When combines emerge and dust starts to fly, I basically start singing, "It's Christmastime in the city" because harvest means fall and fall is basically winter and winter is essentially Christmas, so I'm pretty much ready to start wrapping presents.
While summer will always be my true love, I cautiously admit to not completely disliking fall and the sound of all the activity in the field, hearing the dryer on the grain bins running at night, sleeping with the windows open and watching the leaves change colors.
But, oh summer, how our little family will miss you. Fall and winter bring their joys, but gone will be the days of playing in the kiddie pool, scratching around in the sand box, eating our snacks on the front porch, picking flowers from the garden and smelling freshly mowed grass.
Farming, perhaps more than most livelihoods, reminds us of the seasons. It's not just switching from lemonade to pumpkin spice latte weather. It's switching from drinking gallons of water and trying not to get sunburned while welding on hot tin roofs to wading through the muddy slush of winter, chipping ice from ponds for cows to drink and warming hands around thermoses of coffee before heading back out into the cold.
But it's not winter just yet. So for now, we will wave at the combine, cheer for truck drivers, disregard all the dust, slow down for tractors on the highways and light a fire in the fire pit when the evening gets cool.
Summer may be on its way out, and winter may be on its way, but for now, it's simply harvest time in the country.
