Lessons From the Farm
When I was a young girl, I used to go to my uncle’s merry little farm to play with my siblings and my cousins. It is one of my most memorable experiences from my childhood in the beautiful state of Louisiana. We had acres and acres of farmland and wooded areas to run and play on. We had chickens and peacocks to amuse us and sugar cane fields all around us to explore. We used to cut pieces of sugar cain and chew on the stalks, enjoying the sweet sugary taste of the fresh plant based sugar. The open air tired us all out and there was always a place to build a new fort or clubhouse. We dug holes looking for worms and bugs. We made mud pies. We didn't have electronics when I was a wee one and our generation really did not need them. We were dirty, happy, and healthy at the end of each day spent playing on the little farm.
Fast forward a few decades.....Now our little family lives on a two acre dairy goat farm. We raise goats, lambs, chickens, turkeys and ducks. We are always adding new projects to our little cottage farm. We are outside for many hours a day enjoying the beauty of God’s Creation and provisions as we work on our farm chores together as a family. We are also a homeschooling family, or some may call it farm schooling. We have smooth days and we have challenging days. The challenging days create many opportunities for problem solving and cooperative learning. When the goats give birth in the freezing temperatures, the momma goats do not feel like being mothers or the kids are feeling too weak to nurse; we have to think like a marine and make a split second decision. We have to grab them, run to our makeshift barn, which is really our shop, and get them warm and give them a bottle. We have to feed those little weak bottle babies around the clock and watch for signs of a thriving newborn kid or signs of decline.
When we receive an invitation from a large sheep farm, on a horrendously busy and exhausting day, to come and adopt some bum lambs, we do not hesitate. God has already provided the necessary nutrients in our goat’s milk to feed those lambs. Those lambs become our farm animals and help provide for our family and our farm.
When a raccoon savagely attacks your chickens in the middle of the night and decimates your flock; you have to have chicks in your first and second stage brooders ready to replace them momentarily when your family and your egg customers depend on those eggs. When a national economic crisis, pandemic, or agriculture tragedy occurs; we have to be prepared with ample hay, feed,plastic gloves, supplies, emergency medicine for our animals, as well as food and rations for our family and sometimes fellow farmers or random community members..
There are numerous life lessons that happen daily on a farm. These lessons teach us how to work cooperatively, how to solve problems, how to act rationally in a crisis situation, to appreciate our animals and our resources; and more importantly how to appreciate each other. Farmers learn how to be grateful to God for all of their blessings and to depend on God, daily, instead of themselves. Farming doesn't sugar coat any part of life. Even on a little farm like ours, the days are labor intensive. All of the efforts put forth in managing and facilitating a small farm prepare our children for the real world where there will be life challenges that they encounter as adults. They will have to work diligently, problem solve, think quickly in a
challenging situation, and work cooperatively no matter what their futures hold. These lessons are part of their training and teaching exercises that will carry them through life. After all, we are charged as parents to, “Train them up in the way they shall go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) Our children, like all humans, will fail and fumble as they navigate in life; however, they will have great triumphs, as well, from their training in diligence to laborious tasks while growing up on a farm. God willing, they will also appreciate every gift they are given from the Lord, including every human and animal God has placed in their lives ....and beyond.
