What I’m learning at the farm.

My Dad has shown me the blog, so I wanted to contribute by writing this post for him.

I want to introduce you to my friend, Harrison Alexander. He is a year older than me, so we are very, very close in age. (He is nine and three quarters, I am eight and three quarters.). He is the 5^th in line of 6 children. I will be helping him chase and catch chickens to process on Tuesday.  So now that I’ve said that, let’s get down to business.  

Now that we have moved down to Amelia, I’m learning more and more from Harrison. He has been teaching me a lot about what the Alexander’s do with the farm. Here are a few examples of things that I’ve been learning from him.

1. The first day we went to the farm; (We went to come and see it, and to see what the Alexander’s were doing.) I helped Harrison with a process called Chlorination. Chlorination is a process in which Harrison & I cleaned out the buckets & the milker’s for the milking that evening. (They milk around 5:30- 6:15 PM in the evening.)
2. He has taught me how they process chickens .(this is Elliot’s chicken business.  Elliot is the eldest son at 20 years of age.)  These following points will explain how it’s done:

•   Harrison Alexander and I were in charge of getting  the chickens
•   We hand them to Sullivan Alexander, and he slits their necks
•   Then, Oliver Alexander dips them in hot water
•   Then, dad helped pull its head off
•   Dad also helped cut the feet off.
•  Then, mom helped pull the guts out  
•  later Dad helped de-bone the chicken.     

Harrison has been my best friend at the farm. I really have gotten to like him, to be friends with him, and also, I have had the chance to learn a lot from him! (He’s a true farm boy.)

Also, I want to tell you that all I said that I learned, I learned from him! Maybe next time I can tell you what I learned from Elliot, or Oliver!

Until next time this is T.J., signing out.

God bless all of your reading!

Thomas P. Morra JR.

Or

T.J.

Our First Big Surprise!

It is not my intention to make a posting each day we are here-but today was a special day for us.  While the Alexander men were bush hogging around our property (several acres by the barn were overgrown and needed to be mowed) Oliver (The Alexanders 17 year old son) found this below.  The kids named him (yes we checked and it is a boy) Bambi.  They sat with it all day while we worked clearing the property and readying our new garden (we plant many seeds today in hopes of having much to share-if we can keep the Deer away).  The Alexanders took it home to feed him (pays to have a dairy farm) and take care of him until he can be released (with not too far from a Wildlife center).  "Bambi"  was left behind by the Mom and was in the filed he was clearing.  We kept him in the garage for the day.

Shortly after this while walking back to the field being cleared for our garden Thom ran into a King snake.  He did not stop to take a picture and he did not name the snake.  It went under the woodpile Thom was near the day before chopping wood readying for the arrival of our brick oven sometime soon.

It was an exciting day!

Thom M.

Settling In

We have made it to Amelia and are starting to settle in to our new home.  We are living in a small cottage on 7 acres in the woods.  It is down a gravel road a short ways from a paved two lane country road (about a half mile or so).  We do have some neighbors-but they are few and far between.  We understand there is a family living in the house behind us (a young Christian family with several children and a rooster-we know about the rooster for it crows early in the morning-it is one of many we live around).  We are hoping to get out and meet them soon.  We can hear the Mom call the children from time to time, but we have yet to run into them.  There house is off the same one lane road ours is-bit we have yet to see them drive by (which with all the trees it is not hard to miss them).  There house is also owned by the Alexander family-they rent it out to this family.

We have been here lest then a week and Alison has already baked several loafs of Carol bread.  She has also made granola, banana bread and canned several pints (and one quart) of our fresh strawberry jam.  We stopped by Winchester on our way home from Disney to cut the grass and pick strawberries.  It stopped raining long enough for us to get the grass cut, pick our berries (and our first batch of lettuce) collect Millie and head south again.  Our plan is to return every couple of weeks to collect some of our garden goodies (Thom and TJ spread a lot of hay in the garden before we left and it is working to keep the weeds down) cut the grass, see family and fiends and the like.

We spent last evening at the Farm.  They had one of their monthly farm tours in which they invite share holders and others out to the farm for a tour and demonstrations.  It was a fun visit.  Thom got to spend some time with the boys (at one point he was deep out in the field checking on the laying hens with Tim and surrounded by several large cows getting acquainted).  Alison spent some time with Joy and learning more about the farm operation while the kids played. 

Tim and the boys are due out tomorrow to prepare the field so we can plant our garden (we are a little late since we are further south-the growing season already started for the summer crops).  They will also bush hog the road around the barn on the property since the grass it about 4 feet high.  We have not ventured far out in the area of the barn for fear of snakes and ticks.  Margaret Rose seems to be the winner so far since she has had two tick bites.  We are using some essential oils to try and ward off the bugs-it has not worked for her yet.  Any suggestions would be helpful.

Tuesday is our big day-it is time again to process chickens.  This will be our first time.  The kids are excited and ready to go (Margaret Rose wants to know when she can chop a chickens head off-I am not sure she knows what that is although we have watched some videos).  TJ is excited for he gets to work with Harrison (the Alexander’s 9 year old boy) and chase the chickens to be processed.  They have some 200 to be done.  Pray for us as we work to earn our keep. 

We have ventured beyond Amelia-which is truly a very small town.  We did find Chesterfield VA which reminded us of Waldorf MD.  It was more metropolitan then Winchester VA.  They had the nicest Walmart we have ever seen-it was incredibly fancy.  They also have a Chick-Fil-A which actually had fancy dessert menus on each table.  It is a sharp contrast to the rest of the area and only a short 30 minute ride. 

Well-it is time to go to bed (we tend to get to bead earlier around here-we know the roosters will be crowing early and there is a lot to do).  We are amazed at how dark it is at night.  With all the changes we are experiencing we feel the presence of the Lord.  Although we have seen more chickens then people in our short time here (there are chickens everywhere here-Tyson has many farms throughout the area) we actually have DSL for our internet-which is significantly faster then our wireless broadband in Winchester.  Go figure.  One of the many ironies of life.

God Bless!

Thom M.

On The Move

Dear Friends and Family,

The Morra Family is on the move! Some of you know this, while for others this is news. We are moving to Amelia, VA which is in the South Central part of Virginia about 45 minutes outside Richmond (and not too far from Charlottesville). We are moving to farm country. As most of you know it has been our dream to have a farm. Well, God is working to answer our prayers. We are moving to a dairy farm to work with a Christian family we met a couple of months ago at a Christian Family Economics Conference. This family owns and operates Avery Branch farm. Besides offering raw milk they also sell fresh natural chickens (processed there on the farm), all natural beef and pork and other products.

We will be working side by side with this family as they seek to grow their farm (and we seek to learn the ropes). Alison and Margaret Rose (and Thom when possible-you know he loves to cook) will be working with the Alexander women to help them turn their "come back milk" to raw milk yogurt, cheese, and other treats. Thom and TJ will be working side by side with the Alexander men milking cows, processing chickens, raising beef and pork and who knows what else. In exchange for our labor the Alexanders have provided us a small cottage near their farm. This cottage comes with 7 acres for us to grow our food, raise some chickens of our own and who knows what else. Since we are all new to this Thom will be keeping his day job at NVCC (his classes are online and Amelia has DSL-a much higher speed internet then we have in Winchester-go figure). Thom also plans on returning to Catholic in the Fall for there is a train that runs from Richmond to DC and will get him there quicker then traveling from Winchester-and he does not have to drive. Alison also plans on continuing her part-time billing from home.

If this all seems sudden to some of you we can assure you we have been praying about this opportunity for years, although it has all come together very recently. In anticipation of some of the questions you may have-here are some answers:

What about the Brick Oven?

We are making arrangements to have a brick oven in Amelia to continue our endeavors of baking bread and pizza. Frank Conlon (a man way ahead of his time) is working on designing a mobile brick oven which will meet our needs. We hope to work out the details with Frank shortly and be able to start baking breads and pizzas for the people of Amelia very soon. We have also been sending out our bread through the mail so those of you who would like some please let us know and we can see what we can arrange.

Why are you doing this?

The quick answer is to glorify God. We believe it is part of His calling for our family. We strive to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and we have prayed that He would use us in ways that would glorify His name. We want to provide our children (and ourselves) purposeful work which can impact the lives of others. At this point we know no better way then to raise healthy food while also teaching our children the value of work. We feel He is using us to help out the Alexander family while we strive to raise our children and prepare them to serve Him.

What about your house in Winchester?

We are putting the Winchester house up for sale. It has always been too big for our needs and too restricting for our plans. We will be coming back to Winchester from time to time (it is almost time to harvest our strawberries) to check on things and see friends and family.

What can we do to help?

Those of you who know about this already have asked what can you do to help. All we need is your prayers. We know we are in Gods hands and He has been preparing us for this for years. This has been a humbling experience for us as we watch God work-presenting sinners like us with so many incredible opportunities.

That is our news for now. We purpose to pack a rented U-Haul truck this coming Thursday and head south. We are only taking what we need for now and will be back for the rest sometime later. In hopes of recording our endeavors while also proving to everyone that we have not fallen off the face of the earth we plan on setting up some kind of blog (can you believe it-the Morra's who don't have TV or use Facebook will have a blog-what is the world coming to?) so you can enjoy (don't laugh too hard) our endeavors.

God Bless!