End of a Blog

A few weeks ago I decided to shut down all my existing blogs and start one and only one. Northern Farmer will be shut down very shortly also. The new blog is called Christian Farm and Ranchman. I’ve been trying to get links up and all, but things take time so I hope anyone that follows this is patient, especially this being my busy time of the year!

I’ve really enjoyed this blog, it was so kicked back and relaxed. But being overwhelmed with maintaining multiple blogs has been wearing me thin. So its down to one and only one. Click here if you’d like to take a gander. If not, its been fun and I thank you!

Cattle Herd and Faith

My legs feel like they’re gonna fall off! Took out 3/4 mile of electric fence this afternoon, the fence that held the cows last fall down in the meadows, swamps, fields and brush. Saved me mucho hay bales doing that and I figured it was a good time to take it down today before the manure hits the fan around this place. So as of now everything on that 80 acres is good! The field roads are drying up nicely, the cow lot where they get fed silage is even drying up which really surprised me! The fields would still swallow a tractor but they’re setting up more and more every day. I drove one of our tractors to the county seat today, about a twenty five mile trip, and even over near the Mississippi River they’re not doing field work yet. Those are sand flats that dry up quick. Mostly big farmers and corporate farmers over that way. A big crop there is potatoes and from spring to fall the areal spraying seldom stops. Glad we don’t live over that way, could be more than hazardous to a feller’s health.

Today though, working rolling up electric wire and pulling small electric fence posts out of very moist ground was a treat indeed! Almost no noise in the territory today, very little wind and nobody in the fields yet made for a day when a person could just get out and enjoy the open spaces. Allot of thoughts go through a person’s head, farming and faith, faith and farming. And of course don’t forget family which is in both farming and faith anyhow. Don’t want it to look like I’m belittling that! Never! On the farming and ranching end of things, well, its no secret that these last few years have been tough with the multiple, back to back to back droughts. Long before there was worries about the economy on the media and in this nation as a whole there were tough times here, sometimes very tough. And those thoughts out in the meadows while taking down fence as far as the farming and ranching end of things are concerned were about continuing the dream of years ago before they were almost entireloy stomped out by these last few years. To have a second to none cowherd, the type of herd a person could be proud of. reputation cattle! The fact is they are pretty high up there as far as reputation cattle go in these here parts. And most folks in the area haven’t the slightest clue how that herd took a hit over the last few years. Two years in a row I didn’t even keep replacement heifers, not enough feed to carry them through a winter. The cowherd has gotten a little over the hill as far as age is concerned. There wasn’t much a person could do except hold on tight and pray that things would turn around sooner or later.

This year I held back a nice batch of replacement heifers, both Black Angus and Black Baldies. Good stuff. Get some young blood back in the herd! There’s gonna be a network of new corrals built this summer in the spare time when I’m not making hay or something. These are buit with railroad ties and oak plank, heavy duty. There’s going to be renewed effort in getting the place and the herd top notch! Almost had er once, but got beat back a bit, now there’s a new fever in me to continue this and see it through. I write this cause sometimes people might wonder about someone who has faith in God and a calling to boot in the ministry, wondering if they let the cattle operation and the farm slide and just fool around with church stuff. Maybe some do that, I don’t know, but this cattle business is in my blood just as this faith is. And a person has to make a living, might as well do it good! There ain’t know way I could ever do church stuff, faith stuff, when I’d be knowing that I ain’t doing the job right on the farm.

I was going to write more on this but am behind a bit on other stuff so with any luck I’ll be able to finish it off sometime. There’s Kingdom work to do and cattle herd work to take care of. Spread the Gospel the best a feller can, and take care of the herd and make a reputation herd that a person can be more than satisfied with!

Easter Thoughts

Well, its an Easter evening around here and I have a few spare minutes to sit on down and relax at the old computer. The day was good, very good! Church took up allot more time than normal and that was OK with me. Chores went slick this morning and I got done really quick and was able to ramble on to church with the old three quarter ton flatbed Chev. Everyone else went a tad bit earlier from this family so I had to drive solo in the old truck. Made er though and that’s a praise in itself! Had a deer running right down the road straight at that old truck when I was in the hills driving on an up and down tarred township road. Seeing I was only going thirty miles an hour on that narrow hogback road I wasn’t taken too much by surprise and the deer musta figured out that it wasn’t good to run straight into that old Chevy so he bounded off into the woods on the side. I’m not really all that hungry for road kill venison at the moment anyhow so that was OK with me today.

The day was fairly nice this later morning and some of us were able to stand outside of church and shoot the bull a bit. What a relief to have winter pretty much over with! There was an Easter egg hunt for the youngsters in the little town our church is in, in fact it was put on by the church. The kids made a killing with candy and a few other prizes and I just watched all satisfied! Oh, to have that simple fun again like those kids can have at any given moment. Plus many of the kids gave Pastor Tom an offering, some candy from their stashes and I guess I wasn’t complaining as I was munching away! Train em young to take care of the people that have the call I say!

And with evening here there’s only a few things to get ready for this coming week’s midweek service. I figure I can work like a bear the rest of the evenings and just make it to the Wednesday service, break up the huge load of work for the week and get recharged to hit er harder the next day. There’s oats to clean for seed this week too, that sometimes take the better part of the day but is well worth it. When you have the seed that works on your particular farm, stick with it! I don’t know why, but I’m really optimistic about this year’s growing season!

Now this being Easter and all I start thinking about planting seeds, about something dead coming to life. Something we have no control over. We clean the grain in faith, we get the fields ready in faith and we plant the seeds in faith. And last evening in my nightly reading of the Bible I reread these verses that explain it so plainly! From Mark chapter 4,

Parable of the Growing Seed

²⁶ Jesus also said, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. ²⁷ Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens. ²⁸ The earth produces the crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens. ²⁹ And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it with a sickle, for the harvest time has come.”

Now that’s what I love about the Bible, about the Gospels in particular, a country feller like me can make sense out of them! Those seeds don’t really look all that action packed when a person is handling them or just taking a look at them. They’re just little things that get planted in the ground and if a person really and truthfully didn’t know what was happening it would never make a lick of sense, to be putting those things in the ground, really it doesn’t! But we know that it does work, we know what to expect. Plants should appear from almost every seed that was put in the ground.And a person has to modernize this a tad too. Because most of the time a farmer ain’t out there scattering seed by hand, although I have done that once in a while, here and there. We use a planter, a grain drill for small grains such as oats and barley and a corn planter for corn. A big difference between the two. And after its planted, especially with small grains, there’s not a thing that a person really does with the crop until harvest time. Plant in late April or early May and don’t touch the crop until late July, early August. Then comes the harvest and most of the time there’s a good one, and even on the bad years there’s always something to harvest.

The thing that strikes me in that parable is the similarity to spreading the Gospel, which I do believe is the main point of course here. Our job is to plant that seed, just like the farmer in the parable or the farmer writing this. It don’t hurt to take extra care preparing the fields because that makes a huge difference in the harvest! It don’t hurt getting into the Word every single day to make sure the seed germination percentage is high. No sense planting poor seed. It don’t hurt walking the walk, talking the talk, being a true living example of Christ on this here earth! And the time will come when the harvest is ripe and ready to be cut and combined. Where the shakers and fans blow out the bad seed, the weed seed and poor light grain that one does not want in the storage bins.

This Easter I’m just dwelling on this. How easy it is to understand the planting and harvesting written about in the Gospel. Keep er simple and its easy to understand. Spread the Good News in faith that it will soon sprout and grow. Have the faith of a farmer or a rancher that knows that he must do the initial work and after that the Lord promises to take care of the growing and the ripening. And then comes the harvest! The more I get into the Word, the more I am coming to realize the simplicity of it. Those yoke destroying promises from a risen saviour that loves every single person right where they are at. Easter reminds a person of that although I guess I should be reminded of that ever day. Sure wouldn’t hurt none! He is risen to set people free! If we only understood that more, if we only would have the faith to throw off the shackles that bind us and be Christians like in the Book of Acts, believers that had such simple faith that God moved mightily with them. He still does today, exactly the same as in the Book of Acts, that is if we let Him.

On a closing note this evening, this Easter evening, I had a brother in Christ tell me something this week that struck deep into my heart. So many times we invite folks to church, we try and witness to them and get a cold shoulder, mainly from the folks being religious. They very seldom go to church but have some way out teaching that they were baptized as a baby, or got confirmed as a teen and they might make it to heaven if there is in reality such a place. My brother in Christ mentioned the parable about the King inviting all the normal people to the wedding and everyone had an excuse not to show up. As I say, this really was thrust deep into my heart, confirmed by the Holy Ghost. The parable goes on to have the King say, go through the countryside and invite all the poor, the lonely, the sick, the rejected, (Tom’s translation here so forgive me). I must say, this was a confirmation to what’s been on my heart for a long time now, to fill the pews with the downcasts of society, the sick, the lonely, the folks that would hardly be welcome in a normal church setting today with the dead religion or the lust for material wealth that is so accepted among the western masses that call themselves Christians. This is the meaning of Easter to me! These are the people Jesus hung around with, these are the people that followed Him! These are the people that believed and were healed of every disease and malady. And these are the people that need Jesus today and who will believe like they did back then!

Good Friday

Good Friday evening and I just got in after a long day on the farm. Cleaned the big loafing barn out, the manure pack was around three feet deep and that’s kept me busy the last couple of days. But its clean now and the cows can come back in if need be.  The jobs are piling up, as they do every year at this time and they won’t let up for a while either. But that’s OK with me cause winter drives me half nuts!

As far as faith matters go, well I’m dwelling on some stuff for a long time now, many months. The answers are coming, sometimes in very unexpected ways. I guess I do most of my duties at church all right, but there’s always something eating at me that never goes away. The countryside is pulling me, strongly. Never was a city type person, just always wanted to farm. Still do, nothing changed in that department. In fact I think I’ve been pretty successful spending most of my life farming one way or another. Not money wise, I mean spending my life doing it. Maybe that’s one reason I like our little church so much. A person doesn’t have to put on a show and make believe that your something special. Just come as you are. Works for me!

For 18 years now I’ve received the Christian Ranchman paper from Fort Worth, Texas. I’ve wrote about it many times here, either in posts or comments. That newspaper is so very special! I just love how it has stories and testimonies of regular farm and ranch folks who love Jesus! For 18 years that ministry was my favorite. Still is!

So, I ramble on about it, all tired out from a hard days work. All this writing over the last few years about country churches, about circuit riders, about farmer/preachers, about cowboy preachers. This is a love of mine. And this is what will continue to be written about here. This is where ministry is pulling me. To the simple folks, not to fancy churches. I’m simple so I figure that must be where I belong!  Blue jeans for dress clothes. Good jacket is denim, a Wrangler in fact. Got cowboy hats everywhere, some beat up, some clean. Got cattle coming out of my ears. Got two pickup truck and ones a flatbed to boot! Don’t own a pair of shoes, just have boots, mostly western boots. Don’t own a tie, just have western bolos. In other words, I don’t fit the typical way people look at someone in ministry. Get more of a thrill going to a rodeo and listening to the opening prayer than sitting in a big city church that has supposedly arrived. Sitting in a salesbarn I get the feeling that someday I’ll preach in one. Nope, this ain’t the usual call the way I figure it.

So I’d better get myself cleaned up tonight and get into the Word of God for a bit. Between farming/ranching and faith a feller gets pretty tired sometimes. This is one of them times.