It was as if it was the end of the day, and he had simply unhitched the team from the wagon, walked them home and after removing the horses’ harnesses, had come into the house and taken off his gloves. There was in his language a quiet word spoken here and there suggesting he had come to understand that his season of life and work upon the earth had finished, had run its natural course; that he had been allotted a set amount of time, and it had indeed been his “time” to live, a glorious time indeed! But one that necessarily must now come to a close.
He had at last finished his day’s work.
Authored by farmer and agricultural journalist Raylene Frankhauser Nickel, A Prayer for the Prairie: Learning Faith on a Small Farm tells a personal story of one couple’s journey through farming and ranching. It was to a small family farm near Kief, North Dakota, that Raylene returned in 1990 with her husband, John Nickel. Financial difficulties soon overtook them, and the years that followed challenged their faith as well as their every assumption about agriculture, food, and food distribution. But hope and new ideas sprang from difficulty. These, along with Raylene’s many years as a journalist, shaped A Prayer for the Prairie.
In the foreword, agricultural economist John Ikerd writes: “The joys and hardships of a life lived among the things of nature on a family farm is a classic American theme. Raylene Frankhauser Nickel articulates this theme more picturesquely, yet more clearly, than do most writers – perhaps because each word actually comes from her heart. … But this is not a book of nostalgia for farm and ranch life of the past. Rather, it is a book of new hope for the future of farmers and ranchers everywhere. … No visionary has stated more clearly the true meaning of a sustainable quality of life than has this farmer in this book.”
176 pages, Softcover
