Northern Farmer

The drought continues its merciless grip here with temps in the nineties and no rain in site. We’re trying to keep up watering the gardens at least but are falling far short of being able to keep up. But they’re managing to hang on somewhat with our favorite crops getting the priorities. The meals almost totally consist of garden produce and home raised and butchered meats this time of the year and sure do taste great.

Today, Sunday, we headed off to our little church and in all reality it was the saddest day I ever had there. Today was Pastor Josh’s last day there and some will remember him commenting here on this blog off and on a while back. It’s tough to see someone go that was there since we came to the church and had since become such a good friend. If I had a problem with faith matters, he was there, always ready and willing to help. He started me on my own path of further studies into God’s Word. He supplied me with shopping bags full of books that started a hunger that’s never let up. Which reminds me I still have shopping bags full of his books here! Hmm, they’ll get back sometime! And last fall when so many things were falling apart here on the farm because of cancer, he was here catching cow/calf pairs in the remote pasture and hauling them home. And a few weeks later he was over during the cattle working in the chute. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but that’s an old time preacher in my eyes! Not one of them New Age high nosed ones that won’t get their hands or feet dirty.

PJ reminded me the other day about one of his memories here on the farm. He got to see the personality change in a farmer from top to bottom when that farmer is a little pressed for time and stressed out. We were getting ready to trap the cattle on the remote pasture last fall and came driving over the hill. Then we seen a calf out in the adjoining hay field that would kinda screw up our plans if it wasn’t back with the cow her pronto. Catching those cattle and loading them out is not exactly what you’d call a low stress job in the first place so when I seen that calf out I know now PJ was just wondering how I was going to handle it. How does hillbilly logic come in to play, so to speak. He musta seen the look in my eyes, that never give up look, and also the fact that a farmer in this situation has absolutely no respect for their farm truck. (Remember, it’s long, long paid for, decades). He probably just remembers the one thing I said through gritted teeth, “Hang ON!” That truck got floored and, (oh by the way, if you’re an animal rights wacko click on to another site now), I do believe PJ got a good lesson in barreling after a calf full blast with an old Chevy pickup. Kinda reminds a person of them films with astronauts in space with all that stuff floating around them. Anyone that got farm truck like mine knows there’s a lot of stuff to float around. Although it ain’t floating around nice and serene and gentle like those NASA films clips. Back to the chase, I learned a lot of stuff watching almost every episode of The Dukes of Hazard back in my TV watching days and I’m not talking about Daisy either. Chasing that calf was fairly reminiscent of a typical Hazard county chase scene. Dust flying and us two just hanging on. I figure PJ was wondering how Farmer Tom was going to get the calf from point A to point B with a fence in between us and the cow herd. I feel for him now when I just sit back and think about it, riding with a completely focused driver like that. It was hot pursuit right behind that calf, and that’s fast, with a fence coming up in front of us at a rapid pace, too rapid. And the truck wasn’t slowing down one bit a few inches behind that flat out running calf. Just before we hit the fence I slammed on the brakes, hard, coming right onto the fence while smashing the calf through it. There, job done and then it was time to get to work and catch all the herd in the corral. Yup, memories!

That same day, only a little while earlier PJ learned how to feed a different herd of hungry droughted out cows. We loaded the big round bale on the back of our trusty farm truck and headed out to the pasture. A daily thing, and those cows were waiting for it. We drove right past the herd and headed to a chopped out corn field that the cattle were cleaning up. I floored it to get back there around a half a mile behind the farm and told PJ we got thirty seconds before the herd would arrive and trample us. We parked right on top of the hill, jumped out, pushed the bale off, gave it a few rolls down the hill so it could unroll itself down the hill a little more and just like that the herd arrived at a dead run. In all fairness, this is daily life, daily chores, and PJ handled it really good. And when a seasoned farmer sees a green horn like that just tear into the job, oh there was a little wondering in his eyes, that farmer makes a judgment on the spot where the green horn has gained a huge amount of respect.

This is the kind of preachers that are badly needed out here in the country, ones that ain’t afraid of work, good old fashioned work. The kinda man a person can depend on! And since that time last fall PJ got himself and family their own small farm and has chickens, turkeys and goats now. From city boy, to first class farmer/preacher. Now that PJ has moved on, I’ll miss him very much at church, but the good news is that he’s only a half an hour away and he’s there to stay. So although I won’t be seeing him in church every week we’ll still be together quite often. But I wanted to say thank you to Pastor Josh publicly on this blog. You’re a friend, a true friend and what you started in our family will continue on for the glory of God!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 8:34 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.