Harvest

I grew up on a farm near a small prairie town in Saskatchewan Canada. I am now in a big city that while O.K. it doesn't have same impact in the fall as my early life on the farm.

I find the city just gets grey in the fall, the leaves change, but they are quickly shuttled into their orange or clear bags and end their life sitting lonely by the curb awaiting the recycling truck to haul them off to their final resting place... The city is then just grey, even in the winter and the city is blanketed its white blanket of snow it still "feels" grey...

Perhaps it is my warm remembrances of youth but this is what I miss...

The smell of the newly harvested grain in the air. It is hard to explain if you have never lived on the prairies. There is a comfort to that smell, it is unique, it is life...

The striped fields of grain drying in the sun. It is beautiful thing to behold, give me the fall harvest colours on the prairies to the mountains any day. The mountains never change, the prairies are painted new colours almost every day...

The days of the huge prairie moon. This is a secret of the prairies, nowhere will you see the moon explode over the horizon like the the prairies. I remember many times being in awe of its shear size and colour. Imagine a moon that is so big and so orange that it seems to swallow the sky, you can lose yourself in its magnificence...

The sky and the fields below being alive with geese and ducks... I remember fields being white with snow geese and the whole field seeming to take off when the geese moved to their next feeding place, the sounds of geese honking and ducks quacking on their yearly voyage south are the songs of the prairie fall...

The wonderful late fall days that are clear and warm and without wind, days which which you hold on to, cherish, since you know it won't be long until the familiar nip in the air beckons the coming winter...

The northern lights dancing on a clear night. How can you explain their dance unless you have laid under the stars and experienced them for yourself. Their beauty is saved for the souls that can witness them in person, no photograph can capture their life...

The melancholy days awaiting winter's approach...