Chris Hardie

Dad’s other tool of choice was a hammer. He was fond of saying that if you couldn’t fix it, you simply needed a bigger hammer.

The recent announcement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that it will soon require nationwide testing of milk to address bird flu outbreaks in dairy herds took me back many years on the farm.

My preparations for the upcoming gun deer season took me on a walk through the woods the other day. While my purpose was to prepare my deer stand, I also needed the walk for therapeutic reasons.

As we march through the end of October, the harvest season is earlier and going full throttle in farm country, thanks mainly to a long stretch of dry weather.

Lilac bloom time is one of my favorite parts of spring, so my senses were sent catawampus when I inhaled their fragrance last week. The nasal insufflation took me back to May when it was October.

There’s always a sense of urgency to get outdoor chores completed when the calendar turns to fall.

I sat on the back stoop on the cusp of autumn, coffee in hand, and bade goodbye to summer.  “Seems like I hardly knew you,” I said.

School is back in session, a sure sign that another summer season has flown by. 

The summer season is winding down but August was usually the month for our family vacations – which were difficult to come by when you lived on a dairy farm.

“Do you know where you are going?”

My assignment as an 11-year-old on a hot summer day was to rake hay. The sun was shining, the hay was cut and we were going to bale hay.