Red, White & Blue Flying High on the Farm

Today was July 4th, Independence Day and we've got the Red, White & Blue Flying High on the Farm!  We love our country and value the freedoms that we have.


Stars & Stripes

We put a nice rub on a brisket and put it on the BBQ pit as soon as we finished the morning milking duties.

Seared brisket ready to smoke

I soaked some pecan limbs in water all night and closed off the chimney and cut the air back in the pit and let the brisket smoke in the water-logged pecan wood for a few hours after I seared it.  

Pecan smoked brisket

I wish you could smell this piece of meat.  After 2 1/2 hours we pulled it off the pit and finished it in the oven for four hours and then my Mom & Dad came over and we thanked God for our Country, our Freedom, our Food, our Family and our Health and we ate a great meal and had a nice visit.

Mmmmmmm!

But today is not about Barbecue.  We sat down as a family and watched "Saving Private Ryan," a movie we've all seen (except for Benjamin).  After the movie we all sat around in stunned silence in awe of the sacrifice and the high cost of freedom.  I find myself taking freedom for granted sometimes and it shames me after watching a movie like that.

I think it is human nature to become complacent, to be fat and happy and forget too quickly how fortunate we are to live in America and the high price that was paid in blood to preserve our freedom.  It sort of reminds me of Deuteronomy 6:10-12:

 “Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, then watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."

The Children of Israel moved into a land flowing with milk and honey that God gave them and they quickly forgot all about God.  I think that we can learn something from that.  We are recipients of blessings from God, our fathers and mothers, and the American Soldier that we take for granted.  Today is a day to refocus.

In the town that I grew up in, years ago, there was a family that lived next door to my Aunt Oma and Uncle Ben's house that had a bomb shelter on their property.   I was just a child, but I remember looking at it with curiosity.  My Mom tells me stories of bomb scares while she attended LSU back in the Sixties.  It was during the Cuban missile crisis and there was a heightened sense of alertness to attacks.  Although we've certainly had terrorist attacks on American soil, we've not had to worry about invasions from foreign lands.  We live lives of relative comfort and our homeland enjoys relative peace.  That comes at a very high price.

Independence Day is a day we celebrate our independence from Great Britain as it was the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed.  It listed the many grievances our Founding Fathers had against the tyranny of King George.  I am thankful for the Country I live in and the Freedoms we enjoy.  May we labor to keep them!  We must be steadfast and diligent in preserving liberty.