Northern Farmer

Hot one today! One week I’m still in long underwear the next we’re getting char broiled out side. Never a dull moment up in the North Country. I just got in from my evening ritual of working in the gardens and I’m beat from the heat. But the hot wind keeps the skeeters in line, they have to stay off in the tree grove till the wind calms down or else they figure they can’t take not taking my blood anymore. And it’s still a little early for deer flies as of yet, but they’ll make their appearance on of these days. Now I don’t know why this is, but it seems as a person gets older the bugs don’t seem to bother as much. I remember when I was younger and the bugs would drive me nuts. Now I’ll be working with gnats and skeeters having at me and don’t hardly notice. Meanwhile the rest of the family is just in bug misery. Must be a benefit of getting more years under the belt. Or else I’m so deep in thought that I don’t notice the dirty buggers.

And a quarter mile to the south on the county road the traffic is at a non stop thunder. The way I got it figured I must be the only one left at home in the whole state! Gas must be cheap as far as I can tell because I never seen this much traffic before around here in my life. I must be going to the wrong gas station because with the amount of traffic out there someone must be selling it for around fifty cents a gallon. But, don’t matter I guess because my general rule here lately with the farm pickups is; “don’t drive farther than you can comfortably walk home.” Thus, I don’t get to far. But then again, who’d want to leave when a person has a place out here. I’d like to go fishing, but in this area, now is not the time to go. A smart country boy, (or girl), waits until the city folk all head back to the city Monday afternoon or evening. Then a person has a virtual paradise around here on some of the prettiest lakes a person could ever imagine. And about the only other folks on the lake will be some other family that thinks like me. Being a Minnesotan, it’s almost required that a person takes their kids fishing, it builds character. Now, fishing with me is a rather cheap affair, none of the modern fancy gadgets, just fishing poles, bait that we rustle up on the farm, and an old fishing boat, you know, four seater with no options except for a coffee can to bail out water once in a while. It don’t even have indoor plumbing so when the call of nature appears, land the boat on shore, everyone scatter in the woods and case closed, job done.

So come Monday, well, later Monday all the modern folks will be heading back to wherever they came from. We’ll be out here yet. Someday when it’s difficult to purchase fuel to travel around it might not be as it is now out here. Maybe it’ll quiet down on the roads somewhat. Maybe folks will look around and see that they have a family, a family that never works together, a family that never eats together, and a family that doesn’t have any time for each other at all. Of all the sickness and greed of the industrial machine, I don’t think anything can match what it is doing to the family. I truly have a hard time imagining living like I just wrote about, never eating, working or even having time for each other. What a living hell! A person has to face it, its pure hell. And the industrial culture wants to destroy it further and further.

I’ve had a lot of mixed emotions since starting this blog over a year ago. But as time marches on the one thing I know is that this is going to be my place to tell the truth about what’s happening in this fallen world. It’ll never get more than a glance from most folks, but that’s the way it is with this culture. But I figure, come Judgment Day, at least this is one thing I won’t have to be to ashamed about. I’m so thankful that the Lord opened my eyes a while back and we were able to rein in what was happening around here on the farm. The turnaround has been remarkable! Everything finds it place. Lie after lie is exposed and thrown out. And this is just the beginning!

So here it is a Saturday night, just got in from a full day’s work outside. There’s some Gospel Bluegrass turned on in the other room, an evening of rest and family. Now, I won’t say family time, we were together all the time already. But, now we’re all in the house, cleaning up, stretching out, there’s laughing in the other room. We’re excited about heading out to church tomorrow after morning chores. The old bones are sore, but a good kind of sore. That’s the kind of soreness that makes them last a heck of a lot longer than the average modern lifestyle bones. I think many modern folks would have a hard time believing how some of these old farmers are able to just keep on going in their old age, while their city cousins are already bedridden or dead from retirement. It shouldn’t be to amazing when a person just thinks about the lifestyle, strong faith in God, not scared of work, eat every meal like it was your last. And eat diets that would kill the average office worker, meanwhile staying healthy and looking younger than they are. Lots of fats, taters, and all the rest of the good stuff. Now, these farmers I’m talking about aren’t so much the modern type farmers, you know the kind that are supposed business men. No, these are the holdouts, the diversified farmers we still have around here. A rare commodity in some parts of the Midwest.

But it does make sense when looked at with a biblical vision. These folks are just blessed because of their faith and the work ethic that goes along with it. These folks are truly free. The modern world might think its drudgery, but then again who cares what they think. They just keep spiraling downward following the gospel of the lord of this world. And that will only lead to sickness and death, family misery and abandonment, and forever chasing their tails wanting to buy something that they think will give them more pleasure, and it never does. I guess that’s why I love the simple pleasures a simple life and faith bring. It’s so good!

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 27th, 2006 at 7:09 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.