The Duplex by Glenn McCoy for September 11, 2023

That’s what you took away from this, huh?

Way back before Internet dating sites and the Internet itself, there were newspapers and, in many, sections in the classified ads for the lovelorn. Back in the 1970s when I was ten, we had a neighbour who had moved his family from Saskatchewan to “farm” his ten-acre spread. Staying true to his roots, he subscribed to a prairie farmers’ paper and would pass on copies to my parents because he thought they’d be interested.

They were not. But one time, my mum was reading through a copy and came upon this brief gem in the “Relationships Wanted” section of the classified ads. Paraphrased as best as memory serves, it read:

Ad: “Fifty-four-year-old farmer seeking widowed woman with farm of [some number of acres] looking for matrimony. Must have good outbuildings.”

That was it. My mum and I always had the same twisted sense of humour, and we joked about old prairie farm types looking a woman over and saying, “Well, look at the outbuildings on that one!” We figured that after a hard Saskatchewan winter, this was what passed for a romantic overture when planting season was nigh.

I’m thinkin’, Fang wants his breakfast. Great, now I’M hungry.

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.” So God made a farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon — and mean it.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year.’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain’n from ‘tractor back,’ put in another seventy-two hours.” So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So God made a farmer.

God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church.

“Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who w

Unlikely, Eno.

God bless farmers.

Fang should be more eggressive.

‘Not as awful’ is not the same thing as ‘great’.

Be careful Fang, you don’t wanna see Eno’s “crack” of dawn.

Overall, I’d say not…

Well, dressing the part counts for something.

Overalls are a great choice! All those pockets for beers!!!!!!! burp. :)

Just another of many professions he’ll never make it in.

Not everyone is meant to be a farmer. Not sure what Eno is meant for.