Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Harvest

My grandfathers (maternal and paternal), whose land we farm, would be aghast at learning that the corn yield in one of our fields was over 200 bushels per acre in 2008.
A few acres even made as high as 250 bushels! My ancestors drove their workhorses and did cornhusking by hand for a yield of 40 to 50 bushels an acre on this very same ground. Our season of excess rain played a part in the excellent crop.

Jane and I read our books in the pick-up trucks, while Richard and Nelson, my cousin and the farmer who does the row crops, went to check a small section which suffered from chemical drift from the crop-duster spraying a neighbor's field. Richard climbed the steep ladder and joined Nelson in the eye of the great green monster whose teeth gobble up ten rows of corn on each circuit.

Indian summer and a late frost bless us with an abundant crop. A covey of quail has moved into the area carefully prepared to increase their kind. In a world of bad news and insecurities, our corn field is a gift of God's grace.

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