Bringing in the harvest

September 07, 2026

Key points from this story:

• Harvest is the most satisfying element
• Sense of pride, accomplishment and relief
• Gardeners share similar seasonal satisfaction
• Author disliked long tractor days
• Truck driving involved constant unloading work
• Harvest memories include cellar and hunting

There is a certain level of pride, accomplishment and relief all rolled into one emotion when a crop you planted and tended and watched the skies for in terms of weather over the months has finally gone through the combine, and into the bin.

The rare feeling is one maybe only completely shared by the gardener as they freeze their peas, or dig their potatoes.

Certainly for this writer I recall fall growing up on the farm a little differently than the other seasons of the year.

Admittedly, I was never one who enjoyed time in the tractor seat. Going around a field all day was in no way a joy for me - probably a situation improved today by air conditioning in cabs, radios and even Internet access.

In the early 1970s the distractions were simpler - read boring - with a cloud that might resemble a turtle, or a hawk circling the field hoping to find a mouse - often the day's highlight. Fall was different.

I was the truck driver, and not the monster semis of today, so it was constant work, and that included shoveling often to finish unloading.

But, when there was a break in the field awaiting the flashing lights that signalled the combine needed emptying there was just actually the scent of the season in the air. Combines across the area throwing the scents of cereal grains into the air.

And at night, for some reason of bouncing signals, you could often hear radio stations in the truck from afar. My first NBA game that I can recall was the Denver Nuggets on the radio from Denver one late fall.

Then as the harvesting day came to a close - the dew ending the threshing - I recall clearly too the crisp air as Dad and I drove the half ton out to the garden to collect bags of potatoes, carrots, turnips, to take back and into the cellar to ensure the table always had hearty meals even in the depth of upcoming winter.

We might also get that small shower one eve, a signal we could maybe sneak away the next morning for some grouse hunting amid the trees laden with their fall foliage.

Certainly today harvest is no doubt different in many ways, but also that sense of a job done well finally being completed surely prevails. It is a time unique in the memories it creates.