Gambling Farmers

Yesterday an acquaintance posted birthday greetings to her husband, expressing her admiration for him as lover and father. Today she shared her son's blog post in which the young man honored his step-father and commented how her children see her husband as their "real" father. She explained how she divorced her first husband because he was cheating on her and then he divorced himself from his kids. Her present husband has always treated her children as his own and together they made a family as well bonded and in love with one another as any good family made the old-fashioned way. The man is a farmer.

My husband married me, a widow and divorcee with four children and treated them as his own. He's a farmer.

Farmers are a special breed of human being. No other gambler on the face of the earth cares more for life, is willing to risk everything for life (and does it every year) or works harder to support life. In the safety of our houses in the supposed safety of our cars and planes, we forget: life is a gamble from beginning to end. Farming is gambling. It's a gamble whether the weather will grant favor or ruin; it's a gamble whether crop prices will be good or bad; it's a gamble whether the expense sheet will be outweighed by the profit sheet. And sometimes it's a gamble whether a farmer will come home uninjured or even live through the day.

Farmers are natural candidates to marry women with a bunch of kids. Such a task doesn't faze them at all. They do it every day. A flock of sheep or a herd of cows will produce a passel of little ones and the farmer is their defacto father who must look after their needs and bring them through harsh winters, dog attacks and periods of drought alive and well. A field of cotton or chile is no different, it needs a father/farmer to make it thrive and produce a bountiful harvest. Children who grow up loving others and living productive lives--that's success for a parent and no better harvest can be found on planet earth.