Northern Farmer

I was able to come in a bit early this evening because we’re having little rain showers to cut the dust here. And there’s a lot of dust to cut! Getting a little on the dry side around here. We were going to bale hay today but had a breakdown with the baler, a three hundred dollar breakdown, and the part arrives tomorrow morning at eight AM at the John Deere shop. So, fix it when we get it.

But all in all it’s going very good around here. Yesterday we drove east over an hour and visited with Good Farmer John and family. That’s the first time since they moved to Minnesota that we’ve been able to get away for a few hours, so we took advantage of the little window of opportunity. And I’ve been feeling good about the trip all day today. What was so moving to me was how they pulled stakes on everything and started up farming on the old home place. So many things that they are doing brought back memories of when we were doing the exact same things, living the exact same way, getting our feet firmly planted on the ground and starting a new life. That first part is when so many people lose the dream, the part when they realize they have to give it all up for a new way of life. Jobs, careers, and that false feeling of security a person has in the modern rat race. And if they make it that far and do give up all many are surprised by the incredible amount of work facing them. Not a weeks worth, or a months, or a years worth. We’re talking about a greater share of your life.

The first year facing JM and family is a reminder of when we moved to the farm. Same situation with the old farm house, many areas in the farmstead needed straightening up, and just the most everyday things were not available. Things like water, septic, lack of electricity. But the basics were working by the end of the first summer. Then comes the gathering of livestock, a few critters here and a few there. Busting the sod to get a garden in that first year, and not just for a hobby, but to really help out with food. Any money would have to go for getting things going on the farm itself, not what society considers pleasure.

It doesn’t end after that first year, in fact on a multi generational farm the jobs are never completed. There’s never a time when a person can say, “There, it’s all done.” The multi generational family farm is almost like a living thing in itself. The generations come and go, tending the farm and the farm taking care of all the folks that live and work on it. Now some of the great thinkers probably think this is just ignorance but the farm and the family over the years really become one and the same. New life comes, animal, plants, and people. And over time all of them pass away leaving something behind that keeps the farm and the family going on. A point comes when it’s not about profits, the farm is defended the same as a family member. Its home to many, a way of life. Now that’s something the modern folks like to gnash their teeth at, the way of life thing. They say, NO, NO, it’s a business and has to be treated as any business. Borrow, borrow, cash flow, and forward contract your crops and animals. Yeh, right!

We look around our own farm, and I was here from day one, and a person can see things built or made by a generation that has gone to the Lord a while back. There’s a tremendous amount built up from the succeeding three generations. And in my lifetime I’ll never get done what I’d like to get done. But the knowledge that the farm will continue, maybe not exactly as I would of done, but continue never the less is comforting. We build to pass on a better life than the one modern society can offer, to give a stable place to call home, to give a way of life to those who come after us.

After the tour with John, I was more than confident that they were doing the right thing. In fact it even has a calming affect on me, to see a family pursuing what the Lord has placed in their hearts. To see that they fully understand the change they are undertaking. It lifts me up, and I mean it, to see folks that follow the Lords direction. It’s so much easier to think a person has it safe with a career and then wonder why everything is going down the tubes as the family goes along in years. To end the day was a good, or should I say GREAT old fashion farm supper served under some big oak trees, in the shade with a cool breeze on a hot day. It just doesn’t get any better than that. Besides the wonderful meal we were served homemade goats milk ice cream. Sittin under them huge ancient trees with their farm surrounding us because the homestead is right in the dead center of the farm, looking over the fields of promise, envisioning all the things that would be happening in the future, yes, it’s moving.

Today I was thinking about our own farm too, from the beginning until now. It’s so much different now than when we moved out to this place so many years ago. We had almost nothing them first few years, now it’s almost a society of its own. Heck, it’s bigger than some small towns! I mean the homestead that is. Now it’s almost like the old family farms of yesterday, or plantation for that matter with all the different kinds of barns and coops, workshops, machine shop, woodshop, and gardens, fruit trees, and many different flower beds scattered about. There’s different kinds of farm animals all over the place, we have our own creek coming through the property and that’s always an adventure for the kids. We have our own bass pond that we dug out a few years past and are planning a chain of them in the future. We have a few different woodlots or woods, we have open land, uplands and lowland meadows.

When the day comes for me to go to the Lord I’m confident that we did a good job building this up. Yesterday’s visit was so good because we were seeing where we were and can envision where John’s family “will” be heading. It’s good to know people that are doing what they say, they’re my kind of folks!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 5th, 2006 at 6:06 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.