Price: $16.00

Hands on the Land Lyrics:

Your horses, sheep and cattle will all be to buy..
You will hardly get settled before you must die
Three days before Grandfather said to me
John we're just starting to farm

Out the window the fields and the darkening day
Grandmother whispered one more something to say
He's gone now she said he’s no more to stand
I saw how the apron had gathered her hands

And I think of our ancestors settled this claim
By the sweat on their brow and their hands on the plow
They carved in these fields and buildings our name
Family farm, out on the prairie

Keep your hands on the land lay your hands on the land
In the dead heat the August sun aches
Summer grows what the harvest moon takes
Keep your hands on the land

Chorus
Keep your hands on the land lay your hands on the land
Prayer from the prairie all the year go around
Heaven on this farm comes up from the ground
Keep your hands lay your hands on the land

Keep your hands on the land lay your hands on the land
Prayer from the prairie all the year go around
Heaven on this farm comes up from the ground
Keep your hands lay your hands on the land

And if the grasshoppers don't plague the chinch bugs and us don't bite
And if the thunderheads bring in the rain overnight
But not too much we need the sun to come out
If the fields don't flood and if there isn't a drought
And if by grace we don't get hail
Or hit by the rope of the tornadoes tail
If the spring comes early and summer stays to the end
In the fall we'll harvest all and say amen

Chorus
Wasn't but a year after we staked our claim
Glory in the sod house when the first child came
Then another and another and another, a parade
Raised a crew that’s good with all the work here to do
Up before the rooster crows long before the dawn
First light scene the farm kitchen kerosene
Butter to churn cows pigs and chickens to feed
Orchards to tend and the gardens to weed

Chorus
Wheat for the cash crop bundled in shocks
Make hay while the sun shines winter feed for the stock
Two tons for each horse oxen and cow
With the scythe and the rake the work was nothing like now
Come McCormick and his reaper and then all the new machines
Neighbors shared and traded when whatever anybody needs
The outfit come today to thresh all our wheat
But right at noon we lay the long table out let's eat

Chorus
Aren't we glad all the time they took pictures of this place?
Over the fence of long ago memory stares a face
The family on their farm the team and the plow
Raising house beam and barn they're all gone now
On the prairie in the Big Woods Minnesota views
Of all that was once up all that was new
In old faded photographs the ancestors stand
With their boots on their mortgage and their hands on the land

Chorus