The Farming Game...

Long ago, when we were first married, we played this game a lot. It reminded us of the real thing...You start the game with $5000 -- that you borrowed. Nothing else...just $5000 borrowed dollars. Then you must purchase a crop or cows to "harvest" to make money, and hope you make it through the first year without your chance expenses eating it all up. Like I said, it's just like the real thing.

At this point in our lives, we were employed in agriculture, but we were working other people's land. We had only 2.5 acres of our own, and lived in a 20' x 20' apartment created in the corner of the shop. The tractors had the better digs...Well, we and the tractors had the same digs.

Anyway, we loved to play this game -- and we played it with two distinctly different strategies.

It was the riskiest, and had the biggest expenses...seemed dangerous to me...

They didn't cost so much; they were cute. They weren't expensive...

I've always thought it somewhat ironic that, long before we had an inkling we would be raspberry growers, Randy was choosing fruit and that risky business to successfully make money, however imaginary.

We continue to play The Farming Game to this day...and, like the game, some years you make money, some years you don't. And like the portent of earlier games, I have bought animals that have consistently lost us money...We can put a specific dollar amount on how much  my joy costs...I have a patient husband.

When you live your life playing The Farming Game, you learn to hold things loosely...The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. You also learn to sit on your hands when the Lord has given...not always sure how long what He has given will have to last. Overall, we have been blessed thus far to have won more than we have lost in The Game...And though sometimes we look at predictable income as a security we covet, most of the time, we love the life we're living...You have to love dirt, and growing things, unpredictable hours, income and charting your own course, (i.e. not always know what you are doing!) -- The freedoms that come with the risk tend to spoil you for other ventures.

We intend to play The Farming Game as long as the Lord will let us...

Today, we are wondering what the Lord my take away...It's wintry here -- in April!

Wild weather! Possibility of SNOW showers???

Hail this morning...

My poor blueberries are trying to bloom in the midst of this...

And the babies we just planted...poor babies!!

We hope they are not freezing or drowning!

And the one-year-olds!! All those little leaves may be exposed to frost if it clears tonight...

Uh-oh Daisie...maybe we DIDN'T have enough time for a walk...

When we started, it looked like this...

Twenty minutes later, we're making a run for it, in another hailstorm...

Ahhh, The Farming Game...I'll let you know how that risky fruit crop weathers this weather!