Farmers have to be some of the most hopeful folks ever to exist. Bury all your financial planning for a year in the ground in various different seed varieties. If you are a dry land farmer, wait for rain to bring the seeds to sprout and reach above the ground. Now, wait some more for rain, snows in winter, and protection from cold, wind, bugs and blight.

Your plants are maturing and looking very good, best ever in fact. Oh, but wait, prices have dropped for your crop, but fear not, expenses have gone way up to make up for those low prices.

Harvest is just days away when the hail comes, more than once. And the hot wind blows a lot, and gusts into the thirties, and that best ever yield is dwindling away to, well, not enough. Do the farmers throw up their hands and cry to God? They might, but not in front of anybody. No, they take it in the shorts, buy next year’s seed and start all over again.

And it is a good life, the best life, and when they are in a hurry to get where they’re going and get some work done, but you are broke down on the side of the road, your old truck vaper locked, they stop and see if you need help, or a bottle of water, or a ride somewhere, or, should they call their wife, husband, son, daughter, cousin, or neighbor to come get you?

That’s a farmer. Good to the bone, even if some bad language occasionally leaks out.