well the first cutting of hay by the amish this year,

well some of you know that i am a farmer, and my dad was a farmer all his life, my dad and i worked side by side for over 27 years together, and i learn alot from him, we raised hundreds of calves, today there is a part of me that misses the daily feeding we use to do , it was very morning and every night , sad to say that part of farming came to an end.... and it took me about two years to get out of the feeling that i had to go the the do chores morning and night, there are some things i miss and some things i dont, i dont miss the stress farming was, and any of you that farmed understand this, you never knew what you were going to make in that year, some years was good and many more were not, i often shake my head today to think of the risk of farming in feed, cattle, etc we use to have, today i would not even think of going back to it, in the way it was back then,,,, but today we still have the farm, and sooo thankful we do, we still hay the fields and do some animals, but nothing like what we did in the past, farming is a business and family business, farming was not a stress free life, alot of worries that most folks will never know unless you farmed,
i will never regret that i did the farm, i loved the animals, and i knew that i was one of very special group of people that can claim that we are farmers, i was proud to be a farmer, and sad that now that i am older that we could not continue to farm as we did, just like many of you that understood what it was like to lose money in the stock market , we had that experience often , some years we did ok and others we did not, so now the amish folks are cutting our fields for hay, they came today, and its good to see good use of the field, we bale hay very year, and hopefully the first cut will give us 800 bales, we will see, but at least the farm is here and the hay will feed many animals, i was so thankful that we understood that farming of the past would not give us the living we had in the past and decided to slow it down, so that we could keep the farm, but many farmers continued to farm weather they lost money or not, always believing that the next year would be better, we did too, but sometimes it learning when to change directions, or to sell the farm all together, so we went into a different direction, slowing it down was not only the right thing to do it was the only thing to do, the lord blessed my family, and today we still have it, so no complaints, just thankful for all the grace that we had to work as we did, and i will be forever grateful not only for the chance to do what many never did, but also grateful that other doors open when one closed, little farming now, a couple of side businesses, and working off the farm, one thing i learned long ago, i am never in control and farming nothing was in my control,,,, but thankful i know the one that is , happy carving, arleen