CLAYTON RYE
A few weeks ago, when I was looking out the window while sitting in my favorite chair watching the ripening crops, I realized how those acres and acres of crops insulate me from what is happening in the rest of the world.
From my view across miles of corn and soybeans in every direction, the world is peaceful, idyllic in every sense of the word. I did look up the word idyllic to be sure I was using it correctly. I was.
Much of my daily routine is listening to talk radio to hear news, markets, and weather, in that order.
If it weren’t for what I hear from that box plugged into the wall electrical socket at one end with a speaker at the other end, the world would seem like a safe place with only concerns of what I see from my window, namely weather. It would be a simple life.
However, we have satellite television, satellite radio, and my personal favorite, internet radio. Then there is the DTN satellite antenna that receives the grain prices close to instantaneously where I can watch the falling grain markets on a computer monitor.
If there is such a thing as too much information, maybe we are there.
As if that isn’t enough, my wife likes Twitter and I check the Drudge Report frequently where anything that happens is reported almost s it happens.
We read or hear about the latest disasters from fire in the west to flooding in the south, and which candidate is blaming the other candidate for all the problems in the world.
Then I look across my yard to a sky that can be sunny or overcast, winds that are from a slight breeze to a healthy gale, and crops that are well into the reproductive stage with that last push before the growing season ends.
I believe it is looking at those crops that are doing what they have done every growing season since long before I was born, that reassures me the world, for the many calamities and near calamities, will continue in spite of fear mongering from politicians and alleged experts.
There is no denying the uncertainty of life each and every day from accidents to disasters to changes in health or just plain aging for those fortunate enough to make it that far.
There is a milkweed growing up between the boards on the porch outside my front door. I have left it alone and it is doing nicely, using the boards as support as it grows higher and higher.
I did pull the seed pods off because I don’t need to encourage milkweeds around here. The butterflies will find them in the ditch anyway.
I have never lost my respect and admiration for those green plants, weeds included.
Every year they wait for spring and then spend the next weeks and months sprouting, growing, and setting seeds to prepare for next year because they know the days will eventually get shorter and a frost will arrive someday.
In the meantime, there will be too much rain, too little rain, too hot, or some guy going by spraying a tank of herbicide.
It’s a perilous existence for a green plant and it is rooted, there is no moving away to a safer place. Yet, they do it anyway.
In spite of all the dangers, whether you are a plant or a person, the world is an amazing place, fraught with danger but we have the knowledge and instinct to keep ourselves as safe as possible while we take in our surroundings to also enjoy the benefits.
As we prepare for next year.
Rye is a Farm News staff writer and farmer from Hanlontown. Reach him by e-mail at crye@wctatel.net.