Northern Farmer

Was in town today about twenty five miles away getting some supplies for working calves this coming Saturday and it was sure a pretty trip this time of the year. The main fall colors are past but there’s still enough God given beauty to keep a person in awe during the whole trip. We went to the veterinary supply store, a pretty big one and got everything we needed, stopped in town and had a bite to eat and came home. The day was off and on showers so I had a hard time committing to any jobs out in the fields or pastures. Got the hog pen cleaned up today and because of it I’m much cleaner than normal writing this. I “had to” take a shower when I came in, believe me! Plus my clothes are already in the washing machine. Destroy the evidence I say! The pen wasn’t all that bad, but there was a combination of conditions, drizzly out, super humid and warm enough to kick me into a sweat. But on the farm you do jobs like that when you can’t do the dry day jobs. Them hogs are ready for butchering but I’ll hold off a few more weeks cause it has to be naturally cool outside to cool the carcasses off overnight before we cut up them hogs the next day. Anybody have any good homemade sausage recipes? We have our own but am willing to experiment a little cause we’ll have a glut of pork shortly.

Tomorrow evening is church out in the hills and every Wednesday that’s where we head off to. I like this time of the year the best because it’s getting dark out by the time service starts and it just makes a farmer more at ease sittin there when it’s dark out, unlike summertime when the sun’s still up when we get out. I’ve written about our little church the last two years. Some don’t care for it, but some like me writing about it. But then again this blog is about the real thing and church is what our lives revolve around. We have no issues with our church because it follows the Bible and that’s good enough for me! Rare to find a church like that in this area nowadays.

This coming Saturday we’ll have plenty of help working calves, all church folks. Even church kids want to get into the act and I’ll let a few have at it doing the simpler jobs. It seems they all want to run the “hot shot”. Now if there’s anyone against us using the “hot shot”, well, you can come over and get all the calves down the chute into the squeeze without using it and keep me busy working them, it’s fine with me. Our system is setup so no one is standing with the calves because these ain’t little cute “babies”. They’re some five hundred pounders that could break your leg with one well placed kick, and kick they do, it’s in their blood. The kids walk on a catwalk, and there’s an adult there too getting the calves unjammed in the half moon tub and started down the chute. The whole rig is over thirty foot long and portable. Cost a pretty penny years back too, but nothing compared to the cost of an injury nowadays. One has to be mighty careful in this lifestyle because one slip could have you dead or crippled up right quick. And I ain’t kidding!

Sometimes I wonder about that, seeing how fragile life is every day on the farm. From plants withering down from drought, or freezing out early to animals getting sick or injured, to family members getting injured here. As far as family members getting injured we’ve been blessed through the years because of trying to work carefully and with a purpose. Most injuries are from just flat out rushing and not thinking something through. I do have my share of minor injuries, but nothing major so far. The most common is just old fashioned busting my back, and almost every time that happens I look back and know that I could of avoided it, but rushed into something. I figure that nowadays there’s enough external forces trying to get the family farmer off the land, no sense in getting goofy and getting injured and forcing ourselves off. Because in these days and times, every direction one looks it looks like everything is going down the tubes. I know there’s folks that’ll disagree with me, but the Bible says what’s all happening now is going to get a lot worse. Might as well face the facts.

Could be pretty soon some of the things I write about will be illegal to post. It’s happening, it might be put off for a season, but it will happen. I’ve been dwelling on that, but the Lord tells to the Blood bought believers, “not to fear”. Just keep on the straight and narrow. And the more a person disconnects with main stream society the better off they’ll be. The only thing that we truly have as far as modern society goes is this computer, (I’m talking about media), and this computer has only one purpose and thats to write about God and the farm. I don’t surf the internet, just have a few places I go on it. All with the same purpose. That also explains why I don’t show up on very many blogs and such. I wasn’t going to come back on the internet but had a burden on my heart to write what we believe and do because I know there’s not much readership, but sending out our faith into cyberspace is something we must do. With all the trash on the internet, God fearing folks that have the heart to do so should be doing this. You won’t see any inter denominational bickering here, cause I’ll not have this blog become a haven for folks that just sew discord and strife. Nope, this’ll be about what we do and how we live and our faith in doing so. I’m satisfied with that!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 7:22 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.