Dear Farmer Places an Order Online

Dear Farmer is of the opinion that phones are for calling and talking to people...not texting, snap-chatting, insta-gram-ing, taking pictures, or reading on.
Dear Farmer likes to do business with a handshake...not bids, quotes or contracts.
Dear Farmer likes to buy things from a person...not the self-checkout, vending machine, or online.

These days aren't like the days when Dear Farmer was a boy.  Bread costs more than a nickle a loaf, gas costs more than ten cents a gallon, and there are some things you just order online.
"Back in my day..." Dear Farmer will begin a story, and the children groan.
"Pop! Get in the twenty-first century!", they say.  But that's not when Dear Farmer was born.
So, ordering online is a big "to-do" when Dear Farmer has to do it.  He only orders from companies that he's dealt with in the past...ones that have people on the other end.  Then spends hours "one-touch" typing in the desired items. It's so painful, none of us can watch him anymore.  He has to do it himself!
Then, after hours and hours of filling a cart....he calls in the Wife to checkout....
He has learned that the quick typing and quick clicking is un-nerving...so he usually tries to leave the room when it comes to checking out.  There are some times he has to be present for the orders because they need special instructions...he's usually found rubbing his head for the headache that comes on afterward.

No, these aren't the days that Dear Farmer grew up in.
It only takes two days to get something from an online order, he doesn't pay extra, and we don't have to wait at the mailbox for the delivery.
Pictures of animals are sent instantly from farmer to farmer with questions, concerns, or for sale.
Decisions take seconds, not weeks.
Modern machinery can do the work of three-hundred horses.
His tractor can do 45 mph on the road!

"Those Good Old Days", we remind Dear Farmer, "you still get to live.  You walk among your herd, hear the softness of the hay being munched during feeding, touch the tops of the grass as it begins to seed-head. You work in the beauty of creation every day! One afternoon ordering an automatic chicken door that's timed to close at night and open at the break of day(so that none of us have to do it)...that's really not that bad!"

The King of the "Selfies": Honorable Son No.2 and the Farmer's Daughter

[this is a picture of me at the fair]
[this is a picture of me in a car]
[this is a picture of me with a friend, in a car, at the fair]
In Dear Farmers day...there was no such thing as a "selfie".  Dear Farmer and the Wife had cameras when they were young(we're not THAT old), but rarely, if EVER was there such a thing as a "selfie".
The next generation...they do "selfies"(see above).
Have you noticed there are no farmers doing "selfies"?
What would a farmer's "selfie" look like?
[this is a picture of me with my tractor]
[this is a picture of me with a cow]
[this is a picture of the cow killing me because I wasn't paying attention while taking a "selfie"]
No good can come of that.
Honorable Son No.2 and the Oldest Farmer's Daughter compete for the prize as "King of the "Selfies" in our home.  Apparently there are unwritten rules for "selfies".  Your lips have to stick out in a pucker, your eyebrows have to be up to make your eyes bigger, or you have to look like you're screaming.  The two of them tie on these.  They take "selfies" stealing eachother's hats, hugging animals, kissing babies, and sitting on tree limbs...do they ever work?  (In all fairness, they do work)
Ahhh...maybe that's the REAL King of the "selfies"....the one who's bettering themselves by working, instead of taking a picture of themself. Hmm, what is it Dear Farmer tells them?  "If you're doing all the things we're supposed to be doing, you don't have time to do anything you shouldn't be doing."
[there is no picture of Dear Farmer, he's in a field cutting hay, providing for a hundred head of cattle and a family, not complaining, not whining, just working]