Northern Farmer

Well Glory to God! It got above zero a little bit ago here. Now we’re at a hot one above zero. Sure hope the cattle can find a shade tree with a heat wave this intense eh. Cattle seem to be in good shape, well allot better than they were two days ago when the wind was howling and the temperatures were way below zero. I reckon tonight will be far, far below zero but the wind is almost non existent here at the moment so that ain’t to bad at all. Chores went smooth this morning and i didn’t pound open the cattle waterers till we got home from church around one this afternoon. I have that down to an art, getting them things opened up. Used to be the balled waterer would give me problems, there’d be a float that would freeze to the side wall of the thing inside. Well, when I was uneducated in these type of waterers I used to have to go to the house and get a few five gallon pails of hot water. Unthaw the outside so I could take the thing apart and get it going. But as I observed how that thing operated I came up with a dirt farmer shortcut. It’s called a big rubber mallet. A few well placed hits on the outside of the waterer and pretty quick I can hear the water running inside the waterer. Of coarse this all takes place with a thirsty herd of cows that are getting impatient with me. I’m trying to keep them back as I do this because I don’t feel like becoming people burger. They’re a whole lot bigger than me and when there’s a hundred waiting for their water with me in between things could happen. But so far I’ve lived to blog about it.

But it’s Sunday here, things are pretty well wrapped up for the day. Wood furnaces are stuffed full and will last till six tomorrow morning. Houses will be warm till then without any problem. Plenty of wood on the wood piles to last till late spring. Now if I could just find someone with a few hundred large round bales of grass hay. Oh well, I have faith, plus about a two month supply before we run out. Church went well today, in other words I didn’t have to do anything. The old double wide along side the church only had one water pipe froze this morning and that got unthawed before church. But the double wide kinda stunk, sewer gas type smell so we made sure all the drain traps had some water run in em. That happens here to. Mainly the basement floor drain, gotta remember to throw a little water in there every month in winter or else there’ll be some powerful smells in the house when you least expect it. But Praise the Lord, church was warm today, the furnace was running without a hitch, and I mean that’s a big praise because sometimes it ain’t and that can get a bit chilly after a while. But today was toasty!

Last summer, Labor Day to be exact, I was at a funeral, in fact I blogged about it. I’ll never forget that day. It really was a nice sunny day. And after the grave side service a couple from church whom I could call really dear friends surprised me with a gift while I was walking back to the pickup truck. It was totally unexpected and I’ll be in debt to them forever. They gave me a brand spanking new Strong’s Concordance. Let me tell you, you wouldn’t want to drop that thing on your toes, it’s big! And I have to say, that’s a gift that can last multiple generations. Talk about a useful tool for a dirt farmer that can’t help but preach once in a while. I can find any verse that comes to mind if I even know one word from the verse.

So what’s a dirt farmer doing putting his nose into the preaching business? Well, why not! I figure there’s nothing wrong with a farmer taking on double duty. In fact there should be a heck of allot more of that as far as I’m concerned. You know, it’s hard for me to trust someone who never got their hands dirty. Maybe I’m wrong but I figure there’s nothing wrong with folks that work doing some preaching. Sure we’re basically uneducated and are looked down upon by the big seminary graduates, kinda reminds me of the Bible a bit. But I don’t want to get sidetracked to far today, a bad habit of mine you know. But I do believe man can get caught up in his own importance and start figuring that they’re pretty full of wisdom when all they ever done was go to seminary or some college and then figure they know so much more. Now get this straight, I’m not belittling them, nope not one bit. Just setting an order here. But I’ve been investigating, it’s one of my hobbies you know, investigating about all the old fashioned farmer/preachers and there’s some amazing stories for sure.

There’s just something about rural folks, like I said, there’s a distrust of someone who never got their hands dirty and are going to lead the way for other folks. Did they ever experience drought, crop failures, dead animals, severe injuries while working on their own stuff? As I’ve been reading about them old time preachers one thing really comes thru, they worked! They’d have themselves a farm, maybe a bunch of kids, worked till their back was gonna break and then get cleaned up and go preach. Some of them traveled around the area, starting churches in the neighboring areas. Taking care of a bunch of little shack churches, helping folks, burying the dead, marrying the young, doing all the things that they’re supposed to do. But they didn’t make no living on it. Well, first of all there was no money to be had. Their collection plates were about as full as the one I pass around in children’s church. Get done passing around the plate it’s still clean enough to eat off of! Not a new germ on the thing! But that didn’t stop them from doing the job that the Lord had them do. And they could get to the people like no outsider ever could hope to. And that’s the way it should be.

That’s what we need out here in the countryside, some farmers and homesteaders that ain’t ashamed of the Gospel! Don’t need them big fancy city churches or anything like that. And I can think of very few people that can relate more to the way the Bible is written than people that depend on the land for part or all of their living. This countryside needs some local preachers again. Someone that doesn’t feel stuck here, someone that is here for good. Besides, most of the denominations that are centered in the big cities are going to hell anyhow as they vote in all these perverted things and call them good. Yup, there’s a need, there’s a call for someone who feels comfortable going to a rural yard that has more junk laying around than a big city scrap yard. Someone who isn’t offended by the smell of some hog manure or a chicken flying up on their car or truck when they stop in a yard. I tell you, I’ve seen the opposite and it made the hair on my back straighted up! I’ve seen more hypocrisy from big city preachers than I can shake a stick at when they’re stuck out in the country. I can’t really blame em cause they don’t know any better, but it does get to me a bit. The ones I’m talkin about are basically ones that live so much in the system anyway that there really ain’t no difference between them and the world anyhow. Then there are others that move out here to escape the madness and you know, they’re alright, their heart is in the right place. They’ll do just fine! So in closing here, we need some of the old fashioned ways to return, and I think they will because if God wants it that way it will be that way.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 20th, 2008 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.