A new month has started. From July to August, we keep moving forward. Daylight is shortening here in the Northern Hemisphere. I notice the dark longer in the morning and earlier at night. Today, we’re six weeks past the summer solstice. A new window is opening on the seasons of our lives.

To show the way, I like this window from the old barn down on Uncle Joe’s farm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I wandered the farmyard last month, I stopped to lean against a new roll of baled hay. Across the gravel, the maize (sorghum or milo, as it’s also called) was ripening into the distance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I stepped across the lane to examine closer the burnt-orange panicles of paired spikelets with the small sorghum seeds drying in the sun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The yesterday-news is that Uncle Joe has finished harvesting the sorghum. On the top of the hill, a few of the stalks had fallen in the winds and rain of mid-July. We had a week of rain, unusual weather for July, and it happened when the sorghum had peaked and was ready for the combine. Joe says yields will be down. Grain is left behind in the fields. Foraging animals, domestic and wild, will be happy with the fallen bounty.

As Uncle Joe says, “It is what is.”

And so it is on the farm, rain or shine, a hay-swirl of continuing activity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up is the corn. I caught these July tassels waving in the warm summer wind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below the tassels, the ears were drying in their parchment shucks, the top-knot silk on each ear darkened to a stylish hairdo reflecting the smug age and growing maturity of the primping crop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, the ears are ready. Mary tells me Uncle Joe and Brother Charles started harvesting the corn this last week.

About the only things resting down there on the farm are the watermelon-colored crape myrtles or lagerstroemia blooming back at the house. MeMaw always kept some of the heat-loving crapes out front to brighten the yard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s not to say there’s no time for fun on the farm.

Here’s Uncle Joe giving rides in the big tractor with cab to the nephews and nieces. You can see the maize is still up in the background, watching the fun under the setting sun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sailors say, “Red sky at night, sailors’ delight; red sky at morning, sailors’ warning.”

As the sun dipped to night, golden red hands in the evening sky lifted and glowed with a promise for the morrow’s day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the field next to that old barn with its window to another day, it seemed the corn was waving goodnight and welcome at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I’m sure MeMaw arranged, the next days were gorgeous and bright for the relatives to gather and say their final goodbyes. The rains waited for later in the month when they were most needed for the cotton and not so for the maize, but that always the way of things down in the country.

As Uncle Joe says so well, “It is what it is.”

And, we’re glad for that.

Grandpa Jim