Wheat Harvest

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Hot, dry, windy Kansas summer days can only mean one thing…wheat harvest! Since the beginning of aCross Creation I knew I wanted to film in Edwards County when my father was cutting his wheat. My family has owned land near Kinsley, KS since the 1880’s and a ritual of my childhood summer was traveling from Wichita to spend a few days watching the combines work in the field. Because harvest and wheat are major metaphors used in scripture I knew it would be the perfect setting for some of our episodes.

Because of travel and timing, we almost missed our chance at harvest this year. I returned from a few days of vacation on Friday afternoon and about 90 minutes later we were on the road west to Kinsley. The farmers who tend my father’s land had started cutting on June 18th and they were down to their last 30 acres by the time we arrived in town.

After checking into our B&B “The Tucked Inn” (which happens to be owned by a lifelong family friend) we headed directly for the field. It was hot! And windy! And dusty! (all things harvest should be). The wheat was beautiful waving in the wind and to see the combines rolling through the field created an absolutely ideal setting. We worked for several hours and filmed one episode before the field was finished or the sun set. We even had time for a quick stop at the Salem cemetery (where all my Lippoldt relatives are buried) before heading back to Kinsley for a late dinner.

Several months ago I had made plans to have a good friend from seminary visit me this weekend. Since we had to film Friday and Saturday before harvest finished, she had no choice but to come along! Melinda helped in a number of ways. She made great suggestions and worked with me to do some rewriting of the script. She also did a great job with the boom microphone. Not only was it fun to show her the project, she was especially needed since Steve Martz was still in France on a business trip. It wasn’t the weekend we had planned but Melinda received a true Kansas adventure.

On Saturday morning we headed out to a different field owned by the brother of the farmer we worked with on Friday. Since my father had finished cutting his wheat he was able to help us all morning. He turned out to be good with the reflector and also answered all our questions about harvesting wheat. That morning we filmed again with an active combine in the background, traveled to the Burdett elevator for another scene and found the perfect field with weeds in the wheat to illustrate my main point. By noon we were again hot, dusty and tired but satisfied that another episode was filmed.

Over our 24 hours in Edwards County we saw a coyote, deer, pheasant, a buffalo herd and more mosquitoes than we could count. Thanks and thanks to our hosts: John and Susan Ploger, owners of the Tucked Inn; John and Gary Klenke, the cooperative and generous farmers, and Clayton who gave Greg and I each a ride on the combine.

Thanks also for your continued support of this project. I cannot wait to begin to use aCross Creation episodes at Woodland in our Daybreak Service. Our launch date of September 12 is right around the corner!

rev. amy