Harvest and Honeymoons

September has been a month full of many seasons and changes. At the tail end of our busy season, the first few days of the month resembled all the craziness of July and August’s spray rush. However, it didn’t take long for the last of the sweet corn to be ready for picking, and the beans and the corn to start drying down. By the second week of this month, my handsome farmer was no longer home alone while I chased yellow planes around the valley. It was time for me to come home and start in on a new kind of busy — harvesting the riches out of our garden. We roasted and froze green chiles, harvested tomatoes and peppers for salsa, shredded the cabbage into the crocks to start fermenting kraut, and put up several boxes of sweet corn.

As we wrapped up putting away food for the winter months, a whole new kind of preparation fell into place. This last weekend I married that handsome farmer, and took the last name that now adorns this farm we are working so hard to get going. We used the clearing at the bottom of the forest on our place to set up tents and have a reception. We had a long-time family friend bring his draft horses and a wagon, and the team gave our guests rides around the farm.

Now its Monday, and my brand-new husband is headed in to start harvest at his work. He works a day job managing a hemp farm, then comes home to farm his own ground in the evenings. The hemp buds are ready to be picked and dried, so instead of heading off to a honeymoon he is headed into a harvester. It will be a long few weeks for him, followed by harvest of our own crops as soon as the hemp is wrapped up. A final cutting of hay, sweet corn seed, soybeans, and picking corn will be not-so-patiently waiting for him as he battles the clock and the ever-looming freezes.

Our honeymoon will come in time, maybe this January or February when the ground is frozen and the days are short, and theres nothing left for a farmer and his wife to do besides run away to the beach. Until then, we will be in the cabs of tractors and combines and grain trucks, starting our marriage off chasing harvest season. As I walked through the garden tonight looking over our pumpkins (yet another looming harvest), I couldn’t help but smile at this life I signed up for. Chasing planes and combining corn, what a life it is indeed.