Where You're Planted

Mrs. Gina Loehr

My five-year-old son woke up the other day, asking for Daddy.  He frequently issues that specific request when he arises from slumber.  His father, you see, is associated with tractors.  My son goes to bed thinking about the rides he had in the red tractor or in the green tractor or sometimes even in the other (bigger) green tractor. He wakes up wondering how quickly he can climb back into the “buddy seat” on one of them. 

It’s mid-spring, and planting has begun.  Or so I might inadvertently tell you if you stop by the house.  But as my son was quick to point out to me yesterday, “Daddy isn’t planting. He’s sowing.”

That’s right, technically. We plant the corn. We sow the soybeans. Joe was in the soybean field yesterday. 

The tools are different — a corn planter versus a seed drill. The planter places each seed separately into the ground, whereas a drill has a funnel and a seed tube and a rotating sprocket that gets filled with seed that’s dropped in bunches in the ground. We talk about pounds of seed per acre with the soybeans. Whereas with the corn, every kernel is counted and every plant will be evenly spaced apart; each bag has 80,000 seeds in it — enough to cover about three acres. Leave it to my little boys to correct their mama on the nuances of farming.

My twelve-year-old son has been giving equipment explanations and field tours to visitors since he was seven. The most effective discipline I ever used with him was not letting him ride along in the chopper when he had transgressed some family rule. During the era of potty training, after a grueling year of trying unsuccessfully to cross that particular bridge, we finally rode to the other side on a brand-new toy combine. I had the idea to set one on display in the bathroom and promised he could play with it when he stopped having accidents for seven days. It took seven days.

My husband Joe is one of five Loehr brothers, three of whom took over the farm from their dad, Norm, who worked the fields every spring until his body refused to let him into a tractor in his final years.  Joe’s other brothers and six sisters all love the farm as well; they visit often and help out in countless ways.

My husband Joe is one of five Loehr brothers, three of whom took over the farm from their dad, Norm, who worked the fields every spring until his body refused to let him into a tractor in his final years.

This is only the recent story of our century family farm. Loehr Dairy officially began in 1880 when Norm’s grandfather, Peter, bought the place from his father-in-law. Then his son Louis took the reins, and a generation later, when Norm married Rosie, they moved into the upstairs of the farmhouse until Louis and Marie retired and relocated three miles away. Joe stepped into the business after high school with his big brother, and a few years later the youngest Loehr son joined in.

Guess who’s next in line.

Isn’t it a strange thing to contemplate, in our day and age, that our children should have to reckon with the question of whether or not they will take over their father’s business? I have long been conscious of the strange balance between hoping that one of the children will choose to farm, and not wanting to pressure any of them into it. What a sad day it would be if this family farm should leave the family. But what an injustice it would be to force anyone to carry the torch.

The remarkable thing to behold, however, is that the children come to these ideas of their own accord. We try quite consciously not to assume anything about their future, to speak only in vague terms about the business staying in the family, perhaps alongside their cousins who would be most welcome in the venture.  But still, the children sense this continuity, this idea of heritage and belonging, and they are drawn to it quite naturally, entirely on their own.

[T]he children sense this continuity, this idea of heritage and belonging, and they are drawn to it quite naturally, entirely on their own.

Already six years ago, my oldest son, then six, was sweeping the floor while I was reading on the sofa. He suddenly paused, broom in hand, and said, “Mom, I just wish I could find someone to marry and get started taking over the farm.” This is the same child who as a five-year-old had stopped in his tracks in the kitchen, dejected and forlorn. When I asked what was wrong, he reported glumly, “I thought I’d be grown up by now.” So perhaps he’s always been a little too anxious to nail down his future. But still, of his own accord, he considers a future that involves carrying on the family legacy.

Some aspects of this do seem most pronounced in our sons; I can state with statistically confirmed confidence (we have three daughters as well) that girls just don’t dig tractors the way boys do.  But the deep sense of rootedness, of legacy — this is by no means exclusive to one sex.  Just recently, my ten-year-old daughter mentioned with a twinkle in her eye that she hopes she will be able to work at a job “that involves a certain dairy farm.” 

Will they actually choose this life for themselves? Who knows. But I am beginning to suspect that we, as a culture, are the ones who impose upon children the idea of not following in their parents’ footsteps. In our caution to facilitate the freedom of youth, perhaps we are too quick to propose the world as their playground, when in fact staying close to home could be, and often is, the better option. Why not carry on a noble tradition? Why not embrace the circumstances into which you were born? Why not relish what you have been given — what you have grown up observing, experiencing, and loving? My husband’s ancestors tilled these same fields, not just before us but also for us.

Choosing a career, I suspect, might be overrated. Can we think a little more broadly in terms of vocations, callings, divine appointments in a sense? Less trying to find our fit, and more fitting where we find ourselves. We are placed where we are for a reason. “Bloom where you’re planted,” as the little clay plaque on my mother’s bookshelf reads.

No one understands this better than the farmer who plants (or sows) the seeds in the ground and waits with expectation for a rich and bountiful harvest.  If he can count every kernel, and place each one in its rightful spot, with how much more care and attention might the Divine Farmer have planted his sons and daughters? Perhaps there is wisdom in encouraging our children to take root right where they are.

First Steps
"First Steps, After Millet" by Vincent Van Gogh. Oil on canvas. 1890.

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