It is OCTOBER!!!!! I LOVE OCTOBER! Why? Probably because I know that it's getting cooler out and that means I won't look like a swamp monster when I get to work from walking from my house (I sweat a lot, if you're new to my world). October makes me think of crisp fall cardigans, which makes me think of how much I love that I have great style, which makes me think of "Wow, how did I get such great style when my Daddy wears rain boots and ten year old Kmart cloth shorts with a Goodwill short sleeve button up that HAS to have a pocket on Sunday afternoons?!". Then I think of Daddy and the farm...........................................
Ah, how much do I miss the farm during fall? So much. On Highway 24 on the way to ajl's, there's a random corn field that was cut about a couple weeks ago (must have been cut for feed). The night they had the combine and grain cart out there, I was heading out to ajls and it was so bittersweet.
I had the deju feeling of Kenny Pauls' custom cutting team parked on the prairie in front of the home place and droooooooooling over the adorable hired help (even though 79% of them were Mennonite as in legit Mennonite with no radio in their cars, etc). I remember during harvest when Mel and I were in elementary school, we'd sit up waiting for the combines, grain carts, semis, etc to pull into our driveway @ night, while we were in bed. My parents have a long driveway that leads up to our home place and we'd call it "The Parade" when they all started pulling up the drive way. When Daddy would get in from the field with them, he'd always come back to the Girls' Room (our room) and we'd play opossum (he knew we weren't asleep).
He'd stomp to the foot of our bed (yes, we shared a bed. Hell, I shared a bed until high school. You see now why all my kids are sharing rooms) and put cross his arms and stand there, until Mel and I pulled him down into the bed. Those are the memories I remember from growing up. Daddy never acted short tempered with us if he had a break down in the field that put them behind a half day. We were his girls and he was so happy to be home with us. I'm not saying he doesn't love a less now, but times are different. We farm more now than back then (Daddy probably has to because he has four girls=over 16 years of college educations=four weddings=a jillion prom dresses). Times are more stress now, because of the market being so incredibly shitty and family farms going bankrupt right and left, you have to big to stay afloat now. That's just how it is and that means that he's gone so much more than when Mel and I were growing up.
I just hope that someday my kids have the amazingly beautiful memories that my sisters and I have when it comes to harvest and the parades of lights. But, if your kids turn out worse than you, my kids will probably shoot paint balls at their father.
