~upon reaching the harvest~

The full moon was shining huge and brilliant through our bedroom window as I awoke at 4 this morning, an ever present reminder that the world continues to turn and that the universe is at work in all of its glory.  That big old orb was illuminating the alfalfa field just adjacent to our house here along the Western Slopes, a field that sooner than later will be mown down and made into huge round bales of hay.  It will be fun once again to sit outside on the deck and watch the baler go around and around as it picks up the dried hay in the late evening hours.  It doesn't take a whole lot these days to entertain me and that is perhaps a very good thing.

The alfalfa crop from last year, the first mowing down in late June of 2013.  I grew up a farmer's daughter and it was a great comfort to me in my initial bouts of really bad homesickness, to see such a thing happen right before my very eyes.  I could sit there and watch it for hours.

I have had Kansas on my mind a lot in the last few days, mostly because I know that back there a lot of good people are getting ready to harvest their own kind of specialty crop, Hard Red Winter wheat.  Things are looking a little bleaker this year as far as the quality of the crop will go but Kansas farmers are a resilient type of folk.  Hail that takes out a complete crop just days before it is ready to be cut does not cause them to throw in the towel and quit.  Neither does a late springtime freeze or lack of rain or lack of ANYTHING for that matter.  I don't think I have ever seen anyone with such spirit about them in regards to the land as I have in a farmer and particularly, a KANSAS one.  They will make it.  We all will.

It is so weird to me that all of a sudden out of the proverbial "blue" that I will have a memory of a time from so long ago.  I lose my cell phone/car keys/glasses (you take your pick because any of them would be appropriate on a nearly daily basis) but I can remember things that happened when I was a kid growing up back in the south central part of Kansas as if it was only yesterday.  As I was thinking about the upcoming harvest I remembered that my mom would always make a good meal for my father and his crew when they were cutting close by our home in Haven.  She would make sure there was a good "square" meal for each of them and she would have one of us kids help her take it to the field.  The neat thing I recalled, one that brought a smile to my face, was that for something to drink she would make a huge gallon jug of grape Kool-Aid and pour it into individual canning jars.  She would pack the jars with several ice cubes, seal off the opening with a flat/ring combination and then wrap each of the jars with clean gunny sack material from one of the old feed bags kept out in the barn.  The whole thing would be tied shut with a piece of twine and stowed carefully into a sturdy cardboard box for transportation to the field.  It stayed cold that way, long before the days of all the fancy new things they use now for the very same purpose.  I loved remembering that the other day and my heart swelled with joy that deep in my old brain I must have chosen to recall it.  Today, people do just the same thing and put it online, referring to it as "Shabby Chic" or something similar but the Scott Family would know it by its former name of "That's How You Keep Stuff Cold In The Hot Kansas Summertime Sun."

Life continues to be busy here and by the sounds of reports on Facebook and through emails from friends and family scattered across this great land of ours, life is busy for all of you as well.  For crying out loud, it's so hard to imagine that the month of June will soon approach the halfway mark and then before you know it the calendar shall read July.  I hope you are enjoying your summer thus far and that even though you are busy with life, that you take time to enjoy a moment here or there doing absolutely nothing.  I used to foolishly refer to that as being "lazy" but now I know that it is the equivalent of recharging batteries that are constantly being used.  I am alive and well, a little tired but otherwise doing just fine.  I think of you each day, pray for your well being and happiness, and hold you so tight in my heart.  I've said it countless times.  Where would I be without your friendships?  In BIG trouble, that's where.

Have a great Wednesday, the 11th day of June, 2014. 

Part of our family when we made the journey out to Kinsley in 1975 to visit our dad as he was harvesting the wheat of our good friend, Paul Hiett.  I go through that part of Kansas each time I have traveled between Hutchinson and Montrose on 50 Highway.  Man, I wish I still had that striped shirt I was wearing.  I always kind of liked it.  Man, to be 20 years old once again :)

I am proud to be an Olathe Pirate now but I will never forget that I am also a Kansan and the daughter of a farmer.  I hope that my father would have been proud of me.