By Reina Free
It is still early in the morning. In the wood I call Little Narnia, the tawny owls are hooting. In the distance I hear the strange rasping sound of a fox barking. It’s just 6:30 am, my friend and neighbour already on his way to feed the cows. He always stops, and for a few minutes we talk about country matters. It is the first week of October, the flowers of honeysuckle and wild rose now faded but changed into red berries and rose hip. The blackberries in spite of all the rain are few, many shrivelled or very small. It lifts my spirits to see the swallows are still with us. Soon they will make their long journey to Africa.
The fields are bare now, some already ploughed and rolled for next year’s crop. But what a hard year it has been for our farmers! April was unusually hot and the soil very dry and hard, which meant that the ploughing had to be delayed. Then all the heavy rain came in May, June and July, so much that in some parts of the country the fields were flooded and crops were lost. But the last week in August and two weeks in September our farmers got the opportunity to harvest the land for worked crops of wheat, oats, barley and hay. There is still a harvest, but at a high price. I do wonder if we realise at what cost: the hard labour, the seeds, fertilisers and so much more; all the stress and worry, sometimes the breakdown of machinery while working the fields.
And now there are in the countryside two monsters: one is called Foot and Mouth, caused by mistakes in a Government laboratory, and the other Bluetongue, caused by midges. On top of all that profit-hungry supermarkets pay poor prices for milk, cheese and butter.
It makes me cry. It should make us all cry, because it is wrong and very unfair.
By the time you read this article, in our own church and all over the country, Harvest thanksgivings will have been held. Of course by all means give thanks, for the Almighty ultimately gives the Harvest – but only because our farmers plough and sow, roll and fertilise and finally cut down and harvest. That is how it works!
I think it will be a good thing that when we walk along our lovely country lanes and see the fields we sometimes look up and have a ‘word’ to the Almighty to bless and watch over our farmers and their families.