The Cracked Acorn: Farming

“Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.”  – Matthew 13:8-9

“It’s planting time!”
“Whoa! Whoa!, I’ll tell you when it’s planting time!”
“O. K., it’s planting time!”

We all recognize the re-phrasing of the opening of GONE WITH THE WIND. I remember when we had our Sunday lunch and drove into town to line up to see this movie about the Old South.

I was born in what I call the’ Old South’, like GWTW, it does not exist any more. Farming was horses and mules and manual labor was a normal thing. Hay baling required 6 or 7 men to cut and gather and haul the hay to a stationary baling machine, I would have been 5 years old, one of the men gave me a ride around the field, pulled by two horse, gathering the cut hay.

The Bible says everything has a season, and this is still true, This is the first week of June and in Kentucky, corn should be out and wheat, oats and barley are a short time from reaping. Since this was once tobacco country, the plants have all been set out in several acres of rich prime farm land. Cattle, hogs and chicken are doing well. That span of time from 1939 to 1962 is the time I knew only those who farmed the land with a small tractor and implements for plowing and seeding. No farmer today could make a living in that long gone fashioned farming, now it is big time seeding, cultivating and harvesting and hardly a foot touches the ground from seeding to the mills and markets.

The successful farmer has to know all about the seasons and that this is a time for all things to happen. He must put the seed in the ground and wait. If it is all about patience then the farmer must have this one virtue. The good farmer is a person of action and is prepared for the eventualities whether they are good or bad.

Careless soul, oh, heed the warning, For your life will soon be gone; Oh, how sad to face the judgment,
Unprepared to meet thy God. Why so thoughtless are you standing while the fleeting years go by,
And your life is spent in folly?
Oh, prepare to meet thy God.

CLOSING HUMOR: Why did the unwashed chicken cross the road twice?
Because he was a dirty double crosser!
What do you call a sleeping bull?
A bulldozer!
What has four legs and flies?
A pig!
What do you get if you cross a cow with an octopus?
A cow that can milk itself.