The End

Today is the day.
We are finishing. Currently, the guys are finishing up 25 acres of Joe's corn, and I couldn't be more excited. There are hardly any parallels to last year's harvest debacle (we finished as the snow was falling in December), however, there is just one:

SHEER JOY.

Seriously, last year's harvest was finished in the wee hours, fists pumping as the last load was brought in as the snow fell. The same feeling of relief will happen tonight. I think the shouts of happiness, sighs of relief, and jumps for joy that will happen when the combine rolls into the driveway tonight will probably be heard all the way to town. I'm not just happy for my own selfish reasons, although having a helper to pick up Anna from the bus and going to the grocery store by myself are two of the many benefits of Joe being finished, rather I'm so happy that we have completed another harvest bountifully, without huge breakdowns, of the mental or physical kind, but most importantly, safely.

That's the big deal here. Harvest is a dangerous time. There were bins that had to be climbed at dark to check on the spinner during what the news called, "one of the worst winds" we have had in years. There are huge pieces of equipment that thresh (CUT) many, many, many plants that need to be checked with hands that could also be threshed. There are children playing during the end of the beautiful Indian Summer, riding bikes in their driveway as their dad pulled in, focused upon the task at hand and the next field, next load, next whatever. There are PTO shafts and augers that do something, I'm not sure what exactly, but from the looks of it, it could rip your arm to shreds. Fortunately, for us, there have been no incidents such as this, and for that, I am truly thankful that harvest is over.

So what now? What will this farm family do now that there's nothing pressing. Well, while I'm truly doing the "harvest is over" dance, Joe and the guys are going to continue being busy doing the next steps: prepping the land for spring by operating our two tillage tools, which I think are named after Superheroes: The Dominator and The Turbo Chopper 3000. There's lime to be spread, cattle work to be done, bookwork that needs to be caught up. Even though life at the harried harvest pace has ended, farm life truly never stops.

Isn't that the way with most things? Like the brilliant Roseanne-Rosannadanna said, "If it's not one thing, it's another."

Which is good, because what would I write about??