Journal Entry -- October 14, 2006

I thank the Lord. With a recent record breaking 93 degrees set at the beginning of October, we are finally showing signs of a serious seasonal cool down. We had our first freeze of the year two nights ago, for which I am most grateful, as it means the end of this year’s ticks, an event quite welcomed when thrashing through the thick Missouri woods hunting the elusive turkey. This also means it’s time to undertake the annual hibernation of the three box turtles that reside in our garden. This process involves burying them about 2 ft under the ground in a deep plastic trash receptacle where they have been covered in tightly packed layers of sand and straw and then waterproofed with a lid that keeps the moisture out. We have found it to be a truly amazing event to behold each April when we dig them up and find them alive and raring to go, like witnessing a resurrection from the grave. God’s ways never cease to amaze me.

Yesterday a number of us attended the annual Living History Festival & Small Farmer’s Reunion held in Lathrop, a small Missouri town about 25 miles northwest of us (pictures are at the end). Back in the heyday of the “Missouri Mule,” Lathrop was home to Guyton-Harrington Properties, an enormous mule business spread out over 4,700 acres of land owned and rented, which included 18 barns and facilities with 150 workers, that accommodated 50,000 mules in 1918. The US Army was their biggest customer, who bivouacked their long-eared soldiers in enormous barns, some as long as a quarter mile! Today the only clue there is to this little known historical fact are the few restaurants in Lathrop that use the word mule in their name and the local high school that uses the mule as their name and mascot.

The festival is sponsored by the Antique Car, Tractor, and Steam Engine Association of Lathrop and uses their large club facilities, which includes a chow and meeting hall, numerous equipment sheds filled with antique machinery, a small arena, and several antique buildings moved on site – a train station, church, schoolhouse, and barn, to name a few. So even though the festival’s main emphasis is draft animal farming and related home & community occupations, there were several of the club’s prize exhibits being shown, largely their many working steam engine tractors and vehicles, which I greatly enjoyed, particularly the ones that run a sawmill. Every now and then they would let off a loud steam whistle, which would get some of the mules a heehawing.

There were several demonstrations in butter churning, apple butter making, quilting, corn shucking, hand log sawing, sorghum lasses’ making, rope making, candle making, printing, blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, and saw milling, not to mention several plowing demonstrations. There were the usual venders selling genuine handcrafts, fake crafts made in China of cheap plastic, hats, tools, food, and assorted sundries. One vendor was selling genuine birch beer, a refreshment akin to sarsaparilla, which we found quite delightful. There was even a vendor from India hawking his cultural trinkets, which I can only chalk up to the rampant “multiculturalism” running roughshod throughout our nation.

In the true reality of the New Covenant and New Creation there are only two types of cultures in this world, the Christian culture of the regenerate and the pagan monoculture of the unregenerate. Multiculturalism as a religious, multi-path road to peace and harmony is an age-old myth that has always led to death and destruction, for it is nothing less than the idolatry of polytheism – the worship of multiple gods and not the One True God. As interesting and varied as fallen man’s cultures may be, history is heaped with their carcasses, as well as those of apostate Christians. No matter how incredibly longsuffering He is with all, the just and the unjust, God is not mocked. Only those things that cannot be shaken remain under the righteous dominion of King Jesus. I know, I may have stepped on a few cultural toes, but whose kingdom and crown rights do we press anyway? What does it mean to be the salt of the earth and light of the world if the Lord’s church, the pillar and ground of truth, is not the final standard for all of culture for all of mankind?

We attended the festival yesterday, a school day, so there were over 50 yellow school buses filling the large parking lot, which brought in over a thousand public school students. By noon many of them were laughing and running around with a colorful teardrop (skin decal) skillfully placed exactly between their eyes. I wonder which vendor sold them this godless tattoo? How many lobotomized Christian parents were even aware their children had this pagan religious symbol put on them? Do they even care or understand the significance of this seemingly harmless fun (1Thes. 5:22)?

There were advertised several demonstrations in Native American Indian cooking, but all I could find next to a large teepee skeleton and a smaller covered teepee was a concession stand for some national association of Indian tribes that was hawking cheese nachos and other “native” food items. There was, however, one rather weight challenged “native” American Indian fellow decked out in full Indian regalia who was teaching a small group of students about Indian customs and dressing traditions. My eyes could have deceived me, but if this guy was a native American Indian than so is the queen of England! Perhaps he is one the neo-Indians of today’s blended culture since there are so many “neoites” in the virtual pagan world we live (and I am not referring to the rare neopian crystal found in the mythical land of Maraqua). Well, I’d better get back to the festival or else I will end up getting sidetracked writing a thirty page diatribe on the cultural realities of Christ’s present reign from His throne in Heaven and what happens culturally when His people obey His Gospel commission to teach the nations to obey all His commandments.

My favorite of all offerings at the festival were the many free wagon rides powered by beautiful teams of draft Missouri Mules, and Percheron and Belgian draft horses. They not only pranced around the festivities, but they gave rides out to a nearby field where draft animal teams and ancient tractors were plowing. I was thrilled, not only with the beautiful teams and their skillful drivers, but with the fact that I met a very close friend and associate of our Amish mentor who happens to successfully breed draft Missouri Mules, something we are very interested in, and he lives about thirty-five miles from us! Ah, the blessed providence of the Lord. Art and I will likely be heading up to his farm next week, Lord willing.

Before ending this lengthy post with some pictures of the festival, I’ll mention that we are working on finishing the final preparations in getting Sam & Sadie home. Our Amish friend will likely be coming down soon to help us with them, for which we are most grateful. He says he’ll be bringing some pictures of Sam & Sadie when they were young. One can’t have a proper wallet without a few a baby pictures, now can we? God bless – The Missouri Rev.

Pictures

Sam & Sadie from last spring (new pictures will be coming shortly).




Sheba & Georgia, a beautiful and well trained team of black draft mules (from the same Percheron mare). They were bred, raised, and trained by Phil Cox, a friend and associate of our Amish friend.




A team of three seasoned mules plowing the field across from the festival. The driver mentioned that he had closed in behind an old Farm-All tractor that had bogged down while plowing and had to advise the operator to speed it up.



A team of white Percherons and in the back ground a Belgian team.



A team of prancing dappled Percherons giving a wagon ride.



A large Belgian draft horse, the type we will likely breed to develop our own sorrel draft mule stock.



A medium sized mule is turning a sorghum press. You may not see it, but there is a man on his knees behind the press carefully feeding the sorghum stocks into it while keeping his head below the crank arm, a properly crooked tree branch. Normally, the draft animal turning the press does so without a human lead, but this is the first time for this young mule. His teammate in a nearby stock trailer was really heehawing up a storm because he couldn’t join him.



These fine Missouri men have been working the lasses’ cauldron since 7 am (about 5 hours). It takes about ten gallons of juice to make one gallon of syrup. Throughout the whole hot, steamy process they skim the foam off of the top, which is bitter. When the syrup is just right they cut the heat and quickly pull it aside. Then, in celebration and much deserved relief, they break out the biscuits and dip them into some of the golden ambrosia set aside, the cook’s reward and prerogative.