I grew up with a healthy respect for farmers and ranchers. My father was careful to make sure that we knew that farming and ranching were the foundation of society. When one of our customer’s dairy suffered a failure of some of their automated milking equipment, we were taken to the farm twice a day to help with milking because the dairy had to run even if the machines were broken. While we waited for new equipment to arrive and be installed, we had a responsibility to them not only as customers, but as suppliers of a vital resource for our community.

When I was a teenager, I worked on my uncle’s farm and my cousin’s farm. it was considered to be a good job and important work. The dry land wheat farm produced hard red winter wheat. We took wheat directly from the farm bins to our house where it was ground to make flour for our bread and cereal for our breakfast. My cousin also raised cattle and it was made clear to us that care for the animals was essential to our survival. Every year we purchased animals directly from the 4-H sale at the county fair that filled our freezer with food.

Our family never raised chickens for eggs. We sold equipment to several commercial egg operations and our refrigerator sported “Howe’s Farm-Fresh Extra-Large Eggs.” We did, however raise chickens for meat. Each spring the chicks that were unsold after the farms and ranches were supplied came to our place to be raised through the summer and make their way to the freezer for fried chicken Sunday Dinners throughout the winter.

Farmers and ranchers were treated with great respect in our household and that value was essential to the early years of our ministry. We began our pastoral career serving churches in two small towns where the majority of our members were farm and ranch families. We brought to the community our years of formal academic education, carefully thought-through theology, practiced pastoral skills, and a love of crafting liturgy. But we also brought knowledge of farm and ranch culture. I instinctively felt at home on the farms and ranches. I knew how to visit, even during the busy seasons. I would jump into a harvest truck or mount a combine operating in the field. I knew how to dress to find ranchers in the field or barn during calving season. I never was a real horseman, but I knew how to saddle and ride a horse and was comfortable around animals. It wasn’t just that I understood the culture. I loved the culture and the people who devoted their lives to producing food. I still do.

It was my cousin who began to help me think a bit differently about modern production agriculture. He was active in what eventually became known as the “Lentil Underground,” a movement of grass roots farm and ranch families who were changing their practices away from chemical and fuel consumption toward natural farming and ranching practices. They moved part of their operations into conservation reserves, learned about crop rotations to replace chemical fertilizers, stoped the use of pesticides and herbicides to produce organic produce. They had to develop new marketing strategies and formed cooperatives to take their organic grains and meat to market.

My cousin and I loved to have long talks and he taught me a lot about his philosophy of farming and ranching. When he was in his sixties he told me that he thought that the best farming he ever did was when he did nothing. He admired bison because they didn’t need help with calving, were worked by walking among them, and preferred natural grasses and wild open spaces. He watched as fields were left fallow and natural and recovered their subsoil moisture which was robbed by traditional rotation of fallow one year and wheat the next. He learned about raising lentils for food and for the replenishment of essential soil nutrients.

I used to think of myself as two generations removed from the land. My father’s businesses served farmers and ranchers, but we were only hobby farmers. Other than a few small garden plots, I didn’t actually produce food for our family, but rather earned money to purchase food by serving others.

Our son, however, is returning to the land a bit. Although both he and his wife work off of their small farm, they invest a lot of energy in producing food from their land. They have extensive organic gardens, tend an orchard, expand their berry production, raise chickens for eggs and meat, pasture cattle and work their land. I have become a small part of their operation by tending honey bees.

The bees, while important to the overall operation, and producers of very tasty food for our family, are products of production agriculture. They are not native to this place. There are plenty of natural bees in this area. We have mason bees, carpenter bees, bumble bees, and at least five or six other native species. Our honey bees are an invasive species, descendants of bees imported from Europe. Tending them means paying attention to their natural tendency to produce additional colonies when they are thriving. If I were to just keep them in optimal health they would produce swarms that would go out into the surrounding countryside and take up residence, displacing natural pollinators and contributing to the general decline of native species. Raising domestic bees requires a sensitive balance of intervention and understanding of natural processes. I keep our operation small and am learning about raising queens for other bee keepers to control the swarming of our colonies. So far, I have captured swarms when they have occurred and kept our bees from returning to the wild. As we transition our operation to more natural beekeeping, there is much for me to learn to work with nature rather than battle it.

I try to keep the lessons learned from my cousin in mind as I work with my domestic animals. I pay attention to the wild bees on the farm and work to encourage the health of their colonies. I build mason bee habitats and have learned about bumble bee nests and how to protect them from some of the farm’s processes.

In some ways, I’m circling back to the land and the respect for farmers and ranchers that has always been part of my life. It seems like good work to me and the right thing for this phase of my life. The more I watch the bees the more I find out how much there is yet to learn. I hope I can continue to correct some of my mistakes and work with the bees for the overall health of the land.