Yesterday a friend said, “I wishI had your life just being on the farm”. Suddenly I realized that not everyone knows the reality of farm life. So gentle reader, here is the flip side of cute wildlife and pet bulls.
My days are bookended by morning work and night work (my Grandaddy’s words) as is every farmer’s day. In the morning I have to go to the stable and feed four equines and one bull, muck out two wagon loads of manure and feed the cat. After the nearly three inches of rain we had last week, the mud at the stable is impressive... suck your boots off mud. Then I have to go to the field to feed the cows. Again I walk through suck your boots off mud. Rain or shine, Florida warm or Arctic freezing, the work still must be done.
If I leave for the day or for choir practice or to eat out, the work is done before I leave or it will have to be done in the dark...day in and day out, the same work with no performance reviews or pay raises. Parenting was good preparation for this way of life.
As I drive down the hill to the cows, I see a busted fence board the cows can step over. I need to move the old hay into the leaning barn for bedding so the cows will have a clean space for the next cold snap. The bittersweet vines and the kudzu are taking over. Before spring we will need to cut as many of those pests as possible to kill them. I ponder when to fertilize the hay pasture and wish we could reseed our grazing pastures. The fence in the lane is leaning and almost down... another maintenance task. The horse trailer needs to be cleaned out after the trip home with Little Ferd. Many of these tasks Michael will try to get to on Saturdays and I help as I can. The reality of farm life is you do not get to punch out at five o’clock and go home. Your to do list is always full.
Jesus was born into this world surrounded by confusion and messiness. He, like us, lived and worked in a system that often did not make sense.The truth of the matter is most of us find hope and love and joy and peace in the midst of mud and muck and mayhem and monotony. The simple gift of life is not so simple after all. Our call is to give thanks not just for the hope-love-joy-peace parts of life but also for monotony-muck-mayhem-mud. One without the other has no meaning.
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