Day 310

When we’re not shopping at Fleet Farm, chances are we are at the library or somewhere around the house with a book in our hands. With access to books from our many library trips to books from three different schools, we are very literacy-rich. While my wife and I don’t read nearly as much as we would like, we tend to read more for information nowadays. Whether it is reading about gardening, raising poultry, wetland restoration, or food fermentation, we are thirsty for knowledge on how we can utilize our farm better.

While we fill our brains with knowledge, our children are falling in love with literacy.

All over the place. 

If you walk into our house, barn, or vehicles, you’ll probably see a child engaged in reading or there will be plenty of evidence that they have been reading. Even though each child has their very own bookshelf in their own rooms, you would never know based on how books are everywhere.

There are books in the living room. 

There are books in the bathroom.

There are books in the garage.

There are books on the bed and under it.

There are books in the kitchen.

There are books in the laundry room.

There are books in each vehicle.

There are books on the trampoline in the barn.

There are books in the basement.

There are books in the mud room.

There are books in the office.

There are probably books on the roof, on the trail, and in the chicken coop, but I haven't looked there yet.

While I do enjoy my children’s love of literacy, I do wish they put as much effort in putting away their books as they do actually reading them.

One of the reasons we turned the old kitchen into a more relaxing reading room was because we wanted to continue to emphasize the importance of reading. We just need to continue to put even more emphasis on cleaning up after reading.

In between books, my wife and I discussed some more concrete details about the future of the farm.

With all the projects we have in the future, there will be lots more reading ahead of us.