You didn’t think I was going away, did you? I said I was moving on, not moving out.
This outlet for sharing my feelings is something I’ve grown to love. I’ve always liked to write; I remember writing stories way back in grade school. It has always been a way to express myself, and I enjoy it. So, I’m not going anywhere.
The majority of my story about Tree Town is over and done. It feels good to get it out.
I have several stand-alone stories that I’ll share about our time at Tree Town, but the linear story, for now, is done.
The last several weeks, I’ve walked through some hard and dark times that I lived through at Tree Town Baptist.
I’m ready to change directions.
I am writing about something happy this week.
I do have a brighter side to me.
We have just recently finished harvest. I love living on a rice farm. I love the day-to-day farm life…
Farming is extraordinary in so many ways. From the smell of dirt when the plow turns the soil over in the early spring; to the hot summer days when the rice is a beautiful shade of green, growing in the field. The color of the fields when the rice starts to mature and turn golden, to the first chill in the fall air and the smell of the rice that permeates the air, signaling that harvest is just around the corner.
Harvest is the culmination of an entire year of work. Harvest is when you find out just how much the blood, sweat, and tears you put into the crop pay off.
The exact amount of money and work goes into an excellent yielding harvest as it does a failed crop. And although you can look across a field and speculate just what the yield might be, you really have no idea until you drive the combine in the field and cut the first sample of rice what the yield will actually be.
So, that first day of harvest is exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time.
Will the crop produce enough to pay back all the money it costs to plant, water, and fertilize throughout the year? Unfortunately, there’s no way to know until that first acre of rice makes its way through the header and into the combine’s hopper.
When the hum of the combine starting up its engine for the first day of harvest can be heard ringing throughout the equipment shed, a shudder of excitement spreads through everyone on the farm.
The day has arrived. Finally, all the hard work of the year has come to fruition.
And this year, the harvest was good! The weather was dry and perfect. We didn’t have any major breakdowns or setbacks. No one was hurt, and everyone got along well.
The yield wasn’t the best we’ve ever had, but it was sufficient.
It was a successful year of farming.
All the rice is now stored in the grain bins, and we will hold it there until the price is good.
We will take a few months to rest, and we will start all over again in the spring.
Next year we will experience all the unknowns just like we did this year. We will work the ground, plant the seed, water, fertilize and watch the crop grow. We will get excited again as harvest nears. We will experience the anxiety of not knowing what the yield will be and will spend 2-3 months harvesting the crop. We will store next year’s crop in the grain bin, wait for the price to be right, and take a break again.
It is an endless but beautiful cycle.
It is the only way of life I’ve ever known… and I love it.
Until Next Time,
Whitney
