Northern Farmer

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. 1 Timothy 6:7-8

We had us around 3/4 inch of rain this morning. Surprised me, I didn’t really expect it. At least not that much. But around noon the sun peaked out and it was generally a pretty nice day. Little bit muddy but more than enjoyable. Put up more electric fence across the county road for fall pasture in the lower lands and then went a half mile north and took down an electric divider fence in the empty pasture over there. I need the posts in the low land pasture because its quite a bit of fencing over that way to put up. There’s about forty five cows over in the chopped field of Goliath silage corn, cleaning up every last bit and eating the grass out of the fence lines. Tomorrow I’ll let them down into the first fenced meadow, bet they’ll like that. There’s still a herd around two miles south of here to tend every day, but I’m getting ready to bring them home shortly, plus bring all the watering equipment home from there before we get a freeze with some bite to it. Don’t need a busted pump from freezing. Went to town three miles away and got a truck load of old tires because I know that the covering on the silage pile wasn’t quite secure enough to withstand a sustain gale force wind. It should be in much better shape now.

A good day all in all. This evening before supper when I got home I was a little beat, teaching Children’s Church sometimes does that to me and I taught the night before. Sat down for a couple minutes and I don’t know what happened but I got some supercharged power and headed right back outside and was straightening things up around the place for fall. The chicken tractors are empty now and I got them all straightened up. Brought the waterers and feeders to the front yard to put away tomorrow. Rolled up water hoses for the year and just generally did a bunch of stuff that I never seem to get to. And while doing this I got joy! It just came! I was walking around the backyard and to me its like a little paradise. The productive gardens, the strawberry and raspberry patches. The evergreen wind breaks, the chicken pasture. The hazel nut bushes that were planted this past spring are alive and well. The flock of ducks following me around always curious about what I’m up to. The temps were probably in the seventies, just plain nice out.

I wondered why the joy when all one hears on the news is disaster. And it came to me, the reason why. Because I really have no concern about the current events that are happening. If all goes very bad, well, we will adjust, simple as that. A few years ago we pulled everything out of the “system” and there ain’t nothing there to be affected by any of this. And that age old wisdom about tending your own piece of land, raising your own food, supplying your own heating fuel came to mind. That’s how we live, even when things were “cheap”. We don’t pay for TV, heck I don’t even watch it. We don’t have “toys”. And to top it off, we don’t have debt. Not even easy debt, the kind that’s offered anyplace a person buys anything these days. To sum it up, we weren’t “tempted” to live normal. When the time comes to buy a car its paid cash, a four or five year old model, barely broken in, and that way there’s very little car insurance to pay on that. Supper a little while ago was our own taters, our own hillbilly pork and everything else from the garden. The pantry is filling up with jars and jars of better than anything a person could buy juices and foods. Four big freezers are full of vegetables, meats , sausages, chicken. you just about name it. But you’d have to look pretty hard to find much store bought in them four freezers! And all of this from honest work, nothing less.

As it got dark tonight I came down here to write something and as always I had not even the slightest idea what I was going to write about. That’s the way its always been so why change now! Sat down and opened an e-mail and the verse; And having food and raiment let us be therewith content, popped up. Funny how that works! Here I was the most content I’ve been in a long while and what pops up but that. I really believe we don’t need what society says we need to be happy. I know deep down there’s millions of folks that can’t hardly dream of the couple hours I had here before sitting down to write this. It is real, a content life. Worry free, no, but there ain’t nothing on this side of the old River Jordan that is. But we just hand them worries over to Jesus our Lord and every once in a while a person is struck, even in these days and times, how blessed we are! Its not an easy life, it don’t have the glamor that society says we are supposed to be having living like they say we should live. No, its quiet, peaceful, sometimes to the point of being dull, but I appreciate dull more and more. Dull is a state of mind I figure. Society calls what we do “dull” and it carries over even into our mindset. But I must say, I love those dull evenings in summer working in the garden, pulling weeds or something till the mosquitoes chase us in after dark. Dull, doing the same old chores everyday for months at a time, seven days a week, no matter what the weather, yup, dull. Dull, wake up in the morning to no commute except around the farm here and there. Dull, eating three meals a day at home in the dining room. Yup, dull. And I praise the Lord for it!

We got clothes that are good enough. Heck, I even buy my church clothes at the local co-op and they ain’t bad either. Why should I battle traffic in some city to buy the same Wrangler jeans I could get out here? For less here to boot! There ain’t no designer cloths in this house unless they’re from a garage sale, by then I figure they’re sanctified and we’re just saving them from the landfill. There won’t be enough left of them by the time we’re done with em to even make it to the garbage. Any rags make it to the farm shop where they do get used.

Glory, I don’t know, the world is worried, but I ain’t! We got food and clothing that’s good enough or better than most, the Lord provides for His people. We are content!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 7:55 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.