Some Things Dad Taught Me

My Dad, Melvin, is 94 years of age. He is the youngest man I know in both mind and spirit. Every day he rises early, eats breakfast, tends to the chores around his place, drives from his place to the main farm to confer with my brother, Larry, on what things need to be accomplished that day then, depending on the outcome of that conversation, heads out to whatever is next on his list. Usually around 5:00 p.m. he wraps up his day and heads home for the evening.

For as long as I can remember on our family dairy farm, which now hosts a black Angus cow/calf herd instead of the Holsteins I once knew, Dad got up before sunrise and worked until he was done for the day, whenever that may be. Now, as then, by his example he sets a standard of accomplishment which guides my daily life and witness in ministry. Funny thing, though, at the tender age of 94 Dad apologizes for not putting in more than about 8 or 9 hours a day helping on the farm . . . and I smile when I hear young folk today lobbying for a four day work week. They simply have no idea of the man I grew up with, the man I love, the man I am blessed to call, "Dad".

I have been thinking about a number of the things Dad has taught me over the years, some of them about cattle, some about crops and some about people, but all of it about being a decent, honorable, truthful human being upon whom others can depend. Here are a few of those lessons:

• You will never make a straight line with a plow or tillage tool if you keep looking back.
• You will not get the whole field plowed if you don't make the first round.
• Working the fields the same direction every time you till creates lines of compaction in the soil which impacts future crop production.
• Just because a field will carry the piece of equipment you pull onto it doesn't mean it is the optimum time to work the field. Sometimes an extra day or two of drying does more to help the field in the long run than does working it when it is too wet. 
• Plant your crops along pasture ground far enough back that the cows won't be tempted to reach across or through the fence to snatch a quick bite. A little more room between fence and animal is cheaper than fixing broken fences and more time efficient than chasing animals which are now roaming in standing corn.
• When the cows start heading in to the barn from the pasture in the middle of the day, pay special attention to what the weather is doing. 
• You can never control the flow of water over or through your fields, you can only manage it. 
• When you work with the waters which flow through your farm as a steward manages the time they have each day, you become friends with both the water and the time you have.
• Skunks, raccoons and other critters seek out shelter from the cold and warm places to raise their young. Always keep that in mind as you pull bales of hay or straw away from walls and partitions in the Winter.
• Straight lines in tillage and straight lines in planting say more about the skill and humble pride of the person running the equipment than it does about the equipment or crop, even with the modern day wizardry of GPS.
• Some folk drive slow enough along the roads to notice how the world changes, which is a good thing. Farmers drive slow enough to become part of the change, which is an amazing thing.
• The salesman who shows up on your farm with their wares on Monday morning just as you are really getting started knows neither the people they are selling to, nor the truest of needs they have.
• There is seldom a good enough reason not to take time to worship God on Sunday morning, especially if you are going to be bothering God about everything else you need all throughout the rest of the week.
• The color or make of your equipment means nothing to the earth itself. The quality of your character and determination of your soul to do good for creation means everything.
• Those who shout the loudest, bully the hardest and insist the most that they are right are usually the ones with the most to hide, behaviors they don't want found out, and the sharpest pains which are deeply buried.
• Stand with a farmer at the end of a field and listen to what they say - and you are likely to find that same farmer standing with you at the end of your field listening to you.
• Few farmers will agree on the same things in life being beautiful, but fewer still will ever turn away from the sight of a lush corn field, tall soybeans, golden wheat, thick alfalfa or a green, green pasture intermittently spotted with animals of any kind.
• If you really want to know how stunning a sunset or sunrise is, pay attention to the number of tractors or combines in the field which are unexpectedly stopped somewhere mid-round, with the operator standing on the platform or in the field, just to take it in. I have found a four to six farmer count in a thirty mile drive is the highest measure of wonder.
• Some farmers measure wealth by the number of acres they farm, others measure it by the size of the equipment they use, some measure it by the number and size of grain bins they have built . . . but I have learned to measure wealth the way my Dad taught me: by the family which surrounds you, the friends which stay with you, the trust others give you and the faith which sustains you, in good times and bad.
• It takes constant education to keep up with the changing nature of modern agriculture. Those who adapt are most likely to thrive. Just the same, not every change is for the better. Remember, once upon a time the small family farm was the basic economic unit of nearly every community in our country.
• We are sometimes so busy chasing 'new and improved' that we forget to stop and look up and consider the unchanging nature of the swallow or the martin, or look down and ponder the ongoing usefulness of the earthworm and the beetle. 
• God is good - and God does good work. We should always try to do the same.

I hope you enjoyed reading through this short list of things I have learned from Dad and found something to smile about along the way. We all learn from those we most admire, I suppose, yet few learn as deeply as the one who has the lesson taught to them in daily life, rather than from a book. Dad, you and Mom will always be my most treasured teachers for whom I give thanks to God.

I love you.

Don