THESE Things

All the things in this life that aren't politics. 

Fifteen years of Winnie the Pooh....

Aren't newsworthy. 

Aren't on the television. Or social media. In font sizes over 48. 

That aren't the Cubs......

That still make life rich, memorable, vital, and individual.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.  

Phillippians 4: 8

Think on THESE things.

Lizzie.  At the helm of the auger wagon, bouncing over the bean field on her dad's lap, steering and singing in her pink t-shirt and John Deere green french terry pajama pants.  Pure happiness.

Abbie and Josh. With armloads of fake autumn leaves and weeds, stringing a garland here, setting a pumpkin there,  every vase with its flower, every bowl with its gourd.  Finally, the TA-DA moment as I'm led (close your eyes, Grandma!) to the dining room to ooh and aaah over their enterprise.  Lovely, indeed.

Ryan and Lee.  Lee with her foot bound up and her big toe stitched.  Ryan taking the laundry downstairs, bringing her drinks and ibuprofen and making brownies. Putting dishes away.  Lee: "That's not where those g....oh....just put them where ever you want to!"  When your wife is laid up, where ever those  clean dishes are stacked is the definition of commendable....

Gabe and Abbie, Aaron and Lizzie, Josh and Annie.  After school and after work, the "knackers" come help clean up the leftovers of the fall mum crop.  With high spirits and a Tom Sawyer attitude (make work fun!), they give the dead plants the old heave-ho into the back of the green pickup, roll up the irrigation lines, make big nosegays of fragrant bronze blooms, and stack up the used pots; all for a 6 ounce Sunkist orange pop!  Well, except for Aaron, who takes advantage of the opportunity to practice his mad manual transmission driving skills in the '95 Dodge Ram five speed....Worthy...worthy of praise!

Aaron. First junior high basketball game.  His mother calls..."Keep moving...use the backboard!" Aaron, to his credit, not only meets his mom's eyes, but mouths.."I know".   I remember junior high basketball....and the girl who shot the basketball just so her dad would shave off his beard.... Whatever is honorable....Whatever is just.

Josh. A font of information and a sponge for knowledge now that he's in kindergarten. "I can count to 100, Mom." from the back seat. "Yes, and I'm so proud of you..." from the driver's seat.  From the back seat...."One zillion and one....one zillion and two....." Absolutely true... 

Levi.  At a fall hayride with his parents.  Riding the skid loader, checking out the John Deere tractor, watching the cattle in the pasture: "If this were a real farm, there would be a combine...."  Excellence...in story telling anyway!

Think...and smile....at THESE things....

Bob the Builder circa 2005

Construction guy circa 2016

Froggie suit circa 2014

Froggie suit circa 2011

Froggie suit circa 2004

"Sell That Fine Pig"

Lily is wearing a sleeveless ruffled top with her shorts and cowboy boots. Her long red curls are tied back from her freckled face with two ribbons. She has walked into the sales ring at the Atchison County Fair from a Norman Rockwell painting. I cannot help but be charmed. But when the auctioneer reads her name, she bounds across the sand, with one finger beckoning to the shaggy lamb behind, who follows her, his leash trailing. This makes me clap my hands in delight and sing under my breath,

"Lily had a little lamb....."

And everywhere that Lily went,

The lamb was sure to go."

Surely this performance earned the young lady a couple more bids on the premium for her animal. The lamb knew Lily and Lily knew her lamb.

Jilli's sheep is tired by the time she is called to the sales ring. But Jilli isn't. With enthusiasm that is not entirely communicated to her animal, she somehow moves him to the center of the ring with her hands, rope, boots, and the sheer force of her personality and will. She is working so hard. The bidding takes a good long while, long enough that the reluctant sheep gives in, stands pat, and allows Jilli to mold it into the preferred stance. It may or may not matter at this sale, but her folks have impressed upon Jilli that she should never stop working until the job is done.

Because of the heat and humidity, the sale starts late this year. Whether its the hour, the temperature, or just the ongoing slow decline and consolidation of our county's business community, the stands are full of family members, but not as many buyers as one would wish for the number of exhibitors. Nonetheless, the bidding can be brisk; it is always good-natured; and whether the animal is a hog, a rabbit, a goat or a chicken, the kid will get a nice check and the buyer a round of appreciative applause.

When Lee and Ann and Ben showed animals for 4H and then FFA, the barns were full with up to 70 steers and one year, on top of 200 hogs. Six or seven Hurst cousins worth of cattle did contribute to the bounty. Today's show ring features a solid representation of pigs, a pampered lovely handful of steers, sheep, goats,and a rainbow's worth of rabbits and chickens in arms. Farms have changed in our county, but the faces of the parents watching from the barn, the fence, or the stands are ever the same: focused and intent, alert to the bidders and the auctioneer, poised to offer advice and encouragement to the showman in the ring.

Some of the bidders are the same too. It does my heart good to hear some of the self-same folks bidding that were buying animals at the fair almost thirty years ago when Lee and Ann first led a steer into the ring. Now Lee and Ryan and Ann and Matt are the ones reminding their kids when the pigs were born and how much they weighed and Aaron, Lizzie, Gabe and Abbie are the ones with whips and brushes, ever watching the judge, and stuffing ribbons in their jeans' pockets as they drive the pigs back to the pen.

"Sell that fine pig!" All the pigs are fine by the end of the evening as the stands thin and the buyers settle up. Every time the ring man raises his hand and calls,"Yup!", its a vote for tomorrow, a down payment on the success of the little girls with star spangled belts and boys with sweat running down their faces.

"Sell that fine pig!" and pay it forward for the kid whose pig peed on her boot or the kid run over by his animal in the alleyway. Raise your hand and you'll send a message in a bottle from the past to an unknown future where the lessons of responsibility and conscientiousness pay interest and more.

Sell that fine pig!" and record for posterity the common language of hard work between generations. Support your fair and vote for the heritage of blood and land and tradition personified in kids and pigs, moms and dads, goats or sheep, steers or chickens.

Posted with Blogsy

Pretty Exceptional

"Benjamin Franklin extolled agriculture as "the only honest way" for "a nation to acquire wealth," in stark contrast with the alternatives of war ("plunder[ing]) and commerce ("generally cheating")."15 (Jim Chen, The American Ideology)

Reading this, I have to wonder if the estimable Mr. Franklin was speaking to some proto typical gathering of 18th century yeomen in their cleanest coats and boots.  It has the same ring as many a buttering up delivered in stirring tones by many a presumptive friend of agriculture.  To hear tell, the one percent upon which the nation stands are those folks raising commodity crops, meat, and fiber, not fabulously wealthy investors and entrepreneurs and others of their monied ilk.  We in the crowd take all this laud with a block of salt; firm in the conviction of the general usefulness of our toil and the virtue of our profession without reaping the laurels of Olympian heroics.

This is partly why it has taken so long for farmers to rise to the need to tell what is true and what is untrue about the vocation of creating food from the rawest of materials. Man is no alchemist and can neither turn sunshine to bodily fuel nor grass to protein like plants and cattle do.  But he can tend his crops and livestock; it is a high calling to be a good shepherd.

We Americans get ourselves all atwitter whenever the term 'American exceptionalism' is resuscitated.  The belief that our country is something unique among nations or  has been and hopes to be a source of inspiration and goal of aspiration has not only proponents and opponents, but a cycle as definite as sun spots. 

On the other hand, if you look up ''agricultural exceptionalism", you get a lot of academic papers dealing with labor issues and other "exceptions" that agriculture is granted as opposed to the rules other industries have to follow.  Not so uplifting, huh.  

The back and forth, the accusations, the ads, and, let's face it, the out and out lies of the Keep Missouri Farming amendment campaign have been educational and sometimes, stomach churning. As a proponent, I have heard and read plenty of what the rest of the world believes, whether behind the anonymous veil of comments on some website or the lofty pedestal of a big city editorial column. I am proud of the able and articulate defenders of farmers' use of technology, our husbandry of animals, the wholesomeness and tastiness of what we send to food processors, groceries, and even farmers'markets. Anyone with an open mind CAN get an earful of real life and has no excuse to lean on easy stereotypes or half baked theories about agriculture.

I don't know what theme is most persuasive to someone from outside of the agricultural community.  The common ground, the bedrock, the refrain of every farmer or rancher I see posting on Facebook or writing a blog or plastered on campaign materials?  The theme that sends me to my computer to look up that term 'agricultural exceptionalism', that lofty term for our daily bread?

It is a wish for continuity in agriculture...that agriculture will survive for the next generation to follow parents, grandparents, and even ancestors into the profession of farming if they so desire. I know of no other calling, (excluding military service perhaps) that expresses itself and prides itself and extends itself from generation to generation.  Why do families hope their children become farmers too?  In this day and age, it certainly isn't the need to "grow your own help", as marvelous as working side by side can be.  It isn't a  speedy or worry free trip to the "top", wherever that is.  And I don't believe that a family farm is a golden prison, trapping unsuspecting youngsters in the amber of repetition and stagnation. 

No.  These successful people want their children to follow them into farming because it has been a good life doing good work for them and they want the same happiness and fulfillment for their children. It is so much more than just a little kid's wish to ride a combine with Grandpa or honk the air horn. It is more than wanting future grandchildren close at hand.   They have found satisfaction and reward in the incalculable bounty of nature and family ties.  They have taken the measure of the pluses and minuses of staying put and voted with their boots for their home towns.  Whether or not the children become engineers, bankers, executives or novelists instead isn't important and isn't the point. The desire to carry on family farms and family farming, anachronistic as it may seem, is a crowning glory of agriculture. It is the vote of confidence in both a way of life and an honorable profession. It gives us the trump card in any discussion.  Agriculture walks the walk, honoring the past, growing the present, and hoping for the future. 

May not be "exceptional", but it's close enough.