Today I am thankful to my friend, Doug, for sharing his words of gratitude. It has been a challenging year for so many farmers. Thanks again Doug--you and your family are part of why I love our small-town, farming community.
***
Most
of you have heard the Dodge ad featuring Mr. Paul Harvey’s voice from a Super
Bowl a few years back. I can remember
the exact spot where I was sitting when I heard it first. My friend Evi was
sitting next to me, and I think we both thought of our dads. I still have “seasonal allergies” when I hear
it played.
This
harvest for our farm is now officially the longest that I have been involved
with. Generally, when we start harvesting
in September, harvest would conclude before now. We have finished in
December before, but those harvest seasons started in October. Christmas music
in a combine does not bring a sense of joyful holiday wishes and thoughts; it’s
more of a stark realization that time is running out, and we need to get this
“stuff” over with.
I
farm with my parents, my wife, and our two sons. Being a family business has a
great deal of rewards and challenges.
Any business arguments will carry over to the home and vice versa. Communicating is the number one job skill for
us, and unfortunately the one we fail at the most frequently. I am sure we are not the only family alone in
that failure.
Any
profession has its ups and downs, successes and failures, and from my vantage
point, we focus on the failures more than success. I don’t think that’s unique to farming, but
like any in-home business, those reminders of a bad day can be right out the
front door or follow you inside. A shirt covered in bovine amniotic fluid from
a bad night calving, jeans that wreak of smoke from a hay trailer that caught
on fire and shut down highway 41 for two hours, or cuts and bruises on your
arms from a combine water pump that had anger issues, are reminders of days
that went more off the rails than on. Sometimes the isolation of this job has
its time for quiet reflection, and other times that isolation manifests the
failures into more weight than one can carry . . .
That’s
where my gratitude has kicked in lately.
Often, things that seem beyond my
control can be brought back by reminding myself, "I got into this mess and
I can get myself out." If I can’t,
call someone and ask for help: physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. I am grateful to work with dad and the rest
of my family every day.
These
are things that I’m grateful for this harvest: my wife and kids that feed
calves almost every night, grandmas who run combines with their grandsons,
long text conversations that make me laugh, Mountain Dew, diesel engines that
start in ten degree weather, being voluntold to do this writing, and warm
suppers.
Absolutely amazing, thanks
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