Harvest Song

Sometime in the night, fall stepped across the threshold. Each season seems to have its own approach. Spring tiptoes in, like a child dipping toes in the water before the first swim. Summer blasts in, like a flame that smolders briefly then flares up with heat and light. Winter, in my neck of the woods at least, is indecisive, with several false starts and stops until fields lie blackened by the first hard freeze. Fall’s commencement is defined not so much by temperature as by the change in the song of the insects, a quieting of the frenzied night time chorus, and a subdued bird song in the morning. The trees whisper “fall” and the feel in the air is unmistakable. The light is different, and rain, when it comes, has a different feel. Every day I hear the sound of the harvest. Harvest music, signaling a sense of urgency to gather in the crops before winter. Once upon a time, the harvest would have been gathered with mules, wagons and “hands” picking the corn by hand and hauling it to the cribs. But in my lifetime, the combine has become the instrument of the season, creeping through rows of corn and soybeans that are the livelihood of so many farmers. At this time of year, it is a race against time, to put away what was sown with shining hope in the spring. The machines sing from early morning to dark, and golden streams of grain pour into wagons and grain silos. In years like this, of good rain, there is a final cutting of hay. There is no more beautiful sight, or more intoxicating smell, than a barn filled with hay for the winter. Gratitude seems to be in short supply these days for a lot of people. I believe that the further away from the land we get, the easier it is to forget to be thankful. Farmers find it easier to give thanks, when the barns and silos are full, the harvest song is stilled, and the machinery has been cleaned and put away. Every year at Thanksgiving, congregations sing the words “Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home. All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.” Country people understand those lines better than most. When my hay shed is full, I like to stop and just look at it, breathing in the fragrance. (Why don’t they make air freshener with that smell?) The winter ahead doesn’t seem so daunting when you have a barn full of hay. It’s the same feeling a family gets looking at shelves of canned food – jelly, jam, beans, peas, corn and tomatoes, waiting and ready to be enjoyed while the cold winds blow. I guess you can feel good about canned food from the store, but somehow I don’t think you get the same sense of happiness as you get from glass jars of rosy tomatoes or green beans. We don’t do as much canning now, but I still can remember row upon row of canning arranged on shelves in our basement and baskets of potatoes and onions. Hams and sides of bacon hung in the smokehouse, promising breakfast feasts on winter mornings. It was hard work, but easier then to be thankful. Here’s hoping Thanksgiving doesn’t get totally lost in the rush to Christmas and our hearts will be warmed when we sing, “Come, ye thankful people come, raise the song of harvest home.”