It’s the beginning of Harvest Season– that period between mid-September and the end of November that’s the time for bringing in the bounty.

Growing up on a farm, I was aware of the seasons of planting and harvesting, of fallow fields of winter and fresh green shoots of spring. Hearing farmers talk about their crops, seeing the pounds of tobacco taken to market, the bushels of corn, the truck beds filled with watermelons, there was evidence of their labor. While I’m grateful that some farms have formed recreational agri-businesses, providing a place to pick strawberries and find pumpkins, I wish that more children knew what it’s like to grow up on a family farm. Over the years, I’ve often thought that if I could give my sons and grandsons anything, it would be at least a few days living like I did as a child. 

No matter how much things have changed, no matter how many farms have become housing developments, the chill in the air and the shortening days still remind us that it’s fall and harvest season. There’s excitement about football games and fall foliage, planning Halloween costumes and trying out fall recipes. My older sister, Harriet loves entering cooking contests in the North Carolina State Fair. Some churches still have their annual bazaars and homecoming dinners in the fall. I remember fondly the ones at my Grandma Smith’s small rural Presbyterian church. When they had “dinner on the grounds” underneath oak trees, they loaded down the makeshift plywood and saw horse tables with their best fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, chicken pastry, and desserts— the best desserts, all homemade–pound cakes, chocolate layer cake, lemon meringue pies, banana puddings.

I look back over the past season to evaluate my harvest. What is it that I’ve cultivated? Watching the harvest on a farm, it was clear what you’d produced. When I worked as a nurse, it was sometimes hard over those forty-four years to measure the outcome of my labor. You could count the numbers of patients you’d seen on an inpatient unit, the number of students you saw in the health room in a school day; but it was harder to say exactly what your work yielded–compared to a farmer being able to weigh pounds of tobacco and count bushels of corn.

Now that I’m retired, no longer a caregiving nurse, I don’t have the same need to be as productive. But I do still have a need to look at the bounty of my life since the last harvest season. It’s from close examination that I realize how much I have to be thankful for. I look back at my calendar and I’m reminded of all that’s been cultivated.

A year ago, three days after I returned from Ireland, I tested positive for Covid. Forced to stay in and rest, I was bored and opened a real estate company email, like those I’d been ignoring for months. I was stunned to find a townhouse that looked perfect, and was in my price range. Within twenty-four hours, I saw the property, made an offer, and it was accepted. Looking back over my calendar, I can’t believe how quickly I moved into action performing all those tasks before closing. 

After that, my days were spent with service contractors– painters, electricians, carpenter. I shopped more at home stores than I had in years. The holiday season was a blur of buying Christmas presents and things for my new house. One of the best purchases was a seven-foot Christmas tree to replace the small tabletop one that had been used in my apartment, a temporary place.

In January, I looked out my dining area to the patio that was just white fence around orange clay. That was my fallow field that I envisioned planting once the days grew warmer. I drew my garden plan on graph paper and started dreaming of the flowers that would bloom in summer, in the fullness of their time. With lots of help from my brother-in-law, Winslow loads of gravel and patio pavers were brought in to transform that muddy orange clay. I planted my morning glory and sunflower seeds– my garden favorites. Then I added in zinnias, salvia, and pink ice. 

Planting is when I connect most to being a girl on the farm. I wasn’t planting the acres of vegetables that we had; I was putting seeds in the ground and nurturing them until they came forth as beautiful flowers. Like farmers, I could control what I did but had no control over the harsh summer heat and when the rains came.

Now, the sunflowers are mostly gone and their beauty as an arrangement on my dining table is just a memory; the morning glories have finished their show for the year and I’m left with dark green foliage on the vine; it is the end of their harvest. The other flowers in the bed persist in blooming, the hydrangea is now producing blue blooms instead of pink.  

I walk about my patio garden in the cool of the early fall evening and feel grateful for this land I’ve cultivated. While tiny, compared to the acreage of a farm, there’s still a feeling of satisfaction with what has been produced, with the transformation since it was a plot of orange clay back in January. I’m grateful for all this bounty that has come into my life since last year at this time. 

I wonder what it is you see as you look over your past year, what has been harvested. Is it a new space that is now home? Are there new relationships that have been nurtured? Are there things within you that have been cultivated and now your life is better because of the work you’ve done?

My wish, is that with grateful hearts, we’ll consider all the bounty in our lives.

Blessings on you during this Harvest Season,

Connie