Thankful to those who help put food on my table

This is the first time I'm mentioning much about my personal life on this blog.  For those that aren't aware, I live on 113 acres in the Salinas Valley (to Wikipedia).  The Salinas Valley is one of the largest producers of salad greens in the U.S. as well as many other crops.

Yesterday morning, I awoke to sounds of farm workers near my pillow.  Not really, but they parked their van next to the fence to my house, which leaves them about 10 feet from my head.  It really is amazing to hear them hoot'in and holler'in at 7am (which they probably actually started working at 5am) and it sounds like they're having fun.

At about 8am, my wife woke up while I was reading my Google Reader in the bark-a-lounger.  She looked out the window and saw the harvester machine right in front of the house (see bad photo to the right taken with the weak iPhone camera).  We watched the farm workers methodically cut, toss, and pack the broccoli over and over.  Their system is completely manual, well orchestrated and precise.  We admired the work ethic these farm workers have and thanked them for doing the hard work not too many other Americans would do.  These farm workers work very hard for very little pay.  They have such a drive to make their life better that they will work 12 hour days, bending and doing back braking work just to get by.  

This past weekend I've been finishing up "Outliers", by Malcolm Gladwell, and thinking about his words around how work ethic and time of study is so important thriving in life.  Watching these farm workers has made me think about their work ethic and it helps me put some extra time in to my work and be thankful that I'm sitting at a computer working rather than in the fields for 12 hours a day.

Living on this ranch for the last 2.5 years has opened my eyes to the agricultural world.  It is an amazing industry that is very different from the worlds many of us live in.  So, I just wanted to share this quick story and hope we can all be thankful for what we have and what others are doing all around us to give us a better life.