Northern Farmer

Wind is howling and its so cold out its crazy! I pray the wind cuts down tomorrow cause it could be rough if it doesn’t. I don’t mind cold but when a rough wind is with it it can get dangerous. But the house is warm and unless something happens that’s where I’ll be tonight. Oh well, in a couple of months we should start breaking into early spring and then this winter stuff is all just a memory.
Things are different here now than a week or two ago, we have feed that might make it, and a few other things have been taken care of where life should be a bit smoother than the way it looked a short time back. Time to finally start looking in the seed catalogs, I’m late this year doing that because of the other things that were on my mind these last couple of months. But there’s plenty of time now. But I can’t wait to till the earth again, that sweet smell of freshly worked soil, it just does something to me. And besides all the farm work I just love working in the garden. Funny how a man can do all that field work and then relax in a garden. Planting them taters early in the season then following up later with the other plants. And after these last few dry years the hope of a good year is very much on my mind. Oh to see green again instead of things all burning up like the last few years. I truly want to see this again. Where there’s grass in July instead of nothing. To see the silage pit full instead of just the back corner with some in. To see the old fashioned corn crib full of beautiful cobs of corn! Oh Lord I hope this is the return to what we once thought of as normal. I wonder what it will be like where we don’t have to take the majority of our family’s money and spend it on hay and feed for the animals. This farm on even a hard year can out produce what we need, but these last few have been beyond hard, they were total devastation.
I can really relate to those old country songs of faith when reflecting on all of this. Those songs came from a people that lived the way we live. They weren’t “cushioned” by society with nice jobs, and that sense of security that they have until watching the news during an economic slowdown. Our disasters are apart from what’s considered normal living. But through it all there’s a peace. There’s a peace knowing that God is God. And He loves us and cares for us no matter what we are going through or what we have gone through. And them old timers knew this fact of life, much more than what people acknowledge today.
When I hear those old songs that truly reflect what us folks on the land go through today yet, it always brightens me up. You know, if they survived we can too. No matter what! I really hope when I write sometimes that folks that are dreaming of this kind of life on a farm know what it really means. There’s sacrifice beyond what they could ever imagine. Not a year or two, but the whole thing. Just when a person thinks this will be the year when everything is perfect it’ll mostly get wiped out. And this does happen over and over again. But still I’d never trade it. I know it sounds like it doesn’t make sense, but its a life blood, its in the veins. No text book will ever explain it. I say over and over again that I believe a person has to have a strong faith in God and in His Word to live happily out here. Because to mix reality with what society considers normal will never work. If one chooses the world a farm is a burden. Because every worldly dream will be shattered sooner or later.
But if a person can accept reality there is no better way of living that I know of! And no matter what you’ll never even get near knowing the bulk of what a person should know on a farm, not in this lifetime. But keep on plugging, not feeling guilty because so much was destroyed on a bad year. Just thanking God for the opportunity to live the way a person wants. Now the way I’ve been writing is not gloom and doom, far from it. But writing anything but the truth would not be good. Because as I have written over and over, when a person has a strong faith in Jesus they will be blessed abundantly. It might not be what the world considers abundance, but who cares. If its God’s abundant blessings there’s not one thing in the world that could be more abundant that His abundance for you. And when a person has that faith that God is taking care of them nothing else in the world matters anyhow except telling people about God’s abundant blessings and grace.
So in a couple days this cold spell should blow itself out, probably head to Florida or somewhere. We’ll get back outside and get done what needs getting done. Winter will finish itself off in a couple months and then comes the rebirth of the land. From a frozen wasteland to a garden. And when the spring and summer work comes there’ll be those old songs of faith being sung as the rest of the world races by doing whatever they’re doing. It doesn’t matter all that much to me what they have to do in their continual rat race. We’ll do what we do and sing to the Lord while we do it!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 8:31 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.