For people that do crop farming or have an idea, they’ll understand how difficult it is to handle the rapid growth of weeds on the farm, especially when manual labour is used and the farmland is very large. Way back when I was at home, once it was the rainy season, my siblings and I would hold our hearts in our hands because that period gave my dad excess joy to do farm work—or so we believed then. Although, we later found out that the way he pushed us to farm wasn't really his fault, as he didn't want his farm to be outgrown by grass.
Friday evening came, and he informed us that we would rush to the farm very early on Saturday morning so as to beat the rain and cover a reasonable portion of work before it began to fall. That Friday night wasn’t a peaceful one for us. Even when a little jot of happiness dropped in our hearts, the thought of going to the farm the next day would breeze in and neutralize the happiness. All through the night, our hearts longed for the rain to start very early in the morning, rather than its usual way of starting around 8 a.m. or 9 a.m.
Well, God answered our prayers that night—but He answered dad’s prayer the most. Around 6:45 a.m. that morning, dad woke us up to make breakfast so we could eat and leave before the already cloudy weather would start emptying itself.
The weather was cloudy but not that dark, and we knew that it would become more threatening if we gave it time—possibly leading to rain. So we switched into sluggish mode while doing the errands, and you needed to see my dad venting anger from the spot he was seated, sharpening his cutlass with a local file. He knew the plan already because our sluggishness was written all over our faces...tightened and not smiling faces.
Miraculously to him, we were done preparing food and eating. Just as we were gathering our tools to move, the cloud became very threatening, and joy loomed in our hearts because it was already slightly showering.
My dad still refused to back down. “Fix the cutlasses and tie the bags!” my dad ordered with a thunderous voice. I became extremely jittery and began to tie the bags of tools onto the bike, while my immediate younger brother increased the volume of the song he was playing—“Let it Rain” by Frank Edwards. Normally, my dad didn’t give any concern to songs like that, but at that moment, the shout of “Let it rain!” blaring loudly from the phone poked him, and he warned my brother to turn off the song. By then, we all burst into laughter, and out of anger, he grabbed the phone, seized it, and put it into his pocket.
With anger in the midst of laughter, we got on the bike and he drove off. While we were approaching the farm after like a 20-minute drive, we met a very strong downpour ahead of us, and by then, there was no place to hide or take shade. Still, my adamant dad could not agree to turn back and head home.
He drove us into the heavy rainfall. The raindrops were so cold, and they gave us chills all over our bodies.
Luckily, we got to the farmhouse and made fire to dry ourselves. Not quite long after, the rain stopped, and my dad pleadingly said we should go and work before the rain came again.
Omo! I just knew that my dad had something to do with farm work that he wasn’t telling us...the way he trips about farm work is out of this world. Our bodies were just beginning to recover from the cold, and now he was saying we should go into the farm to work.
If you know farm work, you’ll know that working immediately after the rain in a cassava plantation is the same as working inside the rain.
We took our tools and headed to the portion, and miraculously, just as we were about to begin working, another everlasting round of rain began to fall—and we joyfully ran back to the farmhouse. Answered prayer!
Thanks for reading!
Image and gif used are mine