I took this picture a while back and new I wanted to write because of it.
This is the view when you turn onto my road from the west.
Even when I walk and turn to head back home the feelings of this sight haven’t dimmed.
Coming home.
The farm was my identity to me for so long. And I loved that. I was proud to be a farmer. And I will always be but it was different then.
When I left to have my first son the fields were full of corn and because I was in the hospital for nine days with him when I returned the fields were stripped clean – harvested. And there weren’t as many silos then but nevertheless, turning down that road to come home was a wonderful sight.
Through the years the crops in the ground and the building have come and gone but it’s always home. The farm was the constant thing in our lives. Even though there were changes it never did.
It represents so much. Hope for the future, faith stretching times when we wondered if it would be our last year. Days of joy, sorrow, sweating and back breaking work.
Scraping poop off your boots, shaking hay from your hair, and washing dust from your eyes. The gritty (from the dust and dirt flying in the air) pizza eaten off the back of pickups, the back breaking job of feeding calves, loading and unloading thousands of cows over the years.
The trips to the med centers for stiches and x-rays, the frozen fingers and toes from fixing broken machinery in the snowy cold weather. Rides in the back of the pick-up to go get ice cream, the smell of dirt when first turned in the spring and beautiful straight rows of freshly mown hay.
Watching wobbly legged calves stand and walk for the first time, finding a batch of new kittens behind the stalls, dipping milk from the tank. Getting to the field to merge as the sun is coming up, riding in the combine as it eats rows and rows of corn.
Long trips to get parts for a much-needed piece of machinery. The sweet smell of milk in the parlor especially in the summer. Trying to get the lawned mowed in time for Son’s football games. Laying in the hay field waiting for someone to come fix the merger that broke down.
Watching the coyotes, fox and deer sneak along the fence rows. Waiting for the woodchucks to pop up so we can send them onto their eternal home.
I could go on and on and on.
Even though I am not daily active on the farm I am filled with pride with what is and what is still.
Son #2 is working his tush off to keep this going. He, my daughter-in-law, and kids along with their employees have kept the lights on and are doing a great job. Farming is daunting and they are doing an excellent job of it. I worry about the stress and physicality involved. The trying times that they will face, have faced and conquered. There will be more.
It’s one of the hardest best lives to live and I am grateful God allowed me to be part of it.
Coming home will always warm my soul.
And there is another home that I look forward to. I feel like I’ve seen glimpses of it throughout my life and one day I’ll find myself there and will be in complete awe.
Until then, I will be satisfied with my turn down the road and coming home.
