a year without combines

You’d think that the third year of teaching would be easier. That starting up in the fall would take a little less out of you.

If you thought that, though, you’d be sorely mistaken.

The first three weeks of this school year have torn a strip out of me. I can feel my immune system slowly crashing; my eyes droop a little more every day. I am completely exhausted.

Not to say that the year has been bad: by week three the past couple of years I was already looking for alternate employment.

This year the sense of dread is largely gone.

But a new school means learning new names, new faces, new procedures, new locations, new habits. Teaching new courses means new curriculum, new assignments, new marking routines.

And of course, this year has come with its own particular stresses.

Schools, we are assured, need to ready themselves for the H1N1 plague we’re told will kill us all. $80 million budget cuts have everyone questioning the longevity of their employment. Talk of elections has the whole country up in arms.


What I need, dear reader, is for the whole world to step back and take a breather.

Which is why, this year, I find I really miss the harvest.


I think some farmers find harvest time particularly stressful : the potential for disaster – fires, rain, untimely snow, etc. – can be overwhelming at times.

For me, though, harvest is when I finally get to see the reward for all the evenings and weekends. Watching wheat pour into the combine hopper makes stiff necks and sore backs worth it.

At harvest time I turn off my brain and enjoy the world around me: the air is sweet with grain dust, the stubble shines in the fields.


But this year I get none of that. Our harvest is largely done. The early summer drought made sure of that.

Which, of course, means no combining this year. No wheat in the hopper. No golden stubble.


Instead we’ve a pit of silage and a winter ahead of us.

But we should count ourselves lucky. The year was not the wreck it could have been. We’ve feed for our cattle, which is something, and the chance to try again later.


And next spring, when I find myself swearing at the tractor, I’ll remind myself of the combining and reward to come.

That should straighten me out for a week or two.