Help Wanted

It’s not so unusual to see help wanted ads for farm laborers, but one appeared in The Daily Record this week that caught my eye.  At first it made me laugh.  Probably not worded in a way that will garner a long line of prospective employees, but you have to hand it to the person who placed it - at least they're honest.  

FARM LABORER, male or female. Hard, wet, dirty work. 330-XXX-3922 or 330-XXX-1490 / leave msg.

Perhaps there are still some people who are up for a good challenge.  If they're ready to dig in and do some demanding physical labor; if they can see the humor in unexpected events; if they can remember that there are a lot more benefits to this vocation then the paycheck - they should apply.  The farm job will be a good experience.

There's nothing like farming that can bring us back to the roots of our existence.  Man was taken from dirt, and to dirt we will return.  Sometimes I  think about the layer of soil we rely on to grow our food.  It’s a complex accumulation of organic matter  and microorganisms - former plant and animal life - eons of decomposed vegetation,  and many generations of animals and humans.  Yes, humans.  Think about that.  For thousands of years humans and creatures have fallen and returned to the soil.  To put it simply, the water we drink and food we eat comes from an unceasing recycling of molecules that have been around for a long, long time.   

When visiting the cemetery where my Grandparents are buried, I see a fairly large cedar tree growing right next to their headstone.   I look at the tree and see life - life that is fed, in part, by the organic matter that was once the bodies of living, loving persons called Walter and Fannie. It’s good to be able to acknowledge these things.  It gives us perspective on life.  

The one farm that I walk past nearly every day is pretty typical of the Swartzentruber Amish.  The "Swartzentrubers" are the most conservative group of Amish, and by virtue of very strict religious rules designed to keep them distanced from the world, they don't have a lot of options for vocations.  Farming is their preferred way of making a living, but it's a bare existence.  This particular farm has a menagerie that includes horses, cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, and geese - and if it were possible to give it a closer inspection, there would probably be rabbits in a hutch somewhere, and rats under the barn floor.  There are many buildings on this farm - some of them in various states of disrepair.  Still, there is something about it - it’s difficult to put it in words - something attractive, something that touches the part of us that yearns to live more simply - an instinctive knowledge that this way of life is more satisfying than great wealth.

 There is something so real, so fundamental, about observing and participating in the cycle of life.  Perhaps that's why I feel such a peace while walking the country roads with fields on both sides.  I see the Amish men hard at work planting and harvesting.  I see their animals in the pasture, and it gives me a feeling of nostalgia - almost a yearning.  Some day I want to sit down on a stool beside my Amish neighbors, and listen to the steady swish-swish of the milk hitting the pail, and watch the foam building up on top of the milk - just like when I was a boy, and my Dad and older brothers milked our Jersey cows.

 

I miss those days of growing up on a small farm near Elida, Ohio - then again as a thirty-something father, living and working on farms in Southern Ohio in the mid-eighties.   It wasn't an ad in the paper, but a phone call from my cousin that opened the door to an education on a dairy farm near Gallipolis - a few years that changed me - made me stronger and a lot more appreciative of those who spend a lifetime doing the  hard, wet, dirty work of an honorable profession.

After returning to Wayne County from the farm in Southern Ohio, my family spent the next twenty years hobby farming on our own little six-acre patch.  Goats, horses, donkeys, calves, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, and the occasional 'possum graced our premises.  Not all at the same time though.  Our children  went through different stages with different interests and needs.  Our small plot was an excellent place for them to learn about gardening and the rudiments of animal husbandry, the mystery of  birth, the reality of death, and appreciation for living close to the earth.  

For all those with fond memories of life on the farm, or current endeavors with hands in the dirt; may your days on earth be filled with the simple pleasures of planting and harvesting, and enjoying the fruits of your labors.  May your hours of “hard, wet, dirty” work reward you with the satisfaction of fresh food on your table, moments of surprise and joy, and nights of sweet rest.   May your children and grandchildren grow up experiencing this cycle of life - and may they find a way to repeat it with their own children.  

Proverbs 12:11 says it well. “Those who work their land will have abundant food.”  And Ecclesiastes 3:12,13, “I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.”

From the quiet little town of Kidron, Ohio, where a lot of men grew up with dirt under their fingernails and manure on their feet; where winsome farm "girls" love their farm "boys"; and where rosy-cheeked children hold their Daddy’s hand as they go to the barn to feed the calves and gather the fresh eggs.