deal but in my momentary state of frustration I was reminded of how easy it is to lose the perspective of blessing.

Like many people I am a person of focus.  Even when I eat I have a tendency to eat my steak before I can focus on my potato; I guess it’s just how God made me. In the same way I move from one visionary project to the next and in the process have the tendency to put great energy on solving the crisis at hand.  This characteristic can make people like me become highly productive in life, but to our detriment can also cause us to neglect to stop and smell the flowers along the way.

I was concentrating on my leaky fitting when Nancy called from the house.  She needed help with some Christmas decorations and asked if I could take a minute to give her a hand.  Reluctantly I left my leaky dilemma dripping in a tin can under the sink and walked from the barn to the house to see how I could help.  I was a man on a mission, going to help my damsel in distress, yet all the time thinking of a solution to the leaky pipe crises in the butcher shop. I was looking down at the snowy frozen ground as I charged along. 

As I approached the house I became aware of the sound of a small plane flying over Timber Butte.  It caused me to look up just long enough to see a large herd of elk crossing the hillside above the barn.  There were nearly a hundred in the group spreading over a mile of the butte’s steep slope.  It was a magnificent sight that caused me to stop everything simply to look.  All at once, my dripping pipe problem seemed insignificant – literally a non-issue.  My perspective had moved from the cramped confines of a sink cabinet to the splendor of God’s great creation.

Nancy came out with the binoculars and together we leaned against the corral fence and watched them pass. We stood in silence as we listened to the cooing of cows and calves and the distant bugles of bulls grazing along the hillside.  The lesson became acutely clear – Never forget to look up from the momentary problems of life and take the time to see the blessings of God. 

Perhaps it is our human sinful nature that so often entices us to focus our energy on the momentary problems that tug at our lives. Unfortunately it often robs us of the many reasons to have hearts that celebrate with thankfulness. 

Ironically, when I later returned to my project in the barn the leak had stopped of its own accord.

Tags: country living, Elk, homestead, rural life, Small farm, sustainability, Tri Robinson

Uncle Floyd's handmade plane

Folks who desire to pursue sustainable lifestyles quickly discover a need to become semi-competent on a vast variety of many basic skills. Sustainable lifestyles require the courage to dive in and try new things, the creativity to be innovative, and a desire to gain the satisfaction that can only be achieved by building and doing things with one’s own hands. Living sustainably requires sweat equity, physical productivity, a willingness to be intellectually stretched, and maybe most importantly, the acceptance of non-perfectionism. I for one am a Jack of all trades, but clearly not a master of any.  

Having lived the majority of our married life an hour from the city has forced me and Nancy to build and fix things without the luxury of hired expertise. Not only is it expensive to get professionals to drive this far every time something goes wrong, but it’s been our experience that most things of importance decide to break in the night, during holidays or heavy snow storms.  Our choice of lifestyle has motivated us to develop the basic skills of welding, household electrical, plumbing, carpentry, cabinetry, shade-tree mechanics, food preservation (like canning, freezing and drying) as well as a plethora of other things simply for survival sake. Along the way I’ve learned to work with leather using rivets and awls in order to repair broken harness and saddles, while Nancy learned to sew ( originally on a treadle machine). Together we’ve learned to do emergency veterinary work, agriculture projects of all kinds, install irrigation systems, build fence lines, perform masonry work and pour concrete. We do none of these things well enough to make a living at them, but find great pleasure accomplishing and creating things with our own hands. The money we have saved by doing things ourselves has provided thousands of dollars which has enabled us to invest in other new projects.

Dad still mixing cement at 91

Being a do-it-yourselfer requires two essentials: the attainment of some basic tools and capable people who can teach you how to use them. Now that I’m in my 60s I have an adequate work shop, but for years Nancy and I didn’t have the available resources to purchase decent tools. In the early days of our marriage when we lived off the grid, we learned to do most everything with what now might be considered archaic hand tools. Most of those tools were hand-me-downs from my father and Great Uncle Floyd, who not only gave me tools but also taught me how to use them. In retrospect, the apprenticeship I received from them was invaluable for our life today. I learned the basics of building construction while spending endless weekends working on our old family ranch together. I’ll never forget how Uncle Floyd, being too old to climb up tall ladders or straddle beams, would instruct my dad and I as we teetered on ceiling rafters above him. Every 2×4 had to be cut perfectly square with the hand saws that he had skillfully sharpened for us. Every board had to be accurately measured and hand nailed into its proper place. For Uncle Floyd, carpentry was an art form – a value he joyfully passed on.

I think teaching us somehow gave his life more value knowing that the skills he had attained were appreciated and wanted and wouldn’t end with him. I never owned a Skill saw or an electric drill motor until I was nearly thirty years old  and still cherish the handmade wood plane and other tools Uncle Floyd gave me before he died in the 70s. The work we accomplished over the course of a long hard day then could later be done in a matter of hours with the aid of modern tools, but the satisfaction of a job well done somehow was more rewarding because of the labor intensive work it required. There was something very special about being a young boy included in men’s work, something that is being tragically lost with the epidemic of broken families and absentee fatherhood. I took those special times for granted then, but now realize what an advantage they gave me later in life. Even some of the rock walls I’ve built here at Timber Butte have my dad’s fingerprints on them as he occasionally still drops by and lends a helping hand at age 91.    

I took the skills my dad and uncle gave me and later supplemented them by reading “how-to” books and inquired of people who knew things I was yet eager to learn. My long-time friend Paul Taylor spent many days teaching me how to weld as we constructed a steel flatbed trailer together. That was over 30 years ago and the old trailer is still functional, moving hay from our field to this day.

Our son & daughter Brook & Kate work on a foundation while our granddaughter Hope inspects

 I learned to electrically wire a house from another friend and basic plumbing again from my dad. In the early days we used all galvanized steel pipe, custom cutting and threading each piece with an old die set that I still occasionally resort to when not using newer plumbing products. Building materials are constantly changing and improving, which keeps all of us want-to-be handy men on our toes, forcing us to keep our apprentice hats on for life.     

Society has changed since I was a young man and in many ways, not for the better.  Because of these changes opportunities to grow in these basic skills are sadly being lost.  In my earlier days apprenticeship wasn’t thought of as a deliberate training process, but was rather naturally rooted out of necessity and sometimes even survival.

A few years ago, realizing the value of families working together Nancy and I decided to buy a small piece of wilderness land and invite our kids to join us in building a family cabin together. The project took us nearly five years and in fact still goes on to this day. (See entry 123 & 117) At one point we had four generations of the Robinson family working together as my dad built his famous rock walls and my granddaughter entertained her mother and uncle while they worked together.

Hope (the next generation) helps lay a hardwood floor

Apprenticeship was meant to be a generational matter in families, communities and churches. One of the greatest examples I know of is found in the Gospels as Joseph apprenticed his son Jesus in the skills he knew (he too was a carpenter) and how Jesus then took the value of apprenticeship and in turn made disciples of those that desired to carry on his teaching and legacy. Apprenticeship has always been God’s idea but is rapidly being lost in today’s godless culture. If we are to live more sustainable lives we must turn back to this basic biblical value once again so that our next generation may have something of value to gain and to pass on. It is a matter of survival.

Tags: Apprenticeship, country living, family, homestead, rural life, sustainability, Tri Robinson

Lightening strike on Timber Butte

On August 29th Nancy and I celebrated our 39^th wedding anniversary by enjoying a quiet steak dinner on our back porch.  It was a delightfully cool summer evening and both of us commented that we couldn’t have thought of a more wonderful place to be.  The sky was clear except for some magnificent building thunderheads over the distant mountains in the east.   I think it was about eight when we finished eating and were peacefully enjoying each other’s conversation and company.  In that moment a strong gust of wind simultaneously blew out our dinner candles and I noticed the windmill above the pond swing around facing into the north.  I had just made a comment as to how unusual that was when out of nowhere there was a giant flash of lightening and a deafening crash of thunder just to the north.  It was so loud it caused Nancy to jump up and run to the north side of the house where she immediately saw an explosion of fire about two-thirds of the way up the south grassy slope of Timber Butte.  Her alarming shouts caused me to join her and we watched in horror as fire, fueled by dry high winds swept across the upper slope of the mountain consuming nearly an acre in a matter of mere seconds. 

Nancy called 911 as I pulled on some heavy boots in preparation for a defensive fight.  Even as she spoke to the dispatcher we knew what we were observing was a hopeless case.  The timber was only several hundred feet above the rapidly spreading flames and they were heading directly for it.  I grabbed a shovel contemplating the steep assent towards what I knew would be a feeble attempt to arrest an inevitable disaster.  In our minds it was a complete loss until an amazing thing happened.  Out of nowhere one lone black cloud moved over the butte and the sky opened up.  It started to hail icy stones the size of marbles.  It came down so hard that we were forced to get under cover for safety sake.  Recognizing the miracle of the moment we both started to pray.  The noise was horrific as the hail stones pounded the metal barn and shed roofs causing us to pray even louder.

The hail miraculously pounded the flames for five minutes

The flames that at first seemed to be unaffected by the initial downpour slowly began to shrink back.  Little by little they lost their intensity and we continued to shout, “more Lord – don’t stop now Lord” as hope was rekindled in us.  For a minute I thought the hail would pass by allowing the flames to regain momentum again, but we kept praying until the last flicker of flame finally died away.  At that moment the hail turned off as if a giant heavenly valve slammed shut.  Honestly, it was amazing and nothing short of a miracle.

I grabbed my shovel and with Lily’s companionship started my climb on a full anniversary dinner wanting to be assured that there were no smoldering embers secretly waiting to reignite with the next gust of wind. 

When I had made my assent and arrived at the blackened scar I looked back down towards our home glad to see the Sweet volunteer fire truck pull up some five hundred feet below.  I knew then however that it would have been too late to save Timber Butte without the divine intervention of God.

It was an anniversary we will always remember.

Tags: country living, range fire, rural life, sustainablity, Tri Robinson, Wildfire

This morning I was reminded of the Proverb that says, “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day”. (Proverbs 4:18)  I was taking a walk right before dawn and happened to glance back at the homestead Nancy and I set out to build two years ago.  It reminded me why I felt so incredibly tired. 

Four years ago I had taught an eight week series at the Vineyard entitled “A Biblical Pursuit of a More Simplified Life” which later inspired our book “Small Footprint / Big Handprint- How to live simply and love extravagantly“. The book challenged people to simplify their lives so that they might come to a life position where they could increase their effectiveness and impact on the world around them.  At the end of the book I challenged people to make a seven year plan for their lives; a plan to get out of debt; economically, emotionally and spiritually so that they would be free to invest in more meaningful life endeavors.  I challenged people to dream and to act on their dreams.  I reminded people that they didn’t get into the encumbered situations that they found themselves overnight and they wouldn’t get out of them overnight, but with planning, prayer and diligent efforts they could experience freedom.  I also said that to achieve a life of simplicity it would take really hard work.  The simplified life isn’t a life of sitting in a rocking chair, but a life that brings satisfaction and fulfillment.  At first, a life of freedom will require really hard work.   

After teaching the series and writing the book Nancy and I decided to take our own advice and three years later everything changed, but not without some major sacrifices.  As I sat on the hillside this morning gazing back at our new home I recounted the last two or three years of challenges and accomplishments.  It helped me to realize that I was tired for a reason and that everything we had gone through both good and bad hadn’t been in vain. One thing I have learned in life is that nothing worthwhile ever comes easy. A fruitful life requires inspired vision, strategic planning, a deep conviction of faith and lot of sweat equity.

As I looked back I realized that two years before the ground that our small ranch now sat on had been nothing but a bare granite knob. During that time we had closed two escrows as a means of generating the resources needed to build Timber Butte. We had cut a road, put in fence lines, rock walls, a barn, a hay shed and chicken coop.  We had established a large vegetable garden plot, cut and baled hay for two seasons and had worked with Cliff Robbins as his construction company built our home. During much of the construction we lived in a seventeen foot travel trailer in the horse corral. We had canned and preserved food, built a root cellar, erected a windmill to aerate our fish pond, planted a small orchard and set up irrigation systems to water it all.  Having only one day off a week from my real work as a pastor of a large active church in Boise we used nearly all of our vacation days to keep things going.  I built in the heat of summer and in the snow and rain storms of winter and spring. During that time we established the ministry of RE:FORM, wrote a new book about the authentic Christian journey called  ”Rooted in Good Soil” and started the Timber Butte Homestead WEB site.  Not only that, but in the past year we had gone through some really difficult personal family crises that constantly took us to our knees asking for God’s mercy.

 This morning as I sat on the hill looking back I began thanking God for all he had taken us through and all he had done believing that his vision for a more simplified life was now within our reach. The proverb said, “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day”.  In faith I believe that the day is becoming brighter even to the full light of day, and that the pain and the tribulation we have experienced will allow us to be used for a greater purpose than we can now understand.

Tags: Add new tag, country living, homestead, rural life, Simpicity, Small farm, sustainability, Tri Robinson

Maybe times are changing, or maybe it’s just me that’s changing.  It might be the folks I’ve been relating to lately or things I’ve been reading. I’m convinced there is change in the air – a renewed hunger and value for the reinstatement of the American small farm lifestyle. 

When I was a kid I can’t remember any of my friends saying, “When I grow up I want to be a small acreage farmer.” Everyone wanted to be a doctor, lawyer or fireman or policeman. No one esteemed the thought of working the land for their livelihood. The ideal in those days wasn’t to move to the country, but to abandon the labor intensive lifestyle of the rural farm for the suburbs and the lucrative job markets of the city. Values changed and with them the American dream of owning small productive acreages of farmable land was abandoned by many of the baby boomer generation. Thousands of family farms were discarded and sold, no longer being passed on to the next generation but merged into massive corporate farm operations or transformed into sprawling metro subdivisions. Small farms were being lost forever, rapidly becoming unavailable and out of financial reach to a second or third generation who might have recaptured the vision and the desire to naturally and organically work a 100-500 hundred acre farmstead.  Something of great value was rapidly becoming lost; a livelihood, a lifestyle and a means to life itself. 

The topsoil of America in places like the Great Plains and central California was once the richest and deepest of any in the world. For over 150 years it had been tilled, being passed from one generation to the next producing crops that were responsible for feeding much of the hungry world’s population. It was shortly after WWII that the American farmers gradually shifted from traditional organic small farm methods for technologies which incorporated the use of chemical oil-based fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. Chemicals increased production but robbed the land of the living organic matter that once contributed to the soil’s purity and richness. As a result the land gradually lost its ability to naturally produce crops without the continued use of synthetic additives. Something had to change; there was a need for a cultural movement to reclaim what had been lost. 

The flicker of an awakening has been sparked; a cultural craving for a simpler, more natural lifestyle is emerging. I feel it and see it in publications, food co-ops, and local farmers markets. It’s a hunger growing out of the grass roots of the American consumer, a desire for healthy food and a passion to recapture the art form of organically raising it. 

The failed promise of finding meaning through monetary gain is being exchanged for livelihoods that bring fulfillment. Just as a true teacher teaches purely for the satisfaction of influencing lives, and artists paint or musicians perform to express inner passions, the true farmer farms. Not so much for the value of the crop, but because of valuing the art form of seeing the land producing life-giving life. For the true farmer, tending the garden is a means of tending the soul. 

Though there has been a generation that skipping the passion for the land, a new generation is arising that must be equipped and allowed the chance to pick up where their grandparents and great-grandparents left off. There must be a revival of “The Future Farmers of America” where computer games are forgotten and work ethic is reintroduced. Where the land’s value is realized more in the richness of the soil rather than the money it might make.

It is the responsibility of the government, the schools and the church to not only empower these values and train the emerging generation in the skills needed to accomplish them, but to creatively provide the resources and opportunity to reclaim a lifestyle that is rapidly being forgotten.

Tags: Add new tag, country living, organic gardening, organic living, rural life, Small farm, sustainability, Tri Robinson

 “I know that nothing is better for men than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor-it is the gift of God”. (Ecclesiastes. 3:12-13)

I was considering Solomon’s words one evening a few weeks ago as I watched a full moon pass behind some great cumulous clouds to the south.  We had spent the day putting up hay in the barn loft and the hay shed in preparation for the distant winter months. We finished just in time to miss a great downpour of summer rain.  I looked up at the magnificence of the evening sky as I sat recovering from a physically taxing day of extreme hard work – I had a deep sense of gratitude and a heart of thanksgiving.  We had been harvesting for a week; cutting, raking, bailing, staking, fighting breakdowns, heat and the threat of untimely thunder storms, but in the end God’s timing had been perfect. As tired as I felt, I was deeply grateful that the hay was both dry and stored away.  I was keenly aware that not everything  in life goes as planned and that bad things do happen, but no matter how it goes, if you take time to recognize the big picture you can always find reason for thanksgiving.  

Nancy and I had worked hard using whatever spare time we could find in anticipation of a productive harvest season.  The season had come, and through many difficulties and challenges the garden is producing, the bee hive is growing and the hay crop is everything we hoped it might be.  

Sitting there watching the moon pass through the clouds made me realize that as Solomon said, “Nothing is better for men than to rejoice”, and there really is enjoyment and deep satisfaction in experiencing the fruits of one’s labor.  And again, as Solomon said it so well, “…it is the gift of God”.

Tags: Add new tag, country living, homestead, organic living, rural life, Small farm, sustainability, Tri Robinson

Last week my friend Duncan dropped by with some parts he had salvaged off of an old John Deere sickle mower.  We had decided to get all of the haying equipment ready for next season now instead of frantically repairing things the week before it’s time to start cutting next year.  Duncan’s thinking was that it is better to fix things while the problems are fresh in our minds.  Being old men we figure we might forget what was broken and in need of fixing a year from now.  Anyway, we spent the better part of a morning replacing broken parts, lubing, sharpening and adjusting my two old mowers.  When we finished we realized that the day was still young enough to get our hands into another project.  I had been telling Duncan about an old relic horse drawn mower I had acquired and brought home the year before.  It was missing lots of parts (including the sickle arm itself) and looked beyond repair.  It was covered with rust and the driving gears were seized after being discarded in a field for so many years.  Realizing that we had extra parts from the mower Duncan had brought (including an extra sickle arm) we decided to see what kind of damage we could do. 

The rest of the day was spent grinding, pounding, fitting and improvising until the old mower was ready for a second chance in life.  Even its old gears broke loose and turned freely after being cleaned and lubed.

If you look close enough there is a lesson in everything.  As a pastor I’ve found that a lot of folks who have given up believe their lives are too far gone to be renewed and restored; they don’t realize that God’s whole purpose is to give us a second chance.  He is the great reconciler.  In fact the entire message of the Bible tells the story of his plan to do just that.  Colossians 1:22 says it well; “Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ… As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.”

Our old mower isn’t without a single fault I can assure you,  and Duncan and I are far from being like Christ, but the point is – with God it’s never too late.  His desire is that you would be reconciled, renewed and restored so that the remainder of your life is meaningful and fully functional.  All you have to do is ask him.

Tags: country living, Harness, hay farming, homestead, Horses, ranching, rural life, simplified life, sustainability, Tri Robinson

Knowing how to grow a healthy bumper crop for harvest on a plot of land isn’t so much a matter of science as it is an art form.  Farming demands a passion to create as much as the know-how to grow things.  It requires a love and willingness for hard work, gratitude for God’s provision and a love for the gift and miracle of the earth’s  soil.  Maybe I’m wrong, but sometimes I think working the land somehow taps into and touches a hidden strand of ancient DNA that God placed in the human spirit for a purpose greater than growing fruits and vegetables.   I believe successful farming requires not simply the rooting of various plant species, but more so, getting in touch with the very roots of human existence, realizing that all of humanity began with a lone working couple who were called to tend a garden that God had established.  Genesis records, “Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.  And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground-trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. – The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (Gen. 2:8-15)  Mankind was created with a built in love and even a drive to participate in the thrill of harvest; it has been in us all from the very beginning of time.  My conclusion is that everyone has been called to farm and harvest in one form or another and because of it,  bearing fruit in our lives is the only thing that really satisfies the authentic need for human fulfillment. 

I’ve watched Nancy come alive this past summer as she has labored in our vegetable garden.  She and Lily, our small golden lab, spend hours together day after day planting, carefully cultivating between rows, watering and pulling undesired weeds with an anticipation of a fruitful future harvest.  Our garden is now becoming bountiful and beautiful and it is having the same effect on her.   It is medicine to her soul and a sedative of peace to her fears and emotions.  It is more than a plot of dirt but a place of healing, renewal and expectant vision.  A garden is not only a picture of the Kingdom of God, but is a tangible means of learning about it. 

The Bible tells us that the natural speaks of the supernatural, and because of it I believe the things we experience in a natural garden is characteristic of the things He desires for you and I.  He wants us to become rooted and established in His (the Fathers) love, he desires for us to mature and grow in strength under the warmth and in the light of His Son,  and to experience the refreshing and empowering of the Spirits rain. God made us for His spiritual garden, a garden that would one day be used in the process of producing a great harvest of human souls. 

[An excerpt from the rough draft of Tri’s new Book, “The Good Soil” which will be released in the spring of 2010]

Tags: country living, homestead, organic living, rural life, simplicity, Small farm, sustainability, Sustainable living, Tri Robinson

Gates of any kind are expensive, and in most cases don’t have a lot of character – especially if you desire a country look and feel. Steel ranch gates are functional and I think look okay, but I have resorted to building most of our gates both to save money and achieve an old homestead look. Through the years I have constructed a lot of swinging lodgepole gates with various degrees of success. I won’t say that practice makes perfect because I don’t think my gates are perfect, but I have learned a lot in the process. I have found two major issues that will make or break the success of pine-pole gate construction: one, the method of attaching the horizontal poles to the upright poles; and two, building a strong hinge method.
Here is how I have addressed these two issues:

Drilling the vertical upright

Attaching the horizontal bars to the vertical uprights – the first key issue. Commercial gate builders have special tools and machines to drill upright posts and taper the horizontal bars so that they will perfectly fit together. To me this looks a little too perfect, a bit like a pencil that has been sharpened and plugged into a custom-made hole. They use pealed poles which again loses a bit of the natural rugged (maybe a bit crude) country look. I prefer to leave my poles natural and unpeeled. (Nature has a way of naturally pealing them in time anyway.) Because I don’t have the commercial tools I have had to improvise by using a ½ inch drill motor and a heavy-duty 2” auger on my upright poles. The horizontal poles are a little trickier. Here I use a 2” keyhole saw which also attaches to

Key-hole saw

my ½ drill motor. I cut into the end of the pole as deep as it will cut (about 2”) and then use a skill saw with the blade set so that it will only cut as deep as the keyhole cut. (See picture) Using a draw-knife I finish the edge for a more homemade look.

Cutting out the plug end

I plug the horizontal pole into the upright pole, pounding it home with a sledge hammer. Then I drill through the side of the upright post into the end of the horizontal post with a Timber-lock skew and washer to hold the two together. (See picture) So far I have never had poles pull apart.

Gate hing pivot

Hinges that will support the weight and stand the test of time – the second key issue. Hinges can be extremely expensive when trying to swing a heavy gate. Because of this I have had to build my own. Here is how I’ve been able to beat the system. The first thing I do is to dig a hole at the base of where I want the gate post swing. (See

Homemade top hing

picture) Then using some sort of a form, (I have used a coffee can with the bottom cut out) I place a ¾” pipe about two feet long in the center and pour the hole with concrete. This provides a pivot for the horizontal post to swing on without having to directly hang on the gate post. I drive a sharpened piece of 3/8” rebar up the bottom of the upright post that sets into the ¾” pipe in my concrete base. I’ve been doing this for years and have had great success. For the top hinge I generally forge a heavy metal strap that slips over a store bought hinge peg. (See the picture).

Tags: Add new tag, country living, homestead, Horses, lodgepole fencing, lodgepole gates, ranching, rural life, simplified life, Small farm, sustainability

I need your help solving a mystery.  Last Friday I was driving home from town after work and decided to stop along the way and pick up rocks for a wall I’ve been building. I’ve discovered several places where the road department has dumped piles of perfect sized granite in out of the way places on side roads and pull offs.  I’ve been working on one pile for several weeks which had unfortunately been discovered by some other folks and to my dismay had been picked over to the point of forcing me to go look in the surrounding bushes for rocks that had been overlooked and left behind. In my search I squatted down to look under some sagebrush when I noticed a large bird intently watching me.  At first glance I thought it was a young hawk or eagle by the look of its head but it had no fear of me.  In fact, when I stretched out my hand it left its place of hiding and walked right up to me and stepped onto my hand.  By the way it walked I realized it wasn’t a bird of prey, but possibly a type of chicken I had never seen before.  It was not only friendly, but actually liked being held.

Not knowing what else to do with it I put it on the front seat floor of my pickup and continued my search for rocks.  When I was done I got in and continued up the highway feeling uneasy about the way this bird was watching me.  I had never had an experience like this but by that time wasn’t surprised when she jumped up onto my lap, tucked her head under her wing and went to sleep.  She sat completely peaceful and still until I stopped two more times on my quest for rocks.  Each time I put her back on the floor and each time she jumped back on my lap when I got in the truck. 

I called Nancy on my cell phone while in-route to tell her about my new friend and when I pulled into the driveway she and Lily met me.   We seriously couldn’t tell for certain what kind of bird she was and decided to give her a choice of raw meat or chicken mash as a test.  She preferred the mash, but also ate the meat.  (But then any chicken will eat meat.)  I’m convinced now she is a chicken, but for the life of me can’t figure why she would be sitting under a pile of sagebrush out in the middle of nowhere.  There wasn’t a house for several miles in either direction. 

 She honestly looks like a cross between a chicken and a hawk having the head and coloring of a hawk and the legs of a chicken – (Maybe she is a Chicken-hawk in the true sense of the word!) -  My friend Phil McCune who sells chickens says she is a young Araucana hen, but he can’t account for the fact that she loves me so much (not that I’m not lovable) or what she was doing all by herself in such a out of the way place.

 What do you think?  Any ideas?  Let us know.

Tags: Add new tag, Chickens, country living, homestead, organic living, rural life, simplicity, Small farm, Tri Robinson

This past week I planted twenty hills of melons and squash and Nancy transplanted a 50-foot row of heirloom tomatoes she had started from seeds in the greenhouse.  This finished the planting of our garden and all was well except that the holes in our conventional drip system didn’t match the spacing of the hills and tomato plants.  I thought about inserting ¼-inch tubing into the standard ½-inch main line and installing store bought drip nozzles at each desired location, but when I did that in the past, I had to constantly maintain it throughout the growing season. Nozzles tend to clog up or blow out of the tubing if the pressure is too great.  I decided to improvise and use what I had.  Here is what we did:

First, we laid down a ½-inch plastic main line the whole length of the row and drilled 1/16-inch holes clear through it from top to bottom at every hill or plant. My melon and squash hills were about 65 feet long, so I increased the drill bit size about half way to the end of line so the water outflow remained the same at the end of the row. The other thing you can do is increase the number of holes you drill the farther out you get from your source of water.

Second, we cut short pieces off of an old soaker hose about 4 to 6 inches long.

Then we slicked the hose on one side so that it could be pulled open and be fitted around the ½-inch plastic line everywhere we had drilled the holes.

Then we placed it over the line and turned on the water. We discovered by twisting the short piece of soaker hose around the ½-inch line we could adjust the water flow at each plant as desired

It worked perfect soaking the hills and plants quickly without wasting any water. The best part was that it was inexpressive and I believe will require little maintenance.

Tags: Add new tag, country living, drip irrigation, organic living, rural life, Small farm, sustanability, Tri Robinson, Water development