Harvest

It’s a fulfilling time of year. I love seeing combines in the fields bringing in the harvest. I live vicariously through hard-working farmers, allowing myself to feel—what? Relief? Comfort? Satisfaction? Perhaps all the above.

Some fields are littered with bales: hay to feed animals throughout the winter or straw for other purposes (like covering the garlic I will plant in my garden next month). It’s been a joy to watch the farming season progress from the thaw, to seeding, to the brilliant yellow of canola fields and waving golden grain, and now, to harvest. Province wide, and across all crops, 33% of the harvest is complete here in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan feeds the world as a major exporter of wheat, and the world’s largest exporter of lentils, peas, durum, oats, canola oil, mustard seed and canary seed.

In light of all the uncertainty in the world, a successful harvest is cause for celebration.

On a much smaller scale, the harvest in my backyard garden is ongoing too. We enjoy Swiss chard, tomatoes, beets, lettuce, and zucchini. I tuck some things in the freezer for winter, watch and wait as corn cobs grow fatter and butternut squash gets bigger. Will there be enough time for these things to finish growing before the cold weather arrives? Only time will tell.

Every day, it seems, I hear comments about the rising cost of everything and wonder where it all will end. “It feels like we’re heading toward another depression,” I remark to Gerry one day. “We are,” he says, offering no comfort at all. Maybe we are and maybe we aren’t. Only time will tell us that, too.

Meanwhile, we sow and reap and tend our gardens—those that produce vegetables and the intangible ones that are also important. Relationships. Home. People and things within our spheres of influence. Family, friends, and others God puts on our hearts to pray for. Injustices, societal changes, and cultural things that we have little direct influence over save for what we deem important enough that we choose to stand up and speak up as we continue to pray. We pick A instead of B, choose to make do, contribute more than consume. We keep our eyes open and wrestle against becoming too cynical.

I don’t know where any of this is heading, but maybe it’s the shifting sand we seem to be living on that makes the gift of harvest all the more important as I ponder it this year.