A Family Homestead
by Mary Lund
What a beautiful fall day. Thank you God. Today, for the father and older boys, there is a fence to mend, anything for those productive animals. Firewood to get from the woods lest their family become cold through the harsh winter nights. They may also want to check that leaky spot in the barn roof, to keep the winter hay crop from molding. For the younger boys there are all those important farm animals, that help provide our livelihood, to feed. Then they have to muck out the family cow's stall (she's been kept in the barn in the last days of her pregnancy). It's important that the baby isn't born out in the wild with predators looking to fill up for winter hibernation. Then they will have to stack the firewood that the father and older boys have already begun to chop. If the firewood is not kept dry, then it will not burn. The Mother and older girls are busily canning the last of the summer's produce for their food during the winter. The greenhouse will, of course, be kept going year round, but there are some things that can't be kept. Then, being Monday, there's the week's laundry to wash and hang outside and later to iron and mend (how those little boys can go through pants' knees!). The younger girls are out plucking the last of those carrots out of the ground for Mom, or reaching for those last little apples that served so well during the fall months. The smallest children are running about in the front yard. Alas, they serve no working purpose... yet, they can always make up for it by being Mommy's joy!
Each of the children's jobs are, in their own way, just as important as the next and if they're not done well, ultimately all will suffer. There is a bond that forms between the family members when all hands are put together and out comes something really wonderful. Each person is nothing but a piece of string, but, weave those strings together and out comes a large mat that can be used for lots of things. To the naked eye, maybe the father's and older sons' jobs may seem most important, chopping that wood or butchering that hog, and they can do those things better than anyone else on the homestead. But, it's his wife that is cooking that hog up so yummy and her skill that makes it last all through the winter, or the daughters that are washing out their brothers' and father's dirty pants and patching the knees that are enabling their older brothers and father to work so hard and well out there. Everybody has something to bring to the table. In a bigger view, community is much the same way.