My Dad was a farmer. So was his Dad. They didn’t like “greenies” as they called environmental protesters. But they held the farm across generations, so they wanted to treat the land in a sustainable way.
My Dad always ploughed across the slope, so the furrows held the water, not down the slope where the water would wash the soil away. He hated overstocking: he reckoned farmers who carried too many head per acre had more droughts than those who looked after the land. In a time when many farmers burned off the stubble after harvest, he ploughed it back into the soil. Periodically he even spelled the paddocks (leaving then fallow).
He wasn’t perfect, but he taught me to respect the land, to see it as a gift from God for us to use and care for. It was just a small farm tucked away in a little valley with a creek running down between the mountains. When I go back there, I still feel that love of the land, a deep connection to country. Continue reading “Tenants on God’s farm”
