Foolish People
December 15th, 2005 by Northern FarmerIt’s been snowing for a couple of days now in this area and I figure we have between eight and ten inches of the heavy wet stuff. Just came in to the house now and I’m wet up to my knees. In fact it’s dripping on the cement floor, but I have to get out in a bit again so it doesn’t pay to change and get wet all over again. Any livestock farmer will tell you that we spell snow this way…W..O..R..K. And it sure is a lot more work, but it truly is good for the farm as a whole so I’m not complaining. Kinda pretty outside actually.
Yesterday during the snow everything was under control yet and it was to early to start snow plowing so I figured that was a good time to go in the shed and start picking out cobs of corn for seed. Yesterday I had a brainstorm for finish drying them, I’d bring the cobs in our basement, and with the forced air wood heat, walla! Now there’s big corn cobs all over down here. I must of married a good woman because she didn’t even bat an eye. Must be used to me or else just plain gave up. But the cobs are drying nicely and we’ve a long way to go to shell out what we need, but it sure does give a person a good feeling, saving our own corn seed, that’s the way God intended folk to do it, so we are.
I was thinking about that today while cleaning up snow. We here are stewards of this farm. God supplies so much and we’re too blind to use it as He intends for us to do. He promises we will prosper if we follow Him, but instead we run over to corporate ag for our needs. We mine the land under the corporate model showing God we don’t need him around the farm. And gradually the farm gets more sucked up into the modern world with all the bad things that go along with it, like destroyed families and the disrespect for life. Now as everyone can tell, I’m not some theologian and pray I never will be. My faith is simple, foolish to some, but that’s OK. I love this verse,
“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.â€
So us foolish backward believers in Jesus will be drying corn in the basement this winter, seed God provided on the farm we steward for him, and we have faith that He will take care of us.
December 15th, 2005 at 10:01 pm
Wet pants and gloves. This is why I love it when the temps drop below 20°F. That way things are crisp and I don’t get wet. Dry cold is much prefered. As long as the wind isn’t too bad it’s fine down to -20°F or so. The other thing is once I go out in the morning I try not to come in to the house again where I might start melting and my glasses fog.
Hope you chill soon so you’re not cold and wet.
December 16th, 2005 at 1:05 am
Tom,
Don’t let that corn get too hot or too dry! If you can get a couple of ears that you are NOT saving for seed and dry them down too, you can check the moisture with a Dickey-John, or something like that. Don’t go below 15%… But you probably already know this.
I can’t wait to see this drying operation!
JM
December 16th, 2005 at 1:20 am
Tom,
Thanks for your earlier post on this, and the link to seed savers. We got our seeds yesterday. Good thing I have so much to do this winter, because planting time seems a long way off.
December 16th, 2005 at 4:59 pm
Walter,
Never fear, this is Minnesota, it’s already chilling down, believe me.
JM,
I have a good tester and the more mature cobs are 21.7 percent. The drying in the house should be very mild on the corn, I guess I’ve dryed hundreds of thousands of bushels for feed but I think I can do it right for seed.I’m manufacturing some drying boards, a take off on the old fashion board with nails where the cobs are stuck on it to dry in the old farm houses. I’m trying for 100 cobs to the board, that’ll sure save basement space.
James,
That’s great! Glad to hear it.Just think, your family took a little bit away from big corporate ag!
Tom
December 16th, 2005 at 10:05 pm
A good friend of mine who recently moved to Duluth just gave me a call today and said they got 23 inches of snow. Over here in Northern Wisconsin we got about 6″ from this recent storm. Same storm. I like that dry cold too but deep snow sure does make us work harder. At least the mosquitoe’s are sleeping. I always try to look on the bright side.
Russ
December 17th, 2005 at 5:50 am
Russ,
I heard they got that snow pretty heavy on the North Shore. Here I think it’s the most snow in quite a few years. But with it cooling down a tad at least a person isn’t soaking wet. We do have a mosquitoe every once in a while in the house, dirty little buggers, always trying to suck blood, remind me of corporate ag:), and our Asian Beetles are starting to reduce in numbers in the house somewhat, but there’ll be a few that make it till spring.
Tom