farming

My New Book is Now Available!

/ Steve Watkins / 2 Comments
Okay friends, this is the BIG DAY. The King of Highbanks Road is now available for Amazon pre-order!!!
This is the day I ask for your help, and hopefully, in return, give something back to you that is meaningful. Let me explain briefly why this day is so important.
Every single sale, especially today, is super important. Amazon rankings can make or break a new book, and I believe we have a legitimate shot at a #1 ranking today. It appears readers are already buying and we’re already moving up the charts, as high as #11 in one category. With your help, we can make this happen, and I’ll tell you why this is important.
It’s not for my sake, or for the pure sake of a ranking, but a #1 book “gets legs” and is all the easier to place in stores, especially across the South and Midwest, where this book really belongs. A #1 ranking will help assure our foot in the door at this stores. So…..
Buy a book for yourself today, and some for your friends, and more for your family. You won’t find a better $17 Christmas gift for a father or a son or someone connected to rural America or the farm. I promise, there’s something in it for everyone.
I’ll report our rankings through the day. We may need a push here and there, so please not only buy, but share this opportunity with YOUR friends and family and ask them to share it with theirs!
Whatever happens, I’m dedicating this day to anyone who comes “from the country,” and especially to the Great American Farmer, the unsung hero of the world.
God Bless, and thank you all SO much. Stay tuned. More to come as the day progresses!!!
Here’s the link:

The Old Farmer’s Prayer

/ Steve Watkins / Leave a comment

“Old farmers never die, they just go to seed.” ~ unknown

My dad, who passed away in February, looking over one of the best cotton crops he ever had in the early 1990s.

A Farmer’s Prayer…

Time just keeps moving on

And many years have come and gone

But I grow old without regret

My hopes are in what may come yet.

On the farm I work each day

This is where I wish to stay

I watch the seeds each season sprout

From the soil as the plants rise out.

I study nature and I learn

To know the earth and feel her turn

I love her dearly in all her seasons

For I have learned her secret reasons.

All that will live in the bosom of the earth

She is the loving mother of all birth

When my body is old and spent

And my soul to Heaven has went.

Please compost and spread me on this plain

So my body Mother Earth can claim

That is where I wish to be

Then nature can nourish new life with me.

A good stand of soybeans at our farm in Monette, Arkansas. This is the first crop my dad hasn’t seen in 31 years.

So do not for me grieve and weep

I didn’t leave, I only sleep

I am with the soil here below

Where I can nourish life of beauty and glow.

Here I can help the falling rain

Grow golden fields of ripened grain

From here I can join the winds that blow

And meet the softly falling snow.

My mom, me and dad in the midst of our livelihood. We never were Farm Family of the Year, but the farm gave us a good life.

Here I can help the sun’s warm light

Grow food for birds of gliding flight

I can be in the beautiful flowers of spring

And in every other living thing.

So do not weep for me and cry,

I am here,

I did not die.