No Separation
November 25th, 2007 by Northern FarmerThe temperatures keep stepping down steadily in this neck of the woods. Looking at the forecast shows highs in the twenties this next week, a slight drop from what we’ve been having but I can’t see any big snows in site yet. Part of the cow herd continues to graze, the latest we ever had them doing that. The rest of the cowherd requires a bit less feed because of the mild conditions that are around here yet. I can promise that there won’t be very many fat cows here come spring. Those babies are going to be lean and mean this winter in order to make it through OK. I gotta get to hog butchering one of these days, we do it entirely ourselves, but tomorrow I’m having two steers and a cow butchered on the farm by our local butcher at the co-op. These are sold animals and they go to the processor, gotta stay legal you know!
Jobs around here are transforming from seasonal work to just maintenance work, feeding, repairing, making wood, etc. Evenings are basically spent in the house, unless I really get a bug to go out and do something. But with heavier clothes on all day and heavier boots when a person hits the warm house in the evening all of a sudden a person just tires out. And its a good tired. I need this time to recuperate after the main season. Time to catch up on other things instead of just constant work. Last evening I called a friend and his family, first words were, “I’m bored”. In the country that’s an invitation to come over, different lingo you know. So I was up till midnight and believe me, I’m never up till midnight otherwise. We were just talking faith matters and time just gets away on a person. So I slept in this morning, being Sunday and all that till five AM. Boy did that ever come quick! Even screwed up some chores this morning opening the wrong gate. Had to chase the cattle back and start over. That’ll teach me for acting like a youngster and staying up so late!
Just around the corner is December and it looks like we’re getting booked solid. Mostly church stuff which is OK with me. In that month there will be two different guest ministers stopping by. Both are multi day events and will be really good. Just after mid December will be the one I’m looking forward to the most, a healing ministry. Well there’s much more than that but the simple fact that it has a healing ministry besides all the other stuff always catches my attention. This will be an old fashioned time for me, little church out in the middle of no where with a preacher from Pennsylvania I believe, coming and preaching the unchangeable Word of God. Yee Haw! I’m getting revved up to say the least. Plus the possibility of an old fashioned tent meeting coming this summer out in a big lot next to our little church, probably a multi day event to boot!
So that’s what’s happening with those things in our life, an important part of our life to say the least, thus the reason why it takes up so much space around here on this blog. Because it is life. When a person wants the simpler life out here I couldn’t even imagine being happy with it without this aspect being of the utmost importance. Community, it ain’t perfect, there’s even squabbles, we’re human you know, but there’s nothing better yet in this world so that’s what we do. Sometimes squabbles do arise and if left unchecked they grow and grow. I gotta admit, when a person senses stuff like squabbles happening that is the time to make them right, not later. Today in church our pastor just stopped the service and said everyone repent and pray through. Stopped everything and that was it. No preaching, no preacher praying out loud, just everyone praying and humbling themselves and getting right with God and changing their heart. This was just some old fashion repentance, good to see. Lasted a long time too. No need to sugar coat stuff, just get to the heart of the matter. There ain’t one person that’s good and we’d better get that through our skulls.
Now that Thanksgiving is over with the first thing that happened the day after was getting the first new seed catalogs in the mailbox. Got two right off the bat on Friday.I didn’t even get the garden totally cleaned up this year yet and I was laughing that we’re thinking spring already. Time keeps moving on. I remember back in late July when everything was devastated here by the killer drought, thinking to myself how far away mid-May was, wondering how to make it. That sick feeling knowing all the extra jobs and money it would require to even barely make it. But day after day, week after week, month after month we’re getting closer to what hopefully will be the end to this drought. Maybe that’s one reason I write so much, or am drawn to write about church and faith and all that. When everything a person ever reads about on how to farm or homestead just goes down the tubes right in front of your eyes there’s only one way to turn. I believe that’s why faith was so much stronger years ago, there was no modern backup to turn to. There wasn’t no welfare office that would bail a person out, there was not much of anything except a person’s faith and hopefully church folks that would pitch together and help each other out. I tell you, there’s lessons to be learned when farming is a person’s mainstay. One rough year is rough enough, but three back to back is getting to be a burden on my back. Funny thing is, I’m listening to some old bluegrass music playing on the computer while I type and the songs are basically about the same thing I’m writing about. Someone living more modern might not fully comprehend what I’m talking about. But I can see where the oldtimers got their faith to keep on plugging where as a more modern folk would probably just pull up stakes and say this isn’t for me.
But either I’m too smart or I’m just too dumb to pull up stakes and change. What would I change too? What would I want to change too? I can’t think of one single thing, not one. Don’t want to work in no office, don’t want to work in a factory, don’t want to be a salesman or anything like that. Don’t want to work for anybody. Done enough of that years ago, did a good job, but just didn’t have it in me to keep doing that the rest of my life. Farming doesn’t compete with church matters or visa versa, they just blend without any problem just as in the days of old. In fact, I believe a strong faith is what makes this way of life successful in the long run, thus its written about always here right in with all the farming stuff. There is no separation of farming and faith. They aren’t two separate things, they are one. Come to think of it, this just came to me, if they are separate that’s where a person begins to run into trouble. No, they are one. That’s probably thee biggest problem in this society today, separating anything to do with God from our other things in life. Putting it into a separate compartment, so to speak, doesn’t work.