A farmer’s prayer, harvesting honey
After church on Easter Sunday, we ate lunch with my parents and family before heading back home to an afternoon of farm work. A last minute airbnb booking sent Amy cleaning the cabin while I made the rounds and did chores. With a trip to the processor early the next morning, we moved a group of cows across the road and into the barn and sorted out the biggest 10 to be ready to load early Monday. We weren’t originally planning on taking any hogs this trip, but being out of mild sausage, our processor graciously made accommodations, so we picked out four of the bigger ones and loaded them up Sunday evening.
Usually when I’m on the road, I listen to audio books or podcasts or sometimes music. Monday morning’s trip to the processor was in silence. Alone with just my thoughts and the humming of my dad’s Cummins I borrowed for the trip (as my ole Ford has proven to be unreliable on long distance trips over the years). Lots to think about. Prices, planning, priorities. Tomorrow, next week, next year, 10 years down the road. After about an hour of thinking, I realized my thoughts were turning to worries. So instead of thinking, I began praying. Prayer has a way of keeping worries at bay.
My initial prayer was for safe travels as I was coming down a 7 mile stretch off mountain on the backside of Fancy Gap into NC with semis buzzing past me on my left and 15 thousand pounds of livestock behind me, pushing me and the Dodge down the hill. Though I’ve made this trip countless times, I still get nervous anytime I haul livestock on the highway.
Then my prayers shifted to Amy’s travels as she would be leaving for Knoxville with the kids to deliver meat in the Transit van, whose subtle vibration has gradually grown to a more noticeable shake while going down the interstate. I’d been meaning to get it back in the shop for the past couple weeks. But of course, there’s a lot I’d been meaning to do over the past couple weeks. “Keep them safe Lord… And help me do better.”
“Lord, thank you for my family. Continue to strengthen Amy. I don’t know how she does it all. Let me not take her for granted. Bless our kids as they grow, and guide them closer to You. Bless their future spouses and future families. Use them for your good will. Thank you for surrounding us with so many good people. Thank you for the friends you’ve put in our lives, and help us to be better friends to them. Thank you for neighbors and this wonderful community. Help us to be more neighborly. Thank you for the animals on our farm you’ve entrusted us with and the food they produce. Bless all those who eat it. Body and soul… Lord, be with Bradley and his family. Be with his doctors. Guide their decisions and use them to bring Bradley back to health… Be with Ronnie… and Louie… and Tasha… and and Megan… and Margaret and Jerry… and so many more. Help us Lord. And help us help each other.”
My tail has been dragging most of the week trying to get over whatever bug we’ve been passing around. Usually when feeling rough I try to push through it. Sometimes I have no choice but to push through it. With Amy and the kids gone Monday afternoon, I hopped on the tractor with the grapple and continued clean up trees and limbs for the remaining hours of the evening.
Tuesday, however, I wasn’t pushing through it anymore. I hardly made it out of the house. Amy and the kids took care of the chicks in the brooder and made the farm rounds when they got back from Knoxville that afternoon.
Wednesday and Thursday I was back at, though my energy and motivation levels were still low. We’re about halfway through cleaning out the pig barn. We continually add fresh bedding for the pigs all winter, then come spring we clean it all out. Finally got the mower back out to mow to yard, cabins, and around the barn.
On Thursday morning, we suited up and helped my aunt and uncle harvest honey from their bee hive. This was a first for me. That afternoon Amy and the kids did more honeybee research, and Hallie and Hasten wrote an essay (paragraph) on how bees make honey and how we harvest honey. Bees are amazing creatures. And they work so diligently. “Lord, help me to work more like these bees. Steadfast and uncomplaining.”
Here’s a poem I wrote several years back
"A Farmer’s Prayer"
A farmer’s prayer in a broken world
With so much out of my hands.
“God, is this what you had in mind?
Is this your masterplan?”
Jesus prayed, “Your will be done
On earth as it is up there.”
Sometimes I wonder if you can,
Or if you even care.
So I pray to God to change the world
“If it’s in your will to do.”
He answers back, “I’d love to son,
Let me start by changing you.”
Have a good week.
Will