It is the middle of
the afternoon, but darkness has descended on the world. The sky has taken on a
hue somewhere between sulfurous yellow and angry purple. Sheets of sound unfurl
like huge flags: thunder, beginning as a timid growl in the distance, rolls in,
wave after wave, hardly pausing for breath. Once again water is rushing from
the eaves in a thick stream. Anxiously, we listen for the characteristic change
in the patter of rain on the roof, the sudden increase in volume that indicates
that the drops have hardened to pellets of ice.
Severe
thunderstorms are particularly worrisome this close to harvest: it doesn’t take much to totally devastate an
almost ripe field, to split open the more and more brittle pods of canola
plants.
This time we are lucky;
half an hour later the seam of blue in the west is growing rapidly. The storm
has moved on.
Carl, returning from work at the fertilizer dealership just north
of St. Albert, half an hour south of here, has a different tale to tell. He shows
us photos he took right before he left: the ground at the plant is white with
hail, a wheat field across the road looks ragged, heads bent or even snapped
off, grim reminder that it takes only a few minutes to turn a promising crop
into a crop failure.
We had enjoyed a period of relatively good
weather before last night’s return to thunderstorm activity, and harvest has
begun. We started combining barley on Monday, and canola is being swathed as
well. Swathing can be done even when in
somewhat wet conditions (not in the rain, however), and it is important that
this happens soon; the canola swaths will have to cure for about three weeks before
we can start combining. The barley will be ready to thresh as soon as it dries
up, and the weather forecast looks quite promising for the weekend.
While I will be involved with
the harvest once it starts in earnest I have only driven the tractor with the
grain cart for an afternoon so far. My work has mostly taken place in the
garden in the last few weeks, trying to cope with the huge amounts of
cucumbers, beans, peas, raspberries, and sour cherries. It is work I love, but
this year any time spent in the garden has been marred by the mosquitoes. I’m
afraid the only lasting remedy would be a frost – and I’m not quite ready for
that yet!
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