Northern Farmer

I thought I heard a silage chopper in the distance this evening when I was out back checking the pullets that are still in the chicken tractors for a couple more weeks. Someone must be either bagging some silage or else filling a pit or making a pile within a couple miles of this place. I don’t know when we’ll start, but everything is ready to roar! It’ll be very shortly now. The thing that is different is that I now know that it won’t take the long, long time that I thought it would. That newer chopper that made its way to this farm this past weekend just eats that corn right up without a second thought. I can see some big fuel savings in this!
Oh Lord, that settles that! I don’t know, just am a little unsettled tonight here. Nothing the matter or anything like that. Must be the fall like air that gets me going! Gets me going about the farm and gets me going about that old fashioned faith! Now I was just listening to a preaching CD I have about that very subject. That old time faith, the old time praying through till what ever a person was praying about got settled! I don’t do enough of that, even as much as I love the old ways I find myself coming up way short of the old time faith they had years ago. That ain’t going to stop me from pursuing it though.
I ask myself over and over, what did they have that we ain’t? I know I’ve covered this over and over but its one of the main things that keep me going day to day. I have allot more answers than I had three years ago, that’s for sure and I’ve written them over and over. And being there is a strong possibility that I will be preaching more and more in the future out in our little country church and who knows where else I figured this would be a good subject to preach about. That faith that don’t take no for an answer! Now where would a person start? Maybe we should become like little children?? That can turn into anything a person ever would want to preach about when it comes to these matters.
I like simplicity and those Bible verses about becoming like little children are in three of the four Gospels so that must mean that they mean something! I figure when a person is all growed up they figure they’re a little to important to just trust in Jesus. Gotta try and do everything themselves, I know I sure do! And more than likely I fall flat on my face when I do, not to mention all the useless worrying that went with everything along the way. Kids don’t have that problem when they’re young and the Good Book says that we’re supposed to be like them little rascals so I figure there must be something to that.
Yup, keep away from any TV. Don’t hardly listen to the radio except during morning coffee. Don’t subscribe to any papers, or ag papers. Kinda dimwitted as far as world standards go. But I have been noticing, allot, that a person starts to live a much fuller life without all that garbage and distraction. Am I worried about not keeping up with current events? The answer is no. Because the only current event that means anything is what does God currently want us to do. And there’s always something.
Durn, I sure could go for an old fashioned church service tonight, but no such luck at the moment. I’d like some of the old songs being sung with a guitar going, something like “I’m Not Under The Curse” or “Nothing But The Blood”! Throw in some good old fashioned Holy Ghost preaching, some powerful praying and away we go! I’d like to see the little country churches just shaking again! I’d like to see folks just a hollering and a praising like they used too! I’d like to see it go till midnight or beyond! Oh Glory! I’d like to come to a farm yard and hear the folks just a singing some old praise songs!
Who knows, might be these days will start returning to the countryside. Maybe neighbors will start being neighbors again, helping each other out and all. Maybe there’ll be churches all over the countryside again filled with families, instead of mainly old folks. Our own little church is so special to me that I have a hard time even trying to do it justice. Now, the folks ain’t any better than anybody else, we’re all just a bunch of pardoned sinners, but there is something so special there I can’t quite put my finger on it. many, many times it was so close to what I dream of, what my vision is. That old faith, that old way of praying through. I know that it will break out soon, can feel it deep down, no question about that!

Fall has come in force here! As I write in early evening the temps are in the fifties, yesterday it was almost 90 above. Quite a change in a short time. I just fired up the outdoor wood furnace for the first time this season a bit ago because there will be no warm up in site for a while so might as well get a little ahead of the game here. Was tuning up the recently purchased silage chopper today and was that ever easy compared to the ancient one! Tomorrow will be the maiden voyage in the corn field here with it. That’ll tell everything as far as how much better times will be here chopping. The main brunt of chopping is still being put off, letting the corn mature more and more. The cobs are filling out with the recent rains so might as well let the corn do its job.

Tomorrow’s butchering three steers here. Shouldn’t take all to long. I guess the creamery is going to send two men to do the job and then it’ll go quick. A couple hours and that should be it. Jack the butcher is even coming out of retirement to help the regular butcher tomorrow. Jack was our butcher for years and I really liked that guy. Well, he heard that we were butchering and told the creamery that he’d help and they said “great!” You know, it makes a person feel good when you hear that folks want to come over and work. Must be doing something right around this place!

And tomorrow evening is our regular Wednesday evening church service as always. I don’t feel so guilty now that the sun is going down a bit earlier about stopping work and heading over that way. My favorite time is late fall and winter when its dark very early, just go heading through the hills to church and it just makes my week! Before silage starts I’ve also been reading the seven volume set of “The Writings of John Wesley”. All 8000+ pages of it. And after silage is done I’ll really get into it. But what strikes me the most is the fact that the way folks thought back then isn’t a whole lot different than today. I’m talking the world here. By the time I get done with all them pages I should know a thing or two more than I know now.

I see Herrick Kimball has decided to shut down his comments for a bit. I’ve often thought about that but can’t quite seem to do it yet. Besides, half the time I don’t get hardly any comments here anyhow compared to a couple years ago. I can see his point and I agree if that’s what he feels he should do, well than do it! I’m probably writing more than normal lately, but that’s just the anticipation of silage chopping coming up soon. Gets me all excited! Truthfully I don’t know what I’ll do about blogging, its kinda in the blood, but it can wear at a guy a bit now and then. Maybe I’ll shut down for a couple weeks during silage and take a break. We’ll see when the time comes. Which might be pretty soon.

Found out today that we might get our first day off from the farm in five years coming this October. Heading for the Smoky Hills up north, got a cabin for an overnight at the Village of the Smoky Hills and just want to kick back for 24 hours. Don’t know how I will handle that much time away from the farm but I’m sure I’ll survive. A whole bunch of church folks from our little Bible believing church have a block of rustic cabins spoken for that weekend and it should be a good time fellowshipping with the saints in the hills. Plus rumor has it that the food there is pretty durn good! There’ll be a little preaching there to boot and I like that kinda stuff! Plus it should be after mosquito season and that way a feller can hike through the wooded hills and retain most of the blood he left with.

So that’s just some bits and pieces of life on the farm this early September.

Around here we figure fall comes when September comes and today was around 90 with a strong south wind. A line of thunderstorms is entering Minnesota as I type from the Dakota’s and I can see the clouds to the west. They’re talking a little rain and then a big weather change. Tomorrow’s highs are supposed to be in the lower sixties and as far as I can see on the ten day forecast the highs the highs remain in the sixties. Personally I love that weather. If it was like that year round I’d be happy. But variety is what we have in this neck of the woods, or should I say extremes! We’re getting closer and closer to real silage chopping, still don’t know when we will start, but its coming! It all depends on the condition of the corn. We like to make it just right. Had a neighbor call up a little bit ago asking if he could go out to our Goliath corn field and take a look at the stuff. Apparently he’s a little impressed with the shear volume in that field as I am too. So impressed that yesterday we went and bought a different silage chopper. Only ten years old and that takes us a few decades up as far as the age of our silage chopper goes. And I will say with both choppers side by side that the newer one is greatly improved over the old one. Much more heavy duty to say the least. The price didn’t cripple us, in fact it never ceases to amaze me how some things can be had so relatively cheap compared to other things. The chopper cost less than a four wheeler, or a snowmobile, or whatever toys a person just has to buy nowadays to be satisfied with life. And this Labor Day Monday there’s plenty of toys being pulled down the county road in front of the farm heading back to the Twin Cities. Incredible really! So corn chopping might be a very good experience this season, because them newer ones are really supposed to chop corn allot better than the ancient ones. I sure hope so!

The other morning a little news bit caught my attention on the morning Ag Radio. They were talking how Monsanto, John Deere, ADM, and I forget the other one were forming an alliance where they were telling the public how “they” are agriculture. Durn near spit out my coffee when I was listening to that! But I have to consider the source, “greed”, and I’ve been thinking ever since. I mentioned it to a few other farmers in the area and they had about the same reaction as me. This alliance is bent on telling the consuming public that “they” are agriculture and “they” will supply all the needs of this nation and the world. Both food and fuel, with genetically altered plants, multi million dollar farm equipment, free trade and what ever else they can see will give triple digit increases in their quarterly reports. Funny, how if they are agriculture, what are we, the farmers? This reminds me of a few years back when the WTO ruled that sheep farmers were not part of the industry, that the processors, importers, retailers and so on were the real food industry. Farmers were the sometimes unpaid slaves, nothing more, nothing less. Now this is real folks, very real. Farmers are looked at as throw away, non important parts of the world we live in. Really nothing new about that since industrialism has been strong arming its way into agriculture. And this alliance is bent on only one thing and that’s massive profits at the expense of the family farmers. Can’t be you say! Yes it can! Just take a gander at how and why so many inputs are skyrocketing from these companies for farmers! And the flat out reason for these huge increases is quite frankly stated as the companies are the ones doing everything in agriculture, they are agriculture and they deserve these profits. Now I’m not against profits, they kinda come in handy sometimes here on the farm, but raping the family farming sector is another thing all together!

But with all of that in mind I was thinking today doing my usual stuff around the place, thinking about reality and how reality is being taken and thrown out the window with propaganda from these corporations. I was out in the corn fields, looking at corn that is second to none, with very little inputs, looking at soil coming alive without much in the department of anything purchased and thought, it can be done. Raising good crops without anything from mainstream agriculture. The OP corn, especially the Minnesota 13 corn will hold up to any hybrid out there. Plus a living creature can eat it without ill effects! It wasn’t even fertilized with any boughten fertilizers, but still has the deep blue green color as heavily nitrogened corn fields. We were wondering about this a while back, why does it look so good? The reason I have found out is that its not “bred” for heavy nitrogen intake. Hmm. Think about it, where do modern hybrids come from, where does fertilizers come from, where do all the inputs come from for the most part? From these hand full of companies that are into all the inputs of modern day farming. I see it here with my own eyes, the reality now that we finally had a year with enough rain to show us what a real crop looks like again. This corn does good!

One thing that bothers me a bit, when I read about OP corn from news fliers and things like that, it almost that they are writing with a defeatist attitude. They are so happy with 30 or 40 bushels to the acre. Now I must say, these big companies “will” take over if that’s all farmers figure they should get from OP corn! But lets get to reality! The Minnesota 13 was entered two years ago in a field test against all the big name hybrids that do well in this area. Only one hybrid beat it and not by much and there was a slight stir caused by that. That got hushed up pretty well by the seed companies here. In reality it beat the big named seed that supposedly won when you figure the Minnesota 13 had about 10 to 20 percent more feed value than the hybrids. Also it had no genetics that would screw up a cow’s rumen by killing the good bacterias in it like BT corn does. You ever want to see a huge drop in milk production, feed BT. The seed companies won’t tell you that, but the local vets will. The big companies want to “help” the livestock farmer feed that corn by having the farmer purchase more inputs to “soften” the blow of the poison corn, by having nutritionists work with the unsuspecting farmer.

So where does this leave an old fashioned Christian farmer? Well, we know that we can out produce the big named, big cost companies. We know we can provide healthy food, they cannot. Simple as that.But farmers who are awakening to these facts must let it be known that with good general farming practices we can out produce the corporate giant who is destroying the land, who is destroying the families, who thinks nothing of supporting abortion, or gay rights from their corporate coffers. Who want to stamp out Christianity with everything they got. This is reality. It goes against the “American Dream” writing like this, but its true never the less. Christianity cannot support corporate government, corporate agendas and corporate greed. The American way says that’s all good, but really its so destructive that God help us for allowing the greed and perversion to go this far in this country. Christians should be n the lead practicing agriculture in a way that we tend to the land, not mine it. We should be providing healthy food for the population, not just a source of money for a handful of corporations to further their agenda of world dominion.

Oh how did I get going on all of that tonight, I really don’t know. It was an easy one to write. Not popular in this day and age, but the truth never the less. I cannot control what happens in this world but I can do something in my little world. I can live like I say we should live. I can do what we’re told to do in the Good Book. I can never give in to unhealthy ways of farming and producing food for families. I can spread the Word of God to one or several folks daily. Our family can do what’s right in the eyes of our Lord!

The week and the month are coming to an end around here, doesn’t make all to much difference to me though. The weather is warm, but on Wednesday we received two inches of rain, badly needed rain and that snapped the corn back in shape in a hurry! The cobs are getting huge, fast, and things are looking up, much better than a few days ago. This summer we had us two dry spells. One in June till the middle of July and one from the end of July to the end of August. The only difference between the last couple of years and this year is that two separate times this summer we had a two inch rain and that’s what carried the corn through. The grass is burned down to nothing in the pastures, but things are basically in great shape here this year! This next week we butcher three more steers and a couple weeks after that, three more. This past week 145 of our chickens got butchered, the White Rock pullets laid the first three eggs of the year way ahead of schedule and in a couple weeks I’ll move em to the hen house, a cow got butchered and all the usual work got done including green chopping a load of corn silage every day. Rumor has it after the next three days or so there’s going to be a big cool down in these parts and the moment that happens I gotta get myself out in the woods and cut some dead dry stuff to take the chill out of the house that’s coming. I just ain’t in the mood to cut it now when the temps are in the eighties. Then later this fall we got to cut up the thirty cord of firewood logs we have stacked near the cow yard, cut em with the tractor buzz saw. It’ll take a few days but its easier on the back then a chain saw. Quite the rig we have here! I wished I could find our two digital cameras that we own, funny how they get misplaced when there’s two teenage daughters here! Just when I figure I could supply photos of things we do, the cameras turn up missing in action, oh well, could be allot worse I guess!

All in all its just on the downhill side of getting ready for winter here. I welcome the cooler weather that’s to come, never was any good at hot days, and I like working in long sleeves and a vest. Allot of church stuff coming up, some I’ll miss in September but that can be made up after the main harvest is in, first things first. Church stuff is becoming an adventure to say the least, always something exciting to do in the Lord’s service! One of my many favorite verses is this: Jeremiah 20:9

But if I say, “I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot.

I always think of this verse when blogging. It seems that no matter what I talk about when it comes to farming or whatever I cannot contain the fire shut up in my bones. And the subject will have at least a little about faith in Jesus. I cannot see how a person could separate the two, farming and faith. Because we are so at mercy to the weather and a thousand other things. I know many farmers have their faith in big ag, faith in man made corporations, but I could never do that. Because quite simply any faith in that system leads to destruction. Nope, I’ll take that good old fashioned, Bible believing faith any day of the week over what’s considered the norm nowadays. Folks can have their man made wisdom, which always fails, but give me the Word and I’ll just believe it, simple as that! That simple faith they had in the Book of Acts, in the epistles, not to mention the Gospels. Believing we are saved by grace, not by works, not by anything we ever done to deserve one bit of it. A gift. The old fashioned preaching, preaching about the Blood, the Cross, the Resurrection. Sure doesn’t seem to be much of that anymore. I’m so thankful that our little church preaches that. It a far from perfect church but when a person gets sermons that literally shakes the listener you know your getting right down to the real thing!

This Fall should be a Fall of many changes on the farm and in our lives here in the family. Many things happening from different directions. The good year we’ve had on the farm will be a change from the last several. And there might be some huge changes coming in our little family as far as church matters go also. I trust the Lord that the right decisions be made in all of this, from farm to faith. That fire shut up in my bones can’t be contained too much longer!

For over a month now I had me a worry, a worry about how I was going to chop that Goliath corn I had planted. In mid July we had some very good rains and the stuff did what it was supposed to do. It grew, and it grew big. Then right after that growth spurt we had us a wind storm in the middle of the night. And that corn, fresh growed, really bent over and I thought the field would be a disaster. About a week later most of the corn had straightened itself back up somewhat and I was very thankful for that to say the least. Yesterday was the big day, I entered the field to make one round chopping for some daily feed for the cows and steers. And I had me a time, the slip clutch for the head on the chopper was just chattering away, what a mess. Even though the corn had somewhat straightened up, many plants were twisted near the ground so the corn was not in perfect rows down where the cutting knives are. But I had to make one round using two rows, no choice being on the outside of the field with a fence just to my right. Took forever to make that one round, clutching the tractor all the time, my left leg felt like it was ready to fall off.

Last evening and all this morning I was wondering how to remedy this disaster and today when I went out in the afternoon I tried what I had thought about here and there the last few weeks. That is, chop one row at a time. It worked perfectly and it only took twenty minutes to fill the silage box which is way faster than last year’s using two rows! Never had to clutch the 4320 once and it chopped smooth as silk! Oh Lord, am I one happy farmer! So what if it takes time, the loads load faster, much faster than the last few years and it looks like allot of corn gonna be coming into the silage pit from just that one field alone! Glory! The chopper picked up most of the corn that was laying down here and there much better than I had ever dreamed so now that worry is behind me. It can be done, and done well!

I know that this isn’t an earth shattering problem but its one of those things that can wear at a guy farming. The cost is so high to hire a custom outfit that it don’t pay to farm the way I figure it. Why give someone a half a years wages for one day’s work, (that’s how long it would take them to do the field)! Now everyone can kinda get an idea what my yearly wages are on the farm. Not much, but living good never the less! In fact I’m typing this evening with such a full stomach that its hard to get around, and all good food from here!

Not much of a post tonight, but I’m in a praising mood never the less! The simple fact that we can chop that stuff has me much more relaxed between the ears!

I wrote this post on the Healing Waters blog and decided to put it on here also.

As the days go by the harvest is coming closer to being completed. In a few days I think we’ll be starting the main chop of corn silage. Its drying down much faster than I had planned. There hasn’t really been any rain to amount to anything for a month around here and the dry down of the corn is starting to show it. The pastures are basically burned down with little or no grass and we have to feed the cattle in all four pastures seven days a week. The creek is going dry in one pasture where I pump water out of and the cattle from that one might have to come home this week. But even with that all said its really a good year here so far. The corn made the maximum height and if all goes well the silage pit will be filled this fall as it has never been filled before. Plus I think its just possible to make another pile near the feedlot across the county road just to have some feed out there for some of the cows I’d like to put out that way in a few weeks. Kinda get em good and fat for winter. Something we haven’t been able to do for a few years. I put my notice in at church today that I might miss a couple of weeks of teaching Children’s Church and there’s no problem with that at all. The folks there know and understand that the harvest must come in, just like the Good Book says and have given their blessing on the whole matter.

This sure has been a year of new beginnings around here in many more ways than one. From sad times to good times there’s been a fair share of both. But through it all we have to just keep our eyes focused on our King! The farm is producing again and there’s much more harvest work than the last few years. But that also means there’ll be allot less worries and stress trying to find feed during the winter. Something very difficult to do in a region wide drought. There’s been new beginnings at church, things I wouldn’t have dared to even dream a year ago. After surviving the first ever for me full service preaching a calm has come knowing that this major hurdle has been jumped, and jumped well from what they tell me. I have no idea when that will happen again, but first things first, time for the farm harvest to get put under the belt.

Today after church we had us a fish fry, some fried potatoes and some sweet corn. In Midwestern tradition everyone brought a dish or two of their really good foods from home and the only thing that makes me sad is that I wasn’t able to try em all out, there was so much. And when it was all said and done this afternoon we came home and finished up chores for the day and chopped tomorrow’s silage for feeding. All is done, all is well. And a surprising thing happened this weekend. I mean it really surprised me! I found out that the organization that gives covering to our little country church thinks my idea’s for ministry are good. I was nervous about that, very nervous, but nothing would have changed my mind in doing what I believe is my calling. But the fact that it sounds supportive really calms me down in my heart.

So I’m thinking tonight, dwelling on where we will go from here, how this will fit in with our lifestyle on the farm. The good thing is I can’t see one thing that would ever hamper our life here farming, not one thing. This will work and should work well. But instead of being an answer to many of my questions its opening up more and more doors that I never dreamed possible, or had ever thought about. Sitting under an ancient basswood tree today I talked with a brother in the faith and he told me about his vision of ministry that was working at his heart. After coming home and thinking about it while chopping silage I’m convinced that his vision is for real and would “fit” with mine. Later at the fish fry a pastor offered to help me in the future start a ministry, a legal one, and again once I came home and got to think about it, it fit! Funny how God works.

These writings on the internet the last few years also have taught me allot. Its for real and the folks that read it are for real. When someone has joy, I feel the joy. When someone has deep sadness I again feel the sadness. It can be a burden many times, but a burden well worth it.The real fact is, the people are real and so are the joys and heartaches. Right now there’s a heartache that has me crying out to God these last couple of days. I don’t know if I should do this, but I will anyhow. Folks, anyone that has ever read comments on this humble little rural blog knows Brad who comments most every morning here with me and a couple other folks. In fact I figure he writes about half of the words in the comments section of this blog. He’s been around for a few years, first starting on my Northern Farmer blog and then finding a welcome home here. Brad e-mailed me yesterday, Saturday, that his wife whom I know he loved very, very much passed away from a traffic accident this past Friday. I was totally floored when I opened that e-mail and my heart is just crying out to God for them folks. This has shown me that the folks that come around here are real and are my friends, even the invisible ones that pass by here daily. And I’m asking all who come by this little blog to remember Brad and his boys in this very hard time. He’s my friend, a very good friend and I know allot of folks feel that way too from reading his daily comments here. I regret having to be so far from them at this time, but our prayers are reaching the Throne in their behalf!

We serve such a wonderful God! And in these times its a privilege to come to Him in behalf of a friend. To tell the truth it hit me so hard I am wondering about blogging, but I know the answer even as I wonder. In my own simple country way we’ll keep on going because I know that it touches folks and I know it glorifies our Lord. To serve the Lord in anyway we can is an awesome privilege and it will continue no matter what. It might be very quiet around here for a while and that’s OK. I’ll write from time to time as always and welcome any and all to comment. I pray for Brad and his family and will continue to pray.

Kind of the August dull drums around here. Hot for the last few days and getting drier by the day. Pastures are burned off pretty much,any hay growth is stopped. But its a hundred times better than the last couple years! One good rain in July made the corn go for it and as far as height goes, it made it. Now if’n I was farming corn for grain I’d be worried the way things are, our is for silage though and some pickin to fill corn cribs. None to particular as long as its good enough. Unlike the last few years the corn is so lush and tall that I have to do some figuring and allot of work shortly on what to do with it all. That’s a problem I can live with. IN a month from now everything should be done, (Lord willing), except the pickin and that’s a job I just love in later October. Sit out on an open tractor and pull that New Idea two row behind and watch the cobs fill the wagon! I just love corn pickin! Don’t see all to much of that around here unless a person looks closely. Quite a few farmers still fill a crib or two around here, but just as in other parts of the Midwest, the GMOs and combines are the rule. I’m happy doing what we’re doing though, no regrets at all. Just farming the old fashioned way and enjoying every minute of it. Well, except in the extreme heat that is, then I lay low if the day allows!

I gotta get my annual four hillbilly hogs pretty durn quick. I sure can tell there ain’t none around the place because we don’t have our regular garbage disposals for the garden leftovers and stuff. Miss them hogs so I’d better get some quick and take care of that problem. Feed em up on some good old Minnesota 13 corn this fall and all the garden produce we can’t handle. Now i have to say, upon inspecting all the different varieties of corn we planted the Minnesota 13 is just awesome! It don’t take a backseat to the hybrids and it produces heavy with very little fertilizer. It excels on plowed down sod, that’s what the oldtimers always told me and I can see it so very true. A wonderful corn and as the dust settles here after these years of experimenting with different Open Pollinated varieties the answer is clear on this farm, Minnesota 13 will be this farm’s corn till I cross the River Jordan. And a while back we had a wind storm that rattled up all the different varieties except Minnesota 13, its still standing straight and strong. I stand amazed at such a true find! Every area is different and I’m sure other varieties excel in other places more than here, but I’ll stay with that corn my ancestors grew until the hybrid hype came along and made serfs out of the farmers. And knowing that we ain’t taking a backseat to anyones hybrid production with this wonderful corn makes it so much the better. Not one problem have I ever seen in that corn, not one. No insect problems, stands strong, is drought resistant, does well in cool weather. A total package of good reasons to make it our family’s corn for generations. And with a little wisdom that only God can give, always improve it so it remains the corn of choice for this family.

Its to the point that I know I could never go back to how we did farm up to a few years ago. This is just too good! The hard part is finding folks doing the same thing, kinda gives a person a “lone wolf” syndrome! But there are folks out there, probably more than I think that are getting the same ideas and visions. The most amazing thing for me, and I thank the Lord every day for this is our little church. The awakening that has taken place as far as raising up good foods for our families. The distrust of the industrial food complex. But even more amazing is the fact that so many of our farm customers are from different churches in Minnesota and they have the same view. Its hard for me not to notice this. And I think it would be a safe bet that even a few years ago most of these folks didn’t think all to much about this subject. That is changing though and I believe with everything I got that God is behind it all. Gently nudging His redeemed to go back to the ways that He wants us to. Nothing earth shattering, but a steady nudging that seems to be growing and growing.

I think I could safely say that at this point seventy five percent of our on farm sales are to folks from different churches. Now remember, there has never been any advertising, this has happened without any help from me advertising. The word gets around and I know that with the beef alone that we sell more beef privately than most farms raise. And this will grow and grow in the next few years so that everything will go private sale. I’m not even scared of that option anymore, its already happening. In fact shortly we will be sold out of steers, down to seven left with most halves spoken for well in advance. Plus all cull cows that are in decent shape are being marketed privately for ground beef cows. This enables us to make about double of what we’d get selling to the slaughter plant, but the customer gets a superior ground beef for right around the average store price. Only the middle man didn’t make a cut here. No sense supplying the culture of death with hard earned family money from both ends. Our way of marketing makes us allot more money, plus the customer gets their beef cheaper than buying the same cuts from the store where everyone else is making money on the deal so they can live the high life. No, I like direct, plus the farmer gets to know the customers, the customers know the farmer. There’s a certain trust built that I will never break with the customers, they will always get the best beef possible and it won’t break their budget. We don’t go for the high end prices here, just the fair prices and the customers and myself seem to be well satisfied with it all.

Such drastic changes over the last few years here and now a person can start assessing what has all happened as the time marches on. There is allot of hope in farming, but one must be wary. A person has to totally stay away from big ag’s propaganda, no doubt about that. The only thing that will happen following them is sure destruction of both the farm and family. On the flip side, we stay away from the high, high end selling. It ain’t worth it to me. I don’t want to supply such high quality food to only the really well off financially folks. First of all, we don’t see eye to eye, secondly I’d rather spend my life with regular families coming to the farm that appreciate the quality and the fact that their families are getting a better deal that if they bought all the different cuts in the store, not knowing where in the world the meat came from, what condition the animal was in before slaughtering, not knowing how it was raised.

This is how I want to see the farm continue. I don’t know what a person would label us. I know many in the so called Christian Agrarian community probably don’t like farming talk, but that don’t matter much to me. Never did. If this ain’t Christian Agrarian so be it. But its Christian and there ain’t know blood bought believer that could say otherwise. So labels have absolutely no importance to me. Serving the Lord daily does. Doing an honest living, helping families get the highest quality food possible at a fair price for both parties. Are we on easy street from all of this, the answer is no. IN fact we’re almost dirt poor if you compare us to society’s standards today. But I don’t care to much about what society says so that makes life a whole lot better. I ask the Lord daily if what I’m doing is good, or should it be changed, but so far all is well. And the blessings are huge. The crops are beautiful and healthy this year. Plus my saying of I only raise crops that people can eat holds true. A corn crib of our corn is edible for humans, can’t do that with the modern varieties. Our oats is edible, in fact we could sell it for milling outs if we so desired. This way of life has opened doors for serving the Lord that I could not have imagined a few short years ago. The farming way of life has become a ministry in itself. And in the slow months from fall through spring there is time to go all around doing the Lord’s service in the region. There is no chasing the modern dream of getting stuff to satisfy our desires. Serving the Lord is number one and will stay that way.

In the four years to follow, the spirit of religious revival, and particularly the camp-meeting variety, seemed to be dying away. Robert witnessed this with a heavy heart, but fought back with an increase in personal activity to do his share in trying to overcome such spiritual apathy. The people alone could not be blamed, he learned, for some of presiding elders and some conference officials in league with them had spoken openly against the continuance of camp meetings. How blasphemous they were in even suggesting that “The church had now come out of the mountains and it was time both dignity and piety joined hands for the ultimate good of the whole church”! Couldn’t they see that a love of education and culture was becoming the fraud of the age! The very word “dignity” was an abomination in the sight of God! Nothing on earth was really important except the extension of God’s kingdom by loving one’s neighbor and meditating on God’s Holy Word both day and night.

The above is a paragraph from the book “The Saint of the Wilderness”, a book about circuit rider Robert Sheffey that I’ve had for the last few months and it has become a book worthy of having a place alongside of my Bible. The situation described in the paragraph is taking place in the late 1880s in the mountains of western Virginia and surrounding areas. The thing that struck me was how the book documented how the people started slipping away from God in exchange for this culture and the modern education that esteems man and his wisdom. Before this time in that region the Spirit of God was moving through out the region and the folks trusted in God simply. But modernism had crept in and the old circuit rider could see the writing on the wall as far as what was on the horizon! Gone would be the days of folks simply trusting God, that was getting thrown away for the worship of humanism. The churches wanted to be dignified, and as Sheffey said, the word was an abomination in God’s eyes.

The book is a wonderful book. But the lessons in it took me by surprise to say the least. From the 1840s through 1902 a person reads how the faith of the people changed. And even the fact that it had changed so much by 1902 is small in comparison how its changed today. There is really very little left of the real faith, the faith where Christ is the King! I write this because it’s such a burden on my heart, knowing the humanistic ways of the modern church and society compared to what once was, a people that went after God with everything they had! The simple people, rural people that knew no other way and loved the Lord Jesus Christ with all their heart. For a long, long time this has been a very real backround message on this blog. I’ve written numerous times about the old faith that folks had and the joys that came out of it as they lived their simple agrarian lives on a patch of land.

I question, can this be brought back? By the way, Sheffey was a Methodist circuit rider but the thousands of folks that attended the camp meeting or were visited by him were of every denomination, not just Methodist. Before humanism came in the folks didn’t seem to pay much mind to denominational differences, in fact they could care less when God was the focus of their lives. When a man of God was coming through the parts folks were overjoyed to have the visit. All sorts of different churches would ask him to preach as he was coming through. Now the humanistic church is scared of anybody that has a slightly different view than they have on some unimportant doctrinal difference that will probably send the “wise” to hell anyhow from those particular denominations. The book takes place in the rural areas so the humanism came in at a rather late date compared to the more “educated” areas. But with the way society dominates almost every home in America nowadays the humanistic religion has a strong foothold everywhere. We are being told things by the modern churches that were unthinkable in the Bible and by the early rural church in America. Now the churches cheer when a person is sending their children to a humanistic, well lets stop beating around the bush, a satanic college and everyone calls it “good”. This way the indoctrinated child will become a part of the system and to put it bluntly, all is lost. There are forms of the modern religion that praise education without any thought about what is being taught, what is being planted in the students, and no one gives a thought to the eternal consequences. Many of the colleges that are supposedly run by different churches are the biggest hell pits of all, and the deception just grows deeper. The reason for this is that most people even in the church truly worship humanism as god, all the time. God is just a backround , make me feel good thingy. Everyone knows that you have to make it to the top nowadays, no matter what the consequences!

Back to my question, can this be brought back? I don’t know. I wish I knew, but it don’t look good from a man’s view. The love of “education and culture” is strong in this society. Nothing else seems to matter and to even suggest what I’m suggesting is wrong is all out blasphemy in the eyes of most. But it doesn’t change any of the facts, because this is as true as it gets. Modernism always takes first place in everything that there is, bar none. Its over faith, over family, over everything, no exceptions and when a person finally gets truthful with him or herself this becomes very apparent. Whatever happened to being Christlike? Now its the blessings that matter, the perceived blessings. Oh Lord, give me that old faith, that faith where Jesus is everything and I’m absolutely nothing without Him! When a person gets right down to it, this is thee problem, all others problems stem from the humanistic religion that has taken over in this age. Its time to get back to the King, get back into His Word, and believe it, not the perverted wisdom of fallen man. The only thing that I can do is keep me eyes on a God that never changes, follow Him no matter what the world thinks, no matter what. Bring Him to every person, even if that means just one person at a time. To do like Jesus did, go to the poor, the helpless, and everyone else that will listen. Bring back that Good News as it is written in the Bible, written by the very inspiration of God Himself. Nope, God doesn’t change, only frail humans do. Societies change but the message of the Good News hasn’t change one bit. I asked God, what can I do? The answer was to start at the bottom, He’s still there moving like He did in days gone by!

I can tell that the days are getting a little shorter and to tell you the truth, its all right with me. Still plenty long to get done what ever needs to get done but in a month or two it’ll be considerably shorter. Rest up these old weary bones. Took the silage chopper out today to start green chopping for daily feed and I think there’s some gear box troubles, the head doesn’t want to go into reverse. And the thing is so old that I don’t even know if John Deere carries the parts anymore. Took er for a test spin this afternoon because the hay I’ve got cut just didn’t want to dry down. Now that’s different for around these parts let me tell you! I figure tomorrow maybe bale some of that hay up. Anyway, took the chopper out to a low field of Reid’s Yellow dent and I couldn’t hardly get anything done. The head’s slip clutch was clattering and I was clutching that old JD 4320 more than ever! Luckily I had a 15/16s wrench with, (this machine was BM, before metric), and also a crescent wrench in the tractor tool box. Tightened up that slip clutch just a tad and it really worked a whole lot better! Chopped a jag for some feeding tomorrow, cut down on some hay use is the master plan and let some of them bovine critters enjoy life a tad bit more. Pastures are somewhat burned off as far as the grass supply goes so a little green chop never hurt nobody! And on this farm there is an over abundance of corn this year, all OP corn, good eating stuff.

Also the sweet corn has finally kicked in gear around here and that has become part of at least two meals a day in this household! Yesterday we went out to our early sweetcorn field across the county road to pick a bit for supper and wouldn’t you know it, coons made a hit. Now there ain’t hardly nothing that burns my hide more than that around here except for a skunk or weasel to be around our chickens. Well I had to get my butt off to church shortly for Wednesday evening service but its against the rules in my book to let them coon have even one more night in that old sweet corn patch. We got a dog, a big dog. Half German Shepard and half Golden Lab. He’s kinda dumb but has a bark that would scare anything including humans and coons so I decided to use the time tested plan and stake that big dog out at the sweet corn patch. This works pretty good, the dog don’t like it but I figure he got to earn a little of his keep around the farm too. Now he don’t ever go in the back of my pickup and he is heavy. So with the help of the family here we hoisted him up onto the truck bed for the trip across the tar road and then a quarter mile inland. After securing his chain to the truck tailgate away we went without a hitch. Pounded in a five and a half foot steel fence post along side of the sweet corn patch and chained him to it. Made sure he had plenty of food and water and commissioned him to guard duty. This morning no new coon sign in the sweet corn patch! The sixteen rows of sweetcorn we have at home have never had a coon problem. Must be because the sweet corn is planted in a field of the same day field corn, and being the field corn is open pollinated it screws up the smeller on the coons so they can’t zero in on the sweet corn so easy. The whole field smells sweet! Across the tar road in that patch the sweet corn is planted amongst the Goliath field corn and thats barely starting to tassel so the coons can zero in on the sweet aroma of the sweet corn planted out there. At least that’s my theory in this whole matter. I know I ain’t no big shot agricultural specialist but sometimes these back roads theories seem to make sense and work to!

All the other garden stuff is doing so good I can’t hardly believe it. I was getting used to disaster after disaster these last few years and when a person sees what a half way normal crop looks like it just is something else! Oh Lord am I ever thankful this year! I’ll even have a good pumpkin crop which is something I lacked for a few years. Squash is doing great, got cucumbers galore, about four time the taters in the same amount of rows as last year, Glory! Just got done picking some hot peppers for breakfast. Chop em up with a chopped up onion and fry em with some chopped up taters after I fry the local bacon, drop a couple farm fresh eggs into the pan and there I go. Presidents and kings don’t eat better than that!

This I do believe is prospering! These are major blessings and I ain’t taking them for granted either. Bringing in all that good food and it ain’t nobody’s business except our families. Can’t tax a person on it, at least not yet. Save money, allot of money and have the best food on earth! Sometimes I have to remind myself of the day to day blessings God pours out on us here. No we don’t have the latest toys and gadgets, nope, we got something a whole lot better, true prosperity! Don’t sit around and watch the TV. When the work is done and its getting dark out a person can put their nose in a good book, such as the Bible and get real wisdom, not desensitized to this culture that wants only one thing, destruction of everything good! And living like this has shown me that the Bible makes allot more sense than if a person was following society in lockstep, always trying to keep up the pace with everything new that they want us to believe that we can’t live without. Nope, let me spend the day in a corn patch, or chaining up a dog to protect a sweet corn patch from the coons in the area, or let me go out and chop weeds along the pasture fences to keep them clear. Let me be husking some corn in the back yard as I watch the chickens in the far back yard and the cattle in the three pastures that I can see from here. Let me laugh at the ducks in the back yard having the time of their lives.

You know, when a person really thinks about it the life we have is just a blessed life. Oh we have our fair share of problems but when a person looks to Jesus and not at the overwhelming problems things have a way of working out, all the time! And I pray I never forget that!

As of today the combining and the baling of the straw is done. Amen! Glad that itchy job is over with and also glad and thankful for such a wonderful crop! Getting dry here again, thinking about pulling a pasture next week. Nothing left, just to dry out there on that pasture. But the good news is that there’s plenty of feed to feed the cow herd and all the yearlings without even the slightest worry at this point, unlike last year and the year before. The corn is already at full height and it doesn’t get much better than that! Might be a reduction in corn cobs, but nothing to worry about. And the Goliath corn I planted, well, its big, very big. We had us a wind storm a week or so ago and allot of it was blown over, but allot of it has come back up, amazing! Not to worry though, the whole field is fenced in with five wire barb, tighter than a fiddle string and anything our old chopper doesn’t pick up can be grazed well into fall. So nothing at all lost with that one!

Over at Herrick Kimball’s site Herrick wrote one very worthy of a read. About the modern prosperity preaching. I’ll call it a religion, which is defined as forming God in your own image. And lust and greed are overwhelming in this society so it just makes sense that the church follows suite. This move by much of the modern church has deeply grieved me, because it is so unscriptural. And so many people lap it up, hook, line and sinker.

Now we have a religion that condones the ways of the world, nothing less. And it goes against everything in the Gospels. There’s so many that take it a step further and say that if you have sufficient faith your not going to have any problems. And I can’t believe it when I hear this false Gospel being preached. Because massive problems are promised to believers, from your own family hating you to about everyone else in the world too! So what part of the Gospel don’t these false prophets get??

I remember last winter reading from the writings of John Wesley over a couple hundred years ago and his writings were ditto to Herrick Kimball’s post. And the amazing thing was, back then in England John was writing about people borrowing money to live at a supposed higher standard than what they could afford. Yup, had em back then too. How many folks have I seen that were going down the tubes financially and even with everything going to pot for them still managed to get their priorities right as far as this culture goes. They couldn’t pay their basic mortgage but still would somehow get the important stuff like big screen TVs or the newest electronic gadgets available. And to top it off, they didn’t think anything was wrong with getting this junk!!

If I was left with two choices to read out of the Bible it’d be the Gospels and the Book of Galatians. And hopefully it would be a red letter addition so I could just dwell on the words of Jesus which are so very different than what’s being preached today. And Galatians so I’d keep it straight that there ain’t nothing I could ever do to “earn” salvation, its a gift for undeserving sinners like me.

Oh Lord, what a mess there is today. No wonder the church is basically falling apart in the western world. There’s no question about it, when a false gospel is preached things go down hill. By the next generation this country will be so non Christian most people now can’t even imagine it. Figure that with luck there’ll be around five percent Christians come the next generation. So what answer does the church give, more programs and preach to please and hope that enough stay to oil the cash machine that they’ve become. Make it entertainment, but nothing that would ever go against the humanistic desires of the modern church goer. I tell you, there’s be allot lost, almost everything. I used to have a post and link on this blog about humanism. That’s the basic problem, no denying it. The page got lost in the domain transfer this blog went through but I do have it over on the Healing Water’s blog in full, plus the audio sermon itself. The last couple hundred years has seen a tremendous change in the church, and not for the good either. Humanism has crept in, and now its become incorporated with the mainstream church and is not even noticeable to the average luke warm church goer. And this humanism that has crept in is the cause of most of the problems in society today. It has done a thousand times more damage than doctrinal differences between denominations. In fact today those doctrinal differences pale in comparison to the modern get rich, (money wise), from God movement. Humanism has made it into about every domination, whether they care to admit it or not.

This move to humanism was documented in a book I read a couple months ago about a circuit rider in the eighteen hundreds. As the folks got more and more “inventions’” making their way into the backroads a new “religion” was forming. Where man was so smart, so wise. The true faith was slowly left behind, that simple faith the people had before man’s accomplishments became the center of worship. That’s the problem, man thinking he’s something special. And then forming an image of God where God’s purpose is to please us to the highest degree. But my Bible doesn’t say that, it says the opposite!

I really want to expand on this, because there are very few things closer to my heart than this subject, how folks are being swindled in church after church, and I ain’t talking money either, I’m talking life in Christ! The good news is there’s an awakening happening. It might not be so noticeable because the Christian culture is dominated the same as agriculture today. By the “system”. But God ’s Will will be done with the mainstream church or without it!