A Prayer for the Prairie

This day that I stand atop my Prayer Hill is a day when hope is distant. It feels as though my husband, John, and I cannot possibly find our "second wind" and that we are bound to lose this gamble

Photo: John Nickel

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called farming, a gamble with a jackpot that seemingly cannot be corralled. It feels as though we will never be able to wrangle a fair living from the prices the marketplace pays for our products. It seems sure we are bound to lose this way of life that has been bred into our bones for generations. It seems we are among but a remnant of an old and dying breed--family farmers who make their living growing food, but who do it because they cannot help themselves, because they are, as another woman farmer puts it, "like the spruce trees" planted by her grandmother--growing where they are rooted.

But are we as tough as those spruce trees? Are John and I indeed as sturdy and enduring as the volunteer plants thriving on the Big Hill? Do we have the hardiness, ingenuity, and luck required to survive these harsh economic winds blowing across the face of agriculture?

An Economy of the Heart

	Pete and Skeet wrench the sled sideways in order to line it up in front of a bale. Then, they back the sled into the bale, and John winches it onto the deck of the sled.

Presently I hear muffled clopping and a dull, scraping sound coming from the north. I turn in time to see John driving his team of big, grey horses through the north gateway to the pasture. The team of Percheron geldings, Pete and Skeet, pull a round, 1,000-pound bale of hay cabled onto a short-bodied and low, plank-and-steel deck on runners. A broad, three-foot-deep bank of wind-hardened snow blocks the gateway. It would stop even a newfangled front-wheel-assist tractor dead in its tracks. But the big drift hardly causes Pete and Skeet to break stride. They lug their load straight over the top of the bank, through the gateway and down the other side.

... soon Pete and Skeet are long-trotting down the side of the driveway, heading for a field to pick up a big, round bale of straw for bedding for the cows. The ground flashes by; the cold breeze bites my face, and the trepidations of the day fall away. There is a sacred sensuousness in this moment: Ahead of us, the muscles of the horses' heavy hindquarters rise and fall in the graceful, hypnotic rhythm of their stride. The scent of their light sweat is strangely invigorating. It wafts back to us on the rivulets of the breeze, a sweetish yet acrid smell conjuring hazy visions of county fairs, meadows of freshly cut grass, and handfuls of moist, tilled earth. ...

The Land Provides

Indeed, I believe I do see the blurred edges of a new image taking shape from the Artist's canvas that is this farm. From the fragments of the image that are discernable to my eye, I perceive a deep mystery: that John and I are present on this land to the same degree that its myriad of insects and soil microogranisms are present; we are present to the same degree that the birds and the diverse plants of the fields and sloughs are present.

Sweat and Steel

Yet not all cows are created equal in their willingness to work, in their expectancy to forage and fend for themselves. Just as I sense a seeming in-bred tendency within myself to seek labor-saving, mechanized ways to work, today's farm animals, too, are forgetting how to work, forgetting how to care for themselves, as the wild animals who survive know intuitively how to care for themselves. ...

But such gross ineptness and poor workmanship are not the animals' fault. Modern agricultural practices of selecting replacement stock based on what animals can produce rather than by what they can survive has served to erode livestock's genetic code for adaptability and endurance. Yes, indeed, modern farm animals produce much. But to do it, they require much, so much that farmers are hard-pressed to provide it any other way than by machines and costly supplements or medicines.

John and I have spent years searching for practical cows, cows who will take a happy attitude toward the work of foraging for their own food, and who will thrive in spite of a measure of adversity in weather, for instance. We were lucky to eventually find such cattle.

Daisy is my favorite of these core group of hardy, work-minded cows. ... Always in good flesh in spite of producing enough milk to wean a heavy calf in fall, Daisy is a determined grazer. ...

Gifts From the Farm

And so it has been down through the generations of people reared on family farms: Unpredictable and often daunting circumstances have shaped our faith and hope, forged our determination, and honed our inventiveness. Mother Nature, too, has kneaded the people of the land like clay in her hands, baking and chiseling those who will yield into resilient, pliable creatures who can endure life's adversity and turbulence . . . like the sturdy gumweed that survives overgrazing and like the salt grass thriving in soil where other plants perish. Because of that the family-farm and family-ranch culture is a repository of hope and faith. ...

Where Prairie Roses Grow

I do not mind that my body shows that my life is not physically easy; I do not mind that my possessions reveal that my life is not always comfortable and convenient. It is an inner smoothness that I am after, a sure sense that I am doing the work for which God has marked me . . . and that I am in my proper place. ... Where there is a calling, there is meaning. And where life has meaning, there is a deep, abiding resiliency to difficulty and uncertainty, even a good measure of peace of mind. Because of that, I feel rich.