'Tis The Season - Part 2

I suppose there is always a risk in posting another human being's written work in it's entirety. It is true, though, that any human words are nothing if they are not in one accord with the Word of God.
Emerson's beliefs may have played into his thoughts on gift giving, but if they did his ultimate point was that the best gift is the gift of yourself. Looking to the Holy Word for direction I find this to be true.

Matthew 22:36-40, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

1 Peter 2:24, Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. 

1 Corinthians 12:31, But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.
(and the next verse is the beginning of chapter 13... the Love chapter.)

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 & 13, Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
...
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. 

.....and there are so many more verses!!! Try Roman's 6:23, Ephesians 2:8-9, 2 Corinthians 9:15, Isaiah 9:6... the list goes on... and on and on!!!!!!
 
I think Emerson's point was, in essence, Matthew 22:36-40. His purpose is not so much to get us to judge the gift or the giver, but as a good essay should do, it is to get us to examine our own selves, and to inspire us to love our neighbor as we would love ourselves.


Another one of my favorite authors is Robert Fulghum. ...and this short story from his book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, always pops into my mind when I think of doing things for others:

Elias Schwartz repairs shoes. He's short and round and bald and single and middle-aged and Jewish. "An old-fashioned cobbler," says he, nothing more, nothing less. I happen to be convinced that he is really the 145th reincarnation of the Haiho Lama. 
See, the Haiho Lama died in 1937, and the monks of Sa-skya monastery have been searching for forty years for his reincarnation without success. The New York Times carried the story last summer. The article noted that the Lama would be recognized by the fact that he went around saying and doing wise things in small, mysterious ways, and that he would be doing the will of God without understanding why.
Through some unimaginable error in the cosmic switching yards, the Haiho Lama has been reincarnated as Elias Schwartz. I have no doubts about it. 
My first clue came when I took my old Bass loafers in for total renewal. The works. Elias Schwartz examined them with intense care. With regret in his voice he pronounced them not worthy of repair. I accepted the unwelcome judgment. Then he took my shoes, disappeared into the back of the shop, and I waited and wondered. He returned with my shoes in a stapled brown bag. For carrying, I thought. 
When I opened the bag at home that evening, I found two gifts and a note. In each shoe, a chocolate chip cookie wrapped in waxed paper. And these words in the note: "Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well. Think about it. Elias Schwartz. "
The Haiho Lama strikes again.
And the monks will have to go on looking. Because I'll never tell - we need all the Lamas here we can get.

Yes, yes, he used the words 'monks' and 'reincarnation' in association with God, but Mr. Fulghum happened to be a parish minister for 22 years and most likely doesn't believe in those things. His point? The best gifts are the gifts that we are not obliged to give, the ones that are a part of our own selves ...that would seem as a loss to the selfish man. A gift that makes the receiver's life better.  
 
Matthew 7:21, Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

Acts 20:35, I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

John 3:16, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The Quilt

So I've had this really awesome camera that I haven't been able to use for ....well, really too long, because I didn't have any way to get the pictures of the CF memory card. FINALLY I made it to the store yesterday and purchased a card reader. I have to share some of the pictures.

In January our dear friends Billy and Eliya got married. Well, one of the ladies at church came up with a great idea to make them a quilt while they were away on their honeymoon (they were gone for a month so we had plenty of time). All of the ladies from my fellowship got together and started sewing beautiful squares out of whatever scraps they could find at home. We even got together one Sunday afternoon, set up two sewing machines and let the fabric fly! It was soooo much fun!

Mrs. Graham, at the sewing machine, 

came up with the great idea of making a quilt.

Karen, Melissa and MaryAnn Cutting strips and blocks and pieces....

Kendra and Rachel

Patrick, Sandy, Emily, Karen and Michelle going through fabric and designing their blocks.

There was a lot of waiting and scheduling going on so that everyone 

could get a turn with the rotary cutter or the sewing machine.

One of the biggest surprises was how many of the men and boys from our church fellowship decided to participate and create their own quilt blocks!!! =D ....or at least, they'd design the square and let us ladies sew it together. My dad said Billy always reminded him of Curious George since he can often be found climbing on things and doing something adventurous... the "always very curious" sort. :) Soooooo.... he decided to have me sew this quilt square (It was more applique than sewing really):

Mrs. Graham took all of the squares home and sewed them together into the finished product, and finally after Billy and Eliya had returned home from their honeymoon the Graham family brought the quilt to church and presented it to the newlyweds. Everyone did a great job at keeping our project a secret for they were quite pleasantly surprised!!!

(I had to through this funny picture of Jack in! 

He was sporting some pretty nasty fake teeth. Hehe!)

Here's a picture of a good portion of the congregation. There are a few families/people missing, but there were enough of us there to represent our fellowship for a picture.

So many memories, inside jokes and seams of love are stitched into that quilt!

 

Billy & Eliya with the quilt made for them by their church family... 

The Beef River Bible Fellowship.

(We'd just begun our new assembly shortly before we started the quilt so I had to wait for a while before stitching this square because the men of the church were still undecided on a name.)

'Tis The Season

The other day, in one of my spare moments, I picked up my little collection of Emerson's essays. I decided to read the first one in the book... which coincidentally happened to be about gifts. I thought this was an appropriate topic to study up on since everyone is focused on gifts this time of year. It is a brief but excellent read. Not exactly conclusive, but it lights upon aspects of gift giving and receiving that often go untouched. I thought I'd share it with you.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essay V - Gifts

Gifts of one who loved me, —
'T was high time they came;
When he ceased to love me,
Time they stopped for shame.

It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into chancery, and be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, which involves in some sort all the population, to be the reason of the difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year, and other times, in bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, though very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the choosing. If, at any time, it comes into my head, that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a work-house. Nature does not cocker us: we are children, not pets: she is not fond: everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference of love and beauty. Men use to tell us that we love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted. Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us: what am I to whom these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable gifts, because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of fantastic values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to come a hundred miles to visit him, and should set before me a basket of fine summerfruit, I should think there was some proportion between the labor and the reward.

For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, and one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option, since if the man at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you could procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a man eat bread, or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is always a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be a fantastic desire, it is better to leave to others the office of punishing him. I can think of many parts I should prefer playing to that of the Furies. Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift, which one of my friends prescribed, is, that we might convey to some person that which properly belonged to his character, and was easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it restores society in so far to its primary basis, when a man's biography is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an index of his merit. But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's. This is fit for kings, and rich men who represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering, or payment of black-mail.

The law of benefits is a difficult channel, which requires careful sailing, or rude boats. It is not the office of a man to receive gifts. How dare you give them? We wish to be self-sustained. We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to bestow. We sometimes hate the meat which we eat, because there seems something of degrading dependence in living by it.

"Brother, if Jove to thee a present make,
Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take."

We ask the whole. Nothing less will content us. We arraign society, if it do not give us besides earth, and fire, and water, opportunity, love, reverence, and objects of veneration.

He is a good man, who can receive a gift well. We are either glad or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence, I think, is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a gift. I am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes from such as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported; and if the gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the donor should read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not him. The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level, then my goods pass to him, and his to me. All his are mine, all mine his. I say to him, How can you give me this pot of oil, or this flagon of wine, when all your oil and wine is mine, which belief of mine this gift seems to deny? Hence the fitness of beautiful, not useful things for gifts. This giving is flat usurpation, and therefore when the beneficiary is ungrateful, as all beneficiaries hate all Timons, not at all considering the value of the gift, but looking back to the greater store it was taken from, I rather sympathize with the beneficiary, than with the anger of my lord Timon. For, the expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually punished by the total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning, from one who has had the ill luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business, this of being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a slap. A golden text for these gentlemen is that which I so admire in the Buddhist, who never thanks, and who says, "Do not flatter your benefactors."

The reason of these discords I conceive to be, that there is no commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything to a magnanimous person. After you have served him, he at once puts you in debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small. Besides, our action on each other, good as well as evil, is so incidental and at random, that we can seldom hear the acknowledgments of any person who would thank us for a benefit, without some shame and humiliation. We can rarely strike a direct stroke, but must be content with an oblique one; we seldom have the satisfaction of yielding a direct benefit, which is directly received. But rectitude scatters favors on every side without knowing it, and receives with wonder the thanks of all people.

I fear to breathe any treason against the majesty of love, which is the genius and god of gifts, and to whom we must not affect to prescribe. Let him give kingdoms or flower-leaves indifferently. There are persons, from whom we always expect fairy tokens; let us not cease to expect them. This is prerogative, and not to be limited by our municipal rules. For the rest, I like to see that we cannot be bought and sold. The best of hospitality and of generosity is also not in the will, but in fate. I find that I am not much to you; you do not need me; you do not feel me; then am I thrust out of doors, though you proffer me house and lands. No services are of any value, but only likeness. When I have attempted to join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick, — no more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love them, and they feel you, and delight in you all the time.

From Milk Production To Milk Price

When I went to work for the farmer down the road the other day he informed me that his bulk tank had overflown that morning. He was pretty excited I think, even though an overflowing bulk tank presents it's own problems.
I mentioned our neighbor's good fortune at the dinner table and my dad told us that we almost had our tank overflow back in 2009. We were 100 lbs. short of spilled milk. ....and one or two cows could create 100 lbs. of milk in one day! That's the kind of spilled milk a farmer doesn't exactly cry over. A pretty good problem to have, indeed!
That started the conversation on milk production. In 2009 we had the most cows milking (something like 130) and the most milk being shipped off our farm... and that year was a record lows for milk prices and record highs for feed prices. A lot of farmers went out of business that year, and if they didn't go out of business they went in the red. Murphy's law, it would seem for us.

Here's a really old picture of Courtney & I milking cows back in '09!

Lately, it seems, things have been balancing out. Feed prices are coming back down, much to the disappointment of the crop farmers and fellows who've invested lots of time and money in the grain industry and the joy of those who have to buy the stuff. Milk prices are still too low. Maybe they'll always be too low? Those of us who dairy farm sometimes wonder who decides we should sell our milk for next to nothing.
...that being said, an unusual turn of events puts hope in our hearts once again. The CME is showing promising futures lately. The December milk price has been rising daily and January and February are going up as well. The months of January and February are normally accompanied by the lowest milk prices of the year and the futures for these months are going up as well.

My Dad told me that he thought the reason that the prices were going up is because there is a lot of milk being exported (to countries like China and so on).

I must tell you about the CME.... the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. This is like the lottery... except for farmers. As a gambler will eagerly watch for the winning lottery numbers you can find most farmers keeping a close eye on market prices of the dairy industry. Whether by way of radio or by paper or by internet (when I was milking cows at the neighbors at 5am I caught the local farm talk show... and the last thing they covered before the station switched to the morning music was the latest market prices).  
If you ever want to take a peak at the "farmer lottery" you can check out the CME Class III Milk Futures.

I suppose it's only natural that I blog about farming and milk more than usual. Milk on the brain, maybe? Haha! Milking three times a day will do that to a person. ;) Just so ya know, we farmers are always thankful for our loyal supporters! Those of you who regularly make trips to the dairy department in your grocery stores, who take interest in our work, who encourage and enable us to keep working the long hours. If it weren't for you we wouldn't be doing what we do.

Until next time,
Mary the Milkmaid

The Cutest Old Lady. Ever.

http://www.faithit.com/100-year-old-lady-talks-about-love-long-life/ 

Click on the link above and watch the video!!! It is super cute!!! Old people are just awesome as it is, but this little old lady is just hilarious! Seriously... just watching this video will prolong your years because it'll make you laugh, and as you know, a merry heart does good like medicine. ;)