When you sit back and think of the imact a farmer has on your every day life most people think of food…granted, I hope that is what you do think. There is also so much more to a farmer than just food. The time spent feeding the world, but the time given to a small community as well.
Last week we had a landlord pass away. We have rented from this couple since the farm started, around ten years ago, and even before my brother in law farmed the land for his FFA project. So, the K family has a very strong relationship with this couple, to say the least. The gentleman that passed away was 89 years old and in the nursing home suffering from Alzheimer’s. His wife, just a few years younger, still lives on the main farm by herself.
Funerals always, no matter who it is, make me cry. I sit back and I think of all the people I have lost and all the people I still have left to lose. A funeral can be a time of laughter, tears, togetherness, love- every emotion rolled into one day. But, they always make me think of what I could have done, should have done, or wish I would have made the time to do. While sitting at the funeral I watched and I really thought about the impact that my husband has just within our little town. Mrs. B asked my husband, along with his two brothers, to serve as pall bearers at the funeral, which suprised me at first, but then I realized I can easily see why.
My farmers spend time every day clearing driveways of snow, shoveling stoops, making snow piles for nieces and nephews, trapping critters, and even spraying weed killer every now and then. Not to mention pulling a couple of cars out of the ditch every other week in the winter time, or stopping and helping a single mom with a car full of kids find her way back to the high way. They take time out of their day for that “quick” cup of coffee which turns into an hour later, just to give a little bit of company to someone for the day. They take the time to take our older neighbors out to supper at night, and stay a few hours for a game of Rumikub and dessert- even though they ate so much at supper they can hardly eat another bite.
As farmers we give to the world every time we haul a load of corn to town, or buy a load of cattle..but it’s just as important to give that time in our community. I smile when I think of all the lives my farmers have touched each and every day. At the funeral Mrs. B joked that the nursing home where her husband spent the last few years of his life said that if she wasn’t careful they were going to be taking care of her before too long. I smiled and said “No, Mrs. B let us take care of you a little longer.”
Anyway, this isn’t a whole lot about my farmers feeding the world. But, it’s a little something about how my farmers spend every day working hard, but still make time for the things that some of us wish we made time to do.
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