Showing posts with label farmers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farmers. Show all posts
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Saturday, March 19, 2011
A silent prairie sentinel
Often when I head out to the farm, I never turn on the music. I let the mind wander, sorting, sifting, pondering, reflecting....
Sometimes I let the eyes wander --- though not too far, since I'm driving. But I try to stay alert to my surroundings, just to see what may catch my eye.
On this night, before the darkness had fully settled, I noticed an old-fashioned wooden grain bin. A tall rectangle with a crow's nest on top. I knew that's where the pulley for the grain hoist was housed. The bin hadn't been used for perhaps a half-century or more. It was nearly engulfed in trees between a pair of farm fields, almost shrouded from view even in daylight.
It seemed forlorn, a rusted relic awaiting the day it finally collapses or meets the wrecking ball.
But there was a time when that wooden beast was the cutting edge in grain storage, and represented a step forward for the family that installed it. I wondered how many sunsets it has seen, how many bumper crops, how many hail storms that ravaged the fields it surveyed - and farmers' finances along the way. I wondered how many generations of children played and worked around it, what dreams blossomed in its shadows, what hopes died.
I wondered how many families it helped feed, how many lives it touched, this agrarian architectural artifact.
The answers, I'm sure, are only in the wind.
Sometimes I let the eyes wander --- though not too far, since I'm driving. But I try to stay alert to my surroundings, just to see what may catch my eye.
On this night, before the darkness had fully settled, I noticed an old-fashioned wooden grain bin. A tall rectangle with a crow's nest on top. I knew that's where the pulley for the grain hoist was housed. The bin hadn't been used for perhaps a half-century or more. It was nearly engulfed in trees between a pair of farm fields, almost shrouded from view even in daylight.
It seemed forlorn, a rusted relic awaiting the day it finally collapses or meets the wrecking ball.
But there was a time when that wooden beast was the cutting edge in grain storage, and represented a step forward for the family that installed it. I wondered how many sunsets it has seen, how many bumper crops, how many hail storms that ravaged the fields it surveyed - and farmers' finances along the way. I wondered how many generations of children played and worked around it, what dreams blossomed in its shadows, what hopes died.
I wondered how many families it helped feed, how many lives it touched, this agrarian architectural artifact.
The answers, I'm sure, are only in the wind.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
And down the stretch......
Kansas was known for years as the Breadbasket of the Nation, because so much hard red winter wheat is grown here.
By mid-June, wheat fields along the Oklahoma border would be waves of gold undulating in the whipping south winds, as farmers waited, poised with their combines and grain trucks, for the moisture level in the heads of the stalks to reach the optimum numbers.
But this time of year can also bring explosive thunderstorms packing heavy rain and huge hail - and just one storm could wipe out the entire crop. That happened more than once to Mom and Dad in more than 50 years next to the Sawmill Creek in central Kansas.
Farther north in the state, the wheat is typically still be green in mid-June, but farmers there are no less nervous than their brethren on the border. A hard rain or strong wind as the wheat begins to "turn" - changing from green to yellow/gold as the grain reaches maturity - could knock the stalks down. If that happens, there's little or no chance for recovery, because a plant's elasticity vanishes once it changes colors, and it can't stand back up - meaning a combine's header can't efficiently reach the heads bowed down with the kernels in their crowns.
I liken it to a racehorse that has been carefully bred, raised and trained...is running beautifully during the race....and then fractures a leg as it nears the finish line. No winner - just heartbreak.
How challenging it is for farmers to lie in bed at night this time of year, listening to rain or hail - or both - pound the roof of the house, wondering how much damage is being done to the wheat.
And the balance sheet.
And the farm's future.
By mid-June, wheat fields along the Oklahoma border would be waves of gold undulating in the whipping south winds, as farmers waited, poised with their combines and grain trucks, for the moisture level in the heads of the stalks to reach the optimum numbers.
But this time of year can also bring explosive thunderstorms packing heavy rain and huge hail - and just one storm could wipe out the entire crop. That happened more than once to Mom and Dad in more than 50 years next to the Sawmill Creek in central Kansas.
Farther north in the state, the wheat is typically still be green in mid-June, but farmers there are no less nervous than their brethren on the border. A hard rain or strong wind as the wheat begins to "turn" - changing from green to yellow/gold as the grain reaches maturity - could knock the stalks down. If that happens, there's little or no chance for recovery, because a plant's elasticity vanishes once it changes colors, and it can't stand back up - meaning a combine's header can't efficiently reach the heads bowed down with the kernels in their crowns.
I liken it to a racehorse that has been carefully bred, raised and trained...is running beautifully during the race....and then fractures a leg as it nears the finish line. No winner - just heartbreak.
How challenging it is for farmers to lie in bed at night this time of year, listening to rain or hail - or both - pound the roof of the house, wondering how much damage is being done to the wheat.
And the balance sheet.
And the farm's future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)