Category Archives: homesteading

favorite books of 2022

Posted on by January 18, 2023

I was buying books and Vin asked me to look one up that he’s wanted for a while.

“They have it in paperback or hardback, which do you want?” I asked.

“Paperback,” he said. “It might suck.”

And that’s wisdom, my friends.

favorite books of 2022: Shannon Guerra

This was a tough year reading-wise for me. Not because I didn’t read much – I read almost fifty books – but because I quit at least five other books in disgust after anywhere from fifty to several hundred pages (I mention one of them here). Fortunately, it was also a year full of books that are tried and true, old favorites that I happened to be reading again, and they made up for it.

Reading good books is like gentle, gradual irrigation of the mind. Reading the Bible is more like a power washer, or a rushing river. But all good books dislodge rocks and embedded lies from us, and reveal truths that never change but somehow can always come alive in a fresh way. Good reading is both cleansing and nurturing; it grows within us the stuff that preserves from rottenness and brings flavor. It changes our landscape, deep and wide. We recognize things about ourselves and the world around us, and we see things articulated that we didn’t have words for before.

Good books rile up justice and goodness, and bad books make excuses for it.

Here are my favorites from last year that (mostly) do all the right stuff. I hope you find a few that become your favorites, too.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

“There seemed small need for watching in the days of our prosperity, and the guards were made over comfortable, perhaps — otherwise we might have had longer warning of the coming of the dragon, and things might have been different.”

Here is a case for rereading a classic that you didn’t care so much for the first time. (See also The Wind in the Willows.) I’ve read this twice before and it was okay, nothing that excited me too much. And then I read it again last spring with my daughter and our Gaining Ground group, and lo and behold…things came alive that I missed the first (and second) times around. I’m convinced now, it’s a keeper – and it makes the extremely Hobbity and slightly silly first chapter of Fellowship of the Rings (see below) make a lot more sense now. It is a fairy-tale-like children’s book full of trolls, spiders, thieving, sneaking, jealousy, fighting, shapeshifting, invisibility, riddles, and battles…but yeah, it really is a good book with solid values worth sharing with your kids. Or your spouse. Or your cat.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Hey, this one counts as seven – or actually six, because we just started the last book in the series again a few nights ago, but we read the other six out loud at dinner time to the kids throughout 2022.

If you have never read these, or you haven’t read them in years, or you only read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or you only saw the movies (egad), you should find the nearest 4- to 18-year-old and start reading this with them, post-haste. You don’t need to read them in order (chronologically or in the order they were written, and yes, those are different) but I’m still noticing details in certain stories that allude to characters or events in the other ones that I never noticed before. Every single book in the Narnia series has truths in it that are articulated brilliantly and beautifully, and they will change your life and our culture for the better.

How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes by Peter Schiff

Make economics fun again! If you need an easy refresher on basic economics or a great book for your middle/high schooler, this book illustrates the principles through a fictional land of islanders who begin their own economy through trading fish and services, on just one fish a day. It explains principles without jargon and shows how they are both used and abused. And if you know your U.S. history, you’ll enjoy a lot of the snarky humor that identifies some of those abusers, as well.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

“The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am to you, and I am standing in the spirit at you elbow.”

My first encounter with this book was in the 8th grade when our English teacher read it aloud to us the week before Christmas break. I remember very little (as in, nothing) of it, which, combined with what I already told you about The Hobbit and Wind in the Willows, is an indictment on either the Anchorage public school system or my attention span. Probably both.

But now! Ohmygosh, I love this book so much. This is the second time we’ve read it aloud as a family, and even our little guys – ages 4 and 7 – liked it. (Giving characters different voices helps.) You don’t have to read this at Christmas; it is beautiful year round, and if you want an easy way to dip your toes into Dickens’ works, this is the one to start with. (Oliver Twist is probably a good second.)

Polyface Micro by Joel Salatin

This is a good book to read if a) your life has been taken over by poultry, b) you are aware of the crisis in our food system and know the egg shortage we’re seeing is only the tip of the iceberg, or c) you want to take your dreams of homesteading and start doing something about them. This is livestock farming micro-style, for those of us with yards instead of fields. Lots of ideas here on how to do the basics, plus plenty of insight and hacks that only come from someone with years and years of experience who is willing to tell you about his mistakes so you don’t have to repeat them.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

This one threw me for a loop at first. There’s a lot of dialogue but no quotation marks, an intentional lack of apostrophes in many contractions, and you quickly discover that rules can be broken if you write and tell a story as well as this guy. Every once in a while I came across a word I suspected he was making up, but then I’d check, and by golly, he pulls vocabulary up from the very bones of the earth and puts those words to work again.

It’s not a kids’ book but I’d recommend it to mature high schoolers. The story is intense and fascinating, about a father and son traveling through a post-apocalyptic wasteland just trying to survive. I read it in two days and then immediately put it on Vince’s stack and demanded he read it, too – which he did, and he also loved it.

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

File this one under “Information everyone needs to know and hopes they never have to apply” – which I guess you could also say for any book on farming. (Ha ha, I jest…sorta). Not a great book, but an important book about crime, human nature, and protecting yourself from whackos. Eat the meat, spit out the bones; it’s a three-star book with lots of five-star info.

Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard

If you are grieving or walking through a hard season, this book is a great companion. Much Afraid is a girl who has been threatened, gaslighted, and mistreated, and the Shepherd leads her on a journey that isn’t just escape, but destiny – she learns her true identity through a process of obedience, faith, and surrender. We read this in Gaining Ground last summer, and so many of us found great healing, encouragement, and revelation for different situations we were navigating.

Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley

A woman buys a book wagon and takes off across the countryside in the early 1900s, leaving her slightly selfish brother in the lurch and baffled at her gumption. A funny and fast book about books, and reading, and love, and surprises.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

“By reading only six hours a day, I shall gain in the course of a twelvemonth a great deal of instruction which I now feel myself to want.”

Why use a boring word like “year” when you can say twelvemonth? This story is about two sisters: Elinor is all things tact, courtesy, and self-control, and Marianne is all things honest, transparent, and idealistic. By the end of the book they are both stronger, wiser, and happier, and the reader is, too.

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

“It seemed that the evil power in Mirkwood had been driven out…only to reappear in greater strength in the old strongholds….the power was spreading far and wide, and away far east and south there were wars and growing fear….Little of all this, of course, reached the ears of ordinary hobbits. But even the deafest and most stay-at-home began to hear queer tales; and those whose business took them to the borders saw strange things.”

There’s a great evil in the world that has been hidden for ages, lurking unknown, unsuspected by those who are happily oblivious until some strange, seemingly unrelated occurrences start happening with increasing frequency. Once discovered, the evil must be completely destroyed before everything good in the world is destroyed first.

Sounds eerily familiar, yes? But no, it’s not the Deep State; it’s Sauron, the Lord of the Rings. I’ve read this at least five times but am finding parallels and wisdom for our current days that I’ve never seen before. Fellowship is the first part of The Lord of the Rings, which is really just one ginormous book of over a thousand pages, often separated into a trilogy. We’re currently tackling it in Gaining Ground and just started The Two Towers, the middle book. If you have tried Fellowship before and couldn’t get past the odd, folksy first chapter, please give it another shot. By chapter two it changes rapidly from a children’s book like The Hobbit into the life-changing and dramatic saga of good versus evil so many of us love.

Wait, you keep talking about Gaining Ground. What is that?

It’s our online book club on Telegram. It originally started a few years ago as a book club that incorporated writing coaching, but I’ve stopped coaching and now we just read and chat about books and share nerdy, bookish memes. Our group ebbs and flows every time we start a new book, but it’s grown to over a hundred people and you can join us here if you’d like.

My goal this year is more books, less videos; more pages, less screen time. More time together, more shared stories, more ideas, more joy, more justice. Less fabricated news, more newsworthy knowledge. More wholeness, goodness, and truth, with a side of coffee or tea. Probably a cat or two. Maybe a blanket. Plus a 30% chance of a huge bowl of popcorn, which I may or may not share.

P.S. Want more book recommendations? Here’s my list from last year. Reading great books is one of the easiest ways to transform our culture.

you can do what He’s calling you to: a kindling post

Posted on by November 12, 2024
you can do what He's calling you to: a kindling post

The Lord knows your breakthrough is taking a long time. He is waiting, too.

He knows the enemy has tried to wheedle his way in and get you on the merry-go-round of doubt:

Is it because I still haven’t learned my lesson? Is it punishment? Is it because I don’t deserve what I’ve been hoping for? Is it because someone else needs the answer more than I do? Is it because I’m too stupid to figure out the answers?

The Lord knows the lies and accusations you’ve been wrestling with. Here’s some truth to hang onto:

He is giving you the wisdom you need as you abide.

He doesn’t love anyone else more than He loves you. He’s not playing favorites.

His provision has no limits. He doesn’t have to choose between needs to fill.

His timing is protecting you from things you don’t know about, and preparing you for more than you imagine.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

— James 1:5-8

You don’t have to know what you’re doing when the Lord tells you to do it.

You don’t have to wait until you have it all figured out. In fact, a lot of people do it that way but it’s just disobedience pretending to be responsible.

Yes, do some research. Figure out your first step. But if He tells you Go, then do it asap. Your joy is at stake.

Show Him you can be trusted with the little things so He knows you are ready to steward the bigger things you’re asking for, too.

You can do the thing He’s calling you to today. The big, brave thing, and the small, annoying thing. The new unfamiliar thing. The strong, steady, obedient thing.

He’s holding favor for you as you trust Him. He moves mightily on your behalf and loves your heart that pursues Him and chooses His ways over your own preferences. He is taking that surrender and molding your desires so they align with His, making it easier and easier to hear Him and know the way to go.

My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad.

Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!

The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

— Psalm 34:2, 9-15

There will be people out there who misunderstand you maliciously and religiously.

So caught up in their own misinterpretation, refusing to see other perspectives, eager to judge and be offended, they will miss the forest for the trees just as they have missed the point that could have broadened their own understanding.

Sometimes they cloak their condemnation with misapplied scripture to keep themselves on a high horse of self righteousness while criticizing those they know nothing about and quenching the Spirit they don’t understand.

But you will know them by their fruit, Jesus said.

So abide. Keep abiding. Keep doing what the Lord has called you to do. It is the only way we bear fruit, and our growth is helped by a good application of manure every once in a while. 😏😎

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

— Matthew 7:15-17

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

— John 15:4-5

The Lord is not waiting for your perfection or performance to deliver you. He did not bring breakthrough or deliverance or answers to people in the Bible because they checked off all the boxes. He doesn’t deliver because we are perfect, but because He is.

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how we take the land: the battle isn’t over with the breakthrough

Posted on by August 24, 2022

Okay friends, here’s what we’re learning in the poultry world: Quail are super hardy, except when they’re not.

Except when they’re aggressive and try to kill each other.

Except when they wallow in their own grossness and ruin their feet.

Except when there’s a mysterious injury or illness you can’t identify regardless of having the entire internet at your disposal, and it’s just their time to go.

But other than that, they’re terrific and will apparently live through anything as long as you give them clean water and food…for about two years, that is, because that’s their lifespan. They live fast: They hatch fast, they start laying fast, they mature for harvest fast. And if one ever gets loose from the pen, say adios, sayonara, because they run fast, too.

how we take the land: the battle isn’t over with the breakthrough

Because of all this (and because they are delicious), about a month ago we were down to ten quail from the nineteen we started with. So we considered our options in light of the fact that domesticated quail rarely hatch their own chicks: We could just phase them out but we didn’t really want to, or we could buy more chicks again, but we didn’t want to do that, either.

So we thought about the one thing we never wanted to do at all (funny how that’s happening more and more these days) which was incubate eggs and hatch them ourselves. Ehh, too tricky. Too intimidating.

But prayer is dangerous because God will use it to change you as much as the world around you. And as we prayed about it, as often happens, the thing we didn’t want to do became something we did want to do. It didn’t seem as intimidating. It sounded fun, and educational, and like a great thing to add to our homeschool repertoire.

(Rep-ah-twah. Fun word.)

Around the same time we were having a spiritual awakening about using an incubator, a friend offered us his quail – only one, his last one, see all the exceptions to hardiness above. And this was fabulous because we needed an unrelated quail to breed with some of ours so we wouldn’t hatch chicks with wings sticking out of their forehead. So we gratefully took the new quail, not knowing if it was male or female. Didn’t really matter, the bloodline was different and it would freshen things up a bit.

But it did matter, sort of, because you can’t put too many males in the same hutch. And this bird looked…ambiguous. So just in case, we put it with two females.

And within a day, after close observation, we knew the new quail was definitely a male. Not only did he not lay eggs, but he did all the (ahem, cough) typical male behavior…you know, burping loudly, bragging about sports teams, and collecting miscellaneous pieces of hardware that might be useful sometime in the next three decades.

We started collecting eggs to hatch, keeping them in a designated dish. Then the incubator finally arrived, and we gave the instructions a cursory read, inserted the eggs, fiddled with the thermostat, went back to the instructions to figure out how we messed up (don’t tell me this isn’t what you do every time you figure out new equipment, also), and finally, at the right temperature, left them to do their incubatey thing.

On day fifteen, we put the eggs in lockdown. That sounds dramatic, and I guess it is though it’s nothing fancy: We removed the eggs from the turning racks (which slowly tip the eggs from side to side to help the chickies develop properly) and them put them back in the incubator. Added a little more water, misted the eggs, shut the lid again, and waited.

And waited.

I confess I stood hunched over the window of the incubator for ten minutes watching for any small movement from the eggs. Just like trying to feel a baby’s first faint kicks.

But no, it wasn’t time yet. Even when the promise is so close.

So I went back upstairs because it was my turn to be at the desk, writing. Some of you already know we take turns throughout the day, so whoever is not working is homeschooling the kids, wrestling laundry, running errands, seeking spiritual epiphanies about poultry, whatever.

I sat at the desk, opened my Bible, and all the other desires started calling: check email, check websites, check notifications, check sales. Pushed them away, pulled the Bible closer. Tried reading glasses, put them away again.

It’s not a vision problem, mostly. It’s the other kind of focus we’re always fighting – we want to live fast, too, but living right requires slowing down.

Help me to hear you in Your word, I ask Him.

This is where your encouragement comes, He answers. Not in email or anything else. This is where breakthrough comes. And we need it in so many things; I don’t remember the last time we didn’t need breakthrough. I’m trying to think back, but I don’t think there’s been a moment since we started the adoption process in 2010 that we haven’t needed breakthrough in one area or another…or, more often, in several areas at once.

I don’t mean to say we haven’t had breakthrough at all in the last 12 years, because the more breakthrough you need, the more you end up getting. But as soon as one issue is conquered, another surfaces, and it’s not so much about constant spiritual attack as it is that as soon as one mission is complete, another one begins.

When we started learning about surrender and living on mission, we said goodbye to the comfort zone – sayonara, adios – and life has been moving fast ever since. But breakthrough in a life of surrender is not like hatching out of an eggshell and simply moving on with life. It’s like ever-widening tent pegs, where the canvas keeps stretching and growing supernaturally and we are learning to fill it and take the land.

Or, maybe it is a little like hatching…because once the hatching starts, things are still pretty tenuous and the work is by no means over.

Four of our chicks came a little early and each was so fast we missed most of the process of their hatching. But once they were out, they were weak and exhausted from the battle. They were damp and ugly and precious and heaving, and when they tried to walk it was a whole other battle as they stumbled, with tiny wings flapping and toes that were still curled from their confinement.

I strained my eyes to look at the other eggs through the tiny windows on the incubator, and could see a pip hole on one egg, and a hairline crack on another. I moved my flashlight over all the eggs and watched possible cracks become definite cracks, and from what I could see, six more eggs were getting ready to open.

And I thought, It’s really happening.

When you start to see the breakthrough you’ve been waiting so long for, you can hardly believe it. We think, Really? For me? But then the evidence keeps getting more and more obvious: The kid is behaving. The habit is diminishing. The illness is healing. The favor is growing. The funds are coming in.

But still, there’s waiting. A crack is not a hatch. And a hatch doesn’t guarantee the chick will make it, either. But it’s a good sign – the process is working, things are moving. There’s life here.

I hear Waymaker in the back of my head. Even when I don’t see it, You’re moving; even when I don’t feel it, You’re moving.

Birth and breakthrough are hard. If you are trying to overcome an obstacle or barrier, the fight isn’t over once breakthrough comes — you still have to learn how to live in that achievement: to take new land, to get your legs under you, and to walk in victory.

“If you say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I. How can I dispossess them?’ you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out.

So will the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. Moreover, the Lord your God will send hornets among them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you are destroyed.

You shall not be in dread of them, for the Lord your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.

– Deuteronomy 7:17-21

We’re called to do impossible things, to bite off more than we can chew, to take the land. I’ve seen it happen and experienced it myself, but I’ve never seen it play out as something that was one and done – or won and done. We want breakthrough to happen all at once, but that’s never the way it goes.

Even after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, they had to make bitter water sweet, and learn how to live off bread from heaven and water from the rock. Later, when they crossed the Jordan, they had to go through circumcision, and then conquer Jericho – and then Ai, and Makkedah, and Libnah, and on and on.

God is reminding us, This is how we take the land, Love: One breakthrough at a time.

The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little.

You may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you.

– Deuteronomy 7:22

The timing is slower than we want because there are more enemies than we imagine, and in our case, the wild beasts are often our egos. If we conquered all these difficulties and insecurities and immaturities all at once, it would be like Pandora’s box in reverse – one last thing would remain, and instead of hope it would be pride, which would nullify the progress of eliminating all the rest.

God is constantly growing us into victory that is bigger than ourselves. But before we take dominion over new ground, we must take dominion over the internal ground first. We pray about the stubborn things we want to resist and let Jesus take all the land in us, so we can take all the land He calls us to. This is what wholeness is, and that is why we surrender to win.

It won’t seem as intimidating; it will be educational and it might even be fun. It will be something He adds to our rep-ah-twah, increasing our capacity, stretching our tent pegs as He grows us deep and wide.

We are watching for movement in our breakthrough, holding our breath, because sometimes breakthrough hatches fast. As fussy and anxious as we get, this brief period is a gift to witness.

If our eyes aren’t turned the other way, we’ll see the cracks in the obstacle we’ve been facing. Sit here in this tension for a little while and see what the Lord brings, it’s just a short time. Suddenly in the surrender the answer will come, the barrier will be broken, and we’ll look at the most recent battleground and say adios, sayonara, we’ve got another mission to do, because wholeness is how we take the land…but surrender is how we keep it.