My favorite season of the year, hands-down, is fall. I love the brisk cool air that starts making its appearance in the mornings, I love dressing up my house and yard with hues of oranges and golds, I love the excitement of high school, college and NFL (Go Packers!) football lingering around the corner, and most of all, I love living and working in rural America in the fall.
My husband, Joe, and I farm and raise cattle in America’s heartland. This fall we’ll have about 2,000 acres of corn, soybeans and grain sorghum to harvest, about 2,000 acres of wheat to drill, 270 calves to wean and deliver to the feedlot, miles of electric fence to build around corn stalk and milo stubble fields, 300 cows to move to those fields for winter grazing, and three apples of our eyes to continue helping with homework, nurturing and teaching life’s lessons to.
I know it sounds a little crazy. How can we look forward to the upcoming season when there’s so much work to do? Those who farm and ranch already know every season brings on a lot of hard work. Fall tends to be the craziest because of the varying production phases that are all happening in the same time frame. My husband enjoys fall because he views it as the “most productive” season. I’ll give him that. However, my real reason for loving fall on the farm is slightly more romantic than his. Simply put, it’s beautiful – but not just in the “pretty fields, lovely weather” kind of way.
It has taken some maturity to see the fall farm season as something other than mere hard work and productivity. But my first revelation occurred last year. As my children and I traveled along our highways and rural roads one cool Friday evening during fall harvest to take meals to the field, I found myself almost swelling, if you will, at the ambiance of our surroundings. I know… you’re probably thinking “ambiance on the highway?” Absolutely.
I’m a very visual person and typically notice scenery as I travel, but admittedly, I’d traveled these roads so many times I thought I already knew what I was looking at. Some of you may know what I’m talking about. There’s neighbor John’s field of soybeans. Oh, and there’s the spot where he probably answered his cell phone while planting (crooked rows). Even when someone is actually out in the field when you drive by, it can still just look familiar. However, travel these roads after sundown during fall harvest, and everything just comes to life.
We met lit-up truck after lit-up truck, hauling the fruits of their labor – soybeans, corn – to grain elevators. We passed fields with combines, tractors and grain carts and, of course, more trucks. The fields were beautifully aglow from the lights of the machinery, families working into the night, even after the elevators close so all trucks are filled, ready for delivery as soon as they reopen in the morning. Occasionally we drove by a neighbor drilling his last acres of wheat into the ground, anticipating – and praying for – a bountiful crop next summer. At times, we were even blessed to find these scenes on both sides of us as we made our way through the county.
I tend to get wrapped up in lists of work to do and don’t always take the time to – forgive the cliché – stop and smell the roses. I’m sure I’ve witnessed scenes like these before, but I guess I’d really never taken the time to really process what I was looking at beyond “there’s a tractor,” or “there’s John.” That night, the Lord must have placed his hands upon my stubborn head and turned it to the fields we passed, whispering to my heart to look at what we’re doing from a different perspective. It was beautiful!
As we approach this fall season, I’m more eager than ever, not only to witness with my husband the results of hard work and a lot of prayer, but also to take in the beauty of rural America and of what we do. We raise food. We do it to the best of our abilities. We do it with great faith, and we do it with a desire to be stewards of God’s creation.
Whether you’re on the farm or not, let the Lord place his hands upon your busy or stubborn head and help you to see the beauty in what’s going on around you –whatever season it is!
Barbed Wire and Bangles 