The end of harvest is a special, but stressful time in Saskatchewan. For farmers, it’s the busiest season of the year where a full spring and summer’s worth of work culminate in the final push to get the crop out of the field and into the bin before the snow starts to fly.
Pests, disease, yields, moisture levels, inclement weather, malfunctioning equipment, field fires, all of those worries can finally come off a farmer’s shoulders for a few months before doing it all over again. As the final swipes of the crop are taken off the field, a lot of farm families have traditions they follow to celebrate the end of harvest, right there in the field. During a busy harvest season, it gives the crew in the field a chance to stop being coworkers and simply just be a family.
For my family in the Wilkie area, one of our end-of-harvest traditions was always a meal in the field. On the last field of harvest, Mom and Grandma would put together a feast for my dad, brothers, uncle, and farmhands in the field, pack everything in sealed heat safe containers and wrap them up tight to make sure nothing spilled out on the bumpy gravel roads, then load it up in the truck with some plastic chairs and a table to set up a family supper in the field.
As Mom and Grandma pulled up into the field, grain trucks and combines would gather around, and suddenly a noisy field that was alive with the sounds of combines threshing and grain truck engines was quiet as the dust settled. The table was set up for everyone to eat with the endgate of a truck serving as a buffet table, and under the purples and oranges of a Saskatchewan harvest sunset, we’d all relax for a few moments and enjoy a meal together, with the only interruption coming from the odd neighbour driving by and giving us a honk along the way.
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