Finding And Following Your Mark

There are days and there are fields in the spraying world when the fields are large and rectangular. The auto steer, auto boom height, and auto shut offs are all doing their job. And it feels like one is just along for the ride. 

 There are also days and fields that are a little more interesting. On rougher ground crops are often planted on the tops and the bottoms of farms and the hills are shared with either timber or pasture. On these jobs it's not uncommon to drive over a pond, around a bunch of cows, through countless electric fences, and under low tree branches, to spray a five acre field surrounded by brush.

There is no cruise and there is no auto steer on these more interesting jobs. You need to use your experience and ability to keep the sprayer boom out of the trees, not to spray the grass field borders, terraces, and waterways, and to keep the sprayer tires between the rows. In order to do all this together, effectively you need to find and follow your marks. Your marks often involve planter tracks. For example if the famer has a 15 foot planter and does 4 sets of end rows that's 60 feet. If you have a 120 foot sprayer boom then you know the center of the sprayer needs to follow that mark.

You don't need marks however to spray fence rows. You have one nozzle, not a hundred. It's interesting we still say fence rows when there are few fences left in crop country any more. My goal is to have weed free road ditches and my pet peeve is brush on field edges and on terraces.

Thistles are a nuisance and take extra effort to keep under control. Did you know the Bible talks about these patches? In Genesis 3 God tells Adam because he listened to his wife and ate the forbidden fruit the ground will have a curse on it. God said there will be thorns and thistles and it will be a struggle to extract a living from the soil. In the old days when my Uncle Sam was an elder and taught catechism he used to say "torns and tistles" because he couldn't pronounce his H's.

For the first time in my life I had a snake crawl right up to me while I was off the tractor from spraying fence rows and checking crops on the Long farm. It again reminded me of Genesis 3 when God cursed the serpent (snake). He said you will crawl on your belly on the ground. Ever wonder how snakes got around before the curse? He told the serpent He would put animosity between him and Eve and her descendants. Now you know why everyone hates snakes so much. God said you will bruise (bite) her heel.

God also told the serpent in Genesis 3 that man will crush his head. Yep. He's dead alright.

Mark, Ethan, and John helped me haul the old dozer home that I bought last week.

Ethan and John backed it inside across the road. I'm looking forward to a project this fall where I can share with the grandkids how we used to push dirt.

We had birds getting in the cabin through the fireplace. So Jim helped me put netting around the chimney.

Kasey and I were bringing a tractor to Lappins to get a tire refixed. We met an older man walking and holding his small dog. He said his car was on fire. Talk about thorns and thistles. A nice young lady who also stopped offered to have the man's dog in her back seat since it was so warm. As the smoke got worse and flames started we kept backing up a little thinking about the gasoline and an explosion. They must not make gasoline like they used to because when the gas tank finally did explode it wasn't that dramatic.

We are all busy. We get in a groove. And often are going along on cruise control doing our own things. How do we react when we get to a "more interesting field"? Do we slow down, find and follow the marks we were taught and take time for others? Or do we just go on and pass them by or worse run over them because of all the "things" we think needs done. In Luke 10 Jesus tells a story about who our neighbor is.

Our neighbor can be in our own home and family. Thanks for the picture Jan.

Or our neighbor can be around the corner, around the community, or around the world. Our churches Young Peoples group and their leaders left for Hattiesburg, Mississippi yesterday morning to help their neighbors for a week.

We are to live an authentic and purposeful life. In the field when we lose our mark we feel off course, not sure, and worry about hitting the boom or riding over crop. In life when we lose our purpose we can feel lonely, lost, anxious, and insecure. Ephesians 2 says that we are God's handiwork, created to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. That's our mark. Thank you all for finding and following your marks. Thanks Kristin for the picture.