Is it? Or, isn’t it? Yes or no?
What am I referring to? Spring of course! What a debacle. Here on the farm we are at least a month behind on things thanks to Mother Nature, the elements, the universe or whatever you want to blame.
Mother Nature’s Thought Process
When the snow finally stops, let the rains begin. Then, I’ll give you a peek. Here’s what spring looks like, people. Oh, gone, you missed it! You should have looked that one day.
Back to cold and rain. Ooops, here, have another nice day, I’ll really fool you. 80 degrees and sunny, how’s that for confusion? OK, now, rain, more rain and I’ll throw in a little thunder, a lot of lightning, and some hail for good measure. Tornado? Nah, not this time, did that last month.
Now, how about a nice 5 day stretch. Just enough time for you to get into the fields.
Time to be nasty again. I think I’ll . . . let’s see. . . yep, rain. Rain is always a good choice, unless of course you need it. So much fun washing out that new hay field you just sowed.
That is my imagination per Mother Nature.
As frustrating as the weather is and as much as it messes with our income and ability to do our job, it is really God’s business.
We had just sowed about 35 acres of alfalfa, finally, and during the last rain deluge a nice river flowed through the middle of the field. The seed swam right out of the field, across the road and landed in the unplowed field that will be a corn field. Yep, money and time washed away. But, what are you going to do? Shake your fist at God, whine, cry, or complain? None of that helps. We figure it’s his land, his seed, his business. We are just here to do the best at helping take care of it all.
A year ago at this time we were very close to being done planting corn. We have not a single kernel in the ground. We are still trying to haul manure to the fields. Manure needs to be spread before we work up the soil and plant.
The alfalfa fields are growing nicely with all this rain. If we had some warmer weather it would be growing gang busters.
So, by the time the manure is hauled, the fields worked up and we are ready to plant corn the hay will also be ready to chop.
We feel like a tightly wound spring ready to let loose as soon as the weather breaks.
In between all of that there are pockets of joy to be appreciated.
Two of my wigglies are playing baseball this year and I am back on the bleachers. It’s a little less intense with this generation.
Son #1’s dog, Bella had her puppies. We got a phone call on a Saturday morning from Daughter-in-law #1 to come help. Son #1 was showing a boat and she wanted to make sure her Bella was taken care of.
This is blurry, but if you back up a bit you can see a puppy paw inside the sack before it was born.
The first puppy was born breech. We didn’t realize the problem. Even though we were right there we were trying to let her do her thing without our intruding. Because the puppy was breech and the water had broken, the puppy died in birth.
We watched intently as each puppy presented and had to physically help deliver the other 6. They were all breech except one. One of the breech also had the water broke and we had to be quick to get it out so it wouldn’t asphyxiate. I can now proudly add canine midwife to my resume.
Here are a few more pictures of moments of joy that God gives us daily. You just have to keep your eyes and hearts open to see them.
