Northern Farmer

The weekend is winding down although around here it never got to wound up with the heat and all. Boy, it’s really a rough bugger out there with 100+ degrees for most of the day. Around here that means just making sure the animals are well watered and all. Water’s the cheapest feed so it don’t pay to short change all the animals and bird that we tend. I know I sure wouldn’t want to be short changed on water in this weather. I haven’t gotten the nerve up to look at the corn yet, but I’m hoping beyond hope that our main fields somehow hold together yet.

But this weekend we had a few things happen around here. Last evening we had a corn boil with some friends from church here and was it ever a great time. This could be habit forming! The sweet corn sure does taste good from the corn patch out back with the help of thousands of gallons of water that have been pumped there. The folks all chipped in and brought some good food, I mean great food, and these are the days a person will remember a long time from now.

Friday evening Gilbert was following around daughter Becca near sun down and when it was time to put that goose away for the evening, well, Gilbert flew away. Talk about a heart break. Now, we have around a hundred wild Canadian Honkers living right here by my yard and they all look the same so I had no idea which one was Gilbert. Oh well, win some and lose some, Gilbert would probably do better in the wild anyhow. We would miss that goose.

Saturday I seen a lone goose in a field across the county road from the farm, but didn’t have time to investigate at the moment and a couple hours later we went and looked all over that area, but nothing. So a little before noon daughter Rachel and I hopped on the four wheeler to go move cattle a couple of miles south from a hayfield and back into permanent pasture. Three quarter miles south of our place while driving down the old township road I spotted a lone goose a couple hundred yards out in a cut off meadow, so we stopped the four wheeler and yelled “Gilbert”. The goose took off flying right to us and landed by the four wheeler with happiness in its eyes, or at least I think so. So I caught it and then faced the three quarter mile drive home with an almost full grown Canadian Honker on my lap. Now, daughter Rachel was laughing and wondering what would happen if Gilbert would be loose as a goose on my lap, but God is good and I didn’t get greased up pants from our feathered friend. I was a tad bit concerned about meeting a game warden while transporting a wild goose on my lap driving down the road, but we snuck home OK. Now Gilbert is back with the chickens it grew up with, happy, where he feels he belongs, with his own. Now all this started when the chickens Gilbert lived with were moved to the farm’s main chicken coop. I got mad at them for rattling up my huckleberry plants in the garden and moved them up there Thursday evening and Gilbert was more than a little mad about losing his chicken family. Thus he went looking for his chicken family Friday evening. But all is well now, our family was happy with his return and the chicken coop is doing fine with a big goose in charge. He’s the boss there and the roosters leave him totally alone. And we always get that “honk” greeting when we go in there now.

Today we went to church and as always it was just great and I praise the Lord for giving man the wisdom for inventing the air conditioner. I think in the history of man since creation, the air conditioner has to rank in the top five good things man has ever accomplished on this earth. Now I suppose I could talk against it but I’m not against technologies at all, just the misuse and abuse of technologies for evil, or if they take our eyes off of God. Today I think I was able to focus on God much better not being passed out from the heat because of air conditioning. I remember a while back the Missouri Reverend had one of the best posts I ever read about technology. But I can’t find it right off hand. But, I’m all for any technology that does good and truly helps a person out and I feel that the air conditioner, when it’s a 100+ outside sure does fit the bill for helpful. It mostly technologies that are used in greed and destruction that get to me and we are doing away with or else never had them here. Below is an example I copied from another blog somewhere a while back:

————————————————————–
…let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
Hebrews 12:28 KJV
I will not sit and watch television programs or movies in which the Name of the Lord is taken in vain. It doesn’t matter what the show is about or how much my family and I may want to see it, if it takes the Name of the Lord in vain - off it goes.
Why?
Because that is irreverence. I love the Lord too much to be entertained by someone taking His Name in vain. He has done too much for me to do that.
I truly believe that if we expect the Name of the Lord to release power in our life when we need it, then we must reverence that Name the rest of the time.
—————————————————————-

That’s just television, but it can be expanded to anything in life. The one thing I disagree with is as far as I’m concerned, the heck with television, period. That’ll save the trouble of turning off a bad show, and if the show is good the commercials will get the devil in the house anyhow. Where as the technology of air conditioning for us is just a big useful help, we rarely use it, but it’s there when needed. Two years ago it was never even turned on. But this year is a bugger and I’m so thankful for that cheap window unit.
Now if this flies in the face of folks that think I should be really old fashion, so be it, but in this day a person can choose from technology things that really help and can discard the rest. I don’t think a window unit air conditioner ever drove anyone broke that wouldn’t have been broke anyhow because of all the unimportant toys and gadgets they longed for and purchased and paid out monthly payments for. In fact when a person isn’t temped to have every toy and gadget imaginable one can have the things that truly do help out in life. Plus live much simpler, not have the day to day worries that the rat race consumerism life carries with it.
So that’s the weekend as far as things around here are concerned. One more hot day, they say, then down to the seventies. I can’t wait!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 30th, 2006 at 6:44 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.