As we drive around our communities, we notice more and more empty barns where farmers kept animals for generations past. A few of these old barns have been repurposed as machine sheds or even cleaned up and adapted as places for parties or wedding receptions. Most old barns have either been torn down to reduce taxes or just let deteriorate and fall down.
I grew up in a time when there was a church at every second cross road and half a dozen in each town. Church was where everyone went (if you were able) on Sunday to chat with the neighbours, find out if anyone was sick or getting married, have a chance to sing with a big enough crowd that if you missed a note no one noticed and be reminded of the Ten Commandments. It also renewed our faith that if we acted as God expected us to and looked out for our neighbours and those less fortunate, we might eventually get to a place much better than here!
After church and Sunday dinner, we might visit someone that couldn’t make it to church or maybe some relatives or friends that we hadn’t seen in some time. Now on Sundays there are kids going to hockey or some other sport or dance class, or we just go shopping as almost every store is open Sundays. We have started shopping on Tuesdays or Wednesdays to avoid the overcrowding in stores on weekends.
If we take a drive around our communities today, we will see too many of these beautiful churches sold for dwellings, changed into stores, refitted as use for apartments or even abandoned and falling down.
A few of these beautiful historic churches and their grounds are kept immaculate, but are only open a couple times each year for memorial services or the occasional wedding still, they stand as a tribute to our hard working ancestors.
The churches that are holding service each Sunday have ample empty pews if you feel the need of a place that is peaceful, quiet, and gives you a chance to renew your faith and obligation to look out for your neighbour.
An agronomist friend of mine who worked in the Shawville office told me that in the early 1960s, there were 600 farms in Pontiac County that milked cows. This included cream shippers as well as farms that shipped whole milk. In 2018, there are only 17 dairy farms left in Pontiac. These 17 farms produce about the same amount of milk as 600 once did!
Today’s cows give three times as much milk now because of genetics and much better nutrition. Farms have become much bigger, not because the farmers wanted to work harder but because break- even margins got tighter each year and hence more cows had to be milked. In many other countries, hundreds or even thousands of cows are milked on one holding and in those countries, animal welfare seems to draw more attention.
In many small countries in remote areas of our planet modern, people worship the necessities of life. Mother earth, the sun and the rain are considered a gift from the Gods and looking out for your neighbour and sharing are extremely important.
As we watch the evening news, it is obvious that in many developed countries, very little respect is given to women, the conditions of your fellow man, the future of the planet or the people on it. It seems like there are a growing number of leaders who have taken the me first position rather than looking out for their fellow man.
With between one and two per cent of our developed world producing food for the rest, let’s pray that those farmers keep going to church and caring for the well-being of the other 99 per cent!
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon
on land that has been in his
family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
