Planting Seeds in Minnesota

I've got planting in my DNA. My brothers and I spent our summers on Grandpa and Grandma Amundson's farm in Rothsay, Minnesota. We had certain jobs to help Grandpa, all our uncles and farm hands as they did the work of farming. Amazing how scattered seed grows up to be straight, long rows of corn. It's a beautiful thing!

One of our jobs was to carry lunches and water and huge containers of fresh milk to the workers. No easy thing for barefoot kids who wanted to play. We had to cross several fields to find just where they were. Some fields had been plowed, some had not.

The unplowed fields were hard, baked-in-the-sun dirt. Still had razor sharp grain stems from the year before sticking up out of the dirt. It was slow moving in this field. It's like the heart that has been unplowed by the Holy Spirit. Hard, impossible to plant seeds in. Just not ready! We loved the freshly plowed field. Soft, warm straight rows of dirt. So soft our feet would sink deep down. That field is like the heart that is plowed by the Holy Spirit. Ready to receive, soft and ready, already warmed by the sun. We are changed by the work of the Holy Spirit!

Ahhh yes, the lunch. The Minnesota "little lunch." Remember, these workers are hungry because they have been working since sunup, so lunch for them is at 10 AM. Must have potatoes, meat (preferably beef, occasionally Grandma would kill one of her chickens for a delicious fried chicken lunch) and either homemade white bread or lefse. Lefse is a Norwegian delight! Made out of mashed potatoes, butter, small amount of cream and flour. Baseball sized globs are then rolled out flat and placed on a very hot greaseless griddle till bubbly and browned. Turns out the lefse looks a lot like a flour tortilla! After all this, is there room for dessert and coffee from the thermos? You betcha! Usually pie. Custard pie of some kind or homemade cookies. My brothers and I would eat the lefse and watch these heros of our childhood consume the lunch we had brought. We would then clean up everything, grab the metal containers that held the lunch, wash them all up and be ready to go again with a snack and coffee at 4pm.

By sundown everyone was finished for the day and all gathered around the big table in the kitchen-dining room. We had walked in to the smell of either freshly baked white bread or lefse. Yum! While it was still dark the next day, Grandma and Grandpa would be stirring around, ready to begin the next day of spring planting. Love for the farm motivated them every day. Nothing stopped them from doing the work of planting and harvesting. Not hail, tornadoes, too much spring rain, or pesky bugs that threatened the crops. They always came back to finish the
job.

All of us are farmers. Or fishermen and women. More on scattering seed tomorrow, going to celebrate Olivia's 7th birthday.