One Word at a Time ~ Farm

For the past year or so I have been participating in a Blog Carnival called One Word at a Time.  The idea is to get as many bloggers as possible to write on the same topic on the same day and then link all of the posts together.  I have not been as active these last few months but this word caught my eye, the word is Farm.

It is very interesting that this would be the word for today as yesterday our Chicken Coop arrived here at the Monastery.  I have wanted to raise chickens for some time and this year seemed like the right year to make it happen.  We will start of small, maybe 6 chickens, and see how it goes this year and maybe increase our little flock each year.

Last year I planted a garden and really got into it.  I watched the movie Food Inc. and it really changed the way I think about food.  I guess you could say I am part of the Farm to Fork movement and I want to know where my food comes from.  Eat local is my motto and I try as best as I can to stick with that.

Orthodox Christianity has a long tradition of working in the dirt.  Maybe that is because the countries where the Church first emerged were agriculture based and most of the folks worked farms or a small patch of garden in their own yard.  I remember my first trip to Romania and remarked that everyone had a little garden in their yards and had chickens and maybe a pig or two.  Time to get back to that!

Gardening is very relaxing for me and I like to putter around and pull weeds and other such things.  This year we also purchased a compost bin so watch out I will be flinging compost on everything.  We have also made the decision to go as organic as we can here.  No chemicals on the flowers or the veggies and no chemicals around the chickens, who wants to eat that crap anyway?

So it will be a challenge, watch these pages for updates.

So put on your old clothes, grab that spade and get outside and turn over some ground, it will be well worth it, nothing like eating food that you grew yourself.