About 15 years ago the owner of this paper, Michael Cleary, wrote about his love for the fall season. I had not begun writing this weekly column at that time, but I felt compelled to write a rebuttal and he published it in the paper. That was perhaps the beginning of my “side-hustle” of writing about agriculture in Will County. Since it is late at night and another deadline for my article is looming, I will now repurpose most of that article for this week’s column and include an extra/new paragraph at the end.
I hate fall. First, I agree with Mr. Cleary that the one good event of fall is Thanksgiving. I love homemade stuffing; I think most do. So why is it only served that one day of the year? Maybe that is why I love it so much; I only eat it once a year. Fall to me though is the beginning of the end of my farming season.
Fall is surrounded with death and dying. It is the end of life for most things that grow in nature, including the plants I nurture to make a living. The temperature gets colder, windier, and wetter with much less daylight making my workday shorter. Whereas spring signifies a new chance to be a great farmer. New life abounds everywhere, plants and animals alike. Fall takes all this away. Alas, it does not even know its name. Is it fall or autumn?
Winter at least starts with the worst day of the year. After December 21st the daylight only gets longer. I can vacation, hide in the house, and make all the necessary plans so when fieldwork begins, I can try one more time to beat Mother Nature and grow my best crop ever. Spring and summer are so full of the variety of farm activities that I love. Some days I can cut, rake, and bale hay, spray and cultivate crops, and still make it to a Joliet baseball game at 6:30.
In the fall combines roll, and the success and mistakes of my efforts the previous spring and summer are revealed. Oh, I hate that combine. Most people love harvesting the fruits of their labor. I hate it. A seasoned farmer friend told me a few days ago of his joy of harvesting 127 acres in one day. He was in a 320-acre field and truly enjoyed harvesting it. If I had to harvest a 320-acre field, I don’t know if I would survive. At my machine’s pace of 15 acres a day, trapped in a 29-year-old combine might be my demise. Do the math. 320 divided by 15 equals twenty-one days of my life I’m never going to get back. If weather allows, I must sit in my combine for hours or days at a time. You don’t get much time off. You must keep going before winter sets in and snow flies. The combine won’t drive itself. I am stuck in that cab for days on end, no variety, and worse yet, I have no prescription for my self-diagnosed attention deficit disorder. Fall to me means combining, and that is the most boring part of my job. For me it is torture. I am trapped in that small glass room, no running, jumping, bouncing from chore to chore... unless it is on fire!
Combine fires is what I thought I would write about this week before I put myself in a time crunch. Each year there seems to be more combines burning and field fires than the year before. I have some thoughts on that. Perhaps next time, if I allow enough time to write something new and not recycle some old words.
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