WEDNESDAY, APRIL 08/2026

I hope the sun found you well this morning as it peeped at you or you peeped at it. The situation right now with our lack of rain is troublesome and the forecast is not encouraging at all. Farmers can't plant until and unless they get rain. Seeds need moisture to germinate and if they do sprout, the sprouts wither and die. I have often quoted Dr. J. Vernon McGee's words spoken decades ago, "it is all well and good that a Georgia farmer pray for rain, but he might want to do it with a hoe in his hand." Those words were spoken in a simpler time, but even then, the hoe was no longer much used in row crop farming, just in our gardens, really. Dr. McGee was aware of that, but the hoe was symbolic in his reference, meaning that the farmer that asks God to bring rain, be ready, able and willing to do his part as he asked God for it. It is wise counsel indeed, but how much preparation should the modern farmer undertake on faith? I suppose that would include land rents due, buy chemicals to have on hand, fertilizer, and seed? Should he put an implement into the ground or wait? We love the Lord, but His Word says he absolutely causes the rain to fall on the just as well as the unjust, so by that same token, I assume He causes the rain to not fall on the just as well as the unjust, according to His purpose. If you disagree with my thoughts on this, as I am no Bible scholar, I will respect your thoughts on this as well. I will say this: as far back in our nation's history as I know of, farmers have struggled continuously with nature and evil business practices of those he was beholden to, to make a go of farming. I am not aware of a single "golden era" for American farmers in our 249 years, 9 months, and 4 days since the USA was founded. By all rights, we should have starved to death by now because no one would try to farm any longer! I say that without Divine Providence in this fallen world, we would starve. Therefor let us find a way to help our farmers help us. I do not know how exactly we might do that, but we need to think about a way to see that farming works, and works well for them and us. A big part of the problem is our social "divorcement" from farmers and farming, and our vast separation from those who feed and clothe us, as we abandoned an organic life entirely. We reside now in an inorganic bubble, a totally unheard of artificial way of life of our own creation. That is why we have so much trouble, we do not know how to live properly in a lifestyle never dreamed of only a few generations ago.

All in a lifetime...

We "got it," but we don't know what to do with it. It makes me think of the man daddy told of who caught a flying squirrel, and hollered, "help me, HELP ME," to his buddy, who asked, "you need me to help ya hold him?" The man squalled, "hell no, help me turn him a'loose!" If that is not an apt metaphor for our lives today, just "study on it," as my daddy would have also said. Okay enough of that. I might have written about this quite recently but if so, bear with me. You can drive almost all day through the countryside, and even through small towns, and see not one single, solitary soul outside. Think about it, if we had done that a few decades ago, it would have unnerved us, as if the Rapture had occurred and we were left behind. The era of tooting the horn and waving, a hallmark of rural southern life is no more! There is no one there to wave at, and a toot of your horn now might get your butt whipped these days! C'est la vie and que sera, sera...

Hasta manana, hasta luego lagarto, etc....

Numbers 6: 24-26, KJV

we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me