The Farmer's Bible Verse

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

"There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot."
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Farming has been going on as long as there have been people to feed.  The writer of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes obviously knew his farming and farmers.  Spring is definitely the season for "every activity under heaven". 

On a farm everything generally happens at once.  All of a sudden, after a winter of planning, repairing, dreaming, and preparing for it,  the time arrives to begin the spring activities.  Tobacco ground has been plowed and prepared, the hay is ripe and thick, the alfalfa is ready to be reseeded, a bag of soybeans need to be sown to enrich a field, fertilizer needs to be applied, weed control needs to be sprayed, cattle need to be worked, and bulls already sold need to be delivered. 

And that was just the plans for Memorial Day Weekend.

Sometimes I think farmers have their clocks wound just a little too tight.

Saturday morning found everyone but the four-year old little girl checking their list of chores for the day.  Even the little boys had their assignments.  (Although by mid-afternoon they had wandered off to the creek to set the minnow trap.)  The setter was ready, the hands hired for the day had arrived and Hubby and Son were in high gear!  Our son was in charge of the tobacco patch and drove the tractor for the setter.  Hubby was in the other tractor ready to sow seed.  I was manning command central and keeping an eye out for any last minute errands.  Our daughter-in-law was in charge of getting lunch picked up and delivered. 

For once everything went off like clockwork.  The weather was perfect and nothing broke down.  The men had decided to put off cutting the hay crop until after the tobacco was set.  We have done both in the same week-end before but it is a nightmare.  Especially, since our Son is the operator of the big, round hay baler, which means he needs to be in two places at once.  A bit stressful, to say the least.

When the last tobacco plant was in the ground, the seeds sown, the bulls delivered and chores done for the night, Hubby sits down and checks the evening weather report.  With a moan he mumbles, "No! No!"  Leaning over his shoulder, I see the 10 day forecast on his computer....rain, rain, showers, showers, rain....for the next 10 days! 

Sadly, he looks out at his hay crop, which is picture perfect.  Hay needs three days of good weather to cut, cure and bale.  With each day of rain, his hay will be a little more mature and little less nutritious.  He had hoped for a few more days of good weather. but it was not to be. 

I gave him a hug and murmured, "You did what you had to do and there is nothing you can do to change things.  Maybe the weather will change instead." 

Yep, that guy that wrote Ecclesiastes knew what he was talking about when he went on to write in verses 4-5: "A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain."

With farming the time from laughter and dancing to weeping and mourning can sometimes be counted in hours.  However, things usually manage to work out in the end.  Ecclesiastes 3-13: "That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil--this is the gift of God."