Northern Farmer

Done! Done with chopping corn! The pit is full and I’m more than satisfied. There’s still a 16 acre field standing of Minnesota 13, looks good, and that’s for picking in later October sometime when its dried down and will store in the corn cribs. Oh Lord, what a feeling! Now its straighten up around here, clean up the silage wagons, oil up the apron chains and put them into the shed till next year’s chopping. Gotta cover the top surface of the silage pit with plastic in the next few days and then its sealed up till we pop it open in a while. The last few days we also had a total of two inches of rain and I even got stuck twice today pulling the chopper, but they were easy pull outs and there was not much problems getting er done today. Now to get my head screwed on straight again and try to remember what else I have to do around here. Gotta get a bunch of cows moved over the tar road into the Goliath filed to clean it up. There’s about one percent down corn as near as I can figure and they can clean it up over the next week or two. And as they are I’ll do as I did last year in the disaster drought and run a one wire electric out in the meadows and brush and they can graze till its all snowed under. Last year they were out there till December 1st and we brought them home that morning in a heavy snowfall, nice and fat they were! And my question was answered this year concerning grazing the meadows in late fall, they came back this year better than ever before, and we had the best meadow hay crop that I’ve ever seen. I tell you, you never get to old to learn when your farming. A person has to use every trick in the book in order to make it sometimes. But even with a full silage pit and plenty of hay I won’t forget the different things I had to learn last year to extend the feed supply and will probably being doing them for a long time. It helps allot saving two months worth of cow feed by using these different options that we never “had” to use before. Its some extra work, but fall being my favorite time of the year, I just love being out there doing those things!

Didn’t get to do any fishing, again, and probably won’t do all to much hunting, again, but that’s OK, cause I’m outside every single day anyhow, all day. There’s always a bunch of things to observe, to learn and to enjoy out there. Every day there’s something new to see in our Lord’s creation and it always amazes me. This morning I seen the first hint of red on a maple tree in the south pasture, and on a bad note I noticed Friday that when it got really nice outside and I was chopping corn that the Asian Beetles were thick around me, always in my face, down my neck and just made me miserable. So I know what we have to look forward to this October, and it ain’t good! I hate those things and I heard that they were brought here to eat soybean aphids. Well, all the neighbors that had soybeans were spraying for soybean aphids, not an Asian Beetle to be seen, then when the aphid time is getting near over with the Asian Beetles decide to hatch and move into our homes, and down our necks too! In my humble opinion that was a disaster bringing those things to these parts. But at least the hardware stores sell a lot of bug spray for em so I guess that helps the local retailers a small bit, but then again they probably use up the profits spraying around their own homes. A big cricket year again too! The ground just moves with them black things. Go in the garage to get my overshoes and a few dozen scramble out from underneath them when I pick the overshoes up, egad! But they must serve some purpose, just haven’t figured it out yet!

So get things back in order around this place this week and then Saturday scramble doing morning chores and head to our little country church and help shingle the double wide that’s along side of the church. Kinda a farmer’s holiday, go work somewhere else other than here, but hey, its a vacation in my eyes! Plus we should have a good time and good food to boot! (I travel and work for good food!) Save the church a couple thousand dollars in a few hours doing it our selves, the old fashioned way. I guess the ladies will be doing a clean up in the double wide while us guys are on the roof acting busy. Yup, looking forward to that. Then I also have to plan a big night for the kids at church. Last year I stumbled into a new thing, at least for me. We had our regular Wednesday evening children’s church on holloween last year and none of the kids do what the other kids do but I felt like doing something and they did too. So we had us our first annual Hillbilly night in the doublewide. Yup, it was a humdinger to say the least. I played guitar, banjo, and accordion, was dressed up in some fancy bib overhauls and did some old fashioned Holy Ghost preaching for good measure and it was one of the most fun nights I ever had. Well, seems like Hillbilly Night II will be on halloween again, a Friday night, and its gonna be a whole lot bigger than last years small event with me and the kids. So I got some real planning to do on this, figure out some old fashioned games, put together some music, I guess there’ll be a couple of hillbilly puppet skits being done and this thing is just growing before my very eyes! (What have I done?) Rumor has it that we’ll be inviting all and any area kids too. Now if anyone is wondering how such an event goes, well, if anyone knows me we just do anything that comes up. Never was that great of a planner, but there’ll be a general outline of events to keep me from being too confused. Being a farmer I’m used to changing everything on a split second notice because that’s how I live every single day of the week. Sure would be boring doing everything as planned, never really done anything like that around here! Ah the life of a low seniority country preacher, eh! Well, almost anyhow if the Lord wills it.

Yessir, life on the farm, never boring and if its hard for a rich man to get to heaven I’m pretty safe in that department, cause this farm sure has a way of keeping a person not rich! In reality though a person is richer than anything money can buy, I think about that allot. Who’da ever thought a person could live like this almost their entire lifetime, never getting wealthy, but enjoying every day so much! Its different, that’s for sure. Farming and following a call from the Lord to boot!

Had us a rain day here, and no silage got chopped today. And that’s OK cause I’ll be back out there tomorrow and Saturday weather permitting. This rain should cut the dust in the fields, the last three days were some of the dustiest I ever had chopping silage. But the yields are great and the pit is filling up, and it ain’t a small pit! The Goliath is history and all of it is in the pit, the newer chopper never even had a bit of trouble in that giant stuff. The regular corn is a piece of cake and I travel fairly fast chopping it out in the fields.

Don’t know what I’ll be doing next week, but that don’t matter none, there’s always something, just when a person is doing a major job everything else seems to get a little fuzzy. Kinda forget about everything else. There’s lush fall pastures to fence in to fatten the cows up for winter, fields to work and a million other things to do. Gardens are producing more than we can handle and I gotta get me some pigs soon, right after silage chopping is done. This will be different this winter, much different than the last couple of winters. Gotta make some more wood too. Plenty of dead stuff out in the pastures. The elms have died off again. They died off here in the late seventies, then a new generation sprouted up till now and that old Dutch Elm disease made its reappearance. The died standing up, the bark falls off and the wood is already dry for the most part. That younger elm is allot easier to work with than the huge elms of years ago too. When a person burns 100% wood for heat it has allot more importance than as just a backup heat source.

Rumor has it that we will be shingling the roof on the double wide over at our little country church next Saturday. Looking forward to that! Should be done with the silage and could use a day of working somewhere else than here for once. Kinda a farmer’s vacation, going and working some place else. Then there’s a ton of ministry things to take care of over the next few months, at church and outside of the church. It ain’t going to me a boring winter. Gotta get going getting around the countryside visiting folks who need visiting and the Word spoken to them. I love our church, as most all know, but the call is for outside the walls and woe is me if I do not heed to the call! Just wrote a little thing on that at Healing Waters. Was just at the local feed mill a while ago and the conversation went that direction, about this being a supposedly Christian country but in reality it isn’t. And I’m talking about the professed Christian population. There’s a passle of churches in every small town, but to watch and listen to a good majority of the church goers they are no different than the world. And that’s not taking into account the growing number of folks out here that are totally turned off to Christianity and in many ways I can’t blame them. There’s all the temptations of the modern society and very few churches that will stand up and bravely speak against it all. And for those seeking the Living God, these empty shells of Christianity don’t satisfy the quest for truth. This has happened many times before in history so its not something very new at all. And its the time we were born into and we musta been born into this time for a reason other than just sitting back and going for the ride!

Its funny how when there’s a rain day the Lord can do some powerful speaking to a person. Now some of the best speaking times is when I’m doing fieldwork, but I must confess its different running the silage chopper. Its so high stress and noisy that I can hardly even dwell on faith matters running that thing except for praying that nothing serious breaks down. It ain’t like raking hay! But I know the Lord is gently nudging me certain directions. How can I say that? Well, He’s nudging every single one of us! And I figure the Lord of everything there ever was is someone to listen to by my estimation!

Again the week is coming to an end, and as I stated earlier, fall is in the air in these parts. Nothing freezing yet, but short sleeve weather has slipped south for a bit. Got everything ready for the main chopping of corn silage today and plan on starting Monday or Tuesday. All looks good and I’m ready too! Shot an old cow today and buried her, one of my pet cows, an old Hereford, old style Hereford. Shes been around here since the early nineties and had a perfect calf every single year, on time. The old style Herefords had a couple of draw backs and one is the susceptibility to cancer eye. I noticed it this spring just before she was to calve and had to make a decision of trying to salvage her then or ride it through till the calf was born and raised up a few months. Even with the cancer eye just starting I refuse to put it in the food chain for either our own family or any customers. Well that cancer ate away at her head steadily but she kept right on going, never lost any weight, got around very well, ate like a cow and raised up a fine calf. Today when that herd came home for a bit of silage we separated her away from the rest, including her calf and I put her down.

Funny thing about farming, and I’ve been told this by several people. I can go back through the years and tell a story about just about all the cows, I remember when they were born, I remember when they had calves and how they did. I remember the trouble some caused. And I especially remember the steady girls, the ones that did their job year after year and never caused one lick of trouble. Can remember the weather decades back when the events took place. This old girl has so many of her bloodline in the herd that its incredible. She was a heifer maker! Starting with Marlene in the early nineties. Her first calf born in the end of May out on pasture. Nice heifer calf, and one day I was out there checking when she was only a few days old and she had the scours, a rare thing on our pastures. In fact I can’t ever remember another case of scours in the pastures since that time. But Marlene the heifer calf had it so bad she couldn’t even get her up. And that first calf Hereford heifer was all concerned. We carried the calf home with the Hereford following us calmly. Got her in the calving barn where we have a headgate and squeeze shoot, put her in that and milked her to stomach tube the calf. We did that for a couple days, never so much as a kick came from that Hereford as she was being milked. On the third day I was alone and came to milk her, she just looked at me calmly and I did something I had never done before and have never done since with any other cow on the place. I was able to milk her calmly right out in the open! Well, in a few days the calf was getting better, the Hereford was always calm and let me do the milking, and soon the calf was up and able to continue on with normal life. That calf named Marlene is still with us too. In fact every heifer I ever saved from that Hereford is still with us. Steady gals, always doing what they are supposed to do here. Come a rough winter, they never loose their condition, always stay fat even with the limited feed we have had the last couple of years. These cattle are a cattleman’s cattle! All of that Hereford’s calves were born with sufficient pigment in the eyelids to prevent cancer eye. They’re breeding em for that nowadays, the old experienced Hereford breeders I mean. It used to be a major problem with that breed, but is slowly phasing out, which is OK with me. The cancer is the same as skin cancer on a human, the Hereford’s eye lids were very pale, just like people with very pale skin are more prone to skin problems then folks with a little darker tone of skin.

Tonight that old Hereford is buried out in the back woods near a big oak tree. Allot of memories with that old girl, good memories. If I had a hundred cows like her I’d have it made. But steadily the herd is going that way. Good mothers, not the hotshot breeding that they tout up for the cattle “industry”. But a breeding that’s for the farmer or rancher. A good cow, low maintenance cow. And if the cancer eyes can be beat they are almost trouble free. I was thinking this evening how God brings animals into a person’s life, a family’s life, and how the memories can be made with such simple creatures. How a person can even sit down and write about them, almost as friends. I don’t have time to look it up but in Proverbs I came across a little thing, about a farmer treating his animals good, and he will be blessed, or something like that. So even in the Bible God has covered that for our instruction.

Tomorrow’s church so I’d better finish up around here. I have the majority of tomorrow morning’s chores either done or in place so the remaining chores won’t take more than a couple of hours. I sure do look forward to church every Sunday! Gonna pray my heart out in joy to such a wonderful God, one that takes care of our every need. Praise Him for the huge job coming up with the silage. And praise Him for so many blessed years with that old Hereford.

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.