Episode 146: Paul Hinlicky on Farming

In a monumental third interview, we venture into the fascinating world of Paul Hinlicky, a multifaceted individual who wears two significant hats: farmer and theologian. Join us as we explore the compelling narrative of how he embarked on this unique path, the intricacies of his agricultural endeavors, and the profound intersection between his Christian faith, particularly within the Lutheran tradition, and the art of farming. This conversation promises to be a captivating exploration of faith, agriculture, and the meaningful synergy between the two in Paul's life.

Timestamps:

4:14- The Blessing of Getting Your Hands Dirty

9:31- Regenerative Agriculture

26:44- Killing, Harvesting, and Nature

41:23- Farming and Theology

Episode Transcript:

Charles Kim 0:01

Hello and welcome to A History of Christian Theology. My name is Chad Kim. This week I'll be talking with Dr. Paul Henley key. I've spoken with Dr. Han Lickey, record breaking three times. So this is the third time I've had a guest on the podcast. And Dr. Henley key and I are going to talk today about his farm in Virginia. So this podcast is a little bit of a departure from my typical interviews. Some of you may remember I interviewed Jacob wood on his farm in Ohio. And he and what sort of he saw is the overlap between theology and farming, believe that one was last summer. But this summer, I found that Dr. Hickey also runs about 30 cattle that are at a sort of a ranch farm and over 100 acres in Virginia, and I was very curious about how he saw the overlap between his work in farming and the life of a theologian. So just as little disclaimer, some of you may be less interested in that. But I found the conversation very stimulating, and very helpful to think about the overlap sort of aura and lavora, as the Benedictines would say, that is prayer and work. So how does one you know think about both of these tasks, sort of the active life and the contemplative life and the theological tradition. We have several episodes that are due out here in the coming months, we'll be talking to Dr. Benjamin Laird about the creation of the canon, Dr. Andrew Hofer about the power of patristic preaching, and a few other things. If you would please be so kind, if you want to go to www.patreon.com/a, hocked H. O C T, we are trying to raise some funds to pay for some of our upcoming costs. And trying to help grant Bell chamber out who's been my assistant helping me work work on this podcast, and he's done a lot of groundwork. So just trying to, you know, keep the show going, and help grant as he finishes school. So if you would be so kind to donate even $1. You know, I like to say that if every person who donated donated even just or every person who listened, donated, even just $1, we would have enough to cover our costs. Well, well above enough just to cover our costs. So if you think about it, $1 on Patreon, for each listener would go a long way. Yeah, we'll have some more stuff coming up about that, I think we're going to do a book giveaway, and a few other things to try to sort of get the word out about the podcast. So be looking out for that. This has been a longer than normal introduction. And I want to say thank you to all of our faithful listeners. And people who have commented rated the podcast reviewed. Grant and I are just blown away by how many people listen and enjoy the podcast. So we're just so grateful for this group of people that have are enjoying, you know, thinking deeply about their faith. All right, so here's my conversation with Dr. Paul Han licky. Well, today I have the pleasure of speaking again with Dr. Paul hidden lucky. And Dr. Him lucky and I have spoken about his book on Stefano, su ski. We've talked about his book on divine complexity. And then we became friends on Facebook. And I saw that he was also a farmer. I've done one other podcast with a guy who's a medieval theologian in Ohio, and also has a small family kind of farm. And, and we talked about at one time, Jacob wood. So and then, you know, if people listen closely, you'll know that that I get really interested about, you know, sort of questions about food and agriculture, in in some other podcasts. But I wanted to talk to Dr. Hidden lucky about his his farm because it seemed particularly I mean, it's 100 acres a big farm. And I don't know, I had no idea I just thought of you as a, you know, as an academic theologian, I'm like, Oh, he's got this whole other life.

Paul Hinlicky 4:14

Well, I'll tell you, Chad, I'm also of course, been a pastor. And when you spend your entire life, dealing with people, whether it's pastorally with their issues and concerns and problems, or when you're a professor, dealing with students and their issues and concerns, and the rest of your life is spent, like you can see in the background of my screen here, just like yours, buried in books, and composition, writing and so forth. getting your hands dirty is a blessing relief.

Charles Kim 4:51

Absolutely. i Yeah, well, and just I'm a suburban kid. So like all of this I think part of the reason it fascinates me is Because, yeah, we were not, you know, we did not have our hands in the soil, I had to mow the lawn. And so then even that would annoy me. And now I actually I realized that this year, and last year when we first got our chickens, that I could just dump all the grass into the chicken coop, and we kind of do some composting, but they can eat the grass, as it as it was composting. And I was like, Well, this is great. Now my lawn actually has like, a purpose. It helps. And, you know, so I kind of learned to appreciate that. But even that work with my hands when I was doing all the you know, when I do my academic stuff, you're right, it is nice to see something, you know, that you've made kind of and and yeah,

Paul Hinlicky 5:45

there's not so much deferred gratification, as there is an academic work.

Charles Kim 5:50

Right, right. But you've already

Paul Hinlicky 5:53

got the essence of it right there. The kind of agriculture that's needed, I think, in terms of Christian social responsibility and land stewardship is can simply be trade its term nowadays regenerative agriculture, and it's based upon the natural cycle, in which livestock in your, in your case chickens, that consumes vegetation, and then process it and poops out fertilizer all over the place. And that is, in essence, the cycle that you need. So every year Chad, I, with my tractor, I scoop up the remnants of the hay feeding of the cattle during the winter. And I push that into a big pile to compost all summer long through the heat season. And then in the fall, I truck it all over into my garden, and dump it and kind of scatter or break it up somewhat into my garden. And at that point, when the garden is done growing, I released the chickens into the garden, and let them scratch it all winter long. Yeah. And so by the time I tilt it into the soil, in the spring to start the garden, I don't ever have to buy a chemical fertilizer at all, it's all right there, increasing the health of the soil.

Charles Kim 7:26

And just, again, sort of like I have just like lots of curious questions, how big is your garden,

Paul Hinlicky 7:34

I would say it's about a third of an acre, you know, it's not the I learned a long time ago, something that's called intensive gardener. And intensive gardening means that you have such rich soil, so nutrient rich, that you sow your vegetables very close together, okay, so that as they grow, they shade out the weeds. Now we do use black plastic mulch on things like tomatoes and peppers, because that retains moisture and it concentrates heat and sometimes with some other crops too. But basically by by intensively gardening, you can control weeds through the canopy, that's the vegetables themselves create.

Charles Kim 8:31

That makes sense. Yeah. And I mean, speaking of, you know, the, like, we just have chickens, but we like and, and I like we first had chickens, we were feeding them grain. And that was you know, that was all I knew to do. And then I started reading about composting and things and we've got a bag and I'm growing a wall like we're growing watermelons out of like one of our feed bags that's made entirely from chicken compost. I got a joking I've got a picture up that I send my family and stuff and I was like I'm growing a watermelon and chicken poop. And I was like, I know I wrote a dissertation but honestly, like the idea that you know, like I we've got no fertilizer, we got no pesticide we got none of that. It's just what's leftover from when the chickens process the grass and other things. And then they turn over the Browns that I have in there with them. Put them all in a bag and now watermelons are growing I can't believe

Paul Hinlicky 9:28

you know, you know I'm up Slavic background. So we love our sauerkraut which in our language is called Kapuso. Okay. And there's a kind of cabbage called the Murdoch it's a variety of cabbage called the Murdoch and it looks like a conehead. You know from the Saturday Night Live Coneheads share. That's how it grows. It's very, very common in Europe. That's where we first learned about it, but it makes the most delicate, delicious and crisp I'm sauerkraut. Okay, so we just just to illustrate on the chicken fertilizer business, we cleaned out the coop last summer and spread the this compost in an area. We had three rows of this cabbage and broccoli. And we produced out of that patch 25 quarts of sour kraut that are now in our garage refrigerator, waiting for our consumption.

Charles Kim 10:35

That's crazy. We actually I mean, I know we are you. So you're in Virginia, right? So you're and we're in Missouri. I don't remember if we're in the same growing season. Are we five B? I think maybe

Paul Hinlicky 10:46

we're in seven a I think, okay.

Charles Kim 10:51

And so, but we actually, we had not done a lot of broccoli, we got broccoli, Rob, that grew very well. But our broccoli, we could not get to really to produce the we got lots of leaves, but not the sort of the I'm gonna call it fruit, but the vegetable? Wasn't sure what happened. But

Paul Hinlicky 11:09

do you have to? Do you have the problem with cabbage worms attacking them?

Charles Kim 11:14

We do sometimes we have to be pretty vigilant about we use diatomaceous earth sometimes and some other stuff to try to limit that. But yeah, we were kind of we're I mean, it's you know, it's a small enough garden, I think, you know, we've less than a quarter acre or something. But like in terms of our backyard, so but my wife is often in there trying to do a lot of that stuff by hand.

Paul Hinlicky 11:35

You know, our the trick we learned about that was to buy agricultural fabric, which is the kind of white fabric that goes over hoop houses, you know, and you got to get a little bit heavier weave the kind that they use in the colder weather. But you can simply drape that over your your your brassicas, and egg plants to get attacked terribly by bugs, just just cover them. And you can then use ground staples to secure that around the perimeter that keeps all the insects out. And the rain and the sun comes right through it grows right up under this cover. Okay? Never have to use any pesticides.

Charles Kim 12:20

Interesting. Awesome. Well, so how? Okay, so you've been telling me a little bit about regenerative agriculture, it follows the cycles of, of the sort of the natural processes. So how did you? I mean, were you always involved in this? Like, what did you always have an interest in this? How did you start learning about regenerative agriculture and practicing it?

Paul Hinlicky 12:43

You're when we were kids, my father bought an abandoned dairy farm in upstate New York. And we spent our summers up there, and that always kind of instilled in me this love of the country. And when I was a graduate student in New York City at Union seminary, you know, the city life really started getting to me, and I, I longed to be up, my parents retired up to that place. So with my mother, I started a garden up there. And that got me really interested. And at that time, Chad, I read the book of Helen and Scott nearing, okay, Helen and Scott nearing, who were a couple of socialists in New York City area, in the 20s and 30s, I think. And during the Great Red Scare, they decided to get out of New York City and they bought an abandoned farm in Vermont or New Hampshire, I don't remember which. And the whole book is how they, they turned this into a sustainable living for themselves. They had the formula of four hours Bread, bread, money for hours, recreation, or, or personal pursuits, like reading and for our social time. And that was how they divided up their day. And then they became kind of a cult like center for all these young people, hippies of my generation, looking for an alternative to the suburban lifestyle that you described in the beginning. So that was kind of my inspiration way back when. And when we moved to Toronto College in 1999. We bought a house in the suburbs, and I felt like I was in a gilded cage from the get go. And I started looking for con land in the country. And we were lucky enough to stumble across this more narrow mountain farm of land and start buying it piece by piece. And in 2005, we built our greenhouse up here, I say green, not because it's colored green, but because we followed a lot of ecological principles. Okay, burning it into the north side and exposing it to sunlight. On the south side, we have a large solar system that produces 1500 kilowatts per month. So virtually all of our energy needs are come from the solar panel. It's got 18 inch walls that are kind of in styrofoam injected with concrete. It's very, very well insulated. So that and we've lived here ever since. And how did I get involved in farming? We lived here for a number of years, and I began thinking about what I could do with the land. And I realized that with a little bit of work, I would have 20 to 25 acres of pasture land. Now I don't have any hay land, I don't have land for cutting my own hay. So I would have to buy hay for the winter. But I could work on these pastures. And over time, makes them productive enough and stockpiling grass to graze them into the winter months, that I could really minimize the importing of hay. It was pointed out to me, Chad, that when you're buying that hay to feed the cattle in the winter, you're also buying fertilizer that you can spread, you know. So I said, well, it makes a lot of sense. So that's and I want to just say something ecologically about this because there's a lot of nonsense being propagated about beef being a source of methane and, and greenhouse gases. Now, I don't doubt that's true in these vast industrial dairies or are stockyards were they're stuffed with corn or or non non natural diets to increase their industrial production. Yep. So I think there's a critique to be made there. Though, of course, if you abolish that you'd starve half the population in a couple of years, or make them meat solely in green. But but with with with my kind of regenerative agriculture, the grasslands are themselves a huge carbon sink. They just, they suck carbon in and they store it, and they don't release it, which is different from cropland, which is different from the industrial agricultural model. So what we do then is we put our small herd, we have a breed called Dexter's, which evolved in Ireland. So they're very self sufficient. They birth very easily. They're used to the cold weather, they can live in cold weather. They don't need to be put in shelters during the winter. And they're very docile, biddable. So it's a very easy breed for a small farmers like me to use. And what we do, it's called rotational grazing, we just move them from one limited section to another limited section, right around in a big, big, big circle all grazing season long, so that by the time they returned to the beginning of the circle, that patch of pasture has had weeks to rest and regenerate. And so you never exhausted and you just keep spreading the the fertilizer all around, and over time and creases, the health of the pastures.

Charles Kim 18:47

Yeah. Interesting. I just it just reminded me, you're talking about the fertilizer i and i was just laughing thinking about I read a book by Jean Logsdon called Holy shit. And it's just about all the different ways, you know, he goes through all the different ways that you can use various kinds of animal fertilizer, and he talks about the subject. So different stuff that I don't know as much. But he also tells a story about the fact that like, I guess, he says, in the turn, I think is the 19th or 20th century in China, that people were locking up their manure, because that was the only way to fertilize before industrial fertilization efforts. And so like people were as protective of the manure from their animals as the animals themselves. It was so valuable, which I just think is an amazing kind of story.

Paul Hinlicky 19:43

Yeah, really? Yeah, we, we really believe it's been. It's really been successful for us, and we get to feed. I don't know it's hard to divide it up a bit. Between our chickens and eggs, and honey, and beef. And if I were capable of it, I could do milk as well. But I'm not because I had a stroke and in my left hand doesn't work and I can't Milk the Cow. But if I could do the milk as well, we'll just put that out of the, I just wanted to say we feed 11 or 12 families out of our farm, yet the most nutritious and tasty food. It's it's, it's, for us very satisfying that we can supply supply that kind of product to people.

Charles Kim 20:39

And how many? I think I sort of saw it on your website, but you've been doing this for roughly it was like 10 years.

Paul Hinlicky 20:45

It's getting close to 10 years. Yeah. I got, I think I got the cattle beginning in 2015. Okay, I don't remember exactly. In my mind, the size of the herd as expanded and contracted. Like a couple of summers ago, we had a drought. And I had too many livestock for my pastures. And I had to make the decision to send more than I normally would have to the slaughterhouse. By the way, that also is something that we do very, humanely our cattle live their entire lives on our property. And they are never moved anywhere in a trailer until it's time for them to be processed. And we go to places that, you know, do this well, and do it humanely, and then do a very good job of cutting the meat and packing it and so forth.

Charles Kim 21:49

Yeah, well can and maybe that's as good a place as any I mean, I can I like I have kind of I don't know, sometimes I like long to have a little bit more space. And we're not really sure. You know what that would look like for our family. But so I have lots of questions just like on the particulars. But like, theologically, I think the other reason that I find this so rich is is sort of considerations of you know, what, what do we miss? If we aren't attending to our natural environment in this way, theologically? Well, how does that help us understand the life of faith? And sort of? And, you know, it seems to me, it's a kind of, you know, we could talk about wisdom, like what is the wisdom of all of this, like, of, of living a life more consonant with the natural world, but you use the phrase humanely there. So can you talk a little bit about how you understand this, you know, like, as, as a Christian as a theologian, what does that mean for you to treat these animals the way that you do?

Paul Hinlicky 22:55

Yeah, great question. Of course, you know, I should have mentioned that we've put 90% of our land into a conservation easement, the 10%, that is exempted as the lot on which our house sits. The rest of it is all in a conservation easement. And in the easement, we're in the whereas clauses we had written, whereas the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. And human beings are to be stewards of the Lord's creation, knowing that it is a stewardship, not a possession. And so something to that effect we put into our conservation easement. And, you know, like, even some of the local people, Chad have said to me, we're so proud of what you're doing, you took out a burned out old place that was worthless. And now you've turned it back into a productive farm and you're feeding people, and you're making the community stronger. You know, and I think that's a lot of it for me. I also think that, you know, I've lived in New York City, I've lived in Jersey City, I've lived in Bratislava, Slovakia, I know the urban life. Yeah, you know, and I think it's, you know, when I lived in Manhattan, I said to my wife, this would be great if you had a lot of money and no kids. And I think that is kind of a prophetic statement. Because these urban centers are depopulating. The young families can't afford to live in them anymore. Right? And they're squeezing their schools are being getting in trouble because of the population, Exodus. And I think the problem for a lot of people who live in urban or suburban environment, is they don't really have a first hand acquaintance with how nature works. They really don't they they have a kind of a Bambi movie. Disney movie kind of view of nature. And look at nature is based upon predation. It's called it's called, it used to be called the food chain. The the insects feed on the mammals and suck their blood, but the birds eat the insects, and you know, on and on through the food chain. And I could make a better illustration than that, but you get the point. And you have to understand that sometimes I go into my chicken coop to collect the eggs. And there's a big fat black snake curled up inside the nest, eating my eggs. Now, what am I supposed to do about that? I love black snakes, because they're immune to the venom of copperheads rattlesnakes, and they get big, and they even eat copperheads they drive away the venomous snakes. So I really don't want to kill Black Snakes. But I don't want a black snake eating my eggs either. So actually, the solution we came up with finally as I have a neighbor a mile down the road was little kids, and they're trying to garden and they have copperheads coming into their garden. So he said, Said, anytime you have a black snake, call me and I'll come over, and we'll capture it and take it over and put it in my garden. And that that's how we've you know, that's how we've moved moved them around. You know, I have 100 acres and the snakes are free to live every anywhere on the property, except on my little half acre curtilage around my house, you know, I just copperheads and rattlesnakes. They're not welcome.

Charles Kim 26:44

Right? Yeah. Yeah, well, and that seems to be like a little bit more of like that that attentiveness to the purpose of the things rather than just getting rid of it. Because it's a nuisance and saying, All right, well, this is a nuisance, let's kill it. And you know that that's the kind of thing I think that also has been so fascinating. For us in this whole process, like we have a few more birds this year, because we're doing more composting, and I think the birds have been killing a lot of more of the insects. And so we have a little bit more live backyard than we've ever had before. And we grow some ornamental flowers, which help attract the pollinators. We don't have fees. We don't have bees yet. But I'd like to get some bees, you know, and our dogs naturally kind of run off squirrels. But like, you know, you have all these different elements that that you're trying to bring into balance, right, you're trying to bring, and that like, and that whole idea of finding a balance within the cycle, rather than just attacking everything with a, you know, some kind of pesticide or some kind of thing that kills something. Right? How okay, how do I how do I find the balance here? That whole process has been really fascinating to me.

Paul Hinlicky 28:00

Right? And yet the understanding that killing is a part of nature. Yeah, right. Predation is part of nature. And what you're trying to do is integrate a human being into a natural habitat. We, we human beings are animals, we're part of nature. Yeah. And we can learn to live in this kind of harmony with it. That's why the symbol of our farm, our farm is named St goal farm. I'll tell you that story. Yeah, but the symbol is of a bear holding a cut, log a piece of firewood. And that reflects the legend of st gold, who was an Irish monk who converted the pagan Swiss to Christianity. And the legend they were the pagan Swiss at that time, it 17th century were bear worshipers they worshipped the bears. And, and so to convince them of the superior power of the Christian God, same call, evidently want to live in a cave, a bear cave. And or at least, that's the legend, he went to lived in a bear cave, and he made a deal with the bear. If you bring me firewood, I'll give you a loaf of bread when I cook it. And for that exchange, that that was the story of St gold. And that's why we named our four farm st gold farm, because we actually have black bears running up and down our mountain.

Charles Kim 29:31

And so you, you know, in part of this process of learning, you know, the place of, of, you know, killing of harvesting these animals, you're trying to simultaneously improve their life while they're alive, but also make good use of them in their death. And one thing that has struck me again, you know, is this idea that the best food for us is the healthiest animal and so it's a we you know, it's kind of a weird ideas. It's like, No, I want them to be the healthiest possible animal they can be. Because when it's time to eat, that it'll actually be the most nourishing. And the least nourishing is the sickest or the, you know, the most, you know, in some ways, like sort of unhappy animal.

Paul Hinlicky 30:19

That's right. And who wants to eat that, you know, a couple of years ago, Consumer Reports put out a very detailed study of so called meatless meat, which I just call fake meat. And, of course, the appetite for this is in very urban situations, alienated from natural processes. I would argue that in any case, Consumer Reports, you know, does everything science based. And I even put this article up on my website, because I think it's so important because if you could convince people to eat so called meatless meat, what you would do is you would be putting a hyper strain on cropland, which would now have to produce all this nutrition. And if you look at the world's agricultural lands, only 30% is suitable for crop farming. 70% of it is pasture land, which then depends on livestock grazing. And if you could switch to meatless meat, you would be putting hyper pressures on crop lands, and then you would the pasture lands would then be go to go back to the wilderness or something like that. And maybe some people think that's a good idea. I don't. But then just looking at the product itself, Consumer Reports scientifically analyzed these meatless meat products. This is all high class junk food. It's all hyper processed, it's full of sodium and sugar, and all sorts of chemicals. So you to make it tastes like meat wanted, and it's actually quite a failure because it doesn't really replace replace nutritious meat like Yeah.

Charles Kim 32:21

And, and so, in other kind of question that I have for you is, I mean, of course, all like I Well, first responding to what you just said, Yeah, I mean, I think that's another interesting part, like, how would you naturally fertilize all those lands? If you didn't have cattle, you wouldn't be able to fertilize them. So then you'd have to be using artificial fertilizers. You know, and so it is just, it seems like a fairly. Yeah, like you said, sort of something that someone dreams up if they've never actually lived in a place where the food comes from.

Paul Hinlicky 32:57

Right, right, or learned how to grow their own food, or been in touch with someone who grows food in the natural way. Yeah. I just want to finish that. What what motivates me as a theologian to do this? As a Lutheran theologian, uh, you know, I've been centered in the redemptive gospel of Christ. And the importance of that, as it were the second article of the Creed, which is the center of the creed, and talk about being Christocentric, or something like that. But as I've grown, more and more, I become much more sensitized to the importance of the first article of the Creed, that the whole, the whole of our natural world, is a ever renewed gift from our gracious God and Creator, two hours, only our gratitude and our responsible stewardship of his gifts. And that has become theologically much more important to me than it was in the past when I lived in the city. And I didn't think about these kinds of things. So that's my quick answer.

Charles Kim 34:16

Yeah. Well, that's, that's really helpful. And so I have kind of a strange role at work, how I teach, I teach part time at an undergraduate school called St. Louis University and part time at the diocesan seminary for the Roman Catholic Church. I teach Latin and Greek mostly, although technically I'm has, you know, my degrees in historical theology. I've only ever been able to get jobs because I can teach languages. But, but I teach a lot of these Catholic guys who come from the Midwest basically, and all over the Midwest. And one of the things that fascinated me, as I got to know the guys was, how many of them came from farms, and I went to seminary at Princeton seminary. And I don't remember there being anyone who at least talked about being from farms now, maybe some were. But, but they just were embarrassed or something, but essentially no one. And now here I am with all these guys who they have a real appreciation for and, and a kind of connection to their their land. And that's like part and one of the things I've learned about being a diocesan priest is that you want to return to the place where you're from. And that's part of their formation. And it just strikes me as like, I mean, I grew up in a more evangelical kind of Baptist stick kind of environment and house, but we were not connected to the land very much, that was not something that was all that important to us. And I just, I do kind of wonder to within sort of the different Christian streams, as it were, are there some of them that are more for various, you know, historical reasons, or maybe even theological reasons, more attuned to the land? So it's, you know, part of what you were talking about, there's, you know, as a Lutheran, you know, and I know that Luther ins are actually tend to have a greater population, or at least have more churches and rural places. Is there something that you see, and even your own tradition that connects you to the land in a different way?

Paul Hinlicky 36:23

Well, sure, I mean, we learned in, you know, we used to memorize Luthers catechism. I don't know how often that happens anymore. But I had to. And when we came to the first article of the Creed, I believe in God, the Father, almighty, creator of heaven and earth, lucid. Luthers says, Now, what does this mean? And then we replied, I believe that God has created me, and all that exists and given and preserved, my body and soul. And then he goes on and lists all these various gifts of the natural life. And so like I said, I'm I've as I've aged, I've, we've kind of returned to a much greater appreciation of the first article of the Creed, then there are hymns that in the Lutheran tradition, I'm not I'm not sure about this, for the beauty of the earth. For the beauty of this guys, that might not be a hymn that's Lutheran, an origin, but it was certainly one that we sang. Right? And, you know, I think it's a tragedy that we've gotten away from Thanksgiving services. And it's not of course, a Christian holiday. It's a national holiday. But that that's where you sang hymns like, Come you thankful people come raise the song of Harvest Home will be safely gathered in air, the winter storms begin, God our maker, thus provide all our wants to be supplied. Come you thankful people come prey raised the song of Harvest Home. And I think when you habitually sing a hymn like that, it gets in, you know, gets burned into your memory banks or something like that.

Charles Kim 38:16

Well, that's certainly burned into yours. It appears. Yeah. Yeah, that's really that's really fascinating. Yeah, I guess I just it, like I said, it's just increasingly energize me thinking about these things in different ways to connect to them to, to my theological work as well. But just as a practical question, you mentioned you're, you know, you have you had a stroke, and so you're unable to use your left hand, is that right, right. And so you're able, I mean, you know, I just, I know that farming is not easy work. So you're able to do that. That's, I mean, that that seems pretty impressive. Eight years on a farm, and or eight years with cattle. And

Paul Hinlicky 39:05

so let me say, Chad, I have a faithful and, and impressive life spouse Now going on to 49 years. And she is fully in partnership with me on this whole deal. In fact, I couldn't do it without her. Yeah. And we also have an adult son, who's a veteran and disabled, and he lives with us, okay. And he also helps out, and again, without his help, it wouldn't be possible. Or I would have to hire a hand or something like that. Yeah. But, you know, basically, the real answer I want to give here is you can judiciously use a low level of technology. You don't have to buy big fancy machines, but you can judiciously Select, you know, a compact tractor and implements that can be run on a UTV rather than a tractor. And, and so you can use this kind of machinery to do the farming, the farming work, which replaces a lot of time and a lot of manpower on the farm. But you know you have to, like I'm using the word judiciously don't don't get suckered into buying a tractor that's three times more powerful than what you need, right just or equipment that does things like everybody's getting away Chad from tilling, you have to do a little bit of tilling. But plowing up the Earth year after year after year, destroys the soil biome, the the microorganisms that live in your soil. And so you want to really minimize tilling, which means that you have to learn how to how to how to grow cover crops or intercede your pastures or so forth. With with a different, less environmentally stressful kind of, of machinery.

Charles Kim 41:23

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I mean, what yeah, one of the things we've let our yard go to seed, but I think Missouri fairly naturally grows a lot of Oh, Clover, and so that Clover is and the chickens love it. And so it's like, yeah, so we're pretty lucky in Missouri, that that's, that's pretty easy to grow, versus just, you know, trying to, you know, go to Home Depot and get whatever specific kind of grass. You know, I don't even know what grass that the Scott says or whatever. But

Paul Hinlicky 41:59

the chickens are your machinery. They're the ones who mow the grass. Yep.

Charles Kim 42:05

Yeah. And so has that been, I mean, another thing, you know, this just reminds me of like Wendell Berry, in one of the earlier books, but he talks about the, like, you mentioned, working with your wife and working with your son. And so but this idea of like the house, the home as a place of productivity, and cooperation, and sort of how a lot of modern homes become a place where they're sort of like a bunkhouse. And everybody goes out. And then, and nobody actually works together, within the family. And so it has that been a sort of a bonding. I'm sure trying at times, like, I don't mean to say it's all, you know, with a rose colored glasses, you know, it's all it's all perfect. But has that been an important part of your family life?

Paul Hinlicky 42:56

I think so. I mean, we feel my wife and I feel like we live in paradise. And we do. I mean, it's a beautiful mountain valley that we're sitting perched on, up in. And it's quiet and peaceful and safe and serene. And just, even the views are breathtaking. And the feeling that we don't feel the need, you know, to go on a cruise or something like that, in fact, that would never appeal to us anyway, that kind of thing. You know, but we live in paradise. And over the years, we've always say, every evening, sat down on the couch with a glass of wine and talked about the day. But more and more this farming experience has required partnership and cooperation in a household economy. Yeah. And I think that that's a good model. It brings brings, especially when everybody knows they're needed, that we can't do this without each of us doing something that they can do. Yeah. And that feeling of being needed in a meaningful cause is I think, very valuable. And I think I would like this if people are listening to this podcast, who are pastors or theologians, and they're looking at the diminishing prospects in church and in the academy, and so forth. And they're like you were looking for an alternative for life. I would really like to lift up we did as a model. Because you can use your, your set your employment in the world. If again, if you're frugal and you don't go on cruises, or you invest your money rather and get it buying yourself a patch of land, and figuring out how you can produce good food for People and take pleasure, satisfaction, not only that you're being ecologically responsible, not only that you're renewing a certain piece of the earth under your control, but that you're giving nutritious, valuable, nutritious food to the neighbors that you're marketing or to and so forth. I think that's a wonderful thing to do. And it keeps your, your spiritual and psychological life in balance.

Charles Kim 45:28

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good word. Yeah, and I think, like you say, increasingly, you know, fewer and fewer jobs certainly in in academia, and but even a lot of pastors, I think you're gonna have to sort of do some by vocational stuff. From a lot of what what I'm seeing and hearing. Well, one, one very, so I had one kind of last specific question, what you just said, kind of reminded me of it, I thought I saw on Facebook that you got a certain kind of grant. Because like, the other thing like that I look at, you know, around here is like, I think, well, if I wanted to buy some land, it's expensive. Yeah. And so some of the heart, you know, and I where it could, like I said, I work at SLU. So I work in downtown St. Louis. So it's, it would be a drive to anywhere that had a decent amount of land, but even within like 45 minutes or an hour drive of St. Louis, it's a lot of the land is very expensive. And so that's one of the main that can be kind of prohibitive from having too big of a space. But were you I mean, so were you able to buy the land. I mean, I guess you're in a more rural area. I don't know, maybe it's it was cheap. Well, you said 2005. So you've been doing this for years. But yeah, I don't know. Could you talk a little bit about even how you got started with acquiring the land and that sort of thing?

Paul Hinlicky 46:50

Yeah. For one thing, you, you if you're interested in doing this, you got to start searching? Yeah. I searched for almost three years before I found this property. And of course, there's a whole combination of things you just mentioned, is it affordable? Is it at a reasonable distance from urban center for hospital medicine, emergency services and marketing? You know, that's got to be true. Is it affordable? Can you do something with it? Can you build a house there? Can you make a home there? Can you can you begin? In small scale intensive farming there. All that is stuff that you have to research and figure out what would work for you. In Virginia, we have a very excellent conservation easement program. And what that did was it allowed us to buy these, this land and put it in the easement. And that was amounted to about, then you have to pay for rather detailed appraisal of the value of the land. And then 30% of that appraisal route gets returned to you and attacks. What do they call that not a tax refund, but a tax credit. So that's very valuable in terms of reducing your taxes. And it really basically paid for about a third of the cost of the land we bought. And so we use the conservation easements to leverage the purchase and addition of the parcels to build up our 100 acres. And then when I started farming Chad I had been in earlier before farming. I had been in a USDA program called WIP, wildlife habitat, habitat improvement projects or something like or program something like that. And so that's how I got involved with USDA. And I got to know these people, and they were helping me with quail habitat and turkey habitat and deer habitat stuff like that. And I said, you know, I'm thinking about starting a farm on my pasture land. And they said, Oh, well, we've got we've got another program that could help you. And so I got involved in that and and that helped. I also when I started farming, I had about half of my woodlands cut and I used the income from that timber cutting. Of course, this was very selective. I went through the woods with a spray can and said Take this tree but not that trip through the whole property so that it would would be done according to my standards in a very good way. But all that income from the timber and cutting then and from the USDA grants help pay for the infrastructure on the farm, this essentially the fencing and the water watering system. Interesting. And now, because I've been sent and then I won an award some years ago for stewardship forest for regional best and stewardship of force, something like that. And I've been kind of their poster boy on some of the stuff. And so now I'm going to grant for the next five years that will help me to continue to send you to receive my pastures to better quality grasses.

Charles Kim 50:48

Yeah, well, and you, you did send me earlier this morning, there's a short article on some of the had this habitat improvement that you did with, I think, well, it had a lot to do with the deer population. And so how you were able to encourage the growth of Buck, I guess, was, was kind of the the big, the big thing that you were able to do.

Paul Hinlicky 51:15

That's, that's kind of interesting. I mean, I regard you know, the, the deer and the bear on my property, as not only wildlife that I host, but also another source of nutrition. And if you don't control, especially the deer population, the deer are going to, you know, as people know, in suburban areas, they'll just keep, they'll just keep propagating. And they'll eat everything. And, and then finally, they'll become malnourished, because there's so many of them, and there's so little food after a certain point. So I subscribe to a program called Quality Deer Management, which requires you to every season to take more dough than you do bucks to control the population. And, and so, and I also personally have the principle I don't shoot anything that I'm not willing to eat. So that's another source of protein for us. And I've supplied to the neighbors, poor neighbors who need food, I provide a venison for them. And, you know, then I only will shoot a buck that's really big or something on a really old guy, you know, who's lived along with, people need to understand, if I if a hunter doesn't kill a deer humanely, and quickly, that deer will either die in a car accident and possibly injure a human being in a car. Or it will be devoured by a bear, if it's a fawn, or it will be devoured by coyotes, when it's old and sick and can't escape anymore. And those are pretty horrible deaths. You know, so in terms of understanding that predation is part of nature. And we are natural, we are natural beings, bodily beings who are also part of nature, and we need protein. And we also need to manage the population of the wildlife, in our regions and so forth. Those are the principles that that I apply to this. Deer hunting.

Charles Kim 53:46

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, I was surprised to read that I was thinking, I mean, a lot of the pictures I saw were mostly of your cattle and, and some of your produce. But yeah, a whole other element to what you can do with the acreage is supporting there. These habitats? Well, I think we're kind of running up here on about an hour. Is there any kind of final word of encouragement or, you know, last thoughts, anything, anything particular like, you know, that that you've, you know, want to leave the listeners that you've learned from this journey with the with the wildlife and the agriculture.

Paul Hinlicky 54:24

I think a lot of us nowadays, because of the accumulating crises of global crises are inclined to be like Epicurus, the ancient philosopher, Epicurus, who said, the whole world is friggin crazy, just retreat to your own garden, intended, do science and philosophy and let the world go away? Well, I don't, I think that can be a profound temptation in these days. But I don't think what I'm advocating is epicurean. I think what I'm advocating is Something like Ellen Davis, the Old Testament theologian, in her book on culture and agriculture in ancient Israel was arguing for if you're able, grab a little piece of land, under your own control, and at least as a witness to the wider society, do something meaningful as a as a vocation if not transitioning into a vocation, do something that is meaningful for your own involvement in nature, and your own relationship to society. And I hope what I've offered in my cinco farms are kind of a Christian and theological model of that.

Charles Kim 55:48

Awesome. Well, my guest today has been Dr. Paul Hinlicky, just want to thank him for the time that he's taken this morning. And the encouragement even that he's been to me through all these interviews and conversations, and it's been an absolute pleasure getting to know you a little bit.

Paul Hinlicky 56:07

Thank you, Chad. It's been a pleasure to be getting to know you as well. All right.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai