Tracks in the Hayfield

The hayfields are beautiful this year... ankle deep plush emerald green carpets of grass and clover. Winter snows, poor man’s fertilizer, has given the grass a jump start and it is a lovely sight. Every year Gary and I joke because I think the hay should be cut before he does. He tells me he doesn’t believe in freeze dried hay. This may be the year we do indeed have freeze dried hay if the grass continues to grow at this rate.
One of the first lessons I learned from my father about hay was to never drive over the hay field because it damages the grass. Driving over the grass once leaves marks that may not go away for weeks. And a repeated passage in the same place will kill the grass leaving two dirt tracks. One doesn’t think of grass as fragile but when you depend on grass hay to feed your animals or to sell, you begin to realize it needs protection just as other crops do.
We have lived on Sabbath Rest Farm now for ten years. Gradually the fields and pastures are being restored to their productive beauty. Some areas of the farm are set aside as woods and open range with scrubby growth, trees and wild grasses to help sustain the wildlife. But as the pastures have blossomed, we have begun to see more deer grazing. They appreciate the cafeteria line of clover, timothy and orchard grass that is available now. We share the pasture with them and the sight of their graceful beauty gladdens our hearts.
All through the fields and hills on the farm are pathways worn in the grass and woods... animal highways... bear, deer, foxes, raccoons, wildcat... mostly night time traffic that passes by us unseen and unnoticed except for the paths they leave behind. Many of these paths skirt the edges of the pastures where an animal might safely graze protected by the sheltering woods. A few cross the fields as the animals travel the shortest distance between two patches of woods.
Our son Adam and his wife Michelle are having a baby boy in September, the fifth Hester male to be born in that month. Five grandsons... each of them are a treasured blessing. I listen to our daughters tease their brother telling him he will now have to pay for his sins as a child, reminding him of all the trouble he got into, gloating and rejoicing at the same time as he begins this life long journey as a father. I listen knowing they have had to pay for their raising by raising their own, sometimes joyfully, sometimes painfully but always with love.
None of us knows what we are getting into when we have children and that is a good thing. How can you explain the tracks your child leaves in the hayfield of your heart? How those trails, those worn down places lead you back to the One who created you? There are no words that are sufficient to describe the feelings you have when you first see the embodied form of your child created in love. That special ever new everyday miracle of birth is a communion ritual with God, an occasion for laughter and tears, sharing the bread of life and the wine of suffering. For the rest of your life you will never again be able to think of only yourself. You are a parent and will be to the day you die. How does God do it...
So this day I am giving thanks for all the well worn trails and paths that cross the hayfields of my heart and I am getting ready for a new path, a new baby boy. I am blessed beyond measure and I know that. In this my sixty third year, I count my blessings and know that as God clothes the grass, so will he give Adam and Michelle strength and joy for the journey. Life is gift indeed. Thanks be to God from whom all life flows.