Life Support

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare, and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11

Faith can be elusive. It's sneaky. You know you have it, sometimes you just forget what to have it in and sometimes it feels like you've lost it all together. I have a lot of faith. In God. In certain people. In my kids and my husband and in my farm. I have faith that God has plans for me that I know nothing of. I love the saying "We plan, God laughs." That is so true.

Sunday night our milk barn burnt. It was terrifying and sad and nauseating. There were so many emotions. Sunday night part of our faith slipped into the shadows somewhere and it seemed lost. We watched as our local fire departments with more trucks than I could count, worked to put out flames that were coming from the heart of our operation. Without our milk barn we are not a dairy farm. It beats life into the entire operation. If we can't milk our momma cows two times a day, every single day, we cease to exist. And at 9:38 on an average Sunday night we were terrified that we ceased to exist, that our heart would no longer beat.

If my families safety was guaranteed, I would have rather my house burn. That is a bold statement.  It isn't an understandable statement to very many people. Folks think that farmers have their animals, and their barns, their feed and it is their job. To a farmer those things are lifeblood. A farmer without a farm is a bird without the sky, it survives, but is never truly happy.  My house can be rebuilt. I would lose my possessions, I understand. There would be things I could never get back, I know. I realize losing my house to a fire would be devastating and just as emotional, but when you lose your house, you do not lose your job. You don't lose the very thing that makes everything around you breathe.

A momma dairy cow is not just another animal. They are very much creatures of habit, as are most other cows. Dairy cows have specific diets that, on our farm, are set by a nutritionist based on content of the feed we have. Each time we get a new load it has been tested and the information is then sent to our nutritionist and he gives us a new recipe for our cow's dinner. We don't run the kind of farm that you just set out a few bails of hay and hope for the best. We tailor their diets to best fit our herd, so they are content and produce an optimal amount of milk. They produce more when the weather is comfortable for them. They do not produce milk as well in stressful situations. This would be the queen of stressful situations. We had to load and haul 152 momma milk cows to two different farms. They have to learn a new barn, a new feeding system, new people, and a new herd. Their feed will be changed to what is fed on the new farm. Everything is different for them. And while this stresses our mommas, the Milkman is absolutely beside himself because of the stress they have to endure.

The Milkman has ran the last few days on a few hours of mostly interrupted sleep. He is exhausted. He watched the heart of everything he loves burn until there was little to nothing left. A barn his father built and he and his brothers rebuilt 14 years ago. In his lifetime there are very few periods of time that he has not spent at least part of his day working or playing in his barn. He knows everything about everything in his barn. He loves what he does and all of that centers around the milk barn. This barn is as comfortable to him as his house. It is as much his home as sitting in the recliner in our living room. In the almost 40 years, this is the first time momma cows have missed being milked on this farm.

I said the milk barn is the heart of our operation. This heart works just a little bit backwards. It is the source of the income for our whole operation, but the rest of the farm doesn't stop just because the heart stops beating. The momma cows, dry cows, steers, bulls, and baby calves still have to be fed, the fields still need to be planted and sprayed, there are still repairs and fences, and cows determined to wander out of the pasture and into the road, and an entire barn needs to be rebuilt. Everything still moves. My laundry piles up, the Milkmaids have to be fed and bathed and shuttled, the floors still get dirty in the house, and the dishes still have to be done. Life goes on even when the heart of this place stops beating. It stops the income. If my house had been the victim of the fire, the income would still flow just the way it always has. We are lucky to be friends with the people running the farms our mommas went to, and since they are still producing we will rework and refigure and be paid, but we also have to pay for the feed and labor and lots of extra things we didn't have here. We will carry on.

During the fire and immediately after we spent hours trying to figure out how we would manage to keep the farm going. How would we move 152 momma cows, help milk at two other farms, feed here, make repairs, and rebuild a barn? We were worried. Not discouraged, worried. But when daylight rolled around and the trucks and trailers started rolling in and our friends and neighbors started showing up we knew we weren't in this alone. We knew that we live in a community that helps each other out and that we had lots of prayers and support, but we had no idea that so many people cared enough to take time away from their jobs, their families, their farms to come help us. We have been absolutely blown away by the physical presence of help, the amount of food and drinks that have been delivered to us to help feed everyone, has been beyond anything we imagined. We are well on our way to a new barn after just 3 days of work. Today they are pouring the footing to lay blocks. We are just in awe of how God has worked and provided. There aren't words that can express our thanks and our gratefulness to everyone involved.

A farmer lives because his farm lives. Because he, with God's mercy and grace and help, breathes the life into their plants and animals. A farmer lives because he (or she) can farm. When a farmer loses part of their farm it is as devastating as losing a family member. It is a loss they grieve. Neither I, nor the Milkman have taken this experience and viewed ourselves as victims. We have had  little anger and a few tears, but it comes with the territory. This is a temporary, uncomfortable obstacle. It is a part of God's greater plan and we are okay with not being able to see how this will play into building our future, but we are along for the ride. We have faith. We have hope. We have determination. And we have friends and neighbors and fellow farmers, all over the nation, showing support in whatever way they can. God has blessed us and we will praise Him in this tiny storm. We will learn from this and we will move forward. The heart of our operation may be on life support for now, but it will beat on its own very soon.

Thank you to everyone that has helped, prayed, called, contacted us, brought food, and offered support. We can't ever thank you enough.