Taking the Seymour/Pulaski exit off state Highway 29 one morning, I was on my way to a breakfast date, meeting up with two friends I’ve known for 60-plus years. How that happens I’ll never understand, since I myself am only 40-something. Wishful thinking.
Slowing down, I noticed how every field of corn was looking simply magnificent.
Voice-texting my husband, I exclaimed, “There’s lots of fields with great looking corn and farmers have hay laying all over the place out here!”
What does this farmer girl notice? Not beautiful landscapes and plush lawns but how much hay is laying and what the corn fields look like.
Late afternoons when our chores and work are done for the day, sometimes just to cool off and relax, we go on a lazy jaunt around the county roads in our four wheeler. Those drives are conducive to mindless observations. Very laid-back and calming.
“That alfalfa sure looks good. Gee, that’s really beautiful hay. Is that third crop?”
Back in the day when we were farming, cutting hay was my most favorite thing to do when it came to hauling myself up in a tractor cab. My husband would hook me up to the disc bine, drive down to the field and opening it for me, cut one round around and then doubling back to cut the outside round closest to the edge of the field.
With my boundaries established in that fashion, I’d take over. When I got a field cut, I’d feel an immense sense of satisfaction. Plus, I barely left any tufts (missed standing hay). I’d smack that field down right nice and clean.
Back to our county road musings.
“That field of soybeans look amazing.”
“There’s some corn that’s tosseling.”
“You don’t see much oats planted these days.”
We also have been known to intensely discuss wildlife.
“See those fawns? Are they ever little. She must have had them late.”
“There’s some deer way back near that woods, in the field. Must be bad weather coming.”
Deer can give us a more accurate forecast than a weatherman. When we spot them out eating during the day, they’re filling up so they can hunker down — knowing instinctively there’s a storm brewing.
“What’s that? Is that a bear?”
Slowly traversing on back county roads with lots of woods, I rubberneck out the window something fierce, trying to spot a bear. Safely tucked in our side-by-side, I’d love to see one in the wild. I notice large uprooted tree roots and many rocks looking suspiciously like a rotund bear, but alas, I’ve never actually spotted one.
One day while on my daily walk down our lane — which clears my mind and sets my endorphins in proper order — — I noticed a pile of scat. The “present” told me in no uncertain terms that a bear had been there and done that.
Walking between two cornfields with stalks towering makes me feel very small and, if you want to know the truth, rather vulnerable. Setting my podcasts on full volume, I also hoot a bit along the way. I don’t want to startle one, I want to let him know I’m coming so he runs away.
When I was a little kid I had a recurring nightmare where a bear was chasing me round and round our empty barn. Going in and through the vacant stanchions, I was always just one or two steps ahead of it and would awaken in a cold sweat. My fascination of (or rather, fear of) bear has been with me for years.
Along our county drives, I do also notice landscaping. Many places have beautifully kept lawns and gardens and flowers galore. Everything is lush and green. A few places, though are unkempt and look forlorn.
My sister brought this thought to my attention, “Maybe the people who live there can’t keep up with it.”
Very good perspective.
There’s been just about perfect weather for growing just about everything — heat and moisture. Years ago, an old-time farmer once told me, “You can hear the corn growing in this weather,” referring to hot and humid conditions.
The garden is taking off, and we’ve been eating and giving surplus of spinach and cucumbers away. I’ve been vacuum-sealing green beans for a few days. While not quite ready to eat, the garden corn is the tallest I’ve ever seen it.
Peering at a stalk of corn, I marvel. Each stalk produces about two or three cobs. Tucked inside those cobs are rows and rows of kernels stacked in military precision. Each kernel has the capacity to produce another stalk of corn. It’s marvelous when you really ponder it — it truly is. Such a provisional Father.
We’ve had beautiful weather conducive to growing food and enjoying nature at its finest. I’d like to bottle this stuff and haul it out come mid-January.
(“Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.’ And it was so.” Genesis 1:11)
Kay Reminger was born and raised on a dairy farm, and she married her high school sweetheart, who happened to farm for a living in Leopolis. Writing for quite a few years, she remains focused on the blessings of living the ups and downs of rural life from a farm wife’s perspective.