God’s Happy Place

 

“The farmer is in God’s happy place when he is working in the fields, the vineyards, the orchards, and the pastures.” 

c.e.hollis

The earth at summer’s end and autumn’s coming has a sweetness––warm and lingering. It has been planted, watered, weeded, and watch-dogged. It waits for the farmer to harvest.

Fruit trees and pecan and walnut trees are waiting, waiting out their season. Summer’s finale comes with fall and apples and pears  loaded in baskets and bins. The house smells like cinnamon on hot applesauce.

When the pecans are ready, dried and fully meated, they drop from browned husks to the ground. The garden gives up the last vegetables: greens, okra, broccoli, cabbages, melons and tomatoes. The turnips and beets, pumpkins and sweet potatoes are carried in baskets or wheelbarrow to the house or market and canned, dried, or frozen for winter.

The air smells of figs––syrupy sweet, and they will ripen until the frost comes and blackens their furry mitten-shaped leaves. The hay is baled in brown rolls and set in rows; the new against the few leftover bales of last year. Cows graze on the last green and spend their days lazy and content. The mama cows are carrying their calves who will soon be runnning along beside them.

The farmer works, but he is waiting––wondering how his challenging summer in wind, rain, and heat will pay off. He is happy out in the fields––growing things like Adam did. His work is hard, but enjoyable. Weather conditions, weeds, briars, insects, and sweat are his daily concerns. He prays for patience. He prays for strength. He prays for favor. He is happy himself in God’s happiest place.