Slowing the Pace Down on Saturday

Saturday afternoon I was ready to slow down the pace.  It has been busy and I just felt like we needed to slow down and do something old-fashioned.  We jumped in the car and headed into town to the Rocket Drive Inn to get Root Beer Frosties.  Russ got a deep fried twinkie.  We enjoyed our snack and then headed due west on old Highway 90, over the overpass, through Roanoke and on to Welsh.  We enjoyed looking at the old live oak trees that lined the highway, planted back when Highway 90 was the "main road."

When we got to Lacassine, we turned due south at the caution light and headed toward Hayes.  Then we turned left on Lorrain Road.  It is a shady two lane country road that slopes downward.  I told the family that before we all got so busy and distracted with cell phones, the Internet and entertainment, people would take weekend drives and take in the sights and sounds.  Well, that's just what we did.  We got out of the car at Lorrain Park and sat on the dock and watched alligators.  There were two or three of them out in the water, swimming back and forth.

This one came pretty close to us.  Almost close enough to become a pair of boots.

Lorrain Park is a beautiful place.  It is a historic site that features a cool, old bridge.  The bridge was built in 1895 and links Calcasieu and Jefferson Davis Parishes.  In 1920 it was reconstructed and used as a wooden draw-bridge.  The wooden bridge was rebuilt in 2004.  Many seniors go to take their senior pictures here as the scenery is spectacular.

On the other side of the bridge - the Jeff Davis Parish side, the road turns into a gravel road.  The road is shrouded by cypress and tupelo gum trees, draped in Spanish Moss.  Palmetto and cypress knees fill the bayou all along the side of the road.

We stood on the bridge and watched the alligators swim and fish splash in the muddy water.  Water bugs swam in the duck salad floating on top of the water.

Lorrain Bridge crosses Lacassine Bayou.  As we've had no rain in a while, the water was low.  We could see by the water mark on the trees that the water level was about 4 feet lower than normal.

Lorrain Bridge is a beautiful sight...

And the slow moving bayou that meanders through the cypress beckoned us to slow down, match its pace and enjoy the scenery.

There's no rat-race at Lorrain Bridge.  We enjoyed our afternoon.

Slowing Down to Enjoy the Sunset

I had a conversation with someone recently who shared with me that the quest for the “simple life” is often so busy that you don’t have time to enjoy the simple pleasures and benefits of the life that you live.  The frenetic pace to get things done on a small homestead farm often rivals the pace of corporate life (or the ‘rat race’, as we’re apt to call it).  That is a lament that I can certainly identify with.

Tasseling corn silhouetted by a beautiful sunset

From the ringing of the alarm clock in the morning to the point at which we lay our heads on the pillow, it seems that we’re at full-throttle.  A simple existence has turned into a very complicated, busy one – just in a rural setting.  Funny how that works.  My wife and I have been discussing this conundrum for a while now, wondering if we ever take time to enjoy this ‘simple life’ and enjoy its benefits.

A few minutes later...

I enjoy working hard and I like staying busy, but as an admitted workaholic, I am coming to the realization, with gentle prodding from my patient wife that maybe realistic perspective and reachable goals need to be instituted and employed around Our Maker’s Acres Family Farm.  Tricia has always told me that despite popular opinion, it is expensive to farm.  Our discretionary income only allows for so much capital to be employed and that amount doesn’t seem to be increasing as fast as the cost of goods and services.  Furthermore, Tricia and I aren’t getting any younger and our supply of farm-hands are slowly but surely growing up and leaving the homestead.

A peaceful summer sunset

So I guess the epiphany that I’m awakening to is that I need to make it a point to enjoy each day and value the very things that we currently are too busy to enjoy, if that makes any sense.  How does one do that and still get everything done?  That’s something that I’ll be considering over the next month or so.  We pray each morning for wisdom.  Perhaps we’ll be blessed with knowledge of how to do things more efficiently to ‘stretch’ the precious time we have.  Maybe we’ll decide to down-size the number of animals we keep or the size of the garden or re-think some of the projects that we have in queue.  Maybe it makes sense to mechanize somewhat and invest in a small tractor.

From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the Lord's name is to be praised.  Psalm 113:3

As I sat outside in the cool of the evening and captured a time lapse of the sun setting over the tasseling corn in the photos above, I thought that the sunset is a metaphor of our lives.  If you don’t take the time to stop and enjoy it, it is gone before you know it.  There used to be (still might be?) a soap opera that came on TV around lunchtime when we’d break to eat at the farm when growing up.  The narrator always said at the beginning of the program, “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives…”

The half-brother of our Lord said it best in the Epistle of James, Chapter 4, when he said:

³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” ¹⁴ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”

Our lives are indeed brief and momentary and we need to ensure that we fill them with things that are of eternal importance.  Please pray for us in this endeavor.