I thought I was doing so well; I got my riding mower put back together after removing a damaged part and getting the blades removed, sharpened, and put back on, and taking the wheel off and putting it back on. It took days of tinkering and NOT LOSING MY TEMPER with that impudent piece of…well, I got it back together, complete with new battery, and it started right up, hallelujah! It just wouldn’t move. (Sigh) I will not lose my temper, I will not lose my temper, I will not lose my *$&#@% temper!

Soooooo, back to…research. I have learned from my resourceful wife that the internet has a wealth of answered questions on every topic, so I went hunting and found just what I needed. God is good. So on Saturday, I finally got the mower moving, and mowing, and it felt grate. No, really; it grated the ground so badly, it shut off twice before I had the good sense to listen to my wife and raise the mower deck. I got about 4 laps mowed before I had to shut ‘er down – this time, it was the V-belt that ran the mowing deck. Over time, belts decay, and this one had fraying, slits, and worn patches, so it was due for replacement, but why, God, why the one day I had time to mow the yard? Why after I mowed some of the yard, and not before or after completion? I guess some mowed grass is better than none; it keeps the bugs down, but it sure looks bad. (Sigh) I guess I should count my blessings; all the vehicles in our yard work, and you won’t find any plastic flamingoes.

What, use the weed-eater? (Sigh) I don’t have a working weed-eater, not one I can take out  50 feet from an outlet. My gas-powered one broke, my brilliant-idea-from-a-book-to-replace-the-broken-part didn’t work, and I haven’t gotten a replacement part yet. I keep forgetting. Maybe if I slept outside, I would be more motivated to take care of it. Maybe I could get a better shot at the pesky squirrel that eats our ducks’ food. Maybe the ducks would poop on me in the dark. Hm. I think I’ll stay inside and try to forget the weeds.

My wife’s garden is growing even taller than the weeds in the yard, and it looks great. She’s done so well with limited time and resources: potatoes, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, pole beans, corn, peppers, okra, and eggplant are all in good health. She even mowed the garden area with the push mower when I couldn’t use the rider, and it looks nice, too. Not as nice as she looks, though.

After working in the yard, and watching America’s Test Kitchen on PBS, we decided the house needed cleaning in a deep way. We attacked the living room, removing all unnecessary items and either finding them a home, or a quick death in the trash can. We take no prisoners when we declutter, because you can’t organize clutter. You can only eliminate it. My wife read that in a great book called “Organized Simplicity”. It’s so true. You can’t manage evil; either you destroy it completely, or it destroys you. It’s a fight to the death. Okay, clutter isn’t evil enough to kill you…quickly. It just ruins the peace of your home every day for years. We have to have space to process life without more input.

We ate dinner on the deck; the evening sunlight filtered through the trees, the kids played or listened to me read aloud. We are so blessed to enjoy so many good simple things, especially a life with room to notice the simple things. May God always keep our lives simple, with room for Him, room for others, and room to grow. Just not room for weeds. Quick, Commissioner! Call for the dynamic duo of  TrimmerMan and his sidekick, Herbicide! The yard needs their help…and make sure they come wearing their V-belts for the riding mower.

I had high hopes of burning off the next two-and-a-half piles of wood yesterday (see post:  ”Completely Undone”), but after multiple tries by both me and my wife, my arms were getting sore from fanning the flames with a kid’s table top and nothing else was getting done. So I had decided to just go get all the rest of the branches and pile them up for my next attempted burn when my wife screamed in that horror-film way, so I came running. She said there was a snake on our deck, a big one.

I ran and grabbed the hoe and made it to the deck in time to see the four-foot monster trying to make an escape off the far side. I took a shot with the hoe, injuring its tail, and made a futile attempt to hold it down while looking for its head. It escaped over the edge, so I went down under our 2nd-story deck to hunt for it. I hunted carefully, because…call me cautious…I didn’t want it to land on my head without telling me first. Actually, not at all, because if it did, I would either dance like a drunk man struck by lightning in my attempts to get it off, or I would aim a hard shot to my head with the hoe. I didn’t like either option.

After several minutes of fruitless hunting and speculating, we brought the kids out to the deck to show them where to be careful in future. I thought it was gone, my wife thought it was in one of the pillars supporting the deck, and my kids knew it would be in their heads for awhile. I checked the basement, the house, and the underside of the deck again, to no avail. And then, when I was almost ready to give up and go back to not burning wood, God directed my eyes to a crevice in the pillar of stones, just below the deck. And there it was.

I got my step ladder and a spade, sort of a flattened hoe on a stick, and my machete. I poked at the varmint in the crevice, and got no reaction. I managed to get his tail out, and pulled on it with my barbecue tongs, and still nothing. I had my wife poke at it while I waited on the deck with the hoe in the hopes it would try to escape. Still nothing. I sent my wife to the basement to get my pliers so I could get a better grip on the tail, and it turned out good for her that I did. She missed the snake battle, although she experienced an adrenaline thrill when one of our ducks suddenly squawked at her from under the deck stairs. We all heard her scream. I don’t know; it’s like she was already nervous, or something.

While she was gone, I kept yanking and poking, and then the snake reared its ugly head out the top of the pillar towards the deck the pillar supported. I took a swipe with my machete left-handed and took a chunk out of…the deck. Nuts. I kept yanking and he kept resisting, finally deciding it was better to fight his way out than hope I would let him lie. He was right, but not for him.

He reared back and struck at me. Thankfully, only about a foot of him was able to reach out of the top of the pillar, so I wasn’t really in danger, but tell that to my adrenaline. My wife and Mom aren’t buying it, either. As he struck, I struck back with the machete, still in my left hand, and not hitting it very well. I shifted to my right hand, and I guess I dropped the tongs. Things are a little fuzzy there, but the critter tried to crawl back down the pillar to the crevice where some of its body still was, and I saw my chance. I struck…and I knew I had won. I let out an adrenaline-charged whoop of victory, and my wife came running because she thought one of our kids was in danger. I don’t know – you’d think she was nervous, or something.

The snake’s head and about four inches of neck dangled by the skin from the rest of the body, part of which was sticking out of the bottom of the crevice, part was sticking out of the top of the same crevice, and part of which was still coiled up inside the crevice. After it stopped twitching, I managed to get all of it out and measure it, but it wasn’t easy. It felt like the body had a mind of its own, even without a brain. It reminded me of another critter on my kill-on-sight list: red wasps, who can sting repeatedly even after they die. It’s just not right.

We brought the kids out to see that it was, indeed, dead, and that we didn’t have to worry any more. We also brought the neighbor’s daughter over for the spectacle. And then she stayed to lunch and played and the kids all had a great time. Me and my wife…well, let’s just say we had to take some deep breaths and lean on the trees for support, kind of like we do after an Insanity workout, but with less sweat. And we definitely don’t use snakes in our workouts.

Since it was the first kill for my machete, I decided to name the weapon. Biter and Beater from LOTR came to mind, but my wife had a better name: the Asp-kicker. So dubbed, it was promptly cleaned, but it took until today to scrub the barbecue tongs. My wife insisted that I do it. I don’t know; it’s like she’s disgusted, or something.

Well, for those of you who still remember the title of this article, I decided to nail the body and severed serpent’s head on the tree that shades the east side of our yard. It’s out of the way, so nobody has to see it unless they want to, and the kids can’t reach it. But it might may a certain duck-chow-eating squirrel think twice before venturing into the yard where the Manly Man prowls. The Manly Man wields a blade with precision; the Manly Man drowns rodents; the Manly Man can start a…well, not yet, he can’t, but just wait ’til next week. He might even learn to shoot a gun left-handed, just so it won’t be over doo quickly, and he gan be sateesfied, like Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride. “You scared my wife and kids: prepare to die…and become squirrel repellant!”

This week, our ducklings have grown some more, and are starting to develop the beginnings of adult feathers. If only they would develop the beginnings of a memory; it’s the end of the world every time we move them from their night-time tub to their daytime pen. They don’t handle change well. Have you ever met a duck who did?

We got really excited when we found the stash of eggs our ducks have decided to start laying again. We found the two eggs laid out in the mud by the west fence, but we expected to find those. What surprised us was the one egg I saw under the steps. After picking it up, I decided to dig into the leaves underneath it…and I found four eggs! So we marked them and left them and left one the next day so the clutch would grow, and kept the other three. And I don’t think any critters are going find the buried clutch. Now the two eggs left in the mud are hard to miss, but maybe the raccoons’ mask will hinder them in the dark if the trap doesn’t get them. We can hope.

The trap caught the egg thief: a possum with a stub of a tail, and he nearly died of dehydration in the trap all day before I finished him off with a barrel of water. No, the possum didn’t melt; it drowned. Never even tried to get out, so it must have been pretty weak. I buried it in the mud made conveniently soft by the frequent rain. That’ll teach the happy woodland creatures to steal my eggs. Oh, and I took potshots at a squirrel with my BB rifle when it started eating our ducks’ food. Keep your dirty mitts off my ducks, their eggs, and their food, and maybe I won’t get violent! Sorry, a little testosterone there. This land is my land, and I will call it…my land!

I decided to mow before the rain came, so I put air in the leaky tank to put air in the leaky tire, and tried to fix the belt that had come off my mower…While I attempted this, I noticed a tiny problem: the right mandrel housing and shaft (I looked it up in the manual) had sheared off in the three places it was attached. (I found this out so I could sound somewhat intelligent when I ordered a replacement part.) So…after cursing mentally, groaning inwardly, and praying audibly, I decided replacing the part was a cheaper solution than replacing the mower. This conclusion has been years in the making, despite my many years as a math teacher. My solution always used to be “replace it” until I realized (with my phenomenal cosmic mental powers) that I couldn’t usually afford to “replace it” and its job still needed to “be done” so I needed to “figure out” how to “fix it” or my wife would “replace” my head.  At least, that’s the look she gave me. Well, I may be slow…but I sure am sloppy. At any rate, the replacement part should be here by the beginning of next week, and since my weedeater-head-replaced-by-plastic-bucket-lid experiment failed in spectacular fashion, I decided to push mow with what remained of my afternoon. My resourceful wife, upon hearing this wondrous news, remarked “Why don’t you borrow our neighbor’s riding mower?” What, humble myself and ask for help? Me, the budding DIY in the country Manly man? Yep. It needed doin’. And she said yes, after our other neighbor finished with it. He brought it over just as I was finishing with the push mower. So  I spent 45 minutes on my neighbor’s John Deere, and while I wasn’t real impressed with most of the features compared to my Craftsman Lawn Tractor, the accelerator pedal was SOOOO COOOOOLLLL!!! I have riding mower envy now. I suppose there’s a pill for that.

I almost lost control of it in the muddy swampy area when I tried a tight turn. The wheels lost traction and I had to turn into the skid to regain control. Don’t tell my neighbor. I also held my 3-yr old in my lap while driving it. Don’t tell my wife, or the local authorities. I saw my neighbor do it first. I blame him entirely and his cute son with the mow-hawk. Get it?

The yard looks great, and there is still plenty to do for the young men I’m hoping will come this Saturday. The rabbit fence needs to be finished, the fence needs to be moved, we have wood enough to burn, and we’ll probably find some more to do before then. The basement door needs tightening, the berry patch needs weeding, and I want to measure the yard for my plans for a new deck. It may be a ways off financially, but I’d like to know how much composite material it will take, so I can make a plan. Plans can change, but if you don’t have a plan, you’ll miss the important things. Like sleep. I hear my pillow is lonely.

Lord, please prepare me for this week, and all that You know is coming with it. Help me trust in You, love others, and not take myself too seriously. And bless all my readers, too. Thanks.

Our two ducklings are stinkin’ up the house in their high security tub, so we decided to keep them outdoors in a coop during the day. They’ve grown to twice their beginning size in the last two weeks. So I spent Saturday afternoon making a coop out of pallets and screws. I was feeling proud about the stabilizing roof I was putting on until my wife pointed out they would be in the dark all day. Hm. She had a point, so I spent more time taking it off, but at least it works now.

While I was thus engaged, my lovely wife mowed the yard with riding mower and push mower, and she did great. Just before she finished, the mower started smoking, and we discovered the belt was offline; I must see to that. And each time we want to start it, it  has to be jumpstarted due to a corroded battery; I must see to that. And a tire on said mower has a slow leak, so I take my air tank to the gas station to get air, but the air tank leaks; I must see to that. Hm.

I bought a live trap for the egg-snatcher; we found shells of at least 6 of our duck eggs destroyed one day; two more taken on another day. The worst is that our ducks are not setting at all or laying as many eggs now. I considered better fencing for the yard and an enclosure for the ducks, but I like the trap idea better: it’s cheaper, and I look forward to passing sentence on the culprit. We forgot spray for our fruit trees – all our peaches are oozing, probably from a critter eating them. I must see to that. Hm.

Pastor Craig had another very relevant sermon today, all about being restless in soul, and how peace is found in God alone. He admonished practicing to be still before the Lord, remembering all that He has done, and knowing He can run the universe while our work is left undone. Undone – so much of my life, especially my land and home improvement projects, seem incomplete, left for now because of an urgent crisis or another obligation. It’s frustrating to feel like my life is always under construction and never completed. God used Pastor Craig to remind me that He will finish what He began in me, and that He has helped us to complete so much already. There is still much to be done, but He will see to that. Hm.

We finished the day with a very satisfying event. We set fire (yes, finally, even me) to a big pile of branches in the swampy yard, and managed to burn all of another pile and nearly all of a third. That leaves only four piles left to burn. I must see…oh, wait, God will make room for that at the right time. We decided to invite my folks over for a hot-dog roast and s’mores, and they came, even on such short notice. We had a blast! The kids ran around, the adults enjoyed conversation, and the fire was a great show. After they left, I set the traps, doused the fire, and took out the trash, and now I’m blogging…and I’m loving it all! I’m doing what I was made to do, and only God could have led me here. I will remain undone before the Lord, and wait for Him to finish what He has begun. Him.

We have two ducklings we bought last weekend, and they have grown so fast. They squeak and make quite a mess of their water and food, but they are so cuddly and soft. We love to hold them, though they act as though they are traumatized for life to be separated from each other. They escaped from their first pen the first night, so we had to put them in a larger tub with wood shavings. We keep adding more shavings to cover their droppings, but we can only do that for so long before they will able to escape again. What they plan to do when they escape, I can’t imagine. I just hope they don’t have delusions of playing in the toilet.

One of our other ducks, Quack-Quack, has become an egg Nazi (“Your shells are not in order!”), hissing and squawking whenever we get close to the nesting boxes. We decided to leave a marked egg every other day to see if one of our ducks would set, and Quack-Quack jumped on the opportunity. She even took the eggs we had been setting aside for her and put them back in her nest with the other eggs laid by the other hens. Apparently, they have to all be in the same nest. She has begun sitting on the eggs, hurrah!, so we hope some will hatch soon. We will keep the hens in the yard, but we plan to set the drakes loose on our pond during daylight hours to eat the duckweed and such.

Our new HVAC cut our electric bill down to less than half! God is so good. And I attached all the extra plastic netting we had to the garden fence to keep out the bunnies. And our basement door blew off. Just another day around the ol’…What? The basement door blew off?!? You read that right. The door, hinges, and part of the wall tore off in the strong wind, and fell over right when my wife came out, so guess who had to change plans? Yep. (sigh) Mr. Fixit to the reluctant rescue. But it turned out to be a relatively easy fix. And it’s more weather-proof now. And I have an excuse to go to the hardware store because I used up all my long screws.

I got the strange notion into my head to move our fence line on Saturday morning. I dug down around the fence-posts and found a great deal of packed gravel. I dug down in the driveway where I wanted to put the posts, and found the turf made of such indestructible, nuclear-blast-proof gravel that I am giving thought to taking drastic measures: I plan to rent an excavator with an auger attachment. It should be fun trying to learn how to work it. Little boys grow up to use bigger toys that cost more money and make more noise.

I took out some frustration by clearing out small trees from behind our hill by the pond, and it looks so much better than last year. I also added some muscle sculpting to my repertoire by stirring the compost in the bins made from palettes. My muscles might attract my wife, but the smell sure won’t. Between the mud, compost, duck poop, and dirty diapers, washing isn’t just a good idea. At our house, washing is the difference between eating and sleeping indoors, and getting chased with a hose while naked. It’s non-negotiable. And that’s just the people; don’t get my wife started on laundry.

I finally used my string trimmer to hack the weed farm in our swamp down to size, so that it only looks like we need to mow instead of like an abandoned section of the Amazon basin. My trimmer was not cooperative: first, the string wouldn’t play out, even when I whacked the trimmer on my boot…which probably wasn’t the best thing for it. Then I noticed my fuel line was split. And the line kept melting enough to stick to itself and not play out even more. I was nearly done and ready to be done with my weed-eater, but I decided to go just a little longer…and the spray guard came off.

If you’ve used a weed-trimmer and never heard of a spray guard, then you must only use it when the plants are dry. Mine were wet, nay, they were succulent, nearly bursting with fresh spring moisture…which got all over my boots, pants, arms, face, hair, etc. when I cut the plants. But I was smart: I wore safety glasses, so at least I could see how messy I was. I wish I had worn a safety handkerchief; that grass tasted awful.

After all that, I decided to put in more trimmer line…and completely tore apart the trimmer line head of my weed trimmer from hardware hell. Now it needs a replacement head to look like it should play out trimmer line when I bump it. But I bet it won’t. No, I have another idea. I’m going to use the lid of a 5-gallon bucket and cut a three-bladed rotary…blade for my trimmer, and according to the “Tightwad Gazette”, it cuts better than  plastic string and needs far less replacing. Also, if I make it right, I won’t have to replace the head for my trimmer. Hear that, weeds? The Headless Trimmer is coming for you…and soon you will be headless, too! Ah hahahahhahahahahahaha!!!

It this works you can read about it as soon as I get a 5-gallon bucket of something. This will probably mean a trip to the hardware store, and darn it, I just can’t stand being surrounded by all those cool tools in cool colors on sale for one low price of…sorry. I just need the lid to a 5-gallon bucket; how much are those? Can’t you keep the bucket and just charge me for the lid? But I don’t need what’s in the bucket…(sigh) Maybe the industrial sized detergent will be on sale. I’m sure my wife will be pleased. I better hide the hose.

Simplicity is not Simple

So I have a confession to make, while I do not watch very much television I have always been a sucker for a good reality television show. When I use the word “good” I use it very loosely. Because to me the crazier the show is, the better. Some of my favorites include the Bachelor where each week I have to see what catty things the girls will do to each other as I await the most “dramatic rose ceremony” in Bachelor history! Another favorite of mine is Teen Mom. I just love watching all of the drama between the mommas and their baby daddy’s. Or how about Keeping Up with the Kardashians? Now that is quality. I find it impossible to turn my eyes away as I learn Kim’s secrets to a steady marriage. Although as we all now know, this oratory will last longer than her marriage to NBA “star” Kris Humphries.

While these shows are all ridiculous in their own right there is one reality show that stands out above all of the rest. I feel the same way about this show as I do car wrecks, as I drive by I know I should not look but I just can’t seem to look away. That show is Toddlers in Tiaras… Toddlers and Tiaras is an American reality TV show on TLC about parents that enter their pre-teen daughters into beauty pageants. The young girls are tanned, waxed, and jeweled to the max in order to have a chance to win the top prize.  Recently, the airing of this show has come along with quite a bit of controversy. Many watch and see what the parents do to their kids in order to win a pageant and are utterly appalled.

Part of the reason I am so intrigued by this show is because it represents a world that I am not too familiar with. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I’m not really the pageant girl type. I would much rather be out at the farm riding horses or watching some quality Republican presidential debates than taking time to “strut” my stuff on stage.

Although this has never stopped my grandma the modeling director from Evelyn Stewards Modeling and Talent Agency in Tampa, Florida. She actually judges pageants very similar to the ones aired every week on Toddlers and Tiaras. In addition to that she hires models and actors for movie roles and TV commercials. Yes, I know it is strange. She has always been the fist to inform me what is the newest fad or what all of her clients have come in wearing. Each year for Christmas I receive boxes upon boxes of revealing camis and booty shorts from her. Jealous?

While some may see shows like Toddler and Tiaras as being primarily harmless, I see it in a different light. What’s startling about the show and many other aspects in our culture for that matter, is the emphasis on over the top performance and fake beauty.

We live in a society that yearns to be the best, the smartest, the prettiest, and the richest in everything that we do. We like to be the biggest, the most powerful, and the most put together. In order to accomplish all of these things we like to go fast, real fast. Because in the words of one of our cultures great prophets Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights, “If you ain’t first you’re last!” We may laugh at this ridiculous statement, but let’s be honest. If you look at the majority of our lives, it is what we really believe.  As Toddlers and Tiaras and the infamous Charlie Sheen would have us to believe, life is all about winning.

But here’s the question, just because we perform for the world and put on a good show does that make it genuine? Or just because we are able to successfully cram one million things into our day does that make us winners? Maybe it is time for us to do a little reevaluation of the good ‘ol American way. In doing so, perhaps we can find that a life that values simplicity may in the end be much more rewarding and satisfying than any pageant victory could provide.

We might just discover that the old saying less is more is not only true of your Charmin toilet paper.

As we begin this quest to live a life that is characterized by simplicity, we must first ask ourselves the question: What keeps us from living simply?

Here’s a secret, simplicity is just not a part of our human nature. Chinese Philosopher Confucious once said, “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” At least on this point, Confucious is not confusing.

One of the biggest obstacles to living a simple life is the culture that we find ourselves in. We live in a targeted marketing culture that tells us if we spend more and get more we will be happy. Nearly $1000 each year per person in the United States is spent by Advertising companies. Children are able to recognize logos as young as 18 months old. Companies are not just seeking a one-time product purchase, but rather lifelong consumers who will be loyal to their brand. While some of these concepts might seem to be relatively harmless, there is potential for normal sensibilities to be lost.

A prime example of the destructiveness of the “always have to get more and more” mindset is the recent cultural phenomenon known as Black Friday. The evening of Thanksgiving and the day after used to be times that were reserved for quality time spent with family. Now they have evolved into all out battle royales to find the best deal in town. I have never been a Black Friday shopper, but against my better judgment one of my friends persuaded me to go shopping with them this year. Once I pulled into the parking lot I realized that I had made a huge mistake. And while in the grand scheme of life the horrors that I experienced that morning are relatively minor, the same cannot be said about others. This year one woman brought pepper spray into her local Wal-Mart in order to help her obtain a $3 Waffle Maker. In past years, people have been attacked or even killed by other shoppers in the race to get a good deal.

There are so many forces that work against us being able to live a simple life that we must be proactive in making simplicity a characteristic of our lives. This type of quest became famous with the 2003 premiere of the Simple Life staring Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. This show was about two girls who were famous for, wait why were they famous again?  The two girls gave up their luxurious life in Beverly Hills to pursue “The Simple Life.” They traveled across the country in an RV, participated in internships, and stepped in as parents in people’s families. They got to see what it looked like to live simply, as just an everyday person would. They were off to a solid start when the duo had a conversation around the dinner table with the Leding family…

Paris: “What is Wal-Mart?? Do they sell wall stuff?”

[Jaws drop...the Leding family look stunned]

Nicole: “In ‘The South’ people hang out there.”

This incident highlights just how out of touch with reality these girls were. But in the midst of all the girls antics a subtle message was displayed throughout the show. Simply put, simplicity is boring. The show successfully displayed the ridiculousness of the girls, but it also gave the message that the individuals living the simple life were missing out on important aspects of life. It’s as if the message of the show is that both sides have flaws. We are led to believe that simplicity is a bad thing.

Now that we have considered factors that make living a simple life difficult, we need to find examples of individuals who are living simply in a meaningful way.  Ultimately we will find that often what keeps us from living simply is a misguided understanding of what we really need.

 My all time favorite movie is a documentary called Babies. In the film, there are four babies that the camera follows around for the first year of their life. The neat thing is that the four babies are from all across the world- one from Mongolia, one from California, one from Africa, and one from Japan.  The idea behind the movie was to see what the first year of life for a human being looks like in different cultures. All of the babies selected for the movie have loving parents who follow the traditions of their culture and raise their babies the best way that they know how. The babies were all precious, of course, but one stood out to me in particular. Was it the baby from California whose mom put her in the baby bouncer while she cleaned their lavish home when not doing Mommy and Me yoga classes? Or the Japanese baby who began going to developmental classes shortly after birth to instill intelligence? Or the Mongolian baby who came home from the hospital on a motorcycle and played with blocks all of the time? No. The baby that stood out of all of them was the happiest baby, the African baby who had nothing and rolled around in the dirt all day. The baby had a contagious smile on his face the whole movie and was shown at the end of the film playing well with others and having a strong connection with his mother, which none of the other babies really had. After watching the film it gave me an understanding of the deep satisfaction that can be found in a life of simplicity.

My whole life I have been taught that money can’t buy happiness, but when I look around it seems like no one really follows that advice. The Babies documentary not only made me want to adopt an entire African village, but it also allowed me to see the potential to find happiness and contentment in a life of simplicity.

Blake Mycoskie, the founder of Tom’s shoes has built his business on an understanding of simple living. In 2006 Blake set off to Argentina for a vacation and returned to the states with an idea that changed his life. He saw that many in Argentina lived without shoes, and it was leading to disease such as Hookworm and children had gashes and scabs all over their feet. He decided to create a company that sold shoes, but donated a pair for each pair that they sold, establishing a simple one for one model of business. Since 2010 TOMS shoes has been able to give shoes over 600,000 to people in need. This simple idea has changed lives. When asked about his philosophy on life Blake said, “Keep it simple: own as little as you can get away with, schedule everything, keep a notebook, don’t let technology enslave you.” In the fast paced world that we live in Blake offers a vision of a life that can be simple and yet extremely meaningful.

As we seek to live a more simple life we will find that we gain much more than we lose. Tsh Oxenreider author of the book “Organized Simplicity” writes, “Simplicity isn’t about what you give up. It’s about what you gain. When you remove the things that don’t matter to you, you are free to focus on only the things that are meaningful to you.” We all want to live meaningful lives and often we are tempted to think that by filling our lives with more and more stuff that this will happen. Perhaps living the life that we have always wanted is much more simple than that.

So as we move into the spring season I find that a lot of my favorites reality TV shows are airing new episodes once again. Bachelor Ben is looking for the girl that he will give that final rose to. Now that Kim is divorced she’s ready to take on New York City with her sister Khloe in her new show Kim and Khloe take on New York. And while Toddlers and Tiaras is on the back burner, a new show called Dance Mom fills the void the previous show left behind. One thing remains the same, simplicity is simply the answer.

First, I have grass; well, not entirely grass, in my yard. Here in Oklahoma, we cultivate a rare, unstoppable, aggressive version of Bermuda grass. Don’t let the name fool you into thinking of soft, green, tropical carpets near the beach. No, this is the stuff that will grow in your laundry if you let it, and cannot be kept out of a garden bed, even with atomic radiation. It will find a way into every place with soil, including your child’s shoes, if given half a day. Its roots are hard to extract, and they can grow in the dark for weeks. We shifted our duck’s hutch and the hay bails around them this week when we moved their fence to surround our newly planted garden beds, and there were Bermuda roots, completely white, growing underneath the bails. It’s like they don’t need anything to grow; the undead grass…zombie grass!

So my grass, and the weeds that keep it on a leash, grew a lot with the recent deluge of rain and sunlight we’ve had, so I have purchased a wide variety of tools and equipment to keep it from growing up through our floor. I really like using them, especially the mowers. There’s something incredibly satisfying about mowing, even more than vacuuming. My wife agrees, and she loves to use the riding mower even more than I do. I decided to spray her with the hose I was using to clean out the ducks’ swimming pool, and I almost got her good. I decided to shoot a warning shot across her bow as she drove up to me, but then the mower shot a piece of something that hit me in the forehead; I decided not to contest the authority of the mower. It seems to like my wife better.

I also have piles of uncut branches trimmed from our trees in February, piles of branches trimmed from other trees last summer, rolls of fencing in various states of rusted decay, a pile of tires that block one end of a bin, made of railroad ties, that keeps our spare dirt for the garden (we planted things in it, too), a busted grill tipped on its side, a pile of cans, foil, and other metal objects soon to be recycled, a pile of cardboard boxes, piles of scrap wood, a pile of pvc pipe, a pile of steel pipe, a pile of junk left on our hill when we moved in (which includes two toilets), a pile of the stuff I’m keeping from the junk left on our hill when we moved in, and piles of trees cut from our hill and the surrounding area since last summer that need to be burned. Oh, I also have three barrels to be burned clean so we can use them to collect rainwater, and a pile of toys my kids haven’t put away yet. Just call me a pilot (pile-it here, pile-it there…:)

And I used to think of myself as a neatnik, one of those picture straighteners who can’t stand things to be out when they should be put away. Since having children, that part of me has been gradually beaten into submission, and since moving to the country, is in danger of disappearing completely. Everyone in the country has piles. The only difference is how you hide them and what is in them. We have so many that we can’t hide them, and probably have at least one of every kind of pile our neighbors would claim. We even have some friends named Pile. They are very neat.

So this week, I had a list of 17 tasks to try, and we got through about 7 of them, me and my wife. She planted our garden, and got a burn/tan on her shoulders, we both mowed, she started two fires in barrels, I emptied the duck pond and moved the fence, and I painted the last window border that had been redone when we got our new windows last month. I had to do this so I could install the window unit AC back in the upstairs bedroom because we both swore we wouldn’t face a near-90-degrees today without the AC in our bedroom. Oklahoma weather certainly keeps you on your toes.

I got the window unit installed after much fitting, cutting, measuring, and cutting again. I even painted the wooden platform and supports to match our window border, which was a major improvement over the multiple random 2x4s and rusted metal struts that were supporting the AC previously. I have my standards, after all. It works, and we live in much improved comfort…ahhhh. Just like the car. No, our van; my car is named “The Rattler” for a reason.

We were so sore today.

Being the sane, reasonable, and patient man that I am, I was tempted to finish cutting the branches today…and God in His mercy pulled me aside, and suggested that, maybe, since I was already tired, and the day was so nice, and my kids were looking to my example, and BECAUSE HE SAID SO, I might want to consider resting today instead of working more. I decided He was right. He usually always is, though I don’t always agree with Him.

I was reminded that I am not a machine, something our school systems, businesses, and culture in general ought to recognize more frequently. Even machines need regular maintenance and some rest, or they die sooner. We should take a cue. Our pastor, Craig Groschel, is fond of reminding us that we are human beings, not human doings, and he is also right. And yes, God and Pastor Craig can both be right. Just don’t ask them to agree about cats.

In Genesis 9, God promised never to destroy the world with a flood…for which we are very grateful, because we got a ton of rain this week, and had many opportunities to practice trusting God and not worrying about the water that kept getting higher and higher, and ohmygoshthecreekhasneverbeenthathighbefore…we didn’t do so well, as you can see. But God was good, and the creek stayed in its bed. But we didn’t.

My wonderful Mom called us at 3:15am because the website that shows the height of the creek near our house had just showed a huge jump in a matter of hours. We decided to plan for the worst, and spend two hours moving our valuables to higher ground, including the refrigerator we need to sell (blocks of wood), the elliptical machine from craigslist (also on blocks of wood), and the riding mower (moved to our hill under a tarp later that day). After some food and conversation, we went to bed for a bit, and got up at half past seven.

Well, if you had imminent flooding and four kids who couldn’t play outside, what would you do? Exactly; you would re-organize all your books. We decided to sort, label, and re-shelve all our children’s books, and we have a goodly number. So we all got to work: my two youngest boys carried armloads of books to the living room, my wife and oldest son sorted them into piles by subject, and my daughter labelled cards for each pile and put on colored stickers. Me? I was mounting curtain rods and hanging racks on several walls in several rooms, and I helped only a little.

It took nearly all day, but we did it, by God’s grace and a terrific attitude from everyone. Oh sure, we had some issues: a 3 year old doesn’t know a life science book from a physical science book, you can only stack books so high before they fall, and the boys all needed to run around yelling for no apparent reason before we finished. But now we can find the book we want, and it has a home when we are done with it. We put in a new shelf under the shelves we mounted on my daughter’s wall. We had been keeping a number of books in a cardboard box, but we figured that, after a year in our new house, we should probably transition out of the living-out-of-boxes look.

The next day, we visited our fellow homesteaders, Dwayne and Dee, in their home they built themselves on 20 acres several miles from the nearest remote village. We enjoyed home-cooked food, educated and uplifting conversation, and took home a number of books they didn’t need anymore. Yes, more books. Yes, we already have a ton. Yes, we believe books are better than a Kindle. Yes, reading is that important to us. How else can you understand the Word of God if you can’t read? I think God designed it that way on purpose. My wife says every parent ought to experience the joy and satisfaction of teaching their child to read. It’s like nothing else.

So after all that, we decided to spend the next day…reorganizing the monster-sized cabinet that housed our home education materials. We did it in much the same way we had done the books. All the kids helped, and it took a while, and when we finished, it was neat, organized, easily accessible to all, and had less clutter in it. We threw away, re-labelled, re-stored, and gave away lots of things, and in return, we got peace, satisfaction, and tools we can actually use. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, right? Order is from God, and it sure feels that way when you have it.

Since we were on a cleaning kick, we spend much of the next day cleaning the house, although the kids did a lot of it. We knew we had company coming that weekend (Tim and Ana, thanks for a wonderful time!), and it always feels so good to clean the house, and it needed cleaning. With six of us in the house, the dust is motivation enough.

I spent part of the day outside, cutting saplings and honeysuckle away from the bank of our pond, and fixing my car (again), but it starts now, glorytoGodHallelujah! Thank you, Dr. Vance. I have a passion against vines, especially honeysuckle, mainly because it grows everywhere, and it shouldn’t. It should get out of the way so other things can grow instead, or so nothing will encroach on perfectly good empty space. I know, the little flowers are nice and the kids love to eat the “honey”, but I’m tellin’ you: vines are from Satan. They don’t stop until you slice them to pieces, and they tear things apart. We had some at our first house, and I did battle with them every spring and summer. I had my way for the most part, but they required constant vigilance. I have never, before or since, had occasion to use a weed-eater vertically, but it worked.

Vines and wasps are my enemies here. Several kinds of spray are effective at killing the little devils, but there always seem to be more of them to spray next time. They remind me of the hordes of robots from Star Wars: mindless, evil, limited understanding, and an important weakness. I am the Jedi: highly trained, very athletic, calm and confident, wielding my spray cans with mind-numbing effectiveness against overwhelming odds to save the helpless! Plus, I look good in boots and a beard, even better than Obi-Wan. And I get to wear blue jeans. Jedis never get to wear blue jeans. There should be a YouTube video about redneck Jedis.

My ’95 Honda Civic is affectionately named “The Rattler” after an unreliable Model T from a children’s book. My wife calls it the purple car; I swear it is gray because I would never buy a purple car, but whatever. My car has developed a bad reputation for refusing to start in damp or wet weather. Sometimes it will, but you never can tell.

Well, I changed the spark plugs recently, and things seemed to be going better; it did start in wet weather several times, and then it didn’t this week. Because I took our only other vehicle to work each day, all our other plans had to be put on hold until we could either start it or buy a new (read: new to us, but well-used) car to replace it. We didn’t expect to have to take these kind of measures, but we need a reliable car since we live out in the country, and we had finally gotten fed up.

I actually got it started one night after cleaning the spark plugs. It took a jump start from our van, but it ran, though rather roughly. I kept it running for 10 minutes, then turned it off, and then started it up again. I thought – problem solved. But then it wouldn’t start next day, even after I sprayed WD-40 in the distributor cap to get out the moisture I thought maybe might perhaps be somewhere around there. (sigh) I had to protect the car from the wrath of my wife, but I had plenty of my own. She made plans to tow it and sell it for scrap as she listened to my report.

So we began to research used cars for sale under $2500. We live cheap. We found a dealership that seemed to specialize in them, as well as an individual with a promising prospect all close to a mechanic friend of ours we knew would shoot straight with us. His name is Andrew Parker and he works at Whistler Automotive in Tulsa, Oklahoma, if you need a mechanic. We arranged for my parents to watch our kids for the morning, and we went car shopping, just the two of us.

We had so much fun. Our first stop was a long-time mechanic with long stories and long promises, but the car had some serious issues. We took a test drive and stopped by our mechanic to have it looked at. He didn’t even have to get it on the lift to find more than a thousand dollars of needed repairs, and he showed me where all them were needed. We decided not to invest the repair money, and took the car back. Then we had some real fun at the dealership.

We went from car to car, each of us pointing out the good, the bad, and the weird, and taking notes on paper. We got inside, started the engine, looked under the hood, looked in the trunk, looked under the front end (very dirty work, and it makes you look funny to passersby), moved the seats, looked at all the dials and knobs, and then made more comments. It was good conversation, and we sure gave the manager some exercise getting keys. He also seemed very puzzled about why we kept checking the trunks. He must not have kids or buy groceries. His loss.

We test-drove two of the seven or so that we looked at carefully. The cars were arranged by make and price, which was very convenient, and it was nice to take a car to the local convenience store whenever we had to use the bathroom. Convenience, indeed. We finally decided to call our mechanic, Andrew, and set up a time to look at our favorite from the lot. We went home pleased with a good day’s work…and disgusted with the nearly $100 spent on parts recommended by the auto parts store to repair the car we already had that wasn’t running.

Well, today, I had planned to research spark plug cleaning online (which I did, unwillingly, because I just want to get it done, thank you) and then go take off the top of the crankcase and clean/repair/replace whatever needed whatever, whatever, whatever…we’re selling it right? On a whim, I put the key in the ingnition, and VROOM! One turn, and it was on. It still ran rough like before, but I couldn’t believe it. Maybe it just needed to dry out. I realize all you mechanics out there are shaking your heads in disbelief, but guess what I saw when I looked under the hood of my miraculously running car:

In my haste and frustration when I cleaned the spark plugs and doused my distributor, I had forgotten to put two of the four valve cylinder plug things back in place on top of the spark plugs. No wonder it didn’t start before, and how in the name of Mr. Goodwrench did it start now? I quickly turned it off, put it back together, and it started again, purring like a kitten. (sigh) I decided to check the crankcase anyway, which only revealed some excellent gaskets and random parts, which I’ll ask Andrew about. But we still don’t know exactly why the plugs needed cleaning; but it’s running now, so we can actually get it to a mechanic, which is good, and especially now because it’s spring break, and I’m at home and not work, and we don’t really need it this week, just like the parts I have to return, and…why didn’t I check under the hood the first time it didn’t start? (sigh) I guess my awesomeness needed a little restraint, so God allowed me to enjoy a little humility. Do you need to enjoy some, too? Make sure it’s plugged in first.

Our bathroom-pipe-leaking-into-the-kitchen-cabinet is dry again, and seems to be staying dry. I will be checking it daily for leaking, and eventually (I hope) I will patch the hole in our kitchen wall for now. (sigh)

Friday, I borrowed my Father-in-law’s truck to go to Watova, OK (find that on a map) to buy a truckload of garden dirt for…dirt cheap. The guy who filled me up has 80+ acres for sale, lots of dirt, and a beautiful view of the sky and horizon. I bet he sees twice as many stars at night as anyone else for miles. His house lives up on a mounded hill with long slopes in all directions, and very few trees or lights. Anyway, I parked the truck in our soggy swamp of a backyard, planning to offload the dirt on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning, I offloaded the dirt from 645am until after 8am, using a shovel and wheelbarrow, and then had breakfast. I wish I could start several mornings a week this way. But I couldn’t move the truck, and every attempt to get out just dug the tires deeper in the clay muck. After trying gravel, boards, and lots of rocking, we decided to attach a chain to our minivan and try to pull it out. Attached to the platform our HVAC sits on (to prevent flood damage) was a large chain (probably used for a previous resident’s big dog) and by God’s grace, a little WD-40 loosened the clip, and we hooked it up to both. With my wife in the van pulling and me in the truck backing up, we finally got it out after having a huge fight about how we weren’t communicating. (sigh) James fail. It’s amazing how a little emotional pressure can show you how much you need God and forgiveness in your life. Can I get an “Amen!” ?

Two of my students, Troy and Ashton, came over on Saturday to help us build a raised garden bed, and wow, did they work hard. Together, we tilled the dirt (hold on tight), laid cardboard and watered it down, dumped a layer of peat moss, a smelly layer of compost from our bins, and finally a layer of dirt from the pile on the ground. We got the tiller loaded back on the truck and took care of the ducks, too. It would have taken me so much longer on my own. Thanks so much for your help, guys; and you never complained about the mud, either. And you found the eggs. You are now officially members of the Thorpeshire clan.

My son, J.B, came out while we worked, and took a stick (his toy of choice), and began whacking the dirt in the raised bed. That’s my boy, whacking at the dirt with a stick. He would make a fine medieval serf, I have no doubt.

After they left, my wife joined me outside, and we built potato pillars out of old fencing, dirt and compost, and straw. We layered seed potatoes and dirt in the inner core, keeping it contained with straw outside the core just inside the fencing. Then, I built a little pen to keep the pillars from falling over, using two wooden pallets I cut up, and my new screws, bought dirt cheap (yes, again) from the estate sale. We put our extra dirt in a bin I made from railroad ties, and I finally staked down the raised bed (after filling it with dirt; sorry, Sweetie). While trying to stake it down, I split one of the ends of the bed, and split apart one of the corners. (sigh) James fail. Again.

My wife showed wonderful restraint and encouragement, and I figured out a way to secure the split corner and attach all the corners to stakes in the ground, so that raised bed ain’t goin’ nowheres. Thank You, God, for all Your help. And for the opportunity to work outside so much. I loved it. I want to do it again, even all the shoveling.

That night, it rained. Hard. We had more puddles covering more area of our yard than we had ever seen before. When God sends rain, it gets really wet, and the ducks get HAPPY. Thanks, God, for soaking our garden beds for planting. That was nice.