A muddy, decidedly not-white Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through Kleinshire not a creature was dry, not even a mouse. Lest things have seemed all roses and rolling green pastures, here's a glimpse of the farm after days of relentless rain: 

Good thing for mud boots!

From the goats' stall, looking out on the front pasture. I currently have it blocked off so that the animals don't tear up both pastures while they're soggy.

The rain barrel was full a few days ago. Too bad we don't have more of these yet.

Tam and Ella, staying dry as best they can.

Stella and Tarcy hanging out in their stall. It has rained so much that there is standing water on one end of their stall.

A California White braves the elements.

Hanging out inside is definitely a drier option.

The poor meat chickens are staying dry as best they can. They've only been out of the garage for a week or so.

There's that passage in Isaiah about the lion lying down with the lamb. It hasn't come true for these two yet.

There is so much water that it is practically coursing across the lawn.

Guinea hen!

2014 Christmas Letter

Christmas Eve, 2014

 

Dear Family and Friends,

Christmas greetings! It’s been quite the year for us, especially beginning in late April when we closed on a house just outside the tiny town of Bunn, twenty miles east of Wake Forest. Called Kleinshire, it’s the beginning of a subsistence farming enterprise that we’ve long dreamed about. Rosemary was so excited that she purchased Nigerian dwarf goats even before we closed on the house. Thank God we did close, as there were some complications at the last minute! One little doeling spent its first few weeks in the dining room of our suburban rental.

The boys absolutely love the freedom of the large yard and the pastures of Kleinshire. One of Franz’s first projects was a play fort, complete with a large slide. Cyprian rides his bike up and down the driveway and has already taken to building things with hammer and nails. He is also progressing nicely with his reading and with math, most recently subtraction with the help of an abacus. A little more reluctant with Rosemary’s school lessons, Clement prefers to build forts out of laundry baskets and sheets and to do battle as a combination of Batman and St. George, with his costume paying homage to both: sword in holster, shield in hand, and cape tied round his neck. Cletus, for his part, is happy to join his brothers in whatever mischief they’re at. His favorite activities include tearing out all the toys in his room and singing lustily in church (and pretty much everywhere else, too).

Our biggest news, of course, is that number four will be arriving toward the end of next month. Rosemary’s pregnancy is going well, and she’s working w

ith a midwife to prepare for the birth. Boy or girl? Your guess is as good as ours. In fact, if you’d like to join the guessing pool, send us one dollar together with your guesses for the date and time of birth, the gender, and the weight. Besides homeschooling the boys, preparing for the new baby, and continuing with Tae Kwon Do, Rosemary is busy with her numerous homesteading activities. In addition to the goats, who provide us with milk, we now have a dog, a cat, two horses, three guineas, and a flock of egg layers. We’ve also been raising organic broiler chickens to sell through the parish and Franz’s school, processing a new batch every two or three months. Another big project this past fall was processing the two pigs that we raised, including learning to make everything from lard, to bacon, to headcheese. Finally, this spring we’ll complete the farm by breaking ground for a full-sized garden.

Besides all the house upkeep, the maintenance of fences, the construction of the chicken run, etc., Franz is busy with teaching and coaching at St. Thomas More Academy. He had a full load of philosophy and Latin classes this fall and is looking forward to adding a Southern Literature elective in the spring. He hasn’t made much progress on the dissertation recently but plans to get back on track over Christmas break.  So, it’s a busy time for us, and it’ll only be busier once the new baby arrives. But there’s so much for us to thank God for as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Christmas blessings to you and your family from ours, with love,


Franz, Rosemary, Cyprian, Clement, Cletus, & baby on the way

Awaiting the Savior's birth

Our secular society began celebrating Christmas before the turkey was picked clean last month. Okay, maybe before it went into the oven, or perhaps even before it was plucked. I think it was the day after Thanksgiving, in fact, that one of the local stations began playing Christmas music exclusively. This trend of Christmas coming ever earlier is rightly bemoaned, as it's mainly commercially driven. It's certainly bemoaned here in the Klein household, where the kids have responded to this bemoaning by gleefully exclaiming, as if they've heard a forbidden word, every time they hear Christmas mentioned on the radio.

I actually don't mind too much. There's something of expectation and waiting inherent to Christmas. After all, it's about the birth of a child, which is always preceded by a nine-month period of waiting. Advent is about patient expectation, an annual reminder of the patient expectation with which the Christian awaits his Savior's second coming. 

I love seeing the naturalness of this anticipation of Christmas in my children, especially in their eager embrace of the little traditions we've been fostering. One of our traditions involves praying Compline together. Each evening we begin at the kitchen table, where one of the kids lights the candles on the Advent wreath. Then we sing a hymn and pray the psalms and readings of the Church's official night prayer together. Then one of the kids carries a candle--with help, certainly, if it's Cletus!--into the bedroom and carefully sets it on the dresser for our regular nightly rosary. The kids love the symbolism of every aspect of the prayer. They love hearing about the different colors. And the little pyros especially love the chance to light and blow out candles.

Family prayer during the Advent season

Last Sunday was Gaudete Sunday, which takes its name from the Mass introit and the traditional epistle for the third Sunday of Advent, both of which begin with the command "Gaudete," or "Rejoice!" This is the Sunday when the Advent wreath's pink-colored candle is lit, something we did on Saturday night since feasts, including Sundays, traditionally begin at sundown the night before. Cyprian and Clement listened intently as I explained how the pink candle sets this Sunday apart, reminding us to be joyful even in expectation of Jesus' birth. I also mentioned that the priest will also wear pink vestments (rose, technically). Sure enough, Fr. Phil Tighe at St. Catherine's processed in wearing pink vestments on Sunday morning, and Cyprian turned to me beaming the widest of smiles.

I love it when my kids pay attention to details like this. Traditions and symbols are so important because they etch themselves in our minds indelibly, imprinting in us the sounds, the scents, and the sights of a season in such a way tht we will never forget them. 

This evening marks the period of intensest expectation, the eight days, or octave, before Christmas. We celebrated the beginning of the octave by decorating our Christmas tree. It got pretty intense, as Cletus decided it was more effective to take ornaments off the tree in order to show them to us than simply to point them out. That said, we manage to muddle through, and now the house is aglow and the kids are abed.

Of course, Christmas requires other preparations. In the children's department, the boys already discovered a miniature basketball hoop that I had bought and hidden in the garage. Thence ensued a slightly shady tale about how difficult it is for Santa Claus to deliver all the presents the night of Christmas Eve, and how sometimes he has to drop some of the larger ones off ahead of time and send an elf along later on to wrap them. 

In the adult department, Rosemary has requested a sodastream machine. Being the cheapo that I am, I looked online and discovered there are easy ways to construct a homemade version. I put it together last night, and we're already enjoying our own homemade seltzer water. A little early to be enjoying Rosemary's Christmas present, you say? Well, if we can put up the tree and listen to Christmas music on the radio, I suppose a small foretaste of acqua frizzante won't hurt too much. After all, it's the third week of Advent, and we're called to be joyful in our expectation. As for the kids' basketball hoop? It's tucked just a little deeper back into the garage. 

Our homemade take on the sodastream machine