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June 17, 2013
Les Patterson’s Monday Morning Boost:
So God Made a Farmer – My Dad
My dad has been a farmer most of his life. He was in the middle of watering corn when I called him for Father’s Day. The wind was blowing, the ditch kept filling up with weeds, and the water just wasn’t being very cooperative.
It had been a long day.
Most days are long days for farmers. They start before sunrise and end well after sunset. They wait for rain, and then they wait for sunshine, and hope each comes at the right time and in the right amount.
Farmers grow the crops to feed the rest of us. My dad takes care of 300 plus acres of corn and hay, watering and nurturing the crops to maturity. The corn and hay in turn feeds a herd of Holsteins, the well-known black and white dairy cows, famous for their milk-producing ability. The milk from the Holsteins then makes its way to grocery stores in the form of cheese, butter, yogurt, and milk to drink.
I know we all know that. Today I choose to remember it. And by remembering, offering a small token of thanks for my dad being a farmer.
If I may, I share the following story from Paul Harvey, first delivered in 1978 to a convention of the Future Farmers of America, and rebirthed earlier this year by a RAM Truck commercial during the Super Bowl.
So God Made a Farmer
Paul Harvey
And on the 8th day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker!” So, God made a farmer!
God said I need somebody to get up before dawn and milk cows and work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board. So, God made a farmer!
I need somebody with strong arms. Strong enough to rustle a calf, yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry and have to wait for lunch until his wife is done feeding and visiting with the ladies and telling them to be sure to come back real soon…and mean it. So, God made a farmer!
God said “I need somebody that can shape an ax handle, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And… who, at planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon. Then, pain’n from “tractor back”, put in another seventy two hours. So, God made a farmer!
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop on mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So, God made a farmer!
God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees, heave bails and yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink combed pullets…and who will stop his mower for an hour to mend the broken leg of a meadow lark. So, God made a farmer!
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Have a great Monday. Thanks for letting me share!
Les Patterson
p.s. Take 15 minutes today and notice the beautiful fields of farm crops and give thanks for the farmer behind them.
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