A TIME TO SHOW GRATITUDE

Published in Intermountain Farm and Ranch November 26, 2010

            As a child, I looked upon Thanksgiving as a time to eat turkey and get together with family.  The idea of gratitude didn’t play a big part of it, other than the prayer at the meal on Thanksgiving Day.  I remember one time we were each ask to tell something we were grateful for.  When it was my grandmother’s turn she told us that she had a lot of things to be grateful for and a lot of things that she wasn’t grateful for. Because she was afraid she would get the lists mixed up she said she wouldn’t say anything.

            I’ve thought of that day with my grandmother and can see the wisdom in her thinking.  Too many times we expound on what we are not grateful for and mix it up with the things we should be grateful for.

            As people who live on and work the land, farmers and ranchers have a lot to be grateful for, not only at this time of the year when the harvests are rolling to an end, but all year round.  I would like to list some of the things I’m grateful for, and try not to get my grateful list mixed up with my ungrateful list.

• Our families.  They can and should be our support group as we face the challenges in our lives. 
• The chance to live on the land, to be a steward of the land.  To work the soil, watch seeds sprout and grow, to harvest the crops.  To be able to spend all day out in the fields, and return to our home at night tired but knowing we have accomplished something.
• Water!  Our cattle need to drink, our crops need water to grow, and we need water for personal use.  The saying “you never miss the water until the well goes dry” certainly hits home in dry and drought years.  In being grateful for water, we need to recognize the necessity of preserving the water we have, and be wise in the use of it.
• Our mild climate in this part of the United States as compared to other areas.  We don’t have hurricanes; rarely have tornadoes, and not often floods.  We do have blizzards and winter storms and dry years with droughts, but those are rarely extreme. 
• Our means of communication.  Yes, technology has become big and sometimes overbearing, but there are so many advantages to it.  The cell phones alone have saved us many miles of traveling when someone can call from the ranch and order parts, get a service man to come, get help from home, and let other’s know your location. 
• The beauties of nature that are all around us.  Each season brings out a different aspect of these beauties.  Sometimes we get so involved in what we are doing we fail to take the time to look around, enjoy what is in our own backyard.
• The opportunities we have to vote. This time of the year it is easy to grumble and complain about all the advertising that goes on with the voting.  But we are blessed to be able to choose, to vote for the people we feel will do the best job, and then to respect and support those who are voted in, whether they be our choice or not. 

This list is by no means in order of importance.  And there are many other things we as farmers/ranchers have to be grateful for.  Sometimes life gets so busy that we fail to be grateful, to give thanks for small favors, to simply say “thank you.”  But as we take time on Thanksgiving Day to give our thanks, I for one am going to set a goal for the next year to try to overlook my list of things I’m not grateful for and increase my list of things I am grateful for.