Thanksgiving is for the Birds

As an organic farmer, I just totally love finding creation's answer to a problem... You'd have to experience the thrill to know. It just feels so right, so satisfying... so rewarding.

It feels like God looks down, and smiles, and says "Yes! That’s my way! Use life to balance life. That is the way I designed my eco-system to function – Each life group balancing out the others so that none become out of control."

Examples of God's symbiotic balance on our farm are: Great Pyrenees dogs guarding chickens to balance out fox and coyote; Good grass to balance out thistles on fence rows; Good bacteria in kefir and raw milk to balance out bad bacteria in GI tracks. God's balancing combinations of created life forces are endless… if we’re only respectful enough to notice and encourage the balance.

Birds – Purple Martins to be exact – are the latest 'respectful noticing of God's way' on The Family Cow farm. Birds are God’s balancing answer to insects. So yes, we give thanks for Birds at Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is for the birds! :)

Purple Martins feast on houseflies, stinkbugs, Japanese beetles, June bugs, wasps, flying ants, dragonflies, leafhoppers, and mosquitoes. One bird may consume over 1000  insects each day depending on the size of insects! See why we are thrilled? Who needs insecticide when God has given us fantastic feathered flying friends like these?

I’ll let our youngest son, Jefferson, tell his Purple Martin story via this Photo Journal. Jefferson has long been a birder. He’s a member of the Audubon bird society and has about 350 birds on his life sighting list. It you want to spark up Jefferson’s day... just talk to him about birds.:)

Show them a good time, Jefferson!

Your farmer,Edwin