Harvest Season
It’s harvest season! We all know what harvest is. And we may even have the word “Harvest” in our fall home decor. But what does harvest mean to a small town?
Harvest happens during the fall months, anywhere from mid September into November. Many small town residents are not farmers. But we do know a few farmers. And we know when it’s harvest time.
Leading up to harvest, you can’t miss the tall crops and changing colors when you drive outside of town. Once the crops are ready and the fields are nice and dry , they will start gearing up the heavy equipment and manpower.
Signs of Harvest Season
Once the work begins, it’s all hands on deck. Many residents in town help with harvest and some come in from out of town. A farmer’s wife won’t see her husband much while the sun is out. Except when she brings lunch and dinner to the field. It is long tiring work.
Harvest season doesn’t only affect the number of workers in the area. It changes traffic. Many of the highways outside of town are low traffic and 55 mph. But not this time of year. You may get to be a part of a parade of vehicles driving 25 mph behind a combine and other equipment. You will also see more semi trucks going through, hauling grain out of town and coming back for more.
Another sign of harvest? The dust! That bean dust seems to travel for miles. You always know when they are cutting beans close by because there is a huge cloud following them. The allergy medicine companies are working a little harder this time of year too.
It’s not only the humans in the community who know when harvest starts. You will see some extra critters here and there that are run off by the big machines in the fields. They will go back to the fields, when cleared, and clean up what the combines left. Be extra careful when traveling the roads and expect to see animals where they might not be normally..
Farmers
Even though not all us small towners are farmers, we see it first hand! We see the hard work, the determination, the perseverance and the ingenuity. Farmers keep the world spinning. And harvest season is the time of the year that brings it all to light!
On The Eighth Day
This is my favorite part of Paul Harvey’s famous speech, “So God Made A Farmer”.
“It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners; somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church; somebody who would bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says that he wants to spend his life “doing what dad does”
— so God made a Farmer.”
If you haven’t heard this speech, or want to hear it again, here is a great video.
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The Word
Genesis 1:11 NIV. 11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.
