“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we’re so used to them we call them ordinary things.”
Hans Christian Andersen
Romans 1:20 talks about how God’s divine attributes are clearly perceived in His creation design. If you want to see miracles, just look at the beauty of this earth! Creation just sings that there is a God who created all that we see and loves what He created! Few things convince me of this more than the joy God’s furred and feathered creatures bring to His humans, the deep love that can be shared between a human and an animal and yes, I believe it is reciprocal. I think animals have way more to their minds than we give them credit for, much more capacity for emotion and connection. It goes beyond instinct. And I believe that this intellect and intuition is something that brings glory to the Creator! God didn’t need to create any of what He created, and He sure didn’t need to create a human-animal connection that is so joy-giving. Yet what He created He looked at and “saw that it was good.” Isn’t it amazing that He did what He did? That He has created a world that can bring so much joy and goodness and pleasure? Because He didn’t need to.
The delight and peace I feel with my animals is one of those ordinary joys that really is anything but ordinary.
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And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 2:8-9, 15)And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28-28)
Of all the occupations that exist, the only broad category that existed prior to the Fall was that of the cultivator, the farmer, the gardener. It was the original work God created for Adam and his wife to do, to be keepers of God’s Garden, stewards of His Creation, keepers of the fields and the trees, the livestock and other animals. They were to carefully and responsibly manage the world that God had made. To take care of it. To tend it. To cultivate it. To nurture it. And even after the Fall, this mandate was to continue to be carried out by everyone, but it is especially seen today in those who live and and work as the cultivators, the growers, the caretakers.
It is National Agriculture Day, and most people will zero in pretty quickly on the farming and ranching side of agriculture, and may have a pretty specific idea that comes to mind without thinking of just how gloriously broad this category is, encompassing or touching so many of our most basic needs! Where does your bread come from? The milk in your fridge? Meat? Eggs? Pet foods? Medicines and herbs? Wood to build homes, or wood to heat? In some way, shape, or form, agriculture is involved.
But this isn’t purely utilitarian. So much of the flavor and beauty of living has at its root in the growing and cultivating of life. Trees and shrubs for landscaping. Cut flowers for bouquets. Succulent fruits, nourishing vegetables. Cotton and linen and wool to make textiles for beautifying our homes, all rely on agriculture. Beauty is cultivated, and the abundance of life is made even more abundant.
In so many cases with farms and ranches and the working of livestock, it is generational work, one in which the oldest generation is teaching the youngest generation, where knowledge and skills and values and morals are being handed down, where the family unit truly is the center of the endeavor. It makes me think of God’s command to His people, all the way back in Deuteronomy, the command to “Honor your father and your mother….that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 5:16) One of the great joys living in the agricultural community is seeing families working with families, spouses working with spouses, and being able to live and experience that myself.
And this life! It is the satisfaction of taking a seed and watching it grow and bringing it to harvest. It is the joy of delivering fresher-than-fresh eggs to a neighbor, or serving a loaf of homemade bread to a friend. It is the heart-warming delight of watching a mother cow get her new calf to stand and nurse. It is the pain of seeing death. The uncertainty of dry dams and wildly fluctuating cattle prices. The trust that God will provide. It is a life of working alongside loved ones, to fellowship and break bread, where family upon family from the broader community come together, where names are known from one part of the state to another, simply by virtue of being a part of this community, the ranching community. It is a life and a livelihood richer and sweeter than I could have imagined before God married me to a rancher and into one of the kindest families I’ve ever met, into one of the strongest communities I’ve ever seen. This life is a constant reminder that all that we have is from God, and He has given us the job of stewarding it well. Taking what is and making the most of it, making it more, making it feed our families, our communities.
It is a life brimming full of life.
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Where Winter meets Spring, there is a quietude, or chaos. Sometimes it is the whirling madness of feet of snow and frigid cold, and a rapid melt that runs off in floods. Other times, it is a gentle meeting, where the air is kind and the sky is kinder, and the moisture comes sweetly as an answer to prayer.
I love the days that follow, like yesterday, when the sun rises on a quiet earth. The clouds break. A bluebird sky domes over the snow-clad world that basks in the chill warmth of the not-quite-spring sun. There isn’t a breath of wind and the only disturbance is the occasional hush of a sound as a snowy burden slips from the boughs of a heavy-laden pine, swirling away with a glossy sheen.
Or other days, like today, when the strange mixture of the warm morning sunlight on a chill and damp world causes fog to roll in waves over the plains, coming to lap against our ridge like waves against a shore . The fog was shallow, not even covering the rural electric lines, and the flat top of Potato Butte to our north was just visible, emerging from a sea of white. Blue was overhead, and in the expanse of blue was a north-bound skein of geese, and then another, in the telltale flight of springtime.
And how easy it is to forget God’s faithfulness, His provision, and that He truly does hear our prayers. There are bad years and there are good years, and both come from the hand of a loving and kind God. We can get so wrapped up in counting hundredths of an inch of rain, or willing those clouds to drop their moisture for us, praying for snow then praying that it hold off, all the while forgetting that those 15 hundredths of an inch of rain, that dusting of snow, that foot of snow, all came from the hand of God and wouldn’t have fallen otherwise.
There are so many passages in Scripture that remind us of what we already know, that it is God Who changes the seasons, God Who brings the rain, God Who sends the snow and feeds His creatures. I love these verses from Psalm 104.
You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills; From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth.
O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all.(Ps. 104:10, 13, 14, 24)
But we are so quick to forget! Quick to receive and slow to give thanks! But this beautiful collision of winter and spring can be a reminder…It is to me. A reminder that it is God Who changes the seasons, and it is because of His sovereignty and His wonderful creative design of this world that “all things hold together.” (Col. 1:17) He has sustained and He will continue to sustain.
“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” (Gen. 8:22)
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We were sitting down for supper last night after a busy Sunday, listening to the sound of rain on our roof. Our weekend was a blur of county fair busyness, fire department busyness, hot weather, and lots of people we don’t get to see very often.
It was a hard week. Not a bad week, just long, hot, and dry. We could gripe about a lot of things. We could gripe about the hot and dry weather we’ve been having. The pastures that are so sparse they almost look grazed out even though they haven’t been grazed yet. Dry dams. Politics. Sturgis rally traffic. Or any other number of things we humans are great at coming up with to complain about.
Or we could find something to be joyful about and thankful for. Thankfulness breeds thankfulness, and once you start finding things to thank God for, it really just keeps going.
Like the rain.
Like a repreive from the heat.
Like that first full dozen eggs I got from my chickens.
Like all of our crazy, loveable critters.
Like getting the chickens moved into their new coop.
Like a weekend full of those once-a-year county fair festivities that wear a person out, but also fill a person up.
Like the community we are so blessed to live and work and worship with.
Like faithful neighbors.
Like a loving, God-provided spouse.
Like a wonderful Sunday evening supper of homegrown steak, zucchini, and dill cucumber salad, a meal entirely harvested from this ranch.
Like a million other things.
So we sat listening to the music of rain on our roof, watching the downpour so heavy we lost the horizon, thanking the good Lord for a much needed wetting-down of this parched piece of earth, thanking God for friends and neighbors and cows and chickens and thanking God for each other.
What a good end to a hard week.
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There is snow falling outside again – wonderful!! – but inside I’ve got a brooder of little chicks and packets of seeds and dozens of sprouted herbs and veggies and perennials, all an optimistic acknowledgement that springtime is indeed here!
If you’re a gardener, you’ve probably browsed seed catalogs and displays at feed stores, stocked up on seeds, planned your garden, and probably even eagerly started seeds indoors a few weeks too early. Oh, well, there are worse things. Gardening is a wonderfully thrifty sort of pursuit, but some of those seed starting supplies can add up pretty quickly. Newspaper pots are a quick and free alternative to peat pots for seed starting, and here are a few tips for making sure they turn out well and hold up!
These sturdy, biodegradable little pots are formed from strips of newspaper, each approximately 1/3 of a newspaper cut lengthwise (fold the paper in thirds lengthwise and cut along those folds) and are rolled around a cylindrical item, such as a spice container or a pop can, depending on how big you want your paper pots. I played around with a couple of different sizes for these pots, what I liked the best was a pop can (well, V8 to be precise, since I don’t drink pop) for size.
Starting at one end of your newspaper strip, roll it around the can, not too tight, so you can then slide it off one end of the can until about 2 or 3 inches are left on the can. The part still on the can will be the sides of the pot, and the rest will form the bottom, by folding it over the bottom of the can. Play around with a folding method until you find one that works for you, but smaller, overlapping folds work better than bigger folds. I find it works best to start right over the end left from rolling the pot, to capture that edge and better hold the pot together, and as I get closer to the end, I tuck the new folds underneath the already folded part. Take some time to get your folding method down, since solid folding equals a solid paper pot. That’s also why I find a pop can works best. A spice jar works okay, but with a pop can, the rim and the indent in the bottom of the can allow you to get a really good series of folds in the paper, making a solid base for the paper pot. Once everything is folded and tucked in, gently slide the pot off the can and it is ready to be used!
These little pots are quick to make and can be a fun time filler. Obviously, once you’ve planted in them and watered them, they do get soggy, so handle them gingerly if you have to move the pots, but when you’re ready to plant your seedlings out in your garden, just plant the whole thing and the paper will disintegrate on its own! I’m growing my starts in disposable baking sheets with plastic covers, which provide a great humid environment until the seeds have sprouted, and then when they are well enough established the cover comes off. So far, I’ve had about a 100% germination rate with what I’ve planted.
Springtime is a wonderful reminder of God’s provision, His sovereignty, and His Creation design in which mankind was created to partner with God in the care and keeping of His earth. It is God who brings or withholds the weather we need, and it is He who ultimately provides, and because of His orderly Creation, in which like produces like, and kind multiplies according to kind, I can plant seeds and grow an expected harvest. Pursuits such as planting and growing and animal husbandry allow us to participate in this world as stewards, as God designed us to be, faithfully using our means and abilities to nurture and foster growth and life in this world, to care for God’s creatures, and to provide for ourselves and our families. So enjoy these springtime pursuits, friends, and thank God for His care and provision!
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