4:30 seems like hell this morning. That seems to be the only way to describe it. I don’t want to get up with Brett, but when I wander out to the kitchen I can see that he doesn’t want to get up either. He doesn’t even want coffee anymore, nor does he want his normal protein bar to start the day. His only request now is to let him sleep until 5:10 so that he can simply put on his cleats, grab his football bag, and roll out the door and into his coach’s car. I can understand that.
Wave does not even get up with us this morning. What started out as a football season and harvest season filled with gumption and anticipation, has now hit what I like to call the plateau. Harvest is always on a bell curve in my mind. WE start quickly, usually without warning, and race up the hill to get grain in the bin, but as soon as we get enough wheat in to feel safe, things begin to plane out and thoughts other than just getting ‘er done begin to enter the farmer’s mind. Will all the fields be as good as this one? Will any be better? What am I going to do when this truck driver has to leave? What about when school starts and Amy is busy with the kids? I need to call the insurance adjuster? Is fall work going to be late? What is we don’t get rain and the fields are rock hard? Hell, I haven’t even started working on the tractor. There is no way it will be ready in time! The peas suck. I can see that just looking at them from the road. All of these thoughts which had been bottled up inside the mind of the farmer with his desire simply to cut some grain now have time to come out and torment him as he drives for sixteen hours a day inside the combine, and it is a recipe for stress and possible disaster!
Without inquiring, which I dare not do, I am certain that we have hit the plateau, or the middle of harvest. It is the time when Wave gets quiet, I lose track of where I am at on my list, and the kids become completely chaotic.
They can tell that school is about to start, the pool is about to close, and the fair, for which we all feel completely unprepared, is just around the corner. Today is Tuesday. School starts a week from today, and the fair starts on Wednesday night. We have not had time to shop for school clothes or show clothes and in this heat, which is topping out in the upper 90’s now, we have not had time nor energy to pack the bus for the fair.
In spite of all of that, the crops are looking good. That is the only thing keeping tensions under control. Winter wheat yields, which average on a good year in the upper 80’s (bushels per acre) are in the 90’s and 100’s. That is something to be super excited about and also to hold our breath over. The yields need to hold strong throughout all of our fields, the prices need to hold, and the weather needs to remain warm. For us on the support end of harvest, laboring over tired hot animals, warm weather is hard to wish for.
I did get to start a new book this morning. The Wednesday Letters. However, from the first page I can tell you straight out that this is no Water for Elephants, and like all readers it leaves me longing for the last book that I have yet to let go of. Oh well, there is no going back.
For the rest of the day, we work the pigs. Brett is grouchy and tired and does not want to help, and though I cannot blame him after practicing in the heat, the hogs have to be worked. Dustin doesn’t want to help either. He simply wants to hang out in town with his friends. Jack and Maxx seem to be the only ones willing to go, but I make them all go anyway – including Summer. At least tonight we will all have showers at home and maybe I can even get the hot tub up and running again. Although the days are hot, the nights are starting to feel like fall.
Tonight Wave is more quiet than ever and I feel like I am walking on egg shells as I make spaghetti and French bread. I leave him alone as he compiles the the weight slips on the bar. He does not even look up. Nor does he has how our day was. The kids retire to the living room for the night to watch a much needed movie and I don’t even reprimand them about showers.
Working harvest is like building a house together. It is stressful, there is tension and it takes every ounce of everyone’s strength to get through it without ripping each other’s throats out. This year I am determined that we will not do that. I ask innocent questions about how things are going out there, but I can see straight away that he is in no mood to relive the day, so I simply let it go.
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