Summers on the farm

By Bernadette Stein of St. Cloud

“June is bustin’ out all over!  All over the meadows and the hills!” was first heard in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Carousel’ in April 1945. It became very popular and introduced the season of summer. The  whole summer – June, July, and August – were one big season to me as a child.

I remember Sunday nights walking with Mom and Dad and siblings out to the fields to check the crops. Uncle George, my Dad’s older brother who was a business owner, would often give Dad advice on what to plant on which field, but Mom had her ideas about which grain should be planted on each field. She was wise in many ways, being not only a farmer’s wife, but a farmer.

The days were filled with walking barefoot, up to Arkens Lake which bordered the northern edge of our property just north of Urbank in Ottertail County, making mud pies, butterflies dancing ahead, a cooling breeze after a hot summer day, the bright delight of rain-washed skies, fleecy clouds sailing in the blue sky, storms followed by rainbows, lakes for fishing, the cry of loons echoing at dusk, air sweet with the scent of clover and wild roses, moon-gazing and firefly-chasing with diamond stars glittering above.

Driving the tractor under supervision was a treat. When we were old enough we could help make hay and stack grain shocks. Pulling out mustard seeds and picking rocks gave us some work to do.

Laughter was endless as we roamed past golden grain fields, through open meadows, but the woods behind our house was the most magical place. Ginny, Bobby, Sonny, and I cleared an area that we called Fairyland. The light streamed through the trees, giving us shadows and sunshine. We would just hang out there, sometimes with snacks and dancing.

My birthday, July 1, wasn’t celebrated with classmates except for the year I was eight or nine years old. Our biggest entertainment was pushing off from the outside wall of the hayloft with our feet, swinging out on a rope. I think it was a special birthday party for the town kids too, being on a farm.

Where are all the birds? I remember the downy woodpecker, yellowed finch, orioles, robins, sparrows, crows, chick-a-dees, wrens, blackbirds, red-winged blackbirds, and most of all, meadow larks, which sang a beautiful song that I now hear only in my memory. Just recently I honored that memory in a poem.

At 92 I realize how lucky we were to grow up on a farm!

THE MEADOW LARK’S SONG  

Tweet, Tweet, Willy Dear,

Or it can sound like “Spring is here.”

Rings the song sweet and clear.

Announcing the start of day.

Trilling and whistling with a blast

Sweet melodies from the past.

Awakening memories that last 

From a childhood long ago. 

At morning’s first light

To banish darkness of night.

To greet the day most bright

With melodious flute-like song.  

Streaked brown back is what I see.

A bright yellow chest with a black V.

A songbird shares its gift never off-key.

A meadow lark sings where the grasses sway.

Grassland, prairies, meadows green.  

Ground nesters more heard than seen.

Perched on posts an unexpected scene.

Flute-like song starting with whistles.