The Low End
May 25th, 2006 by Northern FarmerIt’s getting warmer and warmer around here the last few days and now the talk is that it’ll be in the nineties over the weekend. That should finally unthaw these old bones a bit. The corn is done here and we’re looking at different projects all of a sudden. Today I claimed another acre and a half for our family’s homestead. This afternoon I fenced of part of the calving pasture and moved the first of the chicken tractors there. There will be three more shortly along side of them. This area will also be for some hogs later in summer and fall, for our own eating and for a few friends. The gardens will have a lot of expansion room out that way now, with chickens fertilizing it, hogs grubbing it up and also adding fertilizer. Ah, this is just too good!
It’s amazing how little it takes to just stay busy and happy. The total cost will be nil. Just some good old fashion sweat. You know, what the world tries to stay away from, might demean them or something. Well, if the world looks down on sweat nowadays, it sure will be looking down at us simple folks out here. But when they’re looking down their noses at us they’re missing all the good things around them, I guess. Anyway, it sure does appear so to me. Personally, I don’t feel good unless I was doing something out on the old farmstead. I sure ain’t going to be sitting around watching TV, with all the lies about what life is like. No way, because no matter what a person says, it will plant a seed in the most careful person and start to pull them away from the Word. That’s my opinion anyway, so that’s why I’d rather be out in God’s creation with our family, and when the believers gather, at church. It’s really boiling down to just that. Everything else is falling by the wayside.
Maybe that’s why our farming practices have changed so dramatically these last few years. The world’s influences are waning and the Words influence is gaining. Simple, so darn simple. A person don’t have to sit around trying to figure that one out too long. That doesn’t mean a life of drudgery, far from it! Drudgery would be when a person isn’t thinking for themselves and they’re following the world’s lead. As time goes on and a person tastes freedom, such as what I’m writing about, one of the only fears a person has is what would happen if we’d go back to living the world’s way. I figure that’s a good sign, a threshold so to speak, when a person is repulsed by the thought of going back to living a totally modern lifestyle. There’s a fear of not being able to read and dwell on the Word and instead live the modern consumerist life. I think that’s one healthy fear, the fear of separation from God, the fear of not striving to live like Christ. And when that fear comes, simple folks just dig right back into the Good Book and know they have no reason to fear. The simple folk don’t have to try and figure out the Word all to hard because the Word does the work.
Now the modern world looks down on the simple folks as I said, but the good news is that the self appointed bigshots looked down on the simple folk 2000 years ago too. They were despised by them, but those simple folks had one up on the modern folks of the era, they had a Savior that went around the countryside and loved them, preaching, teaching, and “healing them allâ€. Ever notice not a whole lot of the bigshots of the time got healed, they were to busy trying to figure out a way to stay bigshots. Same today. So it really isn’t such a bad thing being on society’s low end. In fact on this world it’s really the place to be.
May 25th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
At the end of the day we go to bed with a happy heart. I wouldn’t trade that for all the big wigs money. When this world ends I know where I am going!
May 26th, 2006 at 3:33 am
I’m with you there, the simple life is for me,
Tom, you sound a lot like my dad, before he got sick, he was always doing stuff out side, the one thing that he love the most was riding his mules, when he was younger, he had a farm with cows, goat’s chickens, and pigs, it was fun growing up on a farm!
take care have a great weekend!
May 26th, 2006 at 3:33 am
Well said Peggy! Now that it’s turning away from winter here and a person can spend a long northern day outside, everywhere we turn is God’s creation bursting open with new life. It does something to a person that’s observing it all. I think the greatest tradgidy would be to live and not notice what’s going on around us. The world’s on a tailspin down and God’s bring His creation up all around us. It’s exciting! And what a gift to us!
And the end result of the greatest gift is as you wrote, ” When this world ends I know where I am going! ”
Tom
May 26th, 2006 at 3:39 am
Janice,
Thanks for the compliment. Your Dad lived life the right way and I’d bet he enjoyed it. As for me I’ll keep going for as long as I can, working outside, living for the Lord. Shedding the world’s miseries with my eyes focused on Jesus. It’s just good!
You snuck a post in while I was responding to Peggy
God Bless.
May 26th, 2006 at 5:07 am
Tom,
So well said…as always! I agree especially with the TV - haven’t had network TV for 25 years now - figured it was just a bunch of garbage way back then - can’t imagine how awful it probably is now!
Blessings!
May 26th, 2006 at 5:28 am
Nice new place you have here!
As a transplant from the big city to a small town, I am just waking up to farming practices today. I drive through many miles of fields being used to grow feed corn for ethanol for cars so that we can drive through the fields being used to grow feed corn for ethanol for cars. I also drive through fields used for sugar beets so that we can have sugar so that we can sit like swollen ticks in front of our TVs and computers. The farmers are throroughly “city-fied” with their satellite TV dishes and of course with their kids learning pop culture from all the other kids in the nearest kid warehouse, er, school.
So it was that for the first time since I was a kid I knelt in the soil and planted my meager 13 rows behind the parsonage, and it felt good to tend this soil that groans so pitifully.
May 26th, 2006 at 7:24 am
I agree with you totally. Farmers or even be that live in the country. Don’t have egos the size of the sun. They are more down to earth. They know were they came from and they know were they’re going. Even in the bible Jesus was unable to perform miracles because of people’s ego’s and unwillingness to learn. That’s what’s hurting us today. Everyone thinks they know the answers to everything and they’re not willing to learn nw things. All they know is were there money is taking them. That place is misery. Deion Sanders a pro football player even found out that money couldn’t make him happy. He was making millions an still sad. Until one night when he was going to take his life. He found out what true happiness was. When he got rid of his life and excepted a new one. He got saved. When we finally realize that we need to leave the life that God has attended us to live. Then we will be happy. When we are in his presence there is peace, happiness, and love. Thanks for the post Tom. May God bless you and your family.
May 26th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Cheri,
You don’t want to imagine how bad television is, even on the “tame” shows. I don’t think we’re missing anything! In fact we’re gaining bigtime! Have a good one down there! God Bless!
Todd,
Well, I’m sure glad you found your way over here! And after reading your comments the best way for me to describe my feelings about them is, YEE HAW!!!! You got it brother!!! Great observations Todd. And I hope all is going great with your move to rural Minnesota. And the soil your tending for the Lord ain’t growning anymore, it’s rejoicing!!
Glad to have you back!
Pastor Josh,
Thank you! Hey, we moved the white rock chickens behind our big garden before supper. So next time your around you’ll see how they’re raised outside and become them famous grass fed chickens. I think them chickens are alot more at peace finally getting out of the brooder house
May 26th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
I so agree but as Kermit would say”It aint easy being green” We drive an old paid for truck that has a lil hitch in it’s getalong and oh the looks we get. Our banker even wanted to talk to us about a car loan :):) We painted the house when we could AFFORD the paint.. we couldnt’ get normal house insurance till it was painted… “Why do you have all those animals?” “Why is your front yard a garden and not lawn?” (because our back “lawn” is a goat pasture) “Why did you disconect your fuel oil burner and put in a woodstove?Wood is messy” It has come to the point I dont’ always explain.. sometimes I just say “Because we want it this way”…. Blessings
May 26th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
We’ll have to stop by one of these days to see them all happy. Never seen a chicken smile before. That will be something to see. God bless.
May 26th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Lovely. Simple beauty. Today I took my two boys out to the ballfield. While one had practice, I threw the ball around with the other. All three of us were dreanched with sweat at the end. Yes, a good day was had by all!
May 27th, 2006 at 3:44 am
Patti,
I must be a rich farmer because I have two broke down pickup’s. Now I hope I don’t make to many folks jelous out there, some folk got it, some don’t
But your comments could have been written about our own family as well. And our answer is the same as yours, “Because we want it this wayâ€â€¦.
Thanks!
PJ,
Your in for a treat seeing them chickens. They’re smiling from ear to ear…..
Mimi,
It’s funny how when a person appreciates the simple things everything else seems to fall into place. Your day with the boys also has lasting memories, it’s blessed! Thanks!