| The summer is waning and harvest has come. I can hear the combines chugging along in the field north of the Blessed Life Ranch...and to the south, east and west. Plumes of dust rise along the gravel roads as farm vehicles hum along. It is a good sound and reminds me of my childhood when we used to visit my grandpa’s farm.
It's hard not to love Fall. The down side, of course, is that Winter always follows. I do not like Winter any more. As I approach 60 it has become more difficult to see the joy of snow-blown landscapes, biting cold winds and bare tree rows. But Fall is glorious in the Upper Great Plains. There is still the warm breath of Summer during the shortening days, but the nights become chilly and soon the winds come only from the cold north.
Even so, I love living where there are four distinct seasons. But I sure do see why C.S. Lewis portrayed Narnia, under the White Witch, as a place where it was always Winter and never Spring.
We are harvesting at the Blessed Life Ranch, too. Tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, beans, peas, and sweet corn. There is nothing like those first ears of corn, slathered with butter and seasoned with salt. Sliced cucumbers at every meal, along with juicy tomatoes and boiled new potatoes. We have pumpkin and squash, cantalope and watermelon. Three varieties of tomatoes will keep us busy making salsa, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup and stewed tomatoes. Today I canned beets in anticipation of cold winter days when I will simmer a big pot of beet borscht. Dozens of jars of pickles stand at attention on the counter and green beans fill the beginning of more than 100 quarts of the much-loved vegetable. What a blessing.
No wonder God started all things off by placing Adam and Eve in a garden. I wonder what that would have been like to work in a garden where there were no dandelions, thistles, curly dock or purslane. And what about their evenings. The Scriptures say that God walked with them in the evenings. Imagine that...walking with God in the garden. What a blessing. One has to wonder how our first parents could trade that away.
Harvest is the natural end of the garden cycle. Soon my little patch of rich, black loam will lie at rest until Spring. The Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter cycle is a picture of our own lives. Spring goes so quickly that we hardly even notice it and spend most of that time anticipating Summer. Summer is brief but very productive. Fall helps us to realize that our lives are brief, like the grass, and Winter brings our earthly sojourn to an end. It’s a good picture of our pilgrimage.
I am in the Harvest time of my life. I have lived long enough to look forward to the end of my life with a great joy and anticipation of eternity with the Lord. I think about heaven as I approach the Winter of my life.
I wonder if there will be a garden there? | 
