It's hard to believe it’s already October, the month of the Hunter’s Moon. Where did the summer go? Where did this year go? I feel like Rip Van Winkle, who suddenly woke up after a long sleep and wondered where the time had gone.
As I drive around the countryside, I notice a lot of leaves already starting to turn. Fall is a beautiful time of year, but it goes by much too quickly. I’d like to spread fall out so it lasts as long as winter does here in the upper Midwest. However, that’s about as likely as Brett Favre retiring for good and not un-retiring when training camp is over. As my friend, David Giffey, would say, “But that’s another story.”
Fall triggers memories of harvesting crops and helping Ma bring in vegetables from the garden, back when I was young. By the time the Hunter’s Moon was hung in the sky, the tobacco crop, hanging in the shed, was slowly curing and turning brown.
Silo filling was the next great adventure. When I was young, Dad didn’t have his own chopper, wagons, and silo unloader. He hired a farmer who had the equipment and went from farm to farm, doing the harvesting.
It was always an exciting time when they arrived with the silo unloader and started running the pipes up into the silo. We were usually in school when silo filling took place, but got to help out when we got home. I got to drive the John Deere B or 50 and hauled wagons from the field to the silo. Then helped unload the wagons by pulling the silage from the back end of the wagon into the unloader. An auger would push the silage into the blower and it would shoot up the pipe into the silo with a rattling sound. It was a dangerous job and you had to be careful not to get your clothes caught in the auger. That could lead to a quick amputation of a limb. Many farmers are missing an arm or a leg because of silo filling accidents.
When I think of silo filling. I can still smell the sweet scent of the silage. There’s something about smells that conjure up all kinds of memories associated with that smell. The smell of silage brings back memories of silo-filling, throwing down the silage in the middle of winter, and finally that sickening smell from the fermented silage in the bottom of the silo at the end of the year. I bet those same smells come drifting back from your memory bank as you read this.
This time of year was also canning time for Ma and Grandma Inga. They put up a wide variety of vegetables and fruits in Mason jars. The sealed jars sat on shelves in the cool cellar until it was time to retrieve them and bring the rewards from the summer garden, upstairs to enjoy in the dead of winter. It also helped remind us that there was a world beyond all the snow and cold weather that surrounded and imprisoned us. When I went down in the cellar a couple years ago to look around, there were still unopened jars filled with vegetables that Ma had gathered together and canned many years ago. She’s been gone for seventeen years now. Those cans were filled many years ago, while she was still healthy.
I can picture her working and slaving over the hot stove, preparing the food for canning. Like so many guys, I never paid much attention to the canning process, but I know it was a lot of work. I just reaped the benefits of all her hard work. Unfortunately, I never thanked her for all she did to keep her family fed. Each fall when harvest and canning time comes around, I’m reminded of my taking those things for granted. Now when I see those old Mason jars sitting on the rotting shelves in the cellar, they aren’t just jars of food. They carry the imprint of the caring, skillful hands of Ma as she prepared and carried them down the cellar steps so her family would never go hungry.
Yes, the images and smells of fall certainly bring back memories for all of us. The birds are flocking together in preparation for their trip to warmer climates for the winter. We’ve seen power lines full of birds. When they take to the air, it’s like a black cloud. I always wonder how they keep from having mid-air collisions. I also heard a flock of geese flying overhead. I’ve said many times that I consider it one of the great sights and sounds of nature.
Along with the Hunter’s Moon will come the sound of gunfire and smell of gunpowder in the air. Fall certainly brings out the hunter/gatherer in man as we store up food and meat for the long winter ahead. Most city inhabitants do their hunting and gathering in big supermarkets. Many rural people still do their hunting and gathering just like their ancestors did, and their ancestors before them.
The world and attitudes are quickly changing as we go from a rural to an urban society. But out here in the countryside, you still find people gathering a bountiful harvest from their gardens and preparing their equipment for the upcoming hunt. Hunters and gatherers… they’re still a part of life.
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