Suffering, but with cows
I had fun reading this one aloud. Ff you desire to let me read to you, click below!
It’s been a busy spring and early summer here at Fourth Man Farm.
Everything from orphaned baby lambs that need 5x a day bottle feedings, to a dog (not ours) slaughter of 20 laying hens during a snow storm, to failing walk-in fridges and freezers full of meat, a fire that burnt a brooder full of chicks and there’s probably more, I can’t remember.
All this on top of the usual daily work of the farm, which is not a small amount of stuff.
Homesteading or farming, whatever it is we are doing, seems to largely be about troubleshooting and pivoting at the moment.
I think there’s a lot of that in general in life, but it’s especially true here, right now.
Amidst the troubles there has been lots of beauty too, blessings and loveliness.
Our new homesteading intern tenants are getting settled, my new garden is taking off, weeds and all!, and our baby chick and duck cups runneth over.
Nothing here is perfect, nor does it go to plan, but it is always beautiful and full of growth opportunities-more than I bargained for.
The farm has been a great teacher for me these past three years.
I moved here seeking peace and quiet, some self sufficiency and quality family time.
What I’ve received is a WHOLE LOT of LESSONS and one of the greatest lessons I have learned is that I have this deeply rooted expectation that life is supposed to go a certain way.
Maybe you can relate?
When things do NOT go our way, we rightfully become frustrated, sometimes look for something or someone to blame and sometimes ruminate on how bad it is that things are the way they are when they were supposed to be different.
The funny thing about running a farm/homestead with loads of living things that depend upon you, technology that is supposed to “help you” get the job done-I’m over most of it, and a life in general that impacted daily by climate and biological forces is that you realize how little control you have over most things and more often than not something goes “wrong”, if you choose to look at it that way.
Cows have been my greatest teacher on this front since they have often been a primary source of things going wrong.
A day can be going along just fine and then suddenly cows.
Cows being sassy,
stealing other cow’s calves,
kicking because they don’t want to be milk even though they have too much milk to bear,
cows trying to get bred,
cows refusing to be bred,
cows getting their eye lids caught on fences and ripped, open,
cows getting out and running down the main road with their calves and udders in full swing and you have to drop everything you expected to do that day and spend sometimes hours getting them back in, hopefully without injury to them or someone else’s property.
The first few times the cows got out it felt like something had gone horribly wrong.
There was a broken fence, an open gate, a faulty energizer or a hormonal heifer to blame for it all.
I ran for 2 hours on a 90 degree day chasing them all over our farm and my neighbors’ farms as well because.
My dairy cow in heat had broken the entire herd out to go joyriding and rendezvous with a bull at a neighboring farm-which they fortunately did not find, but came dang close.
It all culminated with my cornering them in my neighbor’s field, them panting, thirsty and exhausted from running their 1000 lb bodies all over creation, me wondering what the he** I had gotten myself into and feeling deeply unqualified to have cattle.
I had to keep them there long enough for my kids, a 1/2 mile away, to catch up to me.
So there I was with my arms stretched out to make myself as big as possible and detain the six of them in the corner of the paddock, singing Oasis’s Wonderwall, but the Ryan Adam’s version, to calm them down because it was the only song my brain could think of at the time and I once read how cowboys would sing to their cattle at night to soothe them and I was quite frankly out of moves and out of energy.
After we finally got them back in I was so fearful of them getting out again I doubled up their fencing, watched them intensely and separated the trouble-maker, my Email, because at the time I believed that what had happened that day meant that something had gone wrong and I wanted to do everything in my power to stop it from happening again.
Three years later and that much more experience of cattle ownership under my belt I’ve much better fencing and experience, but I’ve also learned something about cattle-they get out.
Everyone I’ve talked to that raises cattle will tell you it’s true.
They hop fences, unlock gates, bust through barbed wire.
It’s just part of having cows, or goats or sheep….
Animals get out.
You want to minimize it as much as you can, but one needs to accept that this is part of livestock ownership and learn how to deal with it when it happens.
Unpredictable and inconvenient events lay as land mines all over the farm and you just never know when you are going to step smack dab in the middle of one. The funny thing is, God knew I needed some training in this area and He is using the circumstances of the farm to cultivate in me a new perspective about daily life in general.
Over time I have begun to notice how much I unconsciously expect life to go well all of the time, how much I have been in the habit of assuming that when things didn’t go according to my plan, I see that as either a result of a mistake I made OR God abandoning me.
But the farm has taught me that it’s all part of it, the good and bad, when life aligns with my plans and when it doesn’t, all of it is for me and my betterment. It’s just life and the problem lies in how I choose to view it, not the fact that things sometimes go wrong according to me.
I think of my children and the manner in which I love, guide, teach and care for them.
Sometimes I give them a bowl of homemade ice cream or a plate of steaming pancakes with butter and maple syrup.
Other times I assign them messes to clean, school work to get done or projects to work on.
Sometimes they fall down and get hurt and have to nurse an injury-I didn’t do that to them, but I also didn’t abandon them in it, nor did I coddle them to the extent that they never encountered danger or harm, AND I never attempt to erase the experience altogether or freak out, thus creating fear in them.
”Good” AND “bad” things, pleasant and unpleasant work together to give them the life experience they need.
Suffering builds their character, their resilience and their faith in themselves, me and God.
When things go wrong and they survive it, they learn resilience.
When chaos ensues and they come and find me-or one of their siblings comes to find me, they learn to trust me more deeply.
When life doesn’t go their way and God comforts them and provides for them relief, healing, safety and peace, they learn to trust Him more deeply.
In fact, I would argue that they don’t learn NEARLY as much about me, themselves or God when life is going well.
It’s in the problems that they learn and grow.
It’s the same for us.
All of the difficult circumstances are filtered through the hand of a Heavenly Father and made “good” by Him who works all things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
A life of ice cream and pancakes wouldn’t be any sort of life at all for my kids, but those are the things they cheer for while they groan or grumble about the less pleasant experiences.
I’m the same.
Why do we except life to always be good?
You may say, “I don’t,” but what does your behavior say about how you REALLY feel when things do not go your way, when suffering comes out of the blue and hits you where it hurts most?
Job said,
“Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”
Job 2:10
James told us that we face trials of many kinds in order to test our faith because these tests produce patience and patience working in us makes us mature and complete and lacking nothing.
Trials are how we grow up.
Suffering is how we are made whole.
Difficulties are how we get wisdom. James Chapter 1
I’m not sure I will ever be someone that looks at adversity initially and says, “YES! This is for me!”
But I endeavor to become that person, the one that, Rejoices always,prays without ceasing and in everything gives thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for me and for you. 1 Thess. 5: 16-18
And it’s the things of this world, the undesirable circumstances, the hard lessons of the farm that are getting me there.
Now when the cows get out I don’t rush. I don’t stress.
I go find my tools I use for getting them back in, long poles, a bucket of feed and my boots that are meant for MUCH walking.
I now know how to use my energy to move cows, because you can’t grab them or rope them, you can sometimes bribe them, but mostly only herd/push them with your body or many other bodies, get them into a confined spot and then push them to where you want them to go-it’s an art and I feel pretty good about my skills in this realm because I’ve had loads of practice, praise God.
xoxo,
Sarah