Tom Heck

LIFE ON THE FAMILY UNDER AN OPEN HEAVEN

By:  Tom Heck

I Just Knew I Could Make It

                In our early years farming here, we had several acres of land on the lower end of our farm that had a lot of grass and brush on it along with a few trees.  It was a real wet piece of land with a few springs in it.  I always looked at it, seeing it had the potential to be an excellent field to farm someday.

Well, after being here several years and getting established financially, we decided to proceed and make it into our dream field.  Sometimes dreams take a lot of work and money to bring them to reality.  This one certainly did.

I had Jack come in with his big drain tiling machine and two backhoes to install drain tile in the land and to clear all the brush and trees.   He put the tile in six to seven feet deep.  The tile has small holes in it that allow the excess water in the ground to seep into it and drain out at the lower end of our field into the woods.

As I mentioned earlier, there were a few springs in this piece of land.  One of them towards the upper end was a pretty big one that always flowed year around.  I had never seen it dry up, even in a drought year.  When Jack came to the springs, he would hook his two backhoes with heavy cables to the front of his tiling machine to get through them so he wouldn’t get his tiling machine stuck.  It worked very well.

Jack was hesitant about the big spring though, he wasn’t sure it would dry it out enough for us to farm that particular area.  But, I fully believed it would, so I insisted that he put a drain tile line right through it.

After Jack had the tile all in, he finished clearing the brush and trees, then loaded up his equipment and left.  Then our work really started – picking up a lot of tree roots and rocks.  But we enjoyed it; we could see the great potential this piece of land held.  After disking and plowing it several times and picking up more roots and rocks, we had it looking beautiful.

There was one slight problem though, the big spring hole area.  It had dried out fairly well and looked really nice.  It looked like it shouldn’t be any problem at all working that area.  And as long as I didn’t have the plow or disk in the ground too deep it wasn’t.   But, if I had it in too deep, then I would get the tractor stuck really bad.  That happened a couple of times!  When that happened, I would have to get another tractor to pull it out.

Well, spring came and we were looking forward to planting corn on our new field to feed to our cows.  We had to do one more thing to it yet before planting it, and that was to get lime spread on it to raise the soil pH to the right level.  What is soil pH you ask?  It’s how acidic the soil is.  If the soil is too acidic, the crops will not grow well on it.  Lime will raise the soil’s pH so that crops will grow to their fullest potential.

So, I called up Bill to bring his big, heavy lime truck loaded with lime out to our new field. I caught him before he got to the field and pointed out the spot that had been the big spring area and told him, “Don’t go through that area with your truck until you have it at least half empty.  If you try to go through there with a loaded truck you will never make it.”  He looked at me in disbelief because the area was on the upper side of the field and looked just fine.  So I went on to explain to him how that had been a big spring hole and how on more than one occasion I had gotten my tractor stuck there.  He said, “O.K.” and drove off.  I stood there watching him to make sure that it would go good for him.  He spread it on the lower side of our new field without any problem.

Then he brought out the second load.  To my astonishment, he headed straight for the big spring area spreading lime as he went.  I thought, “Oh no! What’s he doing?”  He got to the spot with his heaping full lime truck and it went down fast!  By the time I got to the truck, Bill was walking around it surveying the situation.  The first thing I said to him was, “What did you do?  I told you not to go here with a full truck.”  He replied, “Yea, I know, but I just knew I could make it through here, it looked so good.  You know something?  This is the worst I ever got a truck stuck in my forty years of spreading lime.”  Seeing the truck sinking how many feet down into the earth, I didn’t have a hard time believing that!

Well, the next thing Bill wanted to know was if I could get my tractor and pull him out.  I knew I couldn’t pull his truck out with my tractor and told him so, but he insisted that I try.  He emptied the lime off of his truck onto the ground and I tried to pull him out.  I moved his truck about two feet forward and that was it.  Bill ended up calling my neighbor, Tom who lived up the road from us.  He brought his big four wheel drive International tractor down and pulled him out.  Bill and I were both very glad to see his big muddy lime truck out again.

                Even though I told Bill not to go into that spot with a full load of lime, he did it anyway.  As he told me a number of times over the years, “I just knew I wouldn’t get stuck there.”  And with that we laugh about it today.  But there’s something a whole lot more that can be said here.  God often times in His Word tells us not to do stuff.  He tells us that for our good because He loves us so and doesn’t want to see us get hurt.  Sometimes we think He’s just trying to keep us from having fun or from getting ahead, but such is not the case.  He tells it to us for our own good and if we will heed His Word we will be blessed.  I know when I heed His Word I’m blessed.  And Bill would have been better off if he would have heeded my word and stayed out of that area with his loaded truck!  He still says, “You know, that’s the worst I’ve ever gotten stuck.”

LIFE ON THE FAMILY FARM UNDER AN OPEN HEAVEN

By:  Tom Heck

An Unwanted Family

This last summer we had a family move in here unexpectedly.  They never asked us if they could come and live here or not.  They just set up their home out by my silos.  One day Joshua was mowing the grass out there and he spotted four of them.  They were as surprised to see him as he was to see them.  He immediately came running to the house to tell the rest of us about them.  I quickly grabbed my gun and went running out there, but by the time I got there they had disappeared.  Needless to say, I was disappointed.  I had hoped that I could shoot them and get rid of them.

What sort of a family was this that I wanted to shoot them on sight you ask?  A family of skunks!  I started to look around and quickly found a freshly dug hole going down between my silo and the corner of my silo room.  It was obvious that this new family of skunks had set up housekeeping there.  The kids asked me, “What do we do now?”  I replied, “We have to get them out of here, it isn’t safe for us or our cattle to have them around.”

What makes skunks so dangerous on a dairy farm you ask?  Rabies.  Skunks love milk so they will hang around dairy cows that are outside at night and try to nurse on them.  Often times in doing that they will bite the cow lightly and that is all it takes to transmit the rabies virus.  The cow that gets rabies will die a very horrible death after several months.  Since farmers work with cows, it’s easy for farmers to catch the virus.  All it takes is a little saliva from an infected cow getting into a little nick or scratch on a farmer’s hand and he will have it too.

If this happens to a farmer, he has to get a lot of very painful shots from a doctor so that he doesn’t die.  I know personally of a farm couple that had this happen to them years ago.  Cheryl said, “The shots were terrible and you never want to go through that!”  She also told me one other interesting fact that shocked me.  “Skunks will not die from rabies; they’re the only animal that it doesn’t kill.”

So, knowing all this, I had no tolerance for a family of skunks around my barn.  The question the kids asked was, “How do we get rid of them?”  I said, “I don’t want to set a trap now since we are going at putting up a new crop of hay.  Let’s keep our eyes open, hopefully in the coming days we can see them outside here and shoot them.”  It sounded like a good plan, but it never worked that way.  Yes, we did see them outside a number of times, but by the time we got the gun they were gone.

Well, we got our hay put up and I knew we had to try a different approach.  I decided to set a large cage trap for them just a few feet in front of their hole.  So, the kids and I set it using some broken ice cream cones and cookies as bait.  Then we prayed asking the Lord to bless it and help us catch the skunks.

Needless to say, when we went to bed that night we were all excited to see what our trap would have in it the next morning.  And were we ever surprised when we got out there the next morning and saw what we had!  We had our big cat, Mr. Stripey, caught in the trap with his tail straight up and all his hair standing on end.  He was spatting and putting out a ferocious growl.  A large skunk was just a few feet away from him with its tail up in the air aiming right for him.  Mr. Stripey being in the cage trap couldn’t get away from the skunk and he was terrified.  I don’t blame him.  The skunk was scared of the cat that was between him and his hole.  The skunk knew he had to get into his hole for safety which meant he had to pass within eighteen inches of a growling Mr. Stripey!  I felt sorry for our cat, I thought for sure he was going to get sprayed by the skunk at extremely close range.

Once again I got my gun and ran with it.  I wanted to do all I could to spare Mr. Stripey from a terrible experience.  When I got back I was surprised to find out that the skunk had gotten its courage up, walked by our cat and went down in its hole without spraying him.  I was relieved that our cat didn’t get sprayed, but was disappointed that I still hadn’t gotten rid of any of the skunks.  I opened up the trap and Mr. Stripey set a world’s speed record for getting out of there!  I never saw a cat go so fast in my life.

Well, I was back to square one, I had a whole family of skunks living under my silo room floor and I still hadn’t gotten rid of a single one.  I decided to reset my cage trap, only this time I moved it about ten feet away from the skunks’ hole.  I figured if I caught another cat, the skunk wouldn’t be as apt to spray it if it was that far away.  One thing I must say is that Mr. Stripey never set a foot close to that area again.  He had learned his lesson.

We did our daily work around the farm and that night just before bed we took a flashlight out and checked our trap.  Were we in for another big surprise!  No, it wasn’t a cat this time.  Instead we had two skunks caught in the trap and a third one hanging around the outside of it which I quickly shot.  A couple days later we caught the fourth skunk in the trap.  Were we ever thankful and blessed to have the unwanted family of skunks gone.

There are things in our lives sometimes that aren’t good for us, but we put up with them thinking that they won’t hurt us.  And they may not hurt us, but they may hurt somebody else.  We need to get rid of those things.  By doing so, you and those around you will be blessed much more.  We are all glad that the skunks are all gone, that includes our cattle and especially Mr. Stripey!

LIFE ON THE FAMILY FARM UNDER AN OPEN HEAVEN

By:  Tom Heck

A Good Example

                When we bought our farm here many years ago, we were pleased to see that there was a wood furnace in the basement of the house.  Buying this farm put us deeply in debt, so we were glad that we could heat our house with firewood instead of costly fuel.  So over all these years, I’ve never bought a drop of fuel to heat our home with.  Instead it’s been all firewood – and lots of it.

                Over time, the furnace in the basement came to the end of its useful life.  Since we enjoy a nice cozy house in the wintertime to come into after doing chores out in the cold, the decision to stay with wood heat was an easy one to make.  This time though, we bought an outdoor wood furnace to heat our home with.  In time we named it “Little Smokie.”  I like having the fire and firewood outside, it’s a lot safer and less work to keep going.   I also like the fact that I don’t have to get up at 2 a.m. on bitter cold nights to reload the furnace.  Our outdoor one holds enough wood to keep it going all night long.  Another plus with this is that we heat all of our house and milkhouse hot water with it which really helps save money.  At times we even take hot water from the milkhouse to melt the ice in our cattle’s water tanks.

                So doing all this with Little Smokie requires a lot of firewood.  But that’s no problem, we have a big woods on our farm and we enjoy making firewood.  Every year late in the fall, Catherine, Joshua and I head down to the woods to cut trees for firewood.  First we try to cut the trees that have died recently and those that have went down due to storms.  After that, we tend to cut trees along the edges of our fields.

                It’s very peaceful working in the woods in the fall of the year.  Often times we see deer, squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons and other wildlife out there.  Also, we see many birds out there, including large flocks of geese flying overhead telling us that winter is on the way.

                But, working out there with large trees and chainsaws can be dangerous too.  Sometimes a tree doesn’t fall the way a person thinks it will.  So when falling a tree a person needs to be extremely careful.

                A while back, I decided to cut a large maple tree down that was on the edge of my corn field.  I looked it over carefully and decided that it would want to fall to the north.  So I cut a small wedge out of the north side of it and then started cutting through from the south side.  Well, I got almost through and then the tree instead of falling to the north came back and pinched my chainsaw tight.

                I knew I was in a dangerous situation.  I looked it over carefully and prayed for wisdom.  I decided the best thing to do would be to get the five log chains that I had on the tractor that I drove to the woods that day, hook them to the tree and pull it to the north.

                I’ve always told my helpers to always keep their eyes on a tree that’s been partially cut when working around it because there is always the chance it could go down unexpectedly.  People have gotten hurt and sometimes killed in such situations.

                So when my chainsaw got stuck I asked Joshua to bring a log chain and put it on the north side of the tree reminding him to keep an eye on the tree at all times.  He got the first chain and put it there while I went after a second one.  I was putting my chain on the north side of the tree and following my own advice – keeping my eyes on the tree at all times.  It’s a good thing that I was!  As I was about to put my chain down, a small breeze picked up out of the south.  The large maple tree started to come straight north.  Immediately, I dropped my chain, stepped back and to the side of the tree trunk, grabbed my chainsaw, which was now free, and pulled it out.  The tree crashed down right on top of the chain that I had just dropped on the ground seconds earlier!  If I hadn’t followed my own advice and kept my eyes on the tree, I would have been killed!  The way it was, we were all perfectly safe and we gave thanks to God.

                I have always sought to give my children good advice and to follow the advice I give them.  Too many times parents tell their kids, “Do as I say and not as I do.”  Many children do as their parents do and end up ruining their lives.  Parents need to realize that their actions speak a lot louder than their words.  But, when their actions line up with their words they leave a powerful lasting impression on their children’s lives.  The Bible says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”  This is most certainly true, but we must realize that we need to live rightly before them everyday ourselves.  Then we can expect them to listen to us, follow our example and be blessed.  If we do this we also will be truly blessed.  I know I am, the big maple tree crashing to the ground didn’t hurt me a bit.

Tom Heck, his wife Joanne, and their two children, Catherine and Joshua, own and operate a 35 cow, 159 acre dairy farm in northwestern WI.  Contact Tom at: lifeonthefamilyfarm@gmail.com   Copyright © 2014 by Tom Heck.  All rights reserved.

                      Tom falling a tree.

LIFE ON THE FAMILY FARM UNDER AN OPEN HEAVEN

By:  Tom Heck

Christmas During The Great Depression

                The older I get, the more it seems that I look back at past Christmases.  The one thing that really stands out in my memory is my mother telling me a number of times about her childhood Christmases during the Great Depression.  I guess the reason I really remember them is because they were so different than what is normal in America today.

                Mom’s parents back then farmed their 160 acre farm, along with some rented acreage, five miles west of Augusta, WI.  Back then they used horses to work the land and to put up the crops.  So they always had several horses on the farm along with some dairy cows.  They also raised hogs and chickens.  They had a very diversified farming operation.  They sold milk, meat, eggs and crops from their farm.

                The problem back then was that prices for farm commodities were extremely low, so it was almost impossible for them to make a profit on the farm, even though they were very hard workers.  Added to that was the fact that during the 1930’s they had many years of severe drought, so they didn’t get much for crops.  If all of this wasn’t bad enough, they had a double mortgage on the farm.  They lived for years under the constant threat that the bank would foreclose on them.

                So what did my mom and her sister and brother get for Christmas a lot of those years you ask?  The answer will probably shock you, but it is the truth.  Just before Christmas, Mom’s dad would go into town and buy three oranges.  On Christmas Day, each child got one orange to eat.  It was the only time of year that they ever got an orange to eat!  And how they savored them, they were such a special treat, and they knew their parents had sacrificed to buy them.

                Is that all they got you ask?  Well, yes and no.  That’s all their parents could afford to buy them.  But they got so much more.  They had godly parents who loved them greatly.  They read the Bible to them and told them of God’s great gift to man.  How God’s Son, Jesus, was born in an animal stable to a very poor couple many years ago to save all of us from our sins.  They told them that that was the whole meaning of Christmas.

                On Christmas Day, Mom’s dad would hook a horse up to the sleigh and take his family to church where the children participated in a special children’s program.  The preacher would once again read Luke 2:1-20 and tell of the greatest gift ever given to mankind – Jesus.

                My mom told me this many times over the years.  Not because of how hard those Christmases were, but because of how blessed they were.

                Today, in our society, so much is made of buying piles of gifts to put under the Christmas tree.  But, all those gifts don’t really buy happiness.  True happiness comes from receiving God’s great gift, Jesus, into our hearts.  Once you have Jesus in your heart, then you know what Christmas is all about.

                If you have Jesus in your heart and the love of God in your home, as my mom did, you are truly blessed.  She was and she knew it, even if there were only three oranges under their Christmas tree!

                Tom Heck, his wife Joanne, and their two children, Catherine and Joshua, own and operate a 35 cow, 159 acre dairy farm in northwestern WI.  Contact Tom at: lifeonthefamilyfarm@gmail.com  To view Tom’s past articles go to: tomheckfarm.com   Copyright © 2013 by Tom Heck.  All rights reserved.

                Photo caption:  From our farm to your home – Merry Christmas.

LIFE ON THE FAMILY FARM UNDER AN OPEN HEAVEN
By: Tom Heck
A Dirty Thankless Job
Every year in the fall we have our neighbors, Howard and his son Bob, come and combine our corn. As one of them drives their large machine down the rows of corn, it snaps the ears from the stalks. Then it takes the ears into the heart of the machine where it shells the kernels off of the cobs and augers them up into the grain tank. From there, it gets loaded onto a truck and hauled into my farmyard here where we run it through a roller mill. The mill breaks up the kernels and blows them up into our silo. By processing our corn this way, it makes it highly digestible for our cattle. With our small silo full of corn, we have enough grain to feed our cattle for another year.
But, harvest isn’t over yet. The grain is off, but the rest of the corn plant is still in the field. This also is very valuable to us. We use this to bedden our cattle with over the long cold winter months. It is very soft, absorbent and helps to keep our cattle warm and comfortable. We call it, “cornstalk bedding”.
So, after the corn is combined, I take a tractor and flail chopper out to the field and run the cornstalks through the chopper. It cuts the stalks, leaves and husks into small pieces and blows them back onto the ground. This is necessary, because the stalks have a lot of juice in them. By doing this, it helps them to dry out. If cornstalks get put up with too much moisture in them they will mold and possibly catch on fire. After we have them chopped, we leave them lay for a few days to dry.
Then it’s time to harvest them. I rake them into large rolls with our rotary rake. Then I take the tractor with the same flail chopper back to the field, this time though, I have a large chopper box hooked behind it. I head the chopper down the large roll chopping it into the chopper box. Because the cornstalks are dry and since the rake put a little bit of dry soil in with them, my flail chopper puts up a large cloud of dust. It’s unavoidable.
Once I have the chopper box full, I take it home and unload it into an elevator that takes it up into the barn where we store it. Unloading the bedding into the elevator is also a very dirty, dusty job. Joanne, Catherine and Joshua are in the mow moving all this and packing it away while I’m unloading it. By the end of the day, we all look like we’ve been in a terrible dust storm! We all wear glasses and masks to keep the dirt out of our eyes and noses. It usually takes us a full week to put our bedding all up.
I remember one day after I had unloaded several loads of very dusty bedding and was in the process of finishing up another one, a lady walked up behind me. Since I was almost done, I finished unloading it while she stood about fifty feet away. When I got done, I walked over to see what she wanted. The first words out of her mouth were, “That’s sure a dirty thankless job.” Then she went on to tell me that in her previous marriage she had helped her husband put up cornstalk bedding. She had hated it because of how dirty it was.
I was shocked at her comments and attitude. While it is a very dirty job, the four of us here have always enjoyed doing it. It’s very rewarding seeing the barn full of soft fluffy bedding at the end of the harvest season. We use this bedding every day throughout the next year for our cattle. The cattle sure appreciate it and do well on it. When we see our cattle lying in it very contentedly and even mooing occasionally; we know they appreciate it, even if they can’t say it in English! A dirty thankless job – we don’t think so. A dirty job, yes; a thankless job, no!
It is so important for a person in their work to keep a good attitude. If you keep a good attitude, your work will be much more enjoyable and rewarding. If you don’t, your work will be miserable and the hours will just drag by. The same can be said for marriage, family and so many other things too.
I know there are many people that do ordinary jobs where they receive very little thanks or appreciation. Sometimes they wonder if it’s really worth it. Let me tell you something, if you are doing a service to others and blessing them, it most certainly is worth it. The Bible says in Gal. 6:9, “Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap if we faint not.”
I’ve never heard my bossie cows say, “Thank you” in English yet, but I know they sure appreciate us putting up all that dry fluffy cornstalk bedding. It’s too bad that lady didn’t hear her cows saying, “Thank you” years before. If she would have, I’m sure she would have enjoyed her work much more and found it rewarding. I know we do here.

Tom Heck, his wife Joanne, and their two children, Catherine and Joshua, own and operate a 35 cow, 159 acre dairy farm in northwestern WI. Contact Tom at: lifeonthefamilyfarm@gmail.com To view Tom’s past articles go to: tomheckfarm.com Copyright © 2013 by Tom Heck. All rights reserved.

Photo caption: Tom chopping cornstalk bedding.

LIFE ON THE FAMILY FARM UNDER AN OPEN HEAVEN

By:  Tom Heck

The Two Dollar Wheelbarrow

                Many years ago, shortly after we bought our farm, I went to a farm auction that had lots of stuff for sale by a farmer who was retiring.  One of the things that came up for sale was his old wheelbarrow.  It was a heavy-duty one that had been welded up some, leaked in the corners, but was still in good solid working condition.  I knew I could sure use it on my farm.  The auctioneer opened up the bidding on it for one dollar and immediately somebody said, “Yes.”  Then he asked for two dollars and I raised my hand.  Then he asked for three dollars and I held my breath.  To my amazement, nobody raised my bid so the auctioneer said, “Sold.”  I had just bought a two dollar wheelbarrow.

Over the last 22 years, we have used it for lots of work on our farm here.  From hauling dirt and rock, to hay bales and feed, we have used it for a tremendous amount of work here.  I’ve done a little bit of welding on it over the years, but pretty much it’s been trouble free.

This last spring, I had to replace some of the old bolts and washers holding the thing together with new ones.  I told the kids then that we could buy a new one and that I was sure we had gotten our two dollars worth of use out of it.  “But, Dad”, they said, “Why spend all that money on a new one when we can fix up ‘Old Dependable’?”   Well, it’s hard to argue with my kids, especially when I’m of the same mind-set that they are, so we fixed it up.

A month later, Joshua was hauling a load of shale rock with it that weighed between two and three hundred pounds when the wheel rim bent sideways.  Considering it is probably 40 to 50 years old and fairly rusty it’s not surprising.  Actually, it’s surprising it made it this long.  We were all disappointed to see it.  I told the kids, “It’s definitely time to buy a new one now.”  Their reply, “But can’t we fix it up some way?”  I told them, “I don’t think so; it’s time for a new one.”  Needless to say their faces were down cast.

A few days later we went to a store that sells wheelbarrows.  I had my mind made up that we were going to buy a new one.  They had several on display, but we were greatly disappointed as we looked at them.  They were all built so cheap and light.  I said to my family, “They will never stand up to the work we have for them on our farm.  I’m not buying one of these.”  The kids agreed with me.  Joanne said, “What are we going to do then?”  I answered, “I don’t know, but I’m not buying one of these that’s built so cheap, it won’t last.”

So with that we continued walking through the store and came to a place where they sold wheelbarrow tires.  I thought, “Here’s our answer.”  They cost 30 to 40 some dollars.  I told the kids that that was a lot to stick into a two dollar wheelbarrow.  But they thought it was worth saving.  But, as we looked at them we saw that the rims were built so light, that they would never stand up to the loads we put in our wheelbarrow.  So again I said, “No.”  I left the store in frustration, it’s sad that sometimes in America today, it’s impossible to buy a quality built item.

Later that day, Joshua came up to me and said, “Could we use an old steel wheel off of the chopper hay head that we got junked out up in the woods?”  I thought on it a minute and said, “It might work.”  Needless to say, we were desperate to find an answer to our problem.  Well, we went up there and after a fair bit of work we got both steel wheels off of the old junked out hay head.

We got them and the old wheelbarrow in the shop and went to work.  The kids were very eager to help me, since they didn’t want to see Old Dependable junked out.  They thought I was going to put one steel wheel on it, but I said, “Why not put both of them on it?”  So that’s what we did.  A couple hours later we rolled Old Dependable out of the shop.  It looks like we’re going backwards in time since it originally came out with a rubber tire and now it has two steel wheels on it.

Since then we’ve used it a lot and it has worked great.  I told the kids that we spent about two dollars on new nuts, bolts and washers for it so it had better go another 22 years so that I get my money out of it!  They laughed and agreed.  Looking at it, we think it might make another 22 years.  I’m sure it will go a lot further than one of those new ones that we looked at.

Sometimes it’s hard to throw old things away that have special memories with them.  The kids think it’s pretty special, that the two dollar wheelbarrow we started farming with years ago is still working.  It’s hard for us to throw stuff away that has worked well over the years if it’s possible to fix it up and keep it working.

And what is more amazing and special is that God loves to take broken, hopeless people and rescue them and then fix them up and use them for his glory.  That’s what the Gospel is all about.  I know this is true, because I’m one of those that He’s saved.  The wonderful news is that He will save anybody who cries out to Him.  He never throws anybody away.

     Tom Heck, his wife Joanne, and their two children, Catherine and Joshua, own and operate a 35 cow, 159 acre dairy farm in northwestern WI.  Contact Tom at: lifeonthefamilyfarm@gmail.com

   Photo caption:  Our steel wheeled wheelbarrow.

  Copyright © 2013 by Tom Heck.  All rights reserved.

LIFE ON THE FAMILY FARM UNDER AN OPEN HEAVEN
By: Tom Heck
It All Started So Innocently
When I was a teenager, I would often times spend a couple weeks every summer helping my uncle George and my grandmother on their dairy farm. I so looked forward to those couple weeks all year long when I could go live with them and work alongside George. It was the highlight of my year, since my home life wasn’t that good.
My uncle George and Grandma treated me wonderfully. I would work alongside George from early morning till late at night. Whether it was milking cows, grinding feed, putting up hay, cleaning calf pens, or the many other jobs there were to do, he was always great to work with.
One early summer day something happened that affected my life for years afterwards. On that particular day, we baled our first field of hay for the season. After taking the first crop of hay off of that field that day, George wanted to work the field and plant it to corn. He figured it was early enough in the season so that he could get a good crop of corn off of it come fall.
So after we had the hay baled that day, George hooked the tractor up to the disk and told me to go out and disk that field. As I headed out to the field, he went to the barn to get ready for the evening milking. I started disking the field and everything was going great until something broke on the tractor’s hitch. I got off the tractor and looked it over and saw two possible ways to fix it. I wasn’t sure which way to do it and since it wasn’t mine, I figured I’d better go in and ask George how he wanted it done.
Since it was only about 100 yards north of the barn, I decided I might as well walk in instead of driving the equipment in. I found George in the milkhouse with his back towards the door. He jumped when I opened the door and walked in. He quickly turned and faced me while hiding something behind his back. I was extremely interested in what he had behind his back, because I’d never seen him act this way before. He wanted to know what I wanted and so I told him about the tractor. Then I asked him what he was hiding. It was clear to him that he couldn’t really hide it on me, so he pulled it out from behind his back. It was his latest issue of Playboy magazine. I was shocked. I had never seen one before. Now here my uncle that I thought so highly of was holding one in his hands. He said, “It’s only this, just a little fun entertainment.” Then he said, “We’d better go and get that tractor fixed so you can finish disking that field this evening yet.”
With that we headed out to the field and fixed the tractor. A couple hours later I finished disking the field and drove into the farm yard. I saw George working in the barn so I went to help him. He had a big surprise waiting for me. He had laid out a whole pile of his magazines for me to look at. I knew it was wrong so I pretty much avoided them, but later that evening he showed me a bunch of the pictures in them that he really liked. With that, he got me looking at them. Up until that day, I never knew that George was into pornography.
I must say that George never mistreated me. But after that day, I started to look at his pornography and started to enjoy it. The more I looked at it, the more I enjoyed it. Every time I went to stay with him, I’d find myself looking at it. The Bible is most certainly right when it teaches in Heb. 11:25, that there is pleasure in sin for a season.
Did it hurt me at all you ask? Absolutely yes! The more I looked at it the more I started to look down on women. The more perverted thoughts ran through my mind. I’ve read accounts over the years of men that started looking at porn for pleasure and eventually they ended up assaulting women and in some cases killing them. How tragic!
Although, I never assaulted or killed a woman, I most certainly did not treat them with the respect I should have. Fortunately, when I was 20 years old I repented of my sins, including pornography, and accepted Jesus as my Lord. He saved me then and as I started to follow Him, He began to deal with me in my attitudes towards women. Boy, did I need that. As I look back, I am amazed at how perverted my mind was regarding women.
Thank God for His Word! For through His word my mind got straightened out. Seven years later I was blessed to marry a beautiful, godly woman – Joanne. I’ve had the privilege of being married to her for over 20 years now and having a wonderful family.
I got caught up into porn so innocently and because of my sinful nature, I became a slave to it. But, by the power of God I’ve been set free. So many men, women and children are affected by porn today in our society. It destroys families, marriages and individuals. The toll is terrible. And it just isn’t in magazines anymore. It’s all around us today, on TV, computers, billboards and so forth. Is it any wonder that there are so many abortions today and rapes and people in prison?
Looking back, I wish I had never got caught up into porn, but I thank the Lord for forgiveness and for setting me on the right path. The years after I got saved have most definitely been the best years of my life. If I would have continued in my sin, I definitely would not be where I am today. The Bible says it well when it says in John 10:10, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
Just a little fun entertainment? Definitely not! Deadly destroying entertainment? Yes, a thousand times over.
If you are caught up in porn, I know a Saviour who loves you and wants to forgive you and set you free. The choice is yours. I have never regretted following Him, I just wish I would have done it sooner.

Tom Heck, his wife Joanne, and their two children, Catherine and Joshua, own and operate a 35 cow, 159 acre dairy farm in northwestern WI. Contact Tom at: lifeonthefamilyfarm@gmail.com Copyright © 2013 by Tom Heck. All rights reserved.