With the end of the growing season now past and the stark contrast of towering plants wilted to grey, the tasks of winter time go into full swing with gathering firewood, cleaning up summer projects, writing, and a return to wear the Luthier’s hat.

Much change has happened since the last post in many different areas of our life here at Myerstown Family Farm, most notably a setback with my band having lost both members within a short period of time. But I press on with hopes that the Creator will provide the people I need to make the old-time string band a reality yet again.

On my Facebook page I will be documenting the construction of an Old-time banjo that I hope to be able to finish by next summer. If I do not, it will be finished eventually. I do the work on the instrument after work when I am available.

I also have been teaching fiddle to 2 classes of 5 students and now have picked up another class, possibly two, so my weeknights are filling up quickly.

Again the age old question we have had on whether to sell our place in the spring has again come up. We are pretty set this time to place it on the market for the price we need to sell and if it sells we’ll start anew somewhere both closer to work and on land that is cheaper and debt free. If we do not sell, we will continue as we have, to plant, cultivate, harvest, store, and begin again. The goal of self-sustainability does not end with the sale, but would begin a new saga of cultivation both of the mind and of the earth.

The children are growing quickly and becoming feisty as every child their age does. We are enjoying the little things that are discovered every day. Brandy and myself have enjoyed having a friend close by to give us time to nourish our marriage such is what every marriage needs…to give time to ourselves and remember why we married each other. Thanks to our friends watching the girls, we have been able to take date nights ever so often

The family is why I farm. The family is why I labor to protect our food, our resources, our land through safe the safe practice of raising food without the use of chemicals or hormones, and why I study to find natural ways to keep bees or raise fruit trees. The family is too important to leave to a system that is broken. No matter who the culprit is that one considers to be the reason, mankind can overcome it by simply simplifying their life and returning to where God created mankind in the first place…in the garden. It is the work in the garden that completes a man.