Northern Farmer

Sometimes we have these moments in life that are awesome. When the way a person looks at everything in a whole new light. A few weeks ago it happened to me, before I got this blog going regularly. In the mornings around 6 AM I drive around the country side checking different cattle pastures and some mornings my dad rides with. It’s the best time of the day in the country, fresh and full of wildlife. We were talking about retirement and any plans for me. I never have figured on retiring and hope to just work, be it so little, to the end on the farm. And hopefully with a few generations of family around me here. I can’t see stopping and just rotting away doing nothing.Then the thought struck me, like a load of bricks, that in some ways I’m already well into my retirement. I hate to use the word retirement because that’s something the industrial monster dreamt up, but will use it for the sake of this blog. The “moderns” think it’s something owed to them by society and finally getting away from the life they hate, even if all those years they bragged up their jobs. They have to worry if the government and their own retirement nest egg, if any, will see them through. Now from my angle I don’t care if Social Security is even around. Over the years without really thinking about it it looks like we have been developing an agrarian family clan. Like man has done for thousands of years. My parents don’t have to worry about getting thrown away, discarded by the clan, and I don’t see it coming for my wife or myself. And as the years go by, I have lists of things I would like to do on a small scale as the clan keeps going with what ever they would like to do on the farm. I’ve just read thoughts similar to this in Family Friendly Farming and it reaffirms what I was thinking for a few weeks.

About a week ago on the same note a distant family member that always looked down on farming and my familie’s lifestyle let the cat out of the bag. He’s the same age as me, 49, and he’s living the “modern’ life, decent job, big home refinanced to the max, every toy imaginable and the like. A few years ago he cashed in his 401K and bought a new pickup, boat, snowmobiles and other really important stuff. He now complaining that he’d never be able to retire. The kids are all gone and don’t care what happens to mom and dad. The boss isn’t saving enough money for his retirement, the government better do something about Social Security, they owe him. But at least he had it in him to tell me about his brand spanking new theater size big screen TV. And the trip they plan on taking to Jamaica. When I heard this my first reaction was to snicker, good for you guy, keep on spinning downhill, but it soon turned to pity. They honestly know not what they do. And there’s nothing that I can do to help. Sometimes I wonder why people can’t see what they’re doing to themselves. But I guess all a person has to do is turn on TV and he’s following the current rules of life.

I thank the Lord that he has given us the opportunity to live this way. I pray more people will see.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 15th, 2005 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.