All is well ...

This was just one of those evening when everything just seemed to feel good. The day was beautiful followed by a colorful sunset. Harvest is going well, and I had to admit to myself that it really doesn't have a lot to do with the yield. (Not that yield is not a good thing!) It just seems incidental how much crop is coming off. I was realizing that this is the first harvest I have been able to enjoy in two years! Two years ago we were flattened by the worst hailstorm we have ever experienced in magnitude of damage and area affected. Harvest that year was a matter of "housekeeping" so we could get things tidied up for the next seeding. Last year found us both in Regina and Saskatoon and thanks to Gerry and Tim and Robert "and company" a boutiful harvest went into our bins. It was a sad drive for us between Regina and Saskatoon as we watch other farmers in their fields and we were wishing it was us. I have loved this year at home. I've enjoyed my garden produce, picked apples for juice and baking and even made a little chokecherry syrup for old time sake. And best, the best, is that I'm back in the field with my husband every day :-)

Eventful week

Well, we are busy harvesting the duram wheat and we had visitors for two days! Robert took some of my turns on the combine so I had more time in the house visiting Monica, Linaya, Melissa and Josiah. Both babies had combine rides and we had a nice visit. They sent a visual message off to Uncle Stephen in Oklahoma. That will be our next highlight in the fleeing summer! They'll be back in a couple of weeks, hopefully Roy, too, and we'll get some family pictures. :-)

Time out

Somewhere between midnight Monday and breakfast on Tues., Stan decided we would take a couple of days between crops to go find our old camping spot at Cypress Hills Prov. park! We were packed and on the road by lunch! How's that for impulsive. We even went over to meet "Scotty" the T Rex in Eastend on the way. Two sleepovers in the woods and we're back on the farm and Stan is already out in the combine finishing off the rest of the Canola. I think our life will be interrupted from time to time with self imposed "time out"s. It seems to have a calming effect to disconnect and then carry on.

The silence of the moment was suddenly saddened on Tuesday by call from our son, Stephen, to say that one of his best friends, Brian, had just died in a taffic accident. Moments like that make me so grateful for a cell phone. There is nowhere I wanted to be more than on the end of that phone when he needed to call. My Dad saw 97 years and Brian didn't get to see 27 years. Please pray for healing for Stephen and the Windell family.

Day 2 of August, Day 3 of Harvest

Well, as I sat on the combine listening to Simon and Garfunkle, the motor humming, the Canola grinding through and Stan headed home to empty the graintruck, I was struck by the sense of familiarity and the feeling that all was as it should be. Okay, the crop is not as "great" as some years, but we have many little seeds to put in the bin and compared to the gopher infested fields of the Mankota area, south of us, we have it pretty good. The biggest pest problem we had this year appears to be a truck or SUV with occupants feeling big "under the influence" and small on intelligence that went roaring around is standing crops. It affected about six of us neighbors and the mystery is yet unsolved. Don't worry about aliens. They were lacking the accuracy for crop circles. Stan is hoping for a little break between taking of Canola and moving on to harvest Duram wheat. Harvest was here way too soon but there's no pause button!