With the short holiday week, I wanted to keep it light and easy. I’ve always enjoyed Paul Harvey’s reading of this piece, as the true author is “unknown”. There’s something about Paul Harvey’s voice that makes it very hard to imagine hearing it recited any other way. I have included the actual words below, along with a link where you can hear Paul Harvey deliver them in a way that no one else can. I remember when Dodge aired this as a Super Bowl commercial back in 2013, and it was a huge hit. Good stuff and always worth the 2 minutes… Click HERE to watch!
And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” …So God made a farmer.
God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the township board.” …So God made a farmer.
“I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle a calf and yet gentle enough to cradle his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait for lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure to come back real soon and mean it.” …So God made a farmer.
God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year,’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse, who can fix a harness with haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, up in another 72 hours.” …So God made the farmer.
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. …So God made a farmer.
God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to help a newborn calf begin to suckle and tend the pink-comb pullets, who will stop his mower in an instant to avoid the nest of meadowlarks.”
It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, brake, disk, plow, plant, strain the milk, replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with an eight-mile drive to church. Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life “doing what dad does.” …So God made a farmer.”
@Landon-ze8ye wrote… “I carved this by hand onto my great-grandfather’s casket, ‘so god made a farmer’. He died in the field.”
@NateChoquette-ov5oj wrote… “As a first-generation farmer, I’ll say I’ve cried more tears in my first 3 years than in my 31 years prior. I wouldn’t trade my very worst day on the farm for my very best day in an office. You don’t choose to do this, it finds a way to choose you. Thank you to all my fellow earth stewards, and thank you to so many for giving me the inspiration to throw everything else away to build a farm and a farming life.”
@king_fresh27 wrote… “As a (future) 7th generation American farmer, this speech really hits close to home. I remember several years ago, when my grandpa died, this played at his funeral, and everybody was in tears. I didn’t understand it then, but I understand it now. Very few Americans today realize the grit, passion, and hard work required to be a farmer. It’s a shame that farmers aren’t more appreciated in society. God bless farmers everywhere!
@kundtinger6310 wrote… Every time I think I can’t do it anymore, I come back to this, and it gives me power and hope every time. Stay strong, fellow farmers. Click HERE to watch
