Harvesting

I don't know if I have any readers left after how long It's been since I posted. I may not be able to post pictures till next week. I'm using my daughter's computer because I'm at their house helping with harvest in Kansas. Wow, how harvest does wait until the first hottest week of the summer. Sunday, the 21st, was the first day of summer, and just like that the weather responds! It hasn't reached 100 yet today, but with the humidity being high till this afternoon, it felt like more than 100 degrees.

Between my daughter, her mother-in-law (who is a seasoned farmer's daughter and wife and been through many harvests), and myself we manage two preschoolers and an infant, making and serving lunch and supper to 3 men mostly out in whatever field they happen to be. I stayed overnight a couple of nights last week, and came here Tuesday noon and staying till Thursday evening.

I grew up on a Kansas farm when harvesting was done with horses and hayracks, big John Deere tractors that popped and had the large flywheels and belts. The threshing machine, as that era's combine was called, was a huge contraption that, along with the popping John Deere, we could hear coming from several miles away. The wheat had been cut and shocked (bundles of wheat set up together like a teepee) and the horses and drivers pitch-forked them onto the hayracks (wagons) piling the shocks so high on the hayrack it looked like it would topple over.

Since there was only one threshing machine around, harvesting wheat was a community project. Neighbors would follow the machine to each farm with their horses and hayracks, making quite a large crew of 8-12 men that the farmwife would have to prepare a noon meal for. As I remember it, the food was the hostess's responsibility, and some of the neighbor women would come and help serve. My mother would fry lots of chicken, open several jars of home canned vegetables, use several pounds of new potatoes cut in quarters and fried in butter and parsley or mashed and served with gravy, bake several loaves of bread or dozens of rolls, and several pies or cakes to satisfy the hungry crew. We children enjoyed taking cinnamon rolls out for morning break, sandwiches, chips, pickles, and lemonade (except hot coffee for the machine owner who said if he heated up the inside of his body he felt cooler on the outside) for mid-afternoon lunch.

I guess I could go on, but am really tired after a long day on the farm. Having concentrated time with the grandchildren has been a real blessing. Proverbs 17:6 says, "Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children." Seems like I may have written this on another blog I wrote, maybe even the last one. I pray that our children and grandchildren will look back on our lives and have a good heritage to pass on to their children.