hay season

I awakened this morning feeling somewhat like I'd been hit by a bus. Rodney and I even will teasingly look at each other after several days of hard labor and say "bus??"

It is hay season on the farm. God grows the grass and we must harvest it and bale it to sustain our cattle through the winter. I have never been too crazy about "have to" stuff, but this is one chore that I really do enjoy. Probably because it is here for a brief season, and then it is done.

Rodney called me yesterday around 3:30, and told me to stop raking...I didn't even ask why, I was just so happy to have been freed from my rugged and bouncing prison that I turned the tractor around and headed home. I do love raking hay, but after three days of riding a tractor, your body starts to overrule your brain.

He later called to let me know that the belts on the baler broke. And, like I've spoken of before of our small town life, a friend is on his way this morning... baler in tow, to finish up the process.

As I was sleepily and sorely walking past the big glass door in the kitchen this morning, I couldn't help but stop and admire the un-baled wind-rows. There is just something about all that grass being neatly arranged over hills and valleys that makes my heart happy.

I am always very diligent to give credit where credit is due. See, I may have driven the machinery that so expertly sorted the hay, but that is about all I did. God grew the grass, He made the sunshine and the rain to fall upon the earth. He gave me a mind and body to be able to work and toil. Thus, I am merely a servant to the greater good of the earth. Farm life keeps one very closely in-tuned with nature, with the ways of the earth and her Creator.

Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord 1 Cor 1:31.

I may be the only person on this planet that finds this scene satisfying and heartwarming, but it is the very thing that God needed to show me this morning. It reminds me clearly of whom I serve, and gives me a joy for the life I lead.