By Rick Houser
I think it is only human nature that we connect events or tasks with what dates are on the calendar. We see flowers begin to bloom and we know our calendar is going to be on April and May. The same as we see the school buses begin to go by and we are sure it is late August or September. Yes, we connect one to the other without really giving it a second thought.
So when I think back to those years on the farm down on Fruit Ridge Road I see by late October that Dad had all of his fields of corn picked and there stood about 50 acres of fields with only corn stalks broken over and near to the ground and all the ears of corn removed and put into cribs with their next stop of heading to the Farm Bureau to be turned into feed for the animals. In those times Dad would disc over the corn stalks a couple of times to cut the stalks down and cut open the ground, leaving the fields a much more level appearance. Since our land was rolling, a good farmer never left his soil laying empty for long as erosion was very much the farmer’s worst enemy.
Dad would go to the barn and hitch up a grain drill. (A piece of equipment that consisted of a grain box on the top and a row of cutting blades that would cut into the soil in a straight line of six to eight feet and allow wheat to drop from the box into the soil.) We called it drilling wheat and of course, that was exactly what it was. However, there was a smaller box at the top where timothy seed was placed and as the wheat was sown, so too was the timothy. I never understood why timothy was sown in the fall and clover seed was added to a field in late February or early March. Since we always had very productive hay fields I never asked Dad why and I must admit that this might have been the only thing I never asked why about.
This project was the last outdoor field task that took place on our farm and most farms of those times. I bring this task up because it was a task that I really did enjoy more than just making certain the soil would not erode. Maybe it is just me, but in the fall of the year and on a clear day even more that the sky appears to reach so much higher and this causes our world to look bigger. I know I would fill up the drill with the wheat and timothy and begin to seal over where corn had grown and with all of the tiny disc blades leaving row after row where wheat had been planted. I liked this, as I knew I was transforming that piece of land into next summer’s amber waves of grain and we all know how awesome that can look. I also liked to feel I was getting a head start on the next year because by sowing the wheat I had already begun one of next year’s crops to growing.
Most of all was the feeling one gets out in the middle of a field where the only items that were not flat to the ground were the tractor and the grain drill. In addition, the only sound would be the steady drone of the tractor and maybe your own voice because I used to sing to myself to keep entertained. (Also out in the middle of a field I wouldn’t be heard and this was probably a good thing. Our tractors didn’t have radios yet.) I can say I have never been in a place where I felt so isolated and small in this world as out in one of those fields. With the sky very high above you and maybe the little chains that followed behind where the grain dropped out would jingle as they drug some soil over the wheat. You might think I would be lonesome but I was not, as I felt I was at one with Mother Nature in a way very much different than any other task we had on the farm
Something that added more to this job was if it neared evening and I was nearing completion I would continue even when the sun was setting. This was mostly when the full moon would rise over me. It is safe to say that when there is a full moon in the fall of the year there is nothing any brighter or magnificent to look upon. On those occasions, I looked forward to driving across an open empty field under a bright full moon. I could see clearly what and where I was working. I don’t really know if drilling wheat is a great event, but the place and the time when I was out there was great.
Maybe it might have been the fact I was out there alone with lots of time to think, and I guess I did. If any of you have a chance to be out in the open and under a full harvest moon, just stop and look up. The world looks so huge and I know I always felt so small. I had the real feeling of how much space I really do occupy on this planet. In one way, it gives cause to feel a little insignificant but on the other hand, it allowed me to see that this world is more than big enough to fit me in with no problem. It always has caused me to understand that I must be here for a reason and we all like to know we have a purpose now don’t we?
So here we are I have gone on and on about a trivial chore and a season of the year and I bet if I were to have looked back then at a calendar it probably would have been November. Along with a high sky and a lot of space for me to not have to share with a sole, I probably had one more thought in mind. That thought would have been that this was most likely the last time I would be working out in a field until the next spring when it was time to plow. Oh, the work was in no way over for the year. We would just move it inside, strip tobacco for what seemed forever, and at that job, I never saw that sky or moon.
Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and loves to share stories about his youth and other topics. If you would like to read more of what he has written, he has two books for sale. Contact Rick at houser734@yahoo.com. Or just write to Rick at P.O. Box 213 Bethel, O
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December 04, 2020 at 03:50AM
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Feeling small in a really big world - The People's Defender
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