Dusty Roads to the Heart

Turkey, potatoes, gravy, dressings, salads, vegetables, pies, cakes ... all sat on the table.  Friends and family chattering and laughing all around me.  We never go without, here in our great country.  That is we never do unless fate steps in.   This is the normal picture you see at a original Thanksgiving dinner.  This year as I stood there I noticed something else...something I take for granted every day. As I stood there among all those wonderful friends and family, my eyes settled on a young woman and her soon to be husband.  She was so happy, standing there.  The future all new before her.  I then saw a "mother to be" smiling from ear to ear.  Her face full of anticipation.  There were two little babies all wrapped up in blankets, cuddled in the arms of a happy mother, who was gently rocking back and forth, as she stood there visiting with a friend.  Middle age ladies and grandma's bend over the pies and cakes cutt...

Shhh....be still.  Here on the farm, God has put everything to sleep.  His huge trees stand there so still and quiet, all bare of their leaves.  Pasture grass stands quiet in uneven brown clumps...asleep.   Old milo stocks stick up through the new fallen snow.  The little frog is asleep deep in the ground.  The geese, the killdeer, and the dove have all flown south, leaving our little farm behind.  Shhh...be still---Gods creation is at peace, just how He wants it to be.  Waiting quietly for Him to touch it once again with His warm springtime sunshine. Hay bales stand in rows, snow covering their tops.  Feed bunks are all lined up, ready to be filled with ground hay.  Bale feeders set in the middle of the feedlots, all gates closed.  The old pitch fork and the wooden handled axe are brought out of the feed shack and find their new home in the back of the old gray pickup. Mother cows stand around the water tank, one here and ...

Come little ones, climb up here beside me and let me take you back to yesteryear.  Back to that day Grandpa and I sat our little trailer among the hedge row on our own little rented farm.  Let me tell you about the "pot of gold" we found at the end of our rainbow. Now don't get me wrong...it wasn't all peaches and cream, but back in those days we were so happy that we didn't even know we were poor.  In those three years there were things we would rather forget at the time but now they are a bit funny.  We just shake our heads...not believing we really did them.  So I'll tell you some happy memories and some things that shows how patient Grandpa really is. Even if Grandpa and I both grew up on a farm, it is different to have your very own.  We both had lots of new things to learn.  Grandpa grew up in western Kansas where a wheat field laid flat for acres and acres.  On our little farm the fields were small with hedge rows or terraces....

It was a sunny November day in western Kansas.  The "soon to be bride" was excited beyond belief.  She and her "soon to be" hubby were traveling south that day to look at a used trailer home that was for sale.  There were two really----then they were going to choose. Now is that a smart thing to do??  A man and woman choosing between two trailer homes that was to be home for three years?  Well---let's say the day didn't go real smoothly. The woman was looking for -- and seeing all those fancy little features, that in her eyes, were pretty important. Those important things like this one is a lot bigger than that other one.  It has that nice bay window in the living room.  You know a really nice place to set and read or put a plant.  Two bathrooms instead of one!! A nice open kitchen!! Wow!! On the other end of the stick--the man saw none of these things.  He saw his pocket book and the price tags!!  He saw how many miles he wou...