Relying on heaven

It rained Sunday, twice on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday. The hay is now a depressed black spiral running through our fields - not anything one would feed to animals. We put up a total of 480 bales - not the 1500 that we need to feed our flock over the winter. Dave is looking for someone we can pay to put the rest of our hay up in round bales which we will then compost to spread back onto our fields in a couple of years.

Not what we would wish, but we can cut again in late July and bale our hay then.

I am reading China Road, by Rob Gifford. In the book, he interviews a peasant farmer in western China. The man now works part of the year for the government building railroads. He goes back home to harvest his crops in the summer. Things are better because of his railroad job, the man explains, "We are not relying on heaven to survive." If the rains fall or the crops die, it will cause problems, but they will not die because they have a source of income other than their farming.

We too have another source of income. Dave works half time as an emergency physician; we do not need the money from our farm to survive; we don't need to rely on heaven.