Well another “harvest is in the bin” is a common rural farm/ranch phrase this time of year, along with “never seen as strange a year as this one.” Comments and observations also run from “best thing about it is it’s done” to “best crop I‘ve had in over five years” or “glad to see it waited till I sold all my cattle to rain and make lots of hay.”
In the rural time table it’s time to slow down and to take stock, tidy up the mess from the harvest scramble, get all the machinery which is scattered around back to the yard, serviced, repaired, or at least a To-do list of needs and the equipment stored away in the sheds for winter and for a complete service maintenance schedule. And don’t forget to winterize the boat and get the cabin ready for six months of snow. And has your wife told you about the strange rattling, banging, thumping sounds her car is making? Oh and be sure to blow out the underground sprinklers and get all the water hoses around the yard drained and rolled up and put away along with the electrical extension cables, so the snow blowers doesn’t eat them this winter.
The children are settling into regular hours of school now harvest is over and being absorbed into sports, band and social activities and whatnot. And the women folk, if they still have the skill, may be canning diligently to preserve fruit and vegetables against a long winter. Although canning and putting up preserves is largely an activity of years gone by. Of course if the prices continue to rise as they are it may become quite popular again. At the very least it’s time to slaughter and butcher the chicken flock and freeze them into bags and fill one of the many deep freeze units in the basement. Twenty to thirty frozen chickens, a quarter of pork and half of beef cut and wrapped frozen in the deep freeze is damn prudent security and winter good eating complimenting the full potatoes and carrot bins and shelves of fruit preserves in the “cold room”.
I have no advertisements this month nor do I have any give away enticements. I do however encourage you to visit https://martinesilenus.com/ and scroll down to my book list. Clicking on a book will take you to amazon.com for purchase.
Instead as it draws close to Thanksgiving I encourage everyone to pause and give thanks for everything you have. Of course we all feel we have wants and needs and things would be so much better if, but just be thankful for what you do have. Life is not easy for such a large number of people in the world and accordingly we should feel extremely fortunate having what we do have. It is a time of realizing your “your glass is half-full” and appreciating it.
For those of you who are fortunate enough to have children and grandchildren please be sure to take a moment and explain to them why they are so important to you and why they should feel good about themselves. Time slides by so very quickly and it you do not make a point of expressing your appreciation for them now before you know it they will have grown up and moved away and your opportunity may be lost.
Today’s world grows increasingly violent and living is difficult for far too many souls. Wars, political turmoil, social unrest seem to be the order of the day along with collapsing businesses and rising prices seemingly on everything.
So take a moment, a deep breath and give thanks for what you have, your family, not being in the middle of a war zone, or in the middle of a hurricane or the aftermath.
Best
Martin E. Silenus