Howdy, farmer 👋 👩🌾
I bought a chicken last week and named it Jirgalicious. (My fiancée named it after her soon-to-be maiden name “Jirgal.”)
Jirgalicious will start laying eggs for us in about six months.
The best part?
We’re not doing any of the work. My friend is.
My friend Annie lives on some land north of Atlanta, where HOAs can’t turn her dreams into fertilizer.
Annie gave us city folks an opportunity to buy a chicken. It helps her pay for the upfront costs of starting a chicken coop while allowing her community to taste the benefits of it. Win-win.
We paid her a larger amount that went to the cost of building and maintaining a great environment for our chicken. And we’ll pay her a small monthly amount to get eggs on a weekly basis.
We even had ChatGPT write a contract for it all.
So why’d I buy a chicken?
Here are two reasons.
To own a dream without the responsibility
Last year I developed the dream of owning chickens.
They consistently produce and they’re low maintenance. Sounds like a dream hire for a team.
But for someone who lives in an Atlanta townhome with an HOA that’s more petty than Twitter, I’m far from experiencing my little farm dream.
Thankfully I have friends who have similar dreams — like Annie.
Investing in a friend’s dream is one of the most rewarding acts in life. Even if the dream is three inches big — the size of Jirgalicious.
By investing in Annie’s dream, her family gets the fulfillment from owning a tiny farm. And I get to learn more about the nitty gritty behind running a chicken coop without doing it myself. The eggs are icing on the cake.
I call this dream outsourcing.
The act of investing in a friend’s dream to empower them and educate yourself. So you can learn if you want to take on the same dream.
Dream outsourcing is more powerful than studying a topic via YouTube because the relational equity paired with a financial investment puts more skin in the game. But it’s also less responsibility than fully pursuing a dream. I’m not the one checking chick’s butts for parasites. (Thanks, Annie.)
Dream outsourcing is the goldilocks action for second-tier dreams. Those dreams that would be nice to make time for but you’re not sure if you’ll ever get around to them.
Q for you: What’s a small dream you have that you can outsource to a friend? So you can empower them and learn if you want to pursue it for yourself.
To consume more mindfully
Lenten season reveals how often I’m a slave to my cravings.
I don’t like that I feel the need to pick up my phone for a dopamine hit or order the dessert just because I want it.
Investing in Annie’s chicken coop is a chick-sized step toward loosening my chains of consumerism. It slows me down so I can be more thoughtful about how I’m investing my wealth and health.
And since I now know the family behind my eggs, I’ll crack them with more gratitude. While I’m sure the local, free-range aspect of the eggs will make them taste delightful, a side of gratitude is the best taste enhancer of any meal.
Wendell Berry, theologian and farmer in Kentucky, puts it this way:
“I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.”
I can’t personally farm right now. But I can empower a friend who wants to, knowing she’s enlarging the meaning of food for me.
Thank a farmer today. And if you can, become one.
✌️
— Luke
P.S. More chick content.
What a delightful read. And RIP Jirgalicious 🕊️ ❤️