by Jason Brown
I recently took some of our babies to the North Carolina state fair, and I think all the arts and crafts on display there—the variety and the quality—nearly blew her little mind. All the quilts, all the artwork, all the hand-carved crafts—it was incredible. I knew that Naomi was already plotting what her own booth would carry in the future. I tried to stoke that creativity.
We met a gentleman at the fair who makes amazing hand-woven baskets from strips of wood he pulls from oak trees.
“Hey, I have oak trees on my farm!” I told him.
“That’s great, because I need some new oak for my baskets,” he said. “Would you be willing to barter? I’d give you a couple of my baskets right now if you’d let me come onto your property and get some wood.”
“I don’t want your baskets,” I told him. “I want you to teach me and my daughter Naomi how to weave them.”
This is an example of what the farm allows us to do. It’s like a time machine back into the past. Most people, when they need something, just head out to Walmart or buy it on Amazon. Admittedly, we do our share of that too. But the farm gives us a window into simpler times, when people made more of what they needed. It helps us see and appreciate and even value self-sufficiency—the ability to create what we need all by ourselves. Very often what we create with our own two hands is more unique, more beautiful, and sometimes more functional than anything we could get at the store.
Our farm is practically self-sufficient now. Oh, we still buy plenty, but we don’t have to buy that much extra food. After all, we don’t just grow sweet potatoes. We raise chickens. We harvest fruits and vegetables. We even extract our own honey from the bees we keep on the property. Sure, putting on my white protective beekeeping suit makes me look a little like a marshmallow, but that’s okay, because the fresh honey is delicious!
How many children have a chance to enjoy their own homegrown honey? That’s an opportunity we never would’ve had if I’d stayed in the NFL. Making honey is not a fast process. Buying a plastic bottle of the stuff is certainly more convenient. But the process, just like much of what we do on our farm, teaches our children the real value of that honey—how hard the bees work to make it, how laborious (and fun) it is to extract it. And that makes that honey all the sweeter when they finally get a chance to taste it.
Like that honey, life on the farm is a little slower for our children, but a little sweeter. They’re learning that doing their best means taking the time to do it right and do it well. They see the beauty and creativity that goes into the work here. Managing and growing things on a farm isn’t just work; it’s art.
No Boxes
When I think of those baskets that Naomi and I saw at the state fair, one thing’s pretty obvious just by looking at them: every single one is different. These aren’t manufactured by machine; they’re crafted by a skilled hand, just like God crafts each of us. Some of the differences are due to design, but some of the more subtle variations come simply from the material they’re made of. No strip of bark is exactly the same width or color or density, which makes each basket—even among baskets that are essentially the same size and shape—as unique and individual as fingerprints.
You look at our farm, and you see that God-given individuality everywhere. We have tons of the same kind of oak trees, but each one is still unique, shaped by its own environment and experience. All the millions of sweet potatoes we’ve grown might look the same at first glance, but no two are identical.
Children are the same way. That goes without saying, really. Any parent knows each child is unique. But in most places, that doesn’t matter. We stick them all in the same box and expect them to thrive in the same environment. We have to. There’s no way that one educational system, no matter how good or creative, can truly hone in on each child’s individual needs and styles.
Because we homeschool our babies, and because we live way out in the middle of nowhere, we have the ability to tailor our children’s upbringing in a way that not many parents or teachers can.
Take Noah, for instance—our little preacher.
Noah is smart, man. He didn’t just memorize the Twenty-Third Psalm when he was four; he also learned how to read. When Tay was teaching Naomi how to piece together her ABCs and sound words out, Noah was in the same room, soaking it all in. He’d look at these books and listen to the lessons and puzzle many of those words out all by himself. When he was just five, I sat him down on my lap and tried to teach him a little something out of my old King James Bible. And he started reading it to me! I knew he was reading, not reciting something from memory, because when Noah would get to a word he couldn’t pronounce (and there’re a lot of them in the King James Version), he’d stop and work through it, syllable by syllable.
“Ne-buh-ke-ne-zer?” he’d say.
But he’s also very energetic. If he were in a public school, they’d have a label for him, no question, and maybe a couple. “Hyperactive.” “ADHD.” You name it. And then they’d suggest some medication to calm him down.
I get it. When you’re in a classroom catering to thirty other kids, you can’t have one disrupting the class. You don’t have time for special treatment.
But on the farm, when I see that Noah’s getting particularly wriggly and not focusing on the lesson, I’ll lead him to the back window.
“Do you see that tree out there?” I’ll say, pointing to a solitary oak tree a quarter mile away.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Noah, I want you to run to that tree and get me a leaf.”
“Okay, Dad!” And he’ll dash outside and get one for me.
When he returns, I’ll say, “Noah, you tired yet?”
“No, Dad!”
“Okay, go back to that tree and get me another leaf!”
Sometimes he’ll need to make that run three or four times, but he’ll eventually say, “Okay, Dad, I’m tired now.”
“Good,” I’ll say. “Now let’s get back to our schoolwork.”
It’s the beauty of homeschooling. It’s the beauty of living on the farm. We’re able to treat each child individually, just as God made them. A teacher in a classroom just can’t do that. As much as he or she might want to, the system doesn’t allow it. Our kids, just like all kids, have different needs. They all learn in different ways. They all have different hopes and fears and problems, and they all respond to different motivators. Out here, we don’t need to have a single, solitary box that all eight children have to fit in, as they’ve got a thousand-acre box to explore.
Bible Study
Our kids usually are up by six-thirty to do their chores. But in early 2018, I thought my oldest, JW, was ready to dive into some man-sized study. So I told him, “JW, I want you to be sitting down at the table by six on Monday morning.”
Sure enough, he was there, and we started going over Proverbs. I wanted him to begin to understand the value of biblical wisdom and God’s Word.
I wasn’t showing favoritism. It was, if anything, an extra duty I saddled JW with. But Naomi and Noah didn’t see it that way. All they saw was that JW was getting some special alone time with Dad. So, about a month later, they walked up to me and gave me a petition.
“Dad, we want to come to your Bible study,” Naomi said.
“But it’s so early in the morning!” I warned them.
“We don’t care!” Naomi told me. “We want to come down and read the Bible with you too!”
“Are you sure?” I asked. I watched Naomi’s and Noah’s heads bob up and down.
“Well, all right!” I said. “The more the merrier.”
So they started diving into the Scriptures with me too. Can you imagine? Kids clamoring to study the Word of God? They started soaking it up like a sponge, so much so that they eventually kicked me out of their little Bible study.
“Dad, we know you’re busy
,” JW said. “We got this. If we have any questions, we’ll ask.”
I had mixed feelings about that initially, especially since my babies were so young. Running a Bible study by themselves? It’s strange. And, because I know that they aren’t going to be kids forever, I want to spend as much time with them as I can.
But Tay and I are grateful. It’s like Proverbs 22:6 tells us: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” We’re training our children in the Word of God, even if they’re partially training themselves.
Here’s the thing: children should, in part, train themselves. They need to learn stuff on their own. Parents are there to nurture and teach and push, but we also need to remember to let go at times. The best lessons—the most memorable lessons—aren’t the ones you’re read or told but the ones you experience for yourself.
Don’t get me wrong: Tay and I protect our children from a lot of things. Our farm protects them from the dangers of city or suburban life. Our homeschooling protects them from teachings we don’t approve of and helps guard them, to some extent, from some of the cultural hooks that sink into so many kids. And, as our children grow older, we’ll have rules and guidelines to help deal with social media and dating and all the other perils that come with growing up. But the farm also allows our children to be children. They do their chores. They climb trees. They skin their knees, get into things they shouldn’t, and, in JW’s case, sometimes even drive the tractor when I say not to.
We don’t want to be helicopter parents. On a farm this size, we need to be able to trust our children even when we can’t see them. Eventually, all parents, no matter where they live, have to find a way to that same sense of trust. Children aren’t children forever. They’ll be out of your care quicker than you think, and they’ll be forced to make their own decisions without your input. Sooner or later, you’ve got to let go. All parents do. Better to do it in stages, we feel. Better to give them a sense of both freedom and responsibility when they’re still at home.
In 1963, just eighty minutes away from here, my grandfather Jasper Brown risked his life to offer his children better ones. He took them to a segregated school, hoping to give his children the sort of education that so many black children in the state were denied. Maybe his sons and daughters wouldn’t have to be farmers. They’d have a choice.
He succeeded in that. He helped give them that choice. And, nearly fifty years later, his grandson chose to be a farmer. He chose to return to those roots made by Grandpa Jasper all those years before.
Education, as I think my grandpa knew, isn’t just something you squeeze out of schools and books. Wisdom sure doesn’t just come from a class. Oh, we don’t skimp on knowledge on First Fruits Farm. Our children are getting what I’d consider a first-class education. They’re learning things that most kids today will never even have the chance to experience: how to milk cows, how to drive tractors, how to extract honey from heavy, sticky honeycombs. And, through those chores, they learn lessons they don’t necessarily know they’re even learning. They are taught what it takes to grow food and what it means to work hard. They see the beauty and logic of God’s creation all around them and how bountiful He’s provided for us. They see in Tay and me, hopefully, what it means to be a mother and father who love and sacrifice and discipline and raise children in God’s Word.
Tay once told me that the most important thing growing on First Fruits Farm is our family. She’s absolutely right. Thanks to God, it’s been a bumper crop so far.
CHAPTER 11
Dirty Miracles
I needed roosters. And it was all Bernard’s fault. Bernard had just graduated from high school the year before. He came to First Fruits in 2018 as a lanky eighteen-year-old from Pennsylvania, ready to work for us for the season before going to college. He was a nice young man and a good worker. But he was a great eater. This was where Bernard’s talents really lay. In the years before Bernard came to the farm, we’d cook a dozen eggs for breakfast—enough for all of our six (at the time) egg-eating children. But when Bernard came, we discovered that he could polish off a dozen eggs all by himself.
By Good Friday that year, I knew we had to come up with a way to find more food without buying more food. Specifically, we needed more laying hens. But, of course, for our hens to lay hatching eggs, we needed roosters to fertilize them. Two roosters would do, I figured. A couple of roosters meant more eggs and more chickens. And, with Bernard staying with us a few more months, a few more chickens might come in handy. If he got too hungry, we could toss him a couple of chickens before he started eating the bark off the oak trees.
I didn’t know where we were going to find roosters, but I made up my mind that that’s what we needed. I offered up a very simple prayer. Nothing tearful, nothing dramatic—just a straight, quick petition to the Lord.
“God, please help me find a couple of good roosters. Amen.”
We went into town not long after to support a Good Friday cookout hosted by a tractor company. But as we made the ten-minute drive back to First Fruits Farm in our old church van, I saw a couple of birds loitering near the side of the road. Could they be buzzards? I wondered as we got closer. No, completely the wrong shape. Chickens, maybe? Were we going to, at long last, learn why chickens really do cross the road? No, they seemed too big for that. Whatever they were, though, they were standing right outside our farm, partly hidden in the thicket. It was almost as if they were caught there in the brush—just like a ram. Their feet looked as if they were practically on our property line.
Could they be…
I asked Tay, who was driving the car, “Do you see those?”
“See what?” Tay said.
“Those two roosters!”
Now, obviously, we live in the country. It’s not like it’s unusual to spot animals out here. We’ve seen plenty of wildlife on our way to and from town: dogs, cats, raccoons, deer, even snakes. But never, ever, had I seen a stray rooster, much less two.
Tay stopped the van. There in the brush, I saw an answered prayer. These weren’t just any roosters either. They were Copper Marans—beautiful, proud, lean birds with black bodies and rust-colored necks and a bright-red comb on the tops of their heads.
I said, “JW, those are roosters, right? They aren’t any of our chickens, are they?”
“No, Dad,” he said. “They’re definitely roosters. And we don’t have any roosters.”
“Yes we do!” I shouted. “I prayed for those roosters! God blessed us with those roosters! And now we’re gonna get those roosters!”
I told JW and Bernard to hop out of the van and grab the birds before they waddled away. “Bernard, you better not let them go or else I’m sending you back home!” I hollered.
He didn’t let them go. We brought them home, and I was thrilled. I took pictures of the birds. I posted those pictures on social media, praising God’s provision as I did so. I celebrated the discovery of those roosters maybe more than I would’ve whooped it up after a playoff victory. This, I knew, was God’s doing. These birds were meant for First Fruits Farm.
A friend of mine advised caution—that I shouldn’t count my roosters before they hatch, so to speak.
“Listen, I know God blesses you in some strange ways, all right?” he said over the phone. “But if you’re not careful, other people might see these roosters differently. While you’re calling them a blessing from God, they’ll think you’re just a crazy Christian who stole somebody else’s lost roosters.”
I could see his point. I sure wouldn’t want anyone to think that I’d gotten these roosters through “fowl play.” After I got off the phone with him, I called up the local animal shelter and reported my find. I said that I’d just go ahead and hold those roosters for the owner until he or she claimed them; I’d feed them and give them water and make sure they were well taken care of.
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�So, if anyone comes in looking for a pair of Copper Maran roosters, you can send them out to First Fruits Farm to claim them,” I said.
“Sounds good, Mr. Brown,” the lady on the other end of the phone told me. “And, if no one reports those missing roosters after thirty days, they’re yours.”
“I know they’re my roosters!” I blurted. “God gave me those roosters! No one’s going to contact you, because those roosters are mine!”
“Um…yes, Mr. Brown,” the lady said. “We’ll let you know. God bless. You have a nice day.”
Stranger Things
No one claimed those roosters, of course. They’re still out there in our chicken coop, helping us make eggs for our family and anyone else who might come for breakfast. Their arrival felt like a little miracle.
I should’ve gotten used to those sorts of miracles by now.
Our God is an awesome God. He can do anything. He is with us.
For many Christians, those are just words, even when we mean them. Most of us believe it, and we believe it with all our hearts. We know we worship an almighty ruler, the maker of heaven and earth. We say that He loves us and is involved in our lives. We say we depend on Him for everything.
But do we ever see it? Do we ever put it to the test? Or is it like me when I was in the NFL: worshipping God with my lips but putting my real trust in my bank account? We love God if it doesn’t cost us too much. We’ll put our trust in Him as long as we’ve got a couple of backup plans in place.
And you know what? I wonder whether our lukewarm love and half-hearted trust keeps many of us in a kind of spiritual shelter. We praise God from the safety of four walls. We look through a window at the world God intended for us. All the sights and sounds of life that God meant for us to experience and enjoy—the sun, the rain, the snow, the sorrow and joy and amazement—we keep safely away from us. Like those volunteers who ran to their cars on my farm during that 2015 harvest, we don’t want to be bothered by the risk of rain.