An Ode To A Farmer

The wind started blowing; the only thing moving on the farm. The big, blue Leyland tractor finally rolling to a stop. It's been sitting there now almost a full year, the longest it has ever sat.  The trees heavy and swollen with fruit that is going unharvested. Tangles of Tansy and Knapweed crowding out hay in the pasture while creeping Bind weed and Dandelion make themselves home amongst what used to be crops. The whittle white farmhouse falling into disrepair. A sad contrast to the crowning jewel it was just last fall.

I'm getting ahead of myself here though. This story really began just shy of a century ago when Mr Glen Long was born.  Kansas couldn't hold him after his daddy died.  So at 14 years old he struck out towards the west where he heard he had some kin. Alone. Working hay fields and coal mines,  hoping trains and thumbing rides. He finally landed here in Bonner County at his uncle's house, destination accomplished. And now determined he set about bringing his widowed mother out west as well. He slept in the unheated barn and broke land and beast by day. Most days he worked only for vittles and the right to stay in that little corner stall in the barn.  However, if he worked hard and fast enough he could get into town before dark and make a few dimes sweeping up the walk for the banker man.

By the age of 18 he had more land than most and his mama had a big two story home bigger and better than she could have ever thunk to think up. He knew how to live simply, to live frugally, never confusing wants with needs.

Him and his team of big black horses with mare, Ladybird, in the lead cleared trees and pulled stumps. They broke ground with plows and harrows. They planted seed and tended crops. He watched as his herd of Herefords grew larger, swollen bellies dropping calves.  He worked in acres not hours.

Folks say he grew the best sweet corn around and folks are right. He could take a dry patch of ground and coax a bounty forth. He'd pick the biggest, meanest bull in the lot and have it eating from his hand by dinner time. And so were his days, decades crawling by and still taming land and beast. His face cracked and weather worn, his arms mighty and strong. Baling twine holding up dirty jeans that are draped along his lanky legs and hat, whoppy and dirty covering the wisdom that his shock of white hair bespoke. He was up with the sun, head and body bent ready for whatever life tossed his way. Somewhere in it all he found a wife and raised some kids. The years peeling like layers until all that remained was him. Alone again.

He was ninety two and five days when his clock finally stopped. Yes those five days need mentioned because even in those, the ole blue tractor rumbled with the tiller behind, the buckets filled with fruit. The roof was getting patched and the fence was being tightened. The price of heifers questioned and the seeds being ordered.

As fall came to a close, the garden put to rest, the fruit trees plucked of their treasure, the field seeded, the cow milling with her little heifer calf the work finally came to a close. True to himself, the man who was farming personified finally found his rest. And he found it the only way a hard working farmer can. Quietly and in his sleep. He died on a Monday morning, knowing the undertaker would be in the office.  He'd dressed himself in his good britches and cleanest shirt. His papers and business all in order. He died like he lived, on his own terms and conditions.

He's been gone almost a year. It isn't taking long for the land to claim all that he'd worked for, all that he was. A true farmer is hard to come by. And so, dismally, his farm goes back to its beginning, untamed and hungry.

He left us a little plot of land though. The land on which he taught us to farm. Land he and those horses tamed. Over twenty years we were his fertile soil soaking in all he would give. Learning to live without him we rise with the sun. We took no time to grieve as the cow hollered to be milked and the hay needed put into the barn. Bonner County may never see one like him again, but we are doing our damnedest to make him proud. A living legacy built of dirt and sweat, herds and hard work. No time for tears or foolishness as he would have said there's much to be done. So with head bent we rise, with all the gravel and grit he left us, we farm.