Northern Farmer

Glory to God, its looking like an old fashioned Minnesota summer around here! In other words I was wearing my winter coat a few hours today outside, started a fire in the outdoor wood boiler this evening because the house was getting an uncomfortable chill to it, which is now getting allot more comfortable as I write.We’ve been getting much more rain than the last few years although its still way below what’s considered normal for these parts. But a land that’s bursting deep green does my heart good everytime I see it! Corn is all up, oats is looking really good with the cooler weather in which it excels and the pastures are great. The cows are regaining shape faster than I ever dreamed possible after a long, tough winter around here. In a couple weeks or so I’ll start considering cutting first crop hay, but until then the wait is for volume, allot of it.
I missed an Amish auction today because I was a bit to busy to take the day off and go 25 miles and stand around. Kinda wanted to go, but such was not the case. Its always interesting to snoop around there and see what the smart people are doing farming. I’d bet they ain’t complaining to much about fuel prices! And every time I’ve been looking at our family’s pet horse, a big paint gelding named Gideon, (he used to be called Poco but I recently renamed him Gideon because he might have to save his people), I get more and more interested in getting him trained up for work and riding. Funny thing is I was joking at the local co-op a few days ago and mentioned that I might be interested in getting a buggy and nobody laughed it off. In fact it threw me for a loop how serious folks took that! Back in the glory days of this farm, well before I was on this earth, this farm was set up incredibly well as a horse operated farm. There was room in the front of the huge dairy barn for four teams to be stabled. There were separate hay chutes so folks could throw down the good hay for the work horses from the hay barn while the dairy cows got the hay of lesser quality. Kinda the opposite of how it is today. Now the horse folks are running around buying bales that are half cattails and the remainder just some deep swamp hay and do they ever pay a price for that stuff! I’d be scared to feed it to old brood cows that are in excellent shape.
But getting back to the horse run farm of years ago here, the farm was as big as it is now, if not bigger and they had allot of acres in crops and hays. The whole thing done entirely with horses. I think one of the biggest misconceptions we have nowadays is the idea that farming with horses would make it so a family could hardly raise anything, but the facts from years ago show differently. You know, I always wonder how it would have been to be working in the fields day after day and never have your ears ringing from the constant noise of a gas or diesel engine. And also the huge fact that on farms like this, family farms that were of pretty good size there was very little money required for inputs. The way it worked back then was that a farm where the family worked hard and produced enough for themselves and had quite a bit of product to sell in all reality many times became wealthy! Now that’s a term not heard of much anymore in family farming, but the facts are the facts. When I look around our place the history of the building from years gone by speak to me of time good and prosperous. And with such a minimal amount that these families ever had to spend on inputs to keep the whole operation going full steam is nothing short of amazing! From power to till, plant and harvest the fields to all heating to be done on the place with wood from the back woods, there wasn’t a penny laid out for very much in comparison to what we moderns consider normal. They had water systems on this place that were amazing and when I look over the remains of them I’m almost in awe. These were not some poor folks barely scratching out a living, these folks farmed and were prospering for decades until they got sucked in to the lie that the modern way was thee way and life would be so much better. And when that happened then began the decline and who can blame the younger generations for leaving the farm, because gradually it became apparent that the wasn’t as much money to make a living with as in days gone by. So might as well head for the city and get a steady paycheck and borrow and get as many modern conveniences as possible to live that “better” life. Materialism had taken away the prosperity and freedom of the people from the farms without them even realizing it. And it keeps going today, steadily taking more and more from people and they hardly realize they are in total bondage. Remember when decades ago a person could watch TV for free, the commercials paid for your viewing pleasure, now besides having the TV destroy the once thriving American way of life, people have been brain numbed into paying a monthly bill to watch commercials that are convincing you to live the easy and free lifestyle lie that has snookered most of the American public into a slavery as real as any slavery this earth has ever produced. Family plans for cell phones cost as much as a person buying small acreages of land. People say they can’t afford to move to a small farm, and they are correct. They are in slavery to this culture that takes away every dime that they’ve earned even before they earn it.
Summer is kinda officially here and the same folks that can’t afford to have a small place in the country to farm and live simply are packing up and heading out on vacations and weekend outings that again would go a long way into paying for a starter farm. And living the modern way these folks hardly realize it. And if they do there is a tug at their hearts and that tug doesn’t want to give up what this society is dangling in front of their noses.
I’ve just completed reading a book, one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life, about an old Methodist circuit rider named Robert Sheffy. It took place in the 1800s right until the early 1900s and besides giving my heart a burning desire to see evangelism like that return to this once great land, the thing that struck me the most in the book is how it was documented that as all the new fanged inventions were coming out late in the 1800s and early 1900s the people were steadily turning away from God. Now from our point of view in these days and times we think of a hundred years ago as the good old days and people had their act together and were very faithful to God. But it was disintegrating fast in the later part of the 1800s as the industrial complex was taking over. And in this book old Bro Sheffy seen it with his own eyes and it grieved him badly. That book, which I will write on this blog as the best book I’ve ever read, really spoke to me, in more ways then one. It confirmed a burning anger in my heart at the deception this culture has pulled on the people. Never before have I read an account of a once faithful people being pulled away from God as Bro Sheffy witnessed and grieved over.
So when I see the news that says that barrels of oil have reached a record high again that day, that the economy is slowing down, and all the related news to go with it, I can only wonder about a people that are totally immersed in materialism. How will they react when things start getting rough? I don’t know but I believe that God is waiting to have His people come back to Him like in the days of old, before humanism and materialism became the dominant religion of this country.

My prayer is to see the day when the countryside has the Gospel preached to them again like in the years gone by and that the people will turn back to Him.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 6:52 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.