Open the Gate!

Small town fairs are the best.  I like going to the larger county fairs for sure but in my opinion you can't beat a truly small town celebration.  We had the opportunity to enjoy such a time a couple of weeks ago when we attended Benton City Daze, our local community event.  We enjoyed the whole time but one event will stick with me for quite some time.  When we first heard that Benton City Daze was happening, the flyer said that there would be mutton bustin (sheep riding) for the little kids and calf riding for the older kids.  All three of my children were completely excited about the idea of riding these animals.  I was NOT so excited.  It was my thought that these kids didn't have a clue what they were signing up for.  I even told them, "You know, this isn't like the pony rides, where the thing walks along while you smile for pictures from mom."  All I got was "Pleeeeeeaaasssssee Daddy!".  Fine.  I wasn't worried so much that they might get hurt, they're pretty tough.  It troubled me more the psychological hurt that could happen.  LOL right now you're thinking I'm pretty wierd, and you're right.  Though I'm ashamed of it a little bit now, I was sure that they would chicken out once they climbed on these critters in the chute.  Not that that would bother me, but I didn't want them to feel "ashamed" of themselves if they got scared and the other kids went through with it.  Just a Dad over thinking everything. 
I soon found out that I was wrong and underestimated my children.  We arrived and got signed up and my daughter Zoey was the first to go.  She climbed right down onto the sheep and started the routine.  There was a young bull rider in the chute with her to get her all set up.  When she got all set up and ready to go, she looked pretty nervous but didn't say anything.  I asked her if she was alright and she said a resounding "Yep!".  I said just hold on as tight as you can and don't let go.  I had told all three of them the same thing, "It's your decision to ride and you can decide not to at any time, but you have to make the call.  When you're ready you have to look at the gate man and tell him 'Open the gate!'.  So I told Zoey everything was ready and we were waiting on her.  Immediately she hollered "Open the gate!."  That ol sheep took off outta there like a rocket but Zoey hung on and would not let go.  The sheep took a hard right and she slid off to the side but would not let go.  So at this point, my daughter was riding on the side of the sheep.  She continued to slide until she was directly under the sheep but she still held on.  The clown was chasing her hollerin,  "Let go, let go!"  Finally she dropped and that was done.  To my amusement she jumped right up and jogged across the arena like nothing had happened.  Job well done. 
There was no time to enjoy the moment for Dad though because, Isaac, my baby was up next.  As Isaac was sitting on his sheep preparing I could see that he was taking a completely different approach than Zoey.  His approach was ignorance.  That's right my three year old had absolutely no clue what was about to happen, and for that I felt kind of bad, but if I took him off the sheep at this point he would have cried all day, so gotta let him go.  I asked him, "You ready?".  He said "Sure."   He then said the magic words, "Open the gate."  Didn't take long for Isaac to find out this wasn't what he was expecting.  The sheep exploded out of the chute and little Isaac hung on like a trooper but only made it about two jumps before he flew off the sheep, face first into a pile of horse poop.  Nervous Dad was running right behind as Isaac rolled over, looked me in the eye, and held his hands out palms up and said to me, "I fell in poop!".  He's a trooper.  He stood up and walked out of the arena with his head held high.
 Next up was my oldest boy, Zane.  Now he was too big for one of the little sheep so he had to ride a bull calf.  I know my children pretty well and I could tell when Zane climbed down on that calf that he was genuinely scared.  Poor kid.  He couldn't back out now, his little sister and baby brother had just rode their critter, no way was he going to "chicken" out.  I said "It's your call, Zaner."  He looked up and said the words...... "Open the gate."  One jump, Zane had it licked.  And then that silly little calf put the brakes on and stopped, Zane kept going, flying straight over the top.  He flew about ten feet and belly flopped on the ground.  He popped straight up and jogged out of the arena and a relieved Dad met him outside the gate.
 It was over, they had all did their adventure ride and no major injuries.  As we sat and listened to them for the next couple hours it was fun to listen to their stories.  Nobody claimed victory over the other siblings for doing any better than the others, they were just all happy and proud.  It hit me that they didn't care that none of them made a "qualified" eight second ride, none of them knew what their score was they all just knew that they were really scared to do something and they had the courage to holler "Open the gate!"  That convinced me that my children had just learned a valuable life lesson.

As I thought about this story the other day, it brought me back to a decision we had recently made to move to a larger acreage farm and expand our business.  At the time the opportunity came to us, we didn't have any money to make the move let alone purchase extra animals and feed.  It just seemed like it was the right move for us.  We didn't quite know how it was all going to work out but we felt God was working in our lives and asking us to live faithfully.  We knew it was going to be incredibly difficult.  Just like I told my kids, "I don't think you understand what you are getting yourself into.", I felt that many of our friends were thinking the same thing about us.  We finally decided that this could be our only opportunity to move to a "real" farm and grow a sustainable operation.  We made the move.

No way of telling right now how this is all going to turn out.  We may be like Zoey and hang on to our dream refusing to let go while it drags us across the arena.  We may be like Zane and have our dream suddenly stop while we fly straight to the ground with a loud thud.  We may be like Isaac and not realize what we are getting ourselves into and land face first in a big old pile of horse poop.  But whatever happens, just like our children, one day when we look back on all this we can proudly say that we had the courage to holler, "Open the gate!"

Todays trouble is enough for today...

It was a normal morning of activity around the farm.  My wife, Chera was preparing for the farmers market, I was up enjoying a nice cup of coffee contemplating the day ahead.  As I often do in the morning I was sipping my coffee while staring out the window to the East, watching the pink glow of the sun as it rose over the hill.  As I was enjoying this wonderful view, I watched a group of our Thanksgiving turkeys run across the driveway.  "Hmmmmm, turkeys don't go there?"  was my thought as I took another sip of coffee.  It was one of those moments when my mind wasn't completely aware of what was happening, and then it hit, "Oh man, the turkeys are out."  About that moment Chera came up from the garage and said "Turkeys are out."  Yep that confirmed it.  "No big deal", I thought.  They're not in any danger, I will just finish my coffee then go out and get them back in.  Then I turned and looked out my South window.  Change of view, check out the valley and Horse Heaven Hills, beautiful.  Now a new thought entered my mind, "Why is my cow inside my chicken tractor?".  It is 5:30 in the morning, my mind isn't quite ready for all this stimulation.  As I stare in disbelief I see that all three of my chicken tractors have been destroyed, chickens are scattered in the pasture and cows are enjoying the chicken feed for breakfast.  "Stupid cows."
My first goal was to get my turkeys back into their pasture.  Sounds easier than it is folks.  If you have ever owned turkeys or worked with them you will understand me when I say that their capacity for intelligent thought is lacking.  I would chase they would run away.  Then they would follow me as I would walk away.  It was like playing the kids game, "Red light/Green light".  As long as my back was to them, they would follow me where I walked.  As soon as I would turn and look at them they would scatter.  So.... I kinda had fun with that for awhile, I mean "why not, right?".  Soon I was joined outside by my two son's and my neighbor who had been watching my activity from next door, (for how long, I don't know).  With four turkey herders we were much more effective and we got the turkeys back into their pasture.  Now that the turkeys were where they were supposed to be I stood back to reflect one why they had gotten out.  Two days before I had noticed that they were getting the pasture eaten down and they were ready to move to a new pasture.  Unfortunately, I let other things catch my attention and kept putting it off.  So the reason they finally pushed through their fence was they wanted fresher pasture grass to eat, only makes sense.
Now it was off to my destroyed chicken tractors.  Our "chicken tractors" are simply moveable, bottomless pens that I move around the pasture so my chickens can continually graze on fresh pasture and still be protected from predators. The cows had did quite a number on the structure of the tractors and it took me some time to repair them enough to hold chickens again.  Then I spent another hour or so chasing chickens to repopulate the tractors.  While I was doing all this i kept thinking that just the week before I had decided that it wasn't a good idea to house the cows and chickens tractors in the same pasture.  They had been doing fine together for some time but I knew that a blow up was imminent.  My plan was to move the cows to the North pasture, but I got busy doing other things and it just never happened.
By the time I finished corralling chickens it was near 10 o'clock in the morning and I hadn't even started my regular morning chores or fed the kids breakfast.  With Chera at market all day, and me starting basically 4 hours behind, you can imagine I wasn't feeling too optimistic about my chances on this particular day.
The rest of the day I struggled with a bad attitude to say the least.  I really didn't enjoy the day and remained behind in my work for a few days because of this messed up day.   It was then that I remembered something that Jesus said that I hadn't thought of in this way before.
Matthew 6: 34 So do not worry about tomorrow.  Let tomorrow worry about itself.  Living faithfully is a large enough task for today.
  On this particular day this verse hit me a little different.  You see, I had all kinds of things to worry about on this day.  However, I got to thinking, if I had only done the things that I knew needed done in the past days, I wouldn't have had to go through the worries I was facing today.  The Lord spoke to me on this.  If I truly give my full effort today and do the things He put before me today, most of "tomorrows" worries will be taken care of before they even occur.  Attack that to-do list, both the spiritual and worldly to-do list today!!