Happy Ag Day! There are 23 million jobs in the field of agriculture in America, making it the nation's largest employer! Whether you're aware of it or not, you probably know somebody who works in the field of agriculture, because ag is more than just farming. Be sure to thank that person today for the work they do to bring food, fiber, and fuel to our growing world! Without agriculture, we'd all suffer.
Do you know anyone who holds one of these jobs? They are an agriculturalist. Thank them today.
A farmer does much more than you would think. Farming is not easy, but every farmer is willing to sacrifice ease to feed people he doesn't know.
Paul Harvey: "So God Made A Farmer"
And on the eighth day....
God looked down on His planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker."
So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk the cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting at a school board."
So God made a farmer.
"I need someone with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf, and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Someone to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife's done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon...and mean it."
So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt, and watch it die, and dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year...'. I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoo a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps, who in planting time and harvest season will finish his 40 hour week by Tuesday noon and then pain in from tractor-back will put in another 72 hours."
So God made a farmer.
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds, and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place.
So God made a farmer.
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to yean lambs and wean pigs and tend to the pink-combed pullets who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark." It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self feeder and finish a hard week's work with a five mile drive to church. Somebody who'd bail a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh, and then reply with smiling eyes when his son says he wants to spend his life doing what dad does.
So God made a farmer.
