“On and off” gentleman farmer might be a strange description when it comes to describing my farming behavior. But it does get across the point that I didn’t fit into the normal stereotypic ‘roll up your sleeves, dig in the dirt’ farmer role. My farming practices had their ups and downs. I grew up on a family farm and that old saying is so true, “You can take the boy off the farm but you can’t take the farm out…..
You get a feeling when it’s about to happen. Someone is going to ask you to present a lesson to a group. You can never be sure what the topic will be you just know you are about to be asked. I have this sixth sense about things like that. Well last week it happened. Kathie and I were enjoying a meal at the Senior Citizen’s Center. Of course you know neither of us look old enough to be eating…..
Today the reading from Ecclesiastes 3:1 is very meaningful to me. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” This weekend our family came home and harvested our last pumpkin crop and it felt right. Growing pumpkins and marketing their sales along our Highway #27 has reached its twentieth and final year. Another season of my life has ended. I’ve spent some time today reminiscing about some of the other seasons of my…..
As I sit here typing this blog I look out my office window and see a sea of orange covering our lawn. Pumpkins: large ones, medium sized ones, small ones, orange ones, warty ones, white ones, and red ones all lined up neatly with a sign in front of each line indicating the price. For nineteen years this has been the fall tradition at our house and the community expects it and looks forward to it. I would be a rich man if I received…..
I’m a pumpkin farmer and as harvest time approaches I look back and realize there’s a battle going on in our profession. It’s not with the neighbors or the UPS man who occasionally visits. The spray planes that frequently buzz our house are even tolerated. The real battle is with all the little critters that are living among us and who assume we are renting space from them! The first critter to make life miserable for a pumpkin farmer are…..