It’s an October morning and harvest continues to roll on
throughout the country. I’ve seen
reports of happy farmers finishing beans and moving on to corn. I’ve seen
reports of neighboring farmers harvesting 450 acres of corn for their
cancer-stricken neighboring farmer and last night lying in bed, I received a
text from my son who was still in the field harvesting beans well after dark.
It’s that time of year when passion and tenacity are at
their highest and work ethics are driving men and women to stay in the field
until the job is done. Combines hardly
get a chance to cool down, grain trucks comb the roads and full fields begin to
take on their flat, brown wardrobe of winter.
It’s time to fill up the bins, to convert feed to food and
feed the world. Farmers will trade in
their sit down dinners at noon with family for solo sandwiches on the tailgate.
They will swap time spent in the bleachers for time in the tractor cab. They
will stay up late, rise up early, tread through the day surviving the lulls on
cokes and coffee. Repairs will plague them, weather will haunt them and grain
prices will lure them.
When the job is done, satisfaction will reign and families
will reunite around the table with talk about plans for next spring. Equipment
will be inspected, purchases will be pondered and spousal dust-ups are
inevitable.
It’s harvest season. Be safe. Hug one another. Bless each
other with a kind word. Never leave without an “I love You” lingering in the
air, because you just never know…..
