Grounded

Grounded isn't just a word that applies to discipline for teenage misdemeanors or airplanes prohibited from flying.  It could also mean someone or something that is stable and well-established.

Our farmhouse, circa 1912, was built with the front entrance overlooking the road.
The porch was a perfect place for family photos.

In 1951 my parents moved in and changed the front entrance so it faces the driveway.

It's still a great place to capture a family photo.

I think this word is the perfect descriptor for my family farm, a place where my roots run deep despite my years of marriage to a city boy.  This is the place where I feel grounded in familial love and the faith of my forefathers.

My great-grandfather, Everett E. Gard, threshes wheat.
He'd be amazed at the 40-foot header on today's combine.

Established by my paternal great-grandfather in 1903, our farm qualified for the Kansas Farm Bureau's Century Farm Award, a program that recognizes family farms whose current owner is related to the owner of the farm in 1917 or before.  Qualifying farmers receive a farm sign designating "Century Farm" status and recognition from Kansas Farm Bureau, an advocacy organization for agriculture.  But, true to form, the sign, still in its cardboard box, languishes on the back porch, waiting its day in the sun or at least the half hour of down time it would take to stake it out by the road.  Indeed, that might never happen at all if my dad decides that, just as a fellow farmer present at the awards banquet mentioned, it would attract local gun-toters to use it as target practice.

My brother Jon fills the planter with wheat seed.

Is there a time on the farm that qualifies as down time?  That certainly hasn't happened in the past seven weeks Tim and I have camped here, helping my brother and father harvest corn and soybeans all the while trying to plant wheat.

It's been hectic, especially since I've tried to spend an hour or so every afternoon with my mom who's in a local assisted living situation.  So it might seem Tim and I have dropped off the face of the earth; we've been so out of touch with the world.  But one's focus narrows during fall harvest to getting the grain in the bin or planted in the ground.  I guess we've been grounded on the farm, so to speak.  But as of this morning, we are back on the road again, bound for another Habitat for Humanity build in Mandeville, LA.

I have few harvest photos to show for our time and many of the few I did take were of knobs, dials and parts of various pieces of farm implements and tools.  These I sent to my brother Jon to ask if this was the part he wanted or the switch I should turn on or off.  Cell phone photos sent via text messages are a huge step up from rudimentary drawings quickly sketched on a napkin at the dinner table.

I'm simply thankful that those knobs, dials and switches were firmly grounded--another use of this word--so the return path of the electric current bypassed me and I could greet another dawn, praising God for the gift of a new day.