Well, this is a different spring.\u00a0 Field conditions were perfect last week, but farmers weren\u2019t stampeding to plant like you\u2019d expect.\u00a0 A cold forecast kept everyone not quite sure what to do with those $300-a-bag seeds.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gonna plant?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u00a0 What about you?\u00a0 You gonna plant?\u201d \u00a0It was like a game of chicken played with field cultivators.<\/p>\n
Of course, every one of my forty-something springs has been different.\u00a0 That\u2019s what keeps this work wildly entertaining.\u00a0 Farming is eternally interesting.\u00a0 That is why I have decided to not retire and to keep doing this forever.\u00a0 I\u2019ll let you know how that works.<\/p>\n
I spend a lot of winter wondering what kind of spring we\u2019ll get.\u00a0 I know the conditions of the ground going into freeze-up.\u00a0 I know what work was done in fall and what needs to be done in spring.\u00a0 I know my equipment and I\u2019ll spend days prepping it.\u00a0 All those won\u2019t mean a thing if it rains five inches in mid-April.<\/p>\n
In summer, I spend a lot of time wondering what kind of fall we will get.\u00a0 Springs and falls dictate how easy or difficult my life will be since I am in the field those seasons.\u00a0 With summers, I am more an observer.\u00a0 I don\u2019t spend time wishing on them; summers will be what they will be.<\/p>\n
I can wish all I want for a good spring.\u00a0 I can pray and set up votive candles in my pole barn.\u00a0 In the end, nature will hand me one to work with, whether I approve or not.\u00a0 Here in the northern reaches on the Corn Belt, with our heavy black prairie-slough soils, more often than not, we have struggled with wet conditions.\u00a0 I\u2019ve spent a lot of time with mud.<\/p>\n
Nature says each year, \u201cHere you go.\u00a0 Here\u2019s spring.\u00a0 Deal with it.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a lesson in acceptance, especially of those things I don\u2019t control.\u00a0 I\u2019ve come to learn the things I don\u2019t control is a very large category.<\/p>\n
Fifty years ago, Stephen Stills sang, \u201cIf you can\u2019t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you\u2019re with.\u201d\u00a0 Stills was singing about a girl, but I have found the general sentiment useful in a lot of life.\u00a0 \u201cIf you can\u2019t be with the spring you love, honey, love the one you\u2019re with.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cIf you can\u2019t be with the soil conditions you love honey, love the one you\u2019re with\u2026love the one you\u2019re with.\u201d<\/p>\n
That song has spun around in my head lots of days.\u00a0 It even fits when I am with the one I love.\u00a0 There are days Pam drives me nuts.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure the feeling is reciprocal.\u00a0 Even those days, especially those days, I am called to love her.\u00a0 Then the song goes something like, \u201cIf you can\u2019t stand the one you love, honey, love the one you\u2019re with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of people we love, I had a line I used with friends when we were raising our children.\u00a0 I remember conversations about how challenging children could be, especially in those teenage years.\u00a0 \u201cYou don\u2019t get the kid you want; you get the kid you get,\u201d I would say. \u00a0That\u2019s not a particularly helpful thought.\u00a0 But it gave us a moment in the conversation to nod our heads and sigh.<\/p>\n
Now our children are adults, and I am grateful I got the kids I got.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure what I would have wanted, but the three of them are leading interesting lives, all doing good work.\u00a0 I\u2019m glad God was in charge of that.<\/p>\n
Acceptance of what you are given and what you have is a gift.\u00a0 We understand that even when we don\u2019t feel it.\u00a0 Most things I have read about happiness have an element of assent to the things that come your way.\u00a0 A constant state of restlessness or agitation, always wanting something more or different, can be a formula for unhappiness.<\/p>\n