Conquering Chaos: Discipline, Faith, and Community Preparedness

What if you could tackle life's chaos with the power of discipline and community support? Join us in this episode of Christian Warrior Talk as we navigate the spiritual and practical battles of daily life. We begin by addressing a schedule change, welcoming Saturday as our new day of gathering, and reaffirm our pledge to nurture a humble and grateful heart, pursue a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ, and invest deeply in fellowship. Our community has stood as a pillar of support since the COVID lockdowns, and we continue to toast with "strength and honor," celebrating God's creation and blessings.

Experience the transformative journey of engaging with the Bible, with a focus on 1 John 1. We delve into the importance of walking in the light, acknowledging our sins, and fostering a genuine connection with Jesus. Rather than relying solely on others' interpretations, we emphasize the value of personal Bible study guided by the Holy Spirit. By consistently aligning our actions with biblical teachings, we aim to master the art of doing the "next right thing," helping us navigate life's myriad challenges with confidence and faith.

Get ready to tackle chaos head-on with practical insights from farm life and family dynamics. Lauren joins the conversation to share her strategies for overcoming overwhelming tasks by setting small, attainable goals, whether it's repairing a barbed wire fence or preparing Mocha, our cow, for milking. As we transition into important community-driven efforts, we focus on self-sufficiency and preparedness, particularly in active shooter scenarios. Drawing from experiences with Trident Shield, we encourage listeners to seek comprehensive training to safeguard our communities, preparing us for a deeper discussion on this vital topic in the coming weeks.

Christian Warrior Talk is Sponsored by Trident Shield, your trusted ally in violence preparedness. Trident Shield helps safeguard your loved ones with expert training and consulting. Trident Shield, defending faith through empowered preparedness because together, we save lives."

Chapters

• 0:00 Christian Warrior Talk
• 7:15 Reading and Living the Bible
• 17:08 Overcoming Challenges Through Discipline
• 22:47 Tackling Chaos Through Small Goals
• 35:59 Homestead Cow Milking Preparation
• 50:46 Active Shooter Preparedness for Christian Communities

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:39

Hello everyone and welcome again one day late. We had some technical difficulties last night and some events, so I'm coming to you on Saturday, which I think is going to be our new day. I'm going to have to update that with all the changes. I know that we've been like a whirlwind with all of our changes and I apologize for that, but I think it's all for the better and I think it's going to make a lot of sense in the end. I'll explain it later, but welcome to Christian Warrior Talk, a Christian fellowship show where we fight three battles Monday through Friday.

Speaker 1: 1:16

One we fight to get a humble and grateful heart aligned onto the Lord. We check our pity parties at the door and we realize that no matter how many aches and pains we have or how many things are going wrong in our life, it could be much worse. We have way more blessings than that and we deserve none of the blessings that we have. So we're just thankful to our Lord and Savior for what we have and for his love for us. Two we deliberately pursue a relationship with our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ, through the studying of his holy scripture and through prayer. Three we invest in one another, in fellowship, like iron, sharpening iron. We come together, invest this time. We hold each other accountable and we learn from our setbacks. We pick each other up when we fall and we celebrate our victories and we learn from one another. No one can know everything, no-transcript. We all need to know tactics, but this is a Christian fellowship show. This is where we come to pour into one another.

Speaker 1: 2:56

And again, I know I'm not going to see a lot of my regulars tonight because I'm a day late and I didn't give anyone a heads up, but I just wanted to come on tonight and to drive forward because I didn't want to skip a week, because I know that some people count on this show, as feeble as it is and as small as it is and as unimportant as it is in this world. I know sometimes I get messages where, hey, something really bad just happened in my life and you know, something you said helped me get through that. So that's what we're here for. We're here for you, we're here to connect with you. We started this back in its first iteration. It was right when the COVID lockdowns happened and we were all so isolated and it got a lot of us through some hard times. So if you're watching this show, you know it is customary when you watch this show to say strength and honor and you know where you're coming from, so you know. For example would say jason from tennessee and and we would toast you again.

Speaker 1: 4:12

It doesn't have to be an alcoholic beverage, it can be anything you want, but, um, yeah, you know it could be. We're not against that here. So let's go ahead. After I refill my beverage, let's go ahead. And, which is pretty embarrassing, when I'm drinking, it's the only sparkling stuff I could find in the house right now. But let's go ahead and let's go to war and let's fight our first battle.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Heavenly Father, lord, we thank you. We thank you for all the blessings in our life, those we know and don't know, for all your protections, lord. We thank you for your common grace. We thank you for your creation. We thank you for this universe, the sun, the moon, the stars and this earth, everything from the mountains to the ocean, the bottom of the oceans and everything in between. We thank you for your animal kingdom how magnificent it is, and we're thankful that you gave us all for food. We thank you for your plant kingdom, plant life, and how you gave that to us as well. Lord, we thank you for so many things in our lives. We thank you for the sunrises and sunsets. We thank you for the sound of birds in the morning, children's laughter. We thank you for the warm touch of a loved one, the cool breeze on a hot day. We thank you for the smell of morning rain and good food cooking. We thank you for the taste of good food and drink. Lord, we thank you for all the loved ones in our life that are still here with us and we ask that you help us to never take one second for granted when we're spending time with them. We thank you for the memories of the time that we have with those who are no longer with us. Lord, we thank you for your holy grace, for choosing us while we were still traitors before the foundations of the earth, earth writing us into the book of life. But we are so thankful that you loved us while we were still traders to you. But we thank you for this time for everyone coming together right now to invest in one another, whether now or later, watching or downloading this on some podcast later on. And, lord, we pray that we proclaim you with every breath of our lungs and serve you with every beat of our heart. We pray that we glorify you and only you serve you and only you please you. In Jesus' name, we pray, amen, all right, so that is first battle one, thank you very much. Now let's get to our second battle, which is we deliberately pursue our relationship with our Lord and Savior by studying a scripture.

Speaker 1: 7:15

Now I better make sure you guys can actually hear me. No one's told me you can't hear me, which would be a really big bummer. If you can't hear me, which can you hear me right now? I see I got some hearts and I want to make sure that you can, but I don't know. Oh, you might be able to. I forgot I had this in here. Hold on, yes, you can.

Speaker 1: 7:50

All right, so sorry about that. I'm a one man show and oh, all right, brandy, thank you so much for letting me know you can hear me. So you can't be a Christian. Thank you, lauren. So you can't be a Christian and not read God's word. He commanded us to love him, to know him, and how can you profess to love Jesus if you don't read what he said to you?

Speaker 1: 8:31

Right, and again, here in 1 John, we're going to get back to the basics. John is great with the basics and I want to get into this, but you got to be in the word. Hey, melinda Mai, thank you so much, for you can hear me, I appreciate that. So we're going to be, you know, in 1 John. Okay, so 1 John, chapter one, verse one, is where we're going to be. If you want to turn to that, and I appreciate you all Well, let's get into 1 John, 1.

Speaker 1: 9:07

And I'm reading out of the English Standard Version. So you guys know, although I really love and I thank my friends over at Logos I think it's Logos Ministries I want to pull this up Got their card here somewhere. A good friend of mine over there, kaz, sent me this and it's a beautiful Legacy Standard Bible that I absolutely love and it's got Trident on the front and, look, it's got my name right there. Pretty darn cool. It's absolutely beautiful. Such a great Bible to read. It's my favorite Bible to read now. But my study notes in ESV are seconded on there, absolutely the most accurate that I found in any study Bible out there.

Speaker 1: 9:44

So let's go to this, all right, and I should be able to pull this up for you and let's see how this works. We'll go to 1 John 1. And we'll go to the Bible gateway and we'll go to the Bible gateway and that way it's on the screen just in case you don't have it where you're at. So let me share my screen, all right? So let's do this, and I'm going to move these over, because the Bible is way more important than I am. Please disregard all the ads and whatever that are on there. So okay, so let's get into this.

Speaker 1: 10:40

The word of life, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life, the life was made manifest. We have seen it and testify to it and proclaim it to you. The eternal life which was the father, which was with the father and was manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son, jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Walking in the light. Now, this is so hard to do, right? This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim it to you.

Speaker 1: 11:32

God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us I mean holy smokes If we have fellowship with him. While we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. If we do not walk the talk we profess as Christians, we are not what we say we are. We have no good in us, no light in us.

Speaker 1: 12:44

So the carnal Christians out there, of which I was one during my early stages of baby Christianity, before I had a biblical IQ, before I read the Bible, the whole way you go and you get saved and you say a prayer, a modern churchianity, and you're good to go. Many people stop there and they are not good to go. We have to read the Bible to know what we are to do and we want to read the Bible so that we are accountable to him and we're reading it with our own eyes. We're not counting on someone else, some other man, to filter it down to us, because, as you know, there's countless denominations and there's a lot of things that we disagree about. But pray to the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth to you and to help you discern what is of Him, and you'll be off to a great start.

Speaker 1: 14:06

When I get bored, I'm in a storm of life. I'm in a season of tumultuousness. The only way I get out of that is to do slow things down and to do the next right thing. Every step is one step at a time, and I just do the next right thing, no matter how complex the problem, no matter how many problems are out there and sometimes there's so many problems. You know. You just pick the lowest hanging fruit and you do the next right thing, and then you do the next right thing and you do the next right thing. But how do you know what the next right thing is? It's the next right thing According to his word. According to his word. His word is the manual for everything you know.

Speaker 1: 14:58

I've been pouring into Proverbs. Reading a Proverb, you know. A Proverb, a Psalm, you know. Most days I do an Old and New Testament, but I'm always doing a Proverb and a Psalm, because the Proverbs are packed with so much wisdom. What you're going to see, they're all going to caution you about what you say. Just you know and it seems like every other proverb is warning you about tongues what you can say, what you shouldn't say, how things that come out of you define you. So again, walk the walk, talk, don't just talk the talk, and it's hard, it's going to be one of the hardest things you ever did.

Speaker 2: 16:01

It's going to be one of the hardest things you ever did.

Speaker 1: 16:04

It's going to be one of the hardest things you ever do and it doesn't stop. But when you break it down and you make it simple read the Bible, do the next right thing, lead by example for your family Well then you'll find everything else falls in line. So that's two battles done. Let's roll into our third now, which is fellowship time. So I want to start this off. I see we got some people here, so, brandy, Strength and Honor.

Speaker 2: 16:33

Strength and Honor, strength and Honor, strength and Honor, strength and Honor, strength and honor, strength and honor, strength and honor, strength and honor, strength and honor, strength and honor, strength and honor.

Speaker 1: 16:49

Good to see you as well. So the forging this has been the hardest forging I've done, but I have stuck with it, even because I've accepted a lack of perfection, and it has been the most important one I've been on. And again I learned so much about myself. Every time I do one of these, I really see where I struggle, I see where I fail, I see where, how I get in, the problems that I get into.

Speaker 1: 17:21

And here's one thing that I can tell you If you're depressed or you're feeling down or you're miserable, work out for two weeks before you take any medication before you do anything and what you'll find out is that once you start working out and you get past that initial post-workout soreness is you're going to be running around in a much more positive mindset than you were when you weren't. I can't tell you, even though it's the first thing to go always with me, that when I work out and when I am bettering myself and I invest in myself in that way, it starts an avalanche of good decisions for the day, because it required discipline to do it. I did it in spite of not wanting to do it usually or not having enough time and a million things and having to prioritize and putting other things off. But, man, it makes all the difference in the world and you know it doesn't have to be hard stuff every day. You don't have to go out there and, like CrossFit, crush it or anything like that.

Speaker 1: 18:41

I'm just going and walking for 30 minutes or an hour, going to the gym, and maybe it's not your best day, so you're not hitting it hard, but you're going in there and you're moving the needle forward, you're moving the ball down the field. So important. So important because you know I was talking to my wife, lauren, who, god bless her, she's the most patient woman on earth. You know I get up every morning, I say my prayers before my feet hit the floor and I go out and start the mentality with, hey, we're going to crush this day. And then, once my feet hit the floor, the pain starts, like you know pain in my knees, pain in my back, and it starts grounding away at my peace and, let's say, the kids were playing or whatever.

Speaker 1: 19:38

Whatever we have a busy life. You come out and kids got stuff everywhere doing whatever toys, clothes, whatever because we're a working farm and we're running in a million directions and we still haven't even unpacked. And we've been here almost four years all the way, and we got a basement full of stuff that we need to unpack still.

Speaker 1: 20:02

but you know, you come into the kitchen, get your cup of coffee and I've got multiple house renovations that I've done, where I've done the hard stuff you know, I put in the sliding, the French doors in the kitchen, I've replaced the walls with shiplap, but I haven't done the trim, or I go in the bathroom and I haven't done that trim, or I haven't done the quarter round, and all that stuff and every imperfection starts chipping away at my sanity, starts chipping away at my standard, starts chipping away at my peas, and then when you roll in, you know, start doing farm stuff and you're like man, we're not doing the chickens right. You know we're only getting 10 to 20% of our eggs because the chickens are free ranging and laying them everywhere else and we're just wasting money. You start seeing everything that's wrong. Then we can't seem to find dog collars that work the darn on our livestock guardian dogs, so now they're just outdoor pet dogs not doing their job right now. They bark and they've kept things away, but they're not free-ranging our property with appropriate collars right now because we haven't found a system that works.

Speaker 1: 21:31

But you get my point. You start seeing all these things in your life and you've got your own. You've got your own things that you haven't finished or you're not doing right. You're not doing 10 out of 10. And if you're a perfectionist or heck, just someone who wants to be good at what you do. It can be crushing. It can be crushing.

Speaker 1: 21:54

So you know, today I sat down with Lauren, you know and this is part family and this is part fundamentals and I'm like what is one thing I can do today? Right, because today's Saturday I got to get ready for church. Tomorrow, you know, I had to do this podcast. I promised my girls that I would do a movie and popcorn with them. I promised my girls that I would do a movie and popcorn with them, and you know so my day is rapidly evaporating and I'm like I need to do something to advance. Can I fix one problem today? Can I permanently fix one problem today to take it off our plates? So one distractor against our peace, my peace anyways, my sanity can be done. And there I was. And God is faithful, he provided one.

Speaker 1: 22:47

One of our Highland half Highland cows, um, is itchy right now. He must've picked up some mites, whatever we're treating it, but he was itching on our barbed wire fence line. We got some wooden posts and then tripods, because they're on corners, and he itched his back on those and lifted it right out of the ground. Now it just so happens we had a tree come down that collapsed, some of our barbed wire fence and we had put temporary electric wire around it and you know, today that was a nice three, four hour project where I went out there with my chainsaw and I just had somebody sharpened not too long ago and I went out there and I went to work and I started cutting down wood and trimming up the path and next thing, you know, I'm out there and I'm clearing debris off the old fence line and then I'm restringing the Bob wire and I pounded the post back in and it felt good man. And now when I look out of my fence I'm not going to see that tree taking down that wire and then the electric fence around it and all that stuff. I can sit there and say job well done.

Speaker 1: 24:01

I have reclaimed a part of chaos in my life and I moved the ball.

Speaker 1: 24:06

That was low hanging fruit and there are other projects that we need to do.

Speaker 1: 24:10

We need to do all kinds of different things, but that is just one example in my life where I was raging like raging at the chaos. And you know, I just come back from a walk with Lauren, with our livestock guardian dogs who are having to walk twice a day because we're not letting them run at night because our you know the radio collars they have suck and I hope Lauren can type the name of that Brandon here so we can let them know that they suck. And then we also bought an extremely expensive satellite GPS collar one of those and that doesn't work very well. So we're going to hardline collars where we are going to put the line along our cow fence. We're going to string it along there and the dogs will be able to run the 10 acres all day, all night on there and if they cross that line like an invisible fence, they'll get zapped and that'll work. And then they'll be doing what they're supposed to and their quality of life will be amazing and I'll be able to feel better about it.

Speaker 1: 25:22

But when you have a farm, a business, a farm and a business, a farm, a business, a ministry, a church, a family, all these things, and you guys have your own. Everything you don't do right or is broken will wear at your sanity and it's going to chip away until you're raging inferno. You is to pick the lowest hanging fruit and make progress and then the next day pick something else. Then the next day pick something else, right, Whether it's, you know, trash in your yard, trash on your street, whatever assaults your peace. Every time you walk by stuff, grab one piece in each hand and bring it in and put it in the trash. You know, whatever it takes to get back to peace. And remember the doorway, the opportunity of doorways.

Speaker 1: 26:38

As you've been listening to me for a while, you know that I recommend that you treat a door every time you leave a room like you're at the dinner table you got to go to the restroom, or you're with your kids and your family in the morning. You got to go to the restroom. When you go in the restroom, reflect You're like was I light in that room? Like John's talking about, was I light in that room? Like john's talking about, was I light in that room. Did I brighten that room or did I darken that room? And what you're going to find more often than not is you were darking, you were, you were darkening the room. So when you leave that room and you come back, use that doorway as a reset to come in and be a light in that room.

Speaker 1: 27:22

Usually what I do when I'm doing that and I noticed that as I put on some uplifting Christian music and then I make sure I make eye contact with people around me and start talking to my kids and playing with them, or talking to my wife and seeing that, or helping declutter, or assisting, or just trying to talk about something that she cares about or what my kids care about. You know, but you're fine if you do that, it's going to make you super accountable, like super accountable when every time you leave a room, you grade yourself on whether you were darkness or light in the room or if you were brightening or darkening the room, and you'll find that the more that you're light in the room, the more people are going to want you around, and this is even outside of work. I mean outside of the home. It also has to do with work. Lauren is calling in. Hello, hold on, I'm going to put you on air here, hold on. This is great, all right, hello.

Speaker 3: 28:52

Hello, I think I have Go ahead over me in the background. Can you hear me?

Speaker 1: 28:58

I can hear you. Thank you for calling in, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3: 29:02

Oh, you're so welcome. I was just listening to what you were talking about and I had my own perspective on tackling the chaos and all that stuff, and it's certainly been a problem for me as well. And what I am trying to make myself do is break things down into way smaller goals than you might initially put on the paper. Like I'm a list maker, I love my list. So you have the to-do list of everything that you want to accomplish and you say clean the junk drawers or clean the kitchen or declutter the counters or whatever it is, Clean the basement and those inevitably, are bites that are way too big to chew in one realistic setting.

Speaker 3: 29:58

So I have reduced it down to one drawer, one cabinet, one countertop versus all of them, all the windows, all the, you know. Just break the category down into like one little section of the category and it has made it so much easier to accomplish that goal. Feel so happy that I accomplished that goal and motivate to move on to the next one. Like I can't tell you how much I love cabinet now, because it was just one thing and you know I didn't say okay, I need to organize all the cabinets.

Speaker 3: 30:42

it was what do I need to do to make this one thing, that I'm in there so many times a day cooking? And so I got my little lazy Susans and tackled that it took me 20 minutes and then it's done, instead of saying I need to do all the cabinets today or I need to declutter the kitchen, like that's never going to happen if I put that on my list. So, um, it's helped a lot to break it down to like, yeah, literally what one drawer can I do, or one shelf, or what one window it could even be one window or one wall I could that every surface needs to be cleaned and it never gets done if. If you say you need to do all of, I think you need to do all of it.

Speaker 1: 31:24

one so have you found like a sweet spot of time, like a 5, 10, 15, 20 minute project, like I know it's probably there is variable based upon what you have, but what is the smallest amount of time that you've been able to find one step to make it better? I mean?

Speaker 3: 31:43

five minutes is enough to like I'll look out the same dirty window, like from the sink. I look at the window that has the water spots all over it from the sink splashing, or the window sill that's right there. That's like grimy from all of the sink splashing and you can take five minutes just to be able to clean one window or clean that one window sill, and then you can cross that one off the list for however long it takes to build back up, which in our case is not very long. But five minutes is enough to accomplish that versus the oh, I'm going to wait until I can have time to clean all the windows or whatever. So you can actually do a lot in five minutes to give you an immense amount of peace and motivation to.

Speaker 3: 32:30

I did something today.

Speaker 3: 32:38

I did something today.

Speaker 3: 32:38

But I think it's it's uh, the conversation that we were having earlier today of you know you, you get out of bed all happy and motivated and then you look around and you see all of this stuff and I asked you cause like can you, can you go through that once, like the acknowledgement of I see all this stuff and then not reset that mood every day that you walk out into the same chaos.

Speaker 3: 32:57

I think that's something that I've tried to work on, because I can relate to the anxiety that comes from living in a cluttered place, a place that's just not, in any shape or form, the way we would want it to be, in any shape or form, the way we would want it to be, and you have to work so hard to not go back to, like, acceptance level zero every day. You know you have to do that once. You have to mourn where you are and go through all the grief process and then start from the end of that process in the next morning of the. Okay, I know exactly what I need to do to make one ounce of progress today, and then one more ounce, and one more ounce and it just grows on itself. But you're gonna, you you shoot yourself in the foot, morally and otherwise, if you go back every day with the same open eyes of oh my gosh, this is overwhelming.

Speaker 1: 33:57

Well, there was also some mercy that God gave me today. So I've been lamenting. You know, I've done one wall over in Shiplap, which is where we also put the French doors in, and the intersecting wall which runs along the kitchen table I had not yet and I've been lamenting that, and today I was just moving stuff around and our one plus year old son is right next to the wall which I would move.

Speaker 1: 34:27

I would immediately move that if I had done that wall. But I looked at what he's done to that wall by being there and that is in his food explosion radius, which I didn't realize. We had an ex food explosion radius, but gus has our son, gus magnus luther is one and when he eats he splatters it everywhere. Would you agree with that? Yeah, hold on. You switch your back on smacking liquid. Yeah, from smacking liquids and splattering it everywhere. And I'm like, oh, my god, I would have been absolutely crushed if I put up this really nice wood wall and it was covered with this stuff. Yeah, so lesson learned, I'm glad I didn't and I saw that and I'm like, okay, cause that would have, that would have crushed me, you know, so, um, so I, you know, I think there's also, you know now there are times when I've been like just fuming or whatever, and I walked by and I'll see something that should be done, and I'm like I didn't do that, I'm not picking that up, and I'm like all I do is just add to the chaos.

Speaker 3: 36:00

So now if I see something I don't agree with, I'm addressing it, and you know, and hopefully making a dent in taking back the house from chaos. It certainly has to be a team effort. If it's, each person says, well, I didn't cause it, therefore I'm not addressing it, then we get nowhere, which I think is the case for most things family related yeah, particularly when you have a one-year-old, a three-year-old and a five and a half-year-old, so um, which they're finally becoming very helpful human beings.

Speaker 1: 36:23

And you know that there there is that part but man holding it down with three kids, five and under. You know, you parents out there who can maintain a, you know, a museum-like house? God bless you. I don't know how you do it well, everyone has different factors.

Speaker 3: 36:42

It's very tempting to look at other people's snapshots that they show you and say, wow, they have like mop looking floors or their socks don't turn around when they walk on the floor or whatever. Then you're like okay, well, they probably don't live in the tennessee muck, the farm and three giant dogs and all this stuff. And, yeah, we could do better about taking our shoes off at the door and all that. But they are not dealing with an apples to apples scenario. So I'm not. I can't ask the apples. My, you know how. I'm not.

Speaker 3: 37:15

I can't compare myself to that, but it does take a mental shift to be motivated by people who are doing something clearly better or they've figured out a system that works better. Instead of just either being envious or hating them for it or make it make you more bitter about your own situation, you can. I think I'm choosing to be motivated anytime I see be like wow, they're crushing it. They clearly have figured out that it can be done, so that means I can figure out that it can be done. What do I need to do to make that happen?

Speaker 1: 37:53

exactly. So I I know we get a big event coming up here at not like public event but personal event coming up here on the homestead and we're going to shift from kind of just the pillar of family to foundations or fundamentals. How you know, I know we have Moki. You want to explain who Moki?

Speaker 3: 38:18

is. I get to talk about cows, now you get to talk about I told her today, I literally told her before the show you can call in and talk about cows.

Speaker 1: 38:22

I'm not going to talk about cows now you get to talk about. I told her today, I literally told her before the show you can call in and talk about cows. I'm not going to talk about cows any other time, but on air, so go ahead.

Speaker 3: 38:32

Well, I've been sharing I don't know. I've been sharing the journey on Instagram stories for the small minority who might see it there. For the small minority who might see it there. Yeah, it's a first for me and for the farm, therefore, that we have a milk cow who's about to have her first baby. So therefore, she has never been milked before and I have never milked a cow that's never been milked before. So we are on this ride together and I'm just crossing my fingers and saying a prayer because once they have their baby, like you have to milk them. There's no other choice.

Speaker 3: 39:17

So she is a cow that was somewhat feral up until like halfway of her pregnancy. She was raised by her mom. We've really been doing a good job at kind of getting hands-on with her, so she was very nervous. She got bred by our bull so we didn't have to be hands-on with, like, doing artificial insemination or anything like that. So it's only recently that she's even been handled, getting used to being handled.

Speaker 3: 39:43

So I managed to get a halter on her, teach her how to kind of respect head pressure and things like that, and in the couple of weeks that I've had of not milking another cow, I've been able to focus on trying to teach her to come up into the milking area and stuff, and she's done really really well, considering how much has been thrown at her. But I'm still very nervous for the when it actually happens, because you don't you don't mess with their udder at all, like before the milk comes in, they have the baby and all of that. So like I can't practice putting the machine on her, I don't have putting the machine on her, so hold on If I can see how I can get her to. I don't have the video up at all, so I know she's going to come in right now.

Speaker 1: 40:29

This is your, so here she comes. Let me see here.

Speaker 3: 40:35

Are you playing an audio?

Speaker 1: 40:36

I'm not playing the audio, I'm just showing you the field right now where it does a closed captioning. But Mocha in the field right now where it does the closed captioning. But Mocha I can't figure out how to go backwards in Instagram on a PC, but Mocha is a half Holstein, half Jersey cow and she's got big old horns Right. So you know, and she was kind of feral and I was pretty nervous with it, but you've done a real. This is her right here. There you go. So this is Mocha in the stanchion today. You've got her tied off and she's not digging that too much, but you can see her, she, she really is doing well.

Speaker 3: 41:26

She is. So I'm hoping that continues. Obviously, once they've had the baby and hormones, then they're uncomfortable because, just like humans, when your milk comes in you get swollen and edema and it's uncomfortable. So that pain and nervous and all of that stuff is going to change things for the first week or so. Um, so we're just going to remain optimistic. Um, we are.

Speaker 3: 41:56

I am currently planning to take the baby away so that I'm not dealing with like mama bear syndrome as she's figuring out how to be a mom and wanting to protect the baby or save all of her milk for the baby, because cows will not let down their milk either at all or completely for the person if they are trying to save it for their baby and that can just make milking complicated and I just don't want to deal with that for a first time. Cow that we're all figuring this out, maybe you would go okay, maybe she would be great at it, but for now the plan is to take the baby away, milk mocha and then bottle feed the baby that milk. If it's a girl heifer calf we likely will keep it. If it's a boy a bull calf we probably would sell it.

Speaker 1: 42:54

Um, so we'll see just, it just makes you you know, in the beginning, when cows like you know everyone is ridiculous, they're like oh, cows are really friendly. It's like it really depends on the breed, right? I mean, our cows have never been abused, they've never been whatever, and they just spook, right?

Speaker 3: 43:19

Yeah, I wouldn't have actually, I mean my default. I wouldn't say that cows are friendly. I wouldn't not in the way like you think of horses and stuff, but I I guess it probably for both horses and cows it would go down to just like what is their experience from? I think horses just tend to be handled more. The cows are more synopsis. They're not aggressive, but they're just like I'm good, like you, give me my bubble like you'll be there, I'll be here and we're fine because, yeah, karen's been here for three years now and she's still.

Speaker 1: 43:50

She doesn't want you to touch her right and like she's never had a bad day on this farm ever. Right, and you know, and like you know, I guess I find in the summer, when we're giving them apples more, that they tend to tolerate us more and we'll let you rub on them or whatever, but outside of, like Wally who we had, who was a Highland who just loved being rubbed on and brushed and all that stuff.

Speaker 3: 44:17

Gracie loved her cuddles too. That's true, she was a personable one. Yeah, maples's like whatever, leave me alone. Yeah, um, she's, she's mocha's mom and she's got a toad. Um, mocha, seems. I mean she, she stopped, like if I scratch her and stuff, she'll stop and kind of enjoy it versus walk away from it. So she's got potential, more so than I actually expected.

Speaker 1: 44:44

How's Honey come along? For those of you who don't know, honey is Gracie's baby. She's half Black Angus, half Jersey, and you know she's always seemed more social.

Speaker 3: 45:01

Yeah, I mean, she's had less than Mocha, she's she like she'll let me pet all over her and stuff. Um, we find out in about two weeks now I think. Yeah, because she was so she was. We don't have a bull on property anymore, so she was artificially inseminated finally, I think a week ago, and that went so well I was able to get off. It went, yeah, really well we are.

Speaker 3: 45:30

So we are a homestead that got ahead of our fees as far as, like, animal first, infrastructure second, and so we've gotten away with it. And then, like, a certain situation will come up. They're like, well, crap, we don't really have a way to do that. And then it makes things take away longer than they should as far as efficiency goes. Um, so I I probably would have wanted to get her bread a couple of months ago but it just didn't happen. But finally got a halter on her, figured out a place, a way to secure her. Jason's idea of to the winch of his truck worked great and she was, she was polite and she did it. So we'll find out, um in a couple of weeks. If she doesn't apparently cycle again, then we'll assume that she took um and so that would be a November baby. Now we are, I'll get to do it all over again now we have been downsizing our operation.

Speaker 1: 46:24

We our first two years here. It rained a lot and we had a ton of, we had almost double the cow. Well, we had over double the cows. We have now, at one point on this property, 15, and we were up to 15 at one point and now we're down to six right now. Now we have six and, um, you know, that's about right for the, for the 10 acres we have yeah, I was actually so.

Speaker 3: 46:54

I was just so. I've done increasing amount of research on regenerative farming, regenerative grazing, rotational grazing, all of those kind of buzzword things that really do. They have their place and their purpose. And we excessively overgrazed our field for a solid year and a half, two years, and just didn't manage it properly. And so there are calculations out there on kind of cow acres or cow days, I think they say.

Speaker 3: 47:30

It's like so how many pounds of livestock can you have per square foot, square yard per acre, kind of whatever size you're working with, per acre, kind of whatever size you're working with, just based on your space, and you want to have a minimum of 30 days rest period for each section. So you take the total amount of square feet per yard per acres that you're working with divided by how many sections you like a minimum of 30 sections or more and there's calculations on kind of figuring out exactly what square footage you need for the amount of pounds of animals that you're working with. Or this is the square foot I have for a day. So, therefore, how many pounds of animals can I have for a day? So therefore, how many pounds of animals can I put on? And so I was running our calculation and it's like homeschooling homestead math, you know this is instead of algebra and calculus and useless math that kids get. This is what my kids are going to be learning.

Speaker 3: 48:41

But so in the we're like 1,000 to 1,500 pounds of animals, more than what would be ideal for our field, especially to let it recover. So that would be downsizing. Another cow or two we can squeak it. I just don't have as much wiggle room with the exact poundage. I figured that we're about 5,800 pounds of cows currently with this, four adult cows and two youth that we have soon to be potentially three youth. So we're actually a little over still, which it seems like we have so few, but we're not quite at the field happy place to let the grass recover and improve well, and I think that also depends on moisture levels too, right like yeah, that's all.

Speaker 3: 49:42

Yeah, there's the factors of what kind of last summer was horrible. Yeah, we had to hit during last summer and that was so you need to, like I, if we had been on top of it more. If I had been on top of it more, it would have been. Well, I would have started practicing this rotational earlier, because I did see the benefits almost immediately when I started it, but that was like end of summer that I finally got my act together on it and then show either keep the movement, hanging them more aggressively, or pulling them off the field into a sacrifice area more aggressively to let the grass catch up on itself, or you downsize your herd more aggressively when you're dealing with environmental conditions that are out of your control.

Speaker 1: 50:30

Right. Well, I appreciate you calling in and and talking cows and, you know, dealing with chaos in the house. So love you, babe.

Speaker 3: 50:43

Talk to you later, love you Good night everybody.

Speaker 1: 50:47

So, again, we're going to start taking calls and I really hope a lot of people do start calling in. We're going to start that next week. I'm going to really push it. I'm going to probably schedule a few people to call in, you know, again, cause I really want this show to be a community show and, again, we don't always have to talk about homesteading. Homesteading is just one topic and that you know as Christian warriors that we need to do, we have to be self-sufficient. The other is tactics, and boy have I been doing a lot of active shooter stuff lately and I can't wait to talk about that and we're going to talk about that. Um, we'll talk a little bit about now and we'll talk a lot about it next week.

Speaker 1: 51:24

So, for those of you guys who don't know, who haven't watched, what pays the bills here is Trident Shield. Trident Shield is my security consulting, emergency preparedness company that I do for you know, schools, christian businesses, you know anyone, and the Lord has blessed us and we have been doing very well with Christian schools and we're very thankful for those organizations who trust us with their kids and with their teachers and their staff and everyone else, and it has been a dream to work with them and we're so, so thankful Actor Shooter isn't going anywhere. I think it's going to just continue to get worse until we turn back to God. But as we, as I, as I, travel around the country whether I'm in Cal, you know how you deal with this problem in California is very different than how you deal with it in Tennessee or Florida, versus Massachusetts states, blue states that just totally neuter your ability to have, you know, armed personnel on property to deal with things. But even if you are in a state like a red state, where you can arm your teachers or have armed security staff, et cetera, et cetera, you still should be training everyone and you still should be training your older and you still should be training your, your older kids, because you don't know where it's going to happen, you don't know how how it's going to happen, you don't know who's who's going to get injured, who's going to go down, and everyone in an active shooter needs to know exactly what to do. So again, you know I'm the previous episodes I've been leaning heavily on prepping talk on bugging out, on prepping in your house and how to do all that stuff. But you know, next week we're going to talk about active shooter more and uh and and and help you um understand how you should be solving that problem right and for your workplace. Whether your, your company, doesn't train you, um, if you're still in the workplace and you're not working from home, um to where your kid goes, what you should do for your kid? Um, again, you should be training them or getting them training.

Speaker 1: 53:59

I'm not saying that you need to be an active shooter expert and train them, but you should be, you know, getting training for them, because what happens in most schools is terrible. You know we, we train companies all around or schools all around the nation, and everyone after they go through our training is like you know, I've been doing this for 20 years, a teacher for 20 years, I've been in so many different school districts and this is the first training where I actually feel like you know, I know what to do now and that is, but that is. That is unfortunately not the exception. That is the rule that we see that most people count on police departments to train and most PDs have no idea what they're doing. They don't know how to train people. They go through a government training session, which the government does nothing well, and they have their very cookie-cutter active shooter course they teach. That is horrible, versus a specialist who has been doing this for 10 plus years and is constantly thinking outside the box and helping people deal with challenging scenarios, challenging situations.

Speaker 1: 55:14

Um, instead of just run, hide, fight. Well, I just told you the entire state federal plan and doesn't tell you how to fight, doesn't tell you how to run and doesn't tell you how to hide, um, so so again, you know, the skills that we teach in active shooter always work well across the board on in all aspects of your life. So, um, that's all I wanted to cover tonight. Um, I just wanted to tease that out. We're going to cover Active Shooter pretty heavy next week and I'm going to have some other people call in and I really, really appreciate you guys. God bless you and I will see you tomorrow. Happy Lord's Day and I'll see you tomorrow at church, 11 am. All right, bye.

Speaker 4: 56:00

Thank you for standing shoulder to shoulder with us in today's Spiritual Vanguard on Christian Warrior Talk, presented by Christian Warrior Mission. As we've united in prayer, let's hold fast to the truth in Nehemiah 4.14. Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives and your homes. Until next time, let's keep a humble and grateful heart, deliberately pursue our relationship with our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ, and equip ourselves with the full armor of God. You're not walking this path alone. Lock shields with us and together we will hold the line. May God bless you all. Christian Warrior Talk is sponsored by Trident Shield, your trusted ally in violence preparedness. May God bless you all.