Wheat Field Ripe for Harvesting
Reservoir Overflowing into Pasture
Early last summer it rained so much that wheat farmers in this part of Oklahoma couldn’t get into the muddy fields to harvest their wheat before the weeds overcame it. That’s the reason the price of a bushel of wheat tripled, reaching all-time highs.
As wheat harvest approached, the price of a bushel of wheat has come down, but still is at record-highs. So there was great hope that this year farmers could make some money from their wheat crop, though it was tempered greatly by the accelerating costs of fertilizer and fuel. A few farmers around here were able, on Thursday, in between the 4.5 inches of rain we got last week, to cut a few acres. Last night, we got another 5 inches of rain. And more is predicted almost every day this week.
This morning, the wind has ceased and there is stillness in the cool air. The water is rising all around – the creeks are filling; the conservation reservoir is overflowing; the pond has gone round the spillway. It will be two weeks before we can get the combines into the fields. The weeds, however, will continue to grow.
Already this morning, there are dire predictions about the ability for some family farmers not only to cut our wheat – but, in this second year without a crop and costs-over-the-top, to be able to continue to farm.
We’re in a pattern. It certainly is a different pattern than the one nature was in when our grandmothers and grandfathers homesteaded this great prairie. And that has to be for a myriad of reasons – one of which is that much of this prairie is farmed now, and in such a way that it has contributed to global warming.
Farmers have, historically, tried to work with nature, tried to take advantage of nature, tried to work around nature, tried to overcome nature. Farmers are profoundly aware and respectful of the power of nature. Adapting to changes in the patterns of nature require wisdom and time and resources. There is a generation out here that is weary and disheartened. It is indeed a sad morning for the farmers here in north central Oklahoma’s wheat country.
As for nature…Cattle have gone to high ground this morning. Branches on trees hang low with moisture. The breeze is beginning to return. Thunder rolls in the distance now – heralding more rain. The birds continue to sing their amazing music. Nature seems to adapt to whatever comes. Whatever affects it, it adjusts.
We are all in this together. What nature does affects us; what we do affects nature. It’s sobering. It’s humbling. Hope lies in our ability to stop, reflect, look at the realities, be open to whatever adjustments will best give life to all, in this great web of life.
