What’s the best time of year?

Everyone has a favorite time of year...winter, summer, spring or fall. In this neck-of-the-woods it’s winter for snowmobilers and farmers tired from a busy time planting, spaying and harvesting their crops.

Most adults prefer the warming sun’s rays of spring, when apple blossoms are full and their fragrance is captivating. (It also a favorite among those who like to hit one of our 10,000 lakes for walleyes, crappies and northerns.)

Summer is usually the best time of the year for kids and folks who can’t wait to thaw out from long winter days. Kids are done with school for three months and they hang with their friends and hit the swimming pools in the area to chill with kids they know.

Fall, the autumnal equinox (September 22), is when summer yields to cooler days and flocks of Canadian geese and ducks begin their move to warmer climes.

For others it’s a time to get the shotgun out for hunting ring-neck pheasants and those flocks of waterfowl heading south. Others, like Tim and Doug Marquardt and Lori Delzer head to the fields to begin the harvest of corn. Most farmers begin harvesting their soybeans and others finish cutting, raking and baling a last cut of hay.

It’s been a harrowing task to hit the back roads of the area searching for farmers who begin combining their beans and corn. Tim Marquardt was in the field last week to combine corn to be used as feed for cattle. “Corn’s still to wet to be put in storage,” he said.

It’s one of the most exciting times of the year. Combines working into the early evening house with their unit’s lights on makes for a picturesque photo image.

Driving 30 to 45 miles to capture the right photo of people working their fields is not only building my appreciation for the beauty of our countryside, but when I spot a farmer working in the field it’s like a touchdown for one of our area high school foot- ball teams. Just stomping around in already harvested corn brings back memories of hunting pheasants in Nebraska with Gary Tuttle, an old friend.

The air is brisk and clear. The sound from the farm equipment is a powerful reminder of how important agriculture is in this part of the state and our nation’s food supply.

FARMER

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker” — so God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board” — so God made a farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild; somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies, then tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon — and mean it” —so God made a farmer.

Paul Harvey