Thursday, September 29, 2011

Slow down and smell the ...farm

     Recently we've had a small lull in the action here on our families farm. We are between 3rd and 4th crop hay cuttings, the corn isn't ready to chop, and all my winter barley except for what is going in after the corn, is in the ground and being watered. Its given me time to slow down a little bit in the afternoons and relax. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not going in and sleeping everyday, I just simply don't feel like I have to constantly run just to keep up. 
     After making my evening water change the other day I sat down on my irrigation pipe in the quiet field and just took a while to enjoy the sounds and smells that were all around me. I could faintly hear my cows in the distance. I could here thousands of geese in the river right below me, random small birds chirping in the trees by the road. I could even hear a coyote, as it was close to dusk. I wasn't that far from the barn, so I could still get a whiff of my cows, ( I love that smell by the way). I could smell our compost, my neighbors freshly cut hay, and even the dust from the road as an employee passed on his way home. It was like my own little on farm aroma therapy session.
     It really hit me how lucky I am to be where I am and be doing what I do! Don't city folk pay good money to go on retreats where they are out in nature away from the everyday hustle and bussle of the city? How lucky am I to get paid to be out here in it every single day? Yes, there are deffinently days where its not easy, days when it would be nice to clock out and go home to my family at five o'clock, or snowy sundays when i wish I could just stay in the house. But, like every dedicated farmer and rancher I know, we don't do this because its easy, or for the money. We do this because we love doing it.  We love the feeling we get when we turn over the ground we are blessed to work on. We farm because its in our blood and we've been doing it for generation after generation! We do this for those rare moments we can slow down and stop to enjoy the small things that are all around us everyday.
     If you are a farmer and your reading this, do me a favor and just find a moment sometime in the next week to just sit down somewhere quiet on your operation and enjoy what's all around you.

3 comments:

  1. Great post dear. All these things are why I love living on the farm as well. Who knew I would love rural living so much.

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  2. Also I'm going to say that I'm not loving the blogger format on my phone. I know wordpress has better formatting for smartphones. ....Just sayin..

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  3. Awesome thoughts from an awesome farmer, husband, dad & son! It really is great to hear some positives for all the hard work you do!

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