Day Dreaming
January 7th, 2006 by Northern Farmer“Grandma, I’m so happy to go to the hills tomorrow.â€
“Well, Sarah, I’m almost finished with your dress, a few more minutes and it’ll be ready. I’m excited too; it’s been a long winter.â€
“Grandma, why are we going, it must be a long way away if it’ll take all day. I’ve never been that far before.â€
“Most of us are going because we want to take care of the cemetery where my grandfather and grandmother are buried. They’re not buried on the farm like nowadays; they were buried by their church. And it’s about thirteen miles so we have to be going very early tomorrow morning; the men are busy getting the teams ready now and loading wagons. Everyone’s crops are planted and it’s time. It is exciting and there will be so, so many people there for three days. You’re going to love it!â€
“Tell me about great, great grandpa and grandma, I’ve seen old pictures, they were so different then. Nellie showed me a picture of great, great grandpa shooting a box with his old gun; she said they called it a computer, what’s that?â€
“Those were different times Sarah, that was the beginning of the end of the industrial age. I remember some of it when I was a little girl but it was swiftly coming to an end at that time. It was a terrible time but it’s coming to an end, finally. It was a time when people forgot God, and started to think they were gods themselves. When my grandfather was farming people weren’t caring for the land, they were just trying to make money to live different than the Lord commands. Those were evil times, they had a government religion that said we came from monkeys and the government started to force people to obey their religion. And they wanted people to live worse than animals, the wanted men to marry men, and women to marry women, and as time went on they said people could even marry animals. They killed their babies, I know, it’s so terrible, they killed them so they could live the way the industrialists wanted them to. Everything the Bible called evil, they called good. The police tried to force grandpa’s church to do this so they closed the doors and met secretly for years. People didn’t raise hardly any of their own food, they went to stores where they thought food came from. And the food that people raised was changed, not normal, you couldn’t even plant seeds from the plants, they had to pay the industrialists every year for seed! And everyone had cards with numbers so the industrialists could watch everyone and control them.â€
“My grandparents were in this life, but early on started to wonder about it. Even many churches said this was the good life. The Lord put into the hearts of many men and women the truth about where it was all leading. So quietly at first people started preparing while the evils grew stronger in the world. The end came faster than anyone had thought. There were terrible storms, and the oil the world depended on to run their industrial machine got scarce faster than predicted, there was no money and then there was very little food. The farms could hardly raise anything, there was very little seed. There were wars, riots, and many people died. I remember when I was little hiding when the state police came here, but dad and grandpa had so much hidden they only found a little bit. There were suffering people everywhere and we did our best to help where we could but after a few years we didn’t see many folks come through.â€
“Our farm had seed that would grow and we just made it some years, but we made it. There were large root cellars and places to store food so it wouldn’t spoil. And we had animals that could raise their own babies, back then our chickens were worth more than their weight in gold. People slowly returned to the countryside and started small farms, most farms were abandoned in the bad times. The cities were mostly gone by then, everything collapsed.â€
“So Sarah, tomorrow we’re going to the little Bible believing church in the hills. All the families meet every year at this time. We have our freedom back and we’re going to Praise the Lord.â€
“Grandma, I’m so excited, I won’t be able to sleep tonight! There will be so many people!â€
“Oh, I almost forgot Sarah that box great, great grandpa was shooting in the photo, it was so important, that’s how he communicated with people that the Lord gave the vision to in those days. That’s where so many ideas came from that helped us survive the industrial collapse. But a time came when almost all of the folks that he communicated with had to destroy them or else be noticed by the last industrialists. We still are in touch with many of those original families. They are a blessing.â€
January 7th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Gosh, Tom. That’s quite a story!
January 7th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Awesome post Tom!! I will be reading this to my family…thanks so much!
January 8th, 2006 at 12:07 am
Tom,
This is really, really good. Oh that we can prepare those who come after us…
JM
January 8th, 2006 at 1:07 am
Excellent…Bravo!! Another standing ovation. In someways it seem so unrealistic, but we are there aren’t we? I don’t know how i would make it right now withought hearing from y’all. We are oposing an enemy and the fight can be messy sometimes. Satan attacks in so many creative ways. Thanks for not shooting the box just yet.
January 8th, 2006 at 11:47 am
I’m with KS Milkmaid - I’m glad you still have the box for now. It’s encouraging to read about others living an agrarian lifestyle when most of your friends and family think your crazy for doing it.
Alan
Hillview Farm
January 8th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
HI there Tom,
This is my first visit and what an awesome post to start with.
Applause–standing up first!
I’m an avid student of internet news and could document basically everything happening now that you wrote in the past tense.
It IS happening, we just don’t know the times and speed of future events—it’s not given for us to know but we can certainly read the signs.
Mark 13:28-29 Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door.
January 8th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
An excellent and insightful post! With your permission, I would like to share it with some others. I’ve been reading your blog for some time and you have provide much food for thought and inspiration for this city-raised girl. This winter has been a time of reflection and planning as a month ago we moved from living the entirety of our married lives in an apartment into our own home on almost three acres of land in New England. Not that big, but huge to us. The freedom that comes with that change also brings greater responsibilities and proper stewardship of the Lord’s blessings. We’re looking forward to raising some crops along with some chickens for eggs and meat - and perhaps turkeys as well - this coming spring. Part of the reason is not only to be able to provide for our family on a daily basis but also to aid friends and others who may need help in dire times whether it be personal or on a larger scale. That for which our forefathers struggled and shed blood we have come to take for granted. Although God has gifted this nation with great wealth, we are now trained to depend on others to *take care* of us. We behave as though we are *entitled* to that which we have failed to provide for ourselves. The more we rely on the government for our upkeep, the less prepared we are when disaster strikes. We are left to shift the blame onto everyone but ourselves. We need to relearn that which was a way of life for our ancestors. Lord willing, we’re going to try to move from dependence to independence as much as we can, learning as we go. God bless!
January 8th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Herrick,TnFarmgirl,JM,
Thanks so much.
KSMM,
We are opposing an enemy, that’s for sure, and it’s up to all of us to let it be known. And I ain’t talking any human being.
Alan,
Glad your folowing your agrarian dream, I couldn’t even imagine another way anymore. And there’s always something new to learn. Thanks.
Mountainfirekeeper,
Thanks for the encouragement. Your right, I was careful only to tell the truth in what’s happening right now in the past tense, even the marrying of humans and animals as a right, I just heard that one on the news this past week on the radio. And it won’t even end there. Thanks for dropping in here and I hope you hang around.
Emily,
Thanks for your insight and thanks for letting me know that your a reader of my sometimes off the wall writings. You can use anything I write, anytime you’d like. That’s why I write it. I make a living farming and the writing is just my thoughts and I’ll never really do it for real. I’m more interested in just getting the word spread and if you want to spread it, you have my blessings. Just like farming, we’d always help a neighbor and never expect anything in return, it’s the Christian Agrarian way.
Tom
Tom
January 9th, 2006 at 1:31 am
P.S. I just started my blog today, and wrote my first post this eveing. This was the only place I’ve posted so far—sorry for being so slow to those of you that already visited my blog.
Tom, thanks for your kind words. I do think I will be visiting often!
January 9th, 2006 at 9:52 am
A little late, but I just read your story! It gave me goosebumps! I’m usually an optimist, and have felt that God has lead me to my current convictions and will continue to do so, but your story gave me a scary feeling followed with hope! The hope is as you portrayed in your story…a grandmother recounting to a grandchild of how it was. May our Lord allow us such a blessing!
January 9th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
MFK,
I’ll be visiting your blog also, it’s so interesting being that I’m familiar with the territory your writing about, a very short day trip from here.
HH,
I was just daydreaming, it was very poorly writen, I think it could have used about ten thousand more words, maybe more. But even being a daydream it could be closer to reality than we all think. I don’t know if it’s just me , but I see the whole thing going down the tubes. I keep getting this feeling, “get ready, NOW”. I think we’d better.
Tom
January 9th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
First time reading your blog as Good Farmer John referred to it today. After reading this, I don’t feel very good because it’s so real. You made me think of viruses, worms, identity theft and swindle that happen in the privacy of our own homes unbeknownst to us…all through the “box”. Don’t know what to think sometime, but you folks have given me much to think about.
January 11th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
Peculiar Optimist,
Welcome, glad you found my little blog. The computer for me is only comunication, period. I don’t do any financial transactions what so ever on it, don’t even have a credit card. If anyone wants my identity the joke’s on them. I do think I’ll keep it that way.
Tom