Here’s to the Farmers!

I must admit that my husband is sometimes the butt of jokes due to his past history of being the (9th) offspring of a farmer, growing up on a farm, or even just being from Nebraska, a state largely populated by farmers.   I often laugh along with the jokes, and he seems to take them well, probably because we all know that farmers are really the “salt of the earth.”  Where would we be without all the farmers?  Hungry, that’s for sure.   And my husband learned many wonderful lessons growing up on a farm, such as not to tease a baby pig when the mother is around.   Or, maybe the more important lessons of diligence, the value of hard work, putting the needs of others (even pigs) before your own, patience and working as a team.

I think Flaubert appreciated farmers too, if this quote is any indication:

Where indeed, is to be found more patriotism than in the country, greater devotion to the public welfare, more intelligence, in a word?   And, gentlemen, I do not mean that superficial intelligence, vain ornament of idle minds, but rather that profound and balanced intelligence that applies itself above all else to useful objects, thus contributing to the good of all, to the common amelioration and to the support of the state, born of respect for law and the practice of duty…

Here! Here!   A toast to farmers.   (And a big “thank you” to my own “farmer” and the family that raised him.)