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Shhh....Be Still

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 one there.  Just standing, free from the worry of feeding their calf, getting bigger everyday as their new babies grow inside them.  A pile of ice lay on the ground next to the old tank.  Pretty soon momma gets enough and waddles off into the pasture.

The planter, the baler, the two trucks, the lawn mower have all been stored away in the machine shed.  The header has been taken off the combine and has found its place in the weeds by the creek.  The combine in its corner of the machine shed.  One of the John Deere tractors is backed up next to the east wall.

The other John Deere has been unhooked from the swather and the front end loader with the bale spears has taken its place.  Every morning, every night, and sometimes in between, that old tractor will drive out the shed doors and down the path to feed bales to calves and cows.  Its cab will get mud inside and out.  The old white tractor sets along the creek, hooked to the bale grinder.

Where the garden use to be, bales will set, a short row here, a short row there, waiting for their strings to be cut and them dropped into the grinder to make silage.

Yes, winter has come to the little farm.  Winter and all its fresh crisp air, its snow storms, or just little flakes lazily drifting to the ground.  Winter with its cold days, your all bundled up, walking in the snow to the pasture pond, the axe over one shoulder, the pitch fork in the other hand.  Winter with its new born calves, frozen water buckets, shoveling snow out of the feed bunk, north winds so cold your eyes water, you shake your hands to warm up those fingers, stomp your feet.  Winter, when it takes all day to do the chores, and your so tired at night you drop into bed.  Winter, when you wake up all of a sudden, you feel for him but his side of the bed is empty.  He went to check on momma cow.  You check the clock...2:03 AM...you will give him until 2:30 before you climb out of bed get dressed to check on him.  Winter,  when a farmers heart unites with his livestock.

The wood is all cut and hauled to the house.  Smoke curls lazily from the chimney proving the old wood stove is keeping "home"  nice and cozy.  If she has a spare minute or a long evening, she will get her sewing machine out and sew on a quilt, or help her husband warm a baby calf, or make a batch of cookies.  Or just set quiet, soft music playing in the back ground writing on her new "book".

Seasons come and they go.  Each one has its special beauty.  A special beauty because God created it all.

People hurry here and they hurry there, busy---busy, but God whispers to His creation.  Shhh---be still...be quiet....sleep.

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