She fanned herself, although the air was warm and offered little relief. She took a drink of sun tea, but the ice had melted, and it didn’t do much to quench her thirst. It was incredibly hot, and she wondered if she had ever experienced such heat before, but she couldn’t recall when.
She worried about her husband and son out in the fields, where the sun bore down on them as they did their chores. Neither heat nor cold could stop them. They had been working since before sunrise, and now the noon hour approached. She knew it was time for them to stop and eat what she had prepared. She rang the bell on the post of the front porch, and in a few minutes, she heard the silence of the tractor and watched as her two men slowly walked toward the house, wiping their brows and stopping at the water pump to clean up a little.
The small fan sitting on the counter did little to cool anything off, but it was a welcome addition as they ate their sandwiches and slices of cool watermelon. “I guess we need to get back to it,” her son said. “There are only so many hours of daylight.” They put on their ball caps, soaked with sweat, but not before dunking them in water, which helped keep their heads cooler for a few minutes. “See you for supper,” she said, kissing her husband and smiling at her son, who kissed her cheek before walking back out into the triple-digit heat.
She heard the school bus stop and walked to the end of the drive to meet their daughter, who had only one more week of school before summer break. She was soaked with sweat but managed a smile as her mother handed her a glass of sun tea with a few small ice cubes still in it. “I suppose I can’t skip chores today,” she thought, looking out at the fields and seeing her dad and brother working harder than she ever had. “I’ll get to my chores as soon as I change into something dry.”
The sun was setting when the noise of the tractor stopped, and her men once again took the long walk home, where the porch light had come on and the smell of pot roast filled the air. “Good work today, son. I know it wasn’t easy,” his father said. “I lost a few pounds from sweating all that water out,” his son replied, taking off his ball cap and dunking it in the horse trough. They washed off at the water pump and changed clothes before sitting down at the supper table. Outside, the crickets began their evening chirps, and the cows grazed in the field, where the sun had once made it too hot to eat.
They sat together on the porch, sharing stories about their days, hoping that tomorrow would be cooler. Then, out of nowhere, the air got cooler as rain began to fall. “Now, where did that come from?” Dad asked. “There wasn’t any rain forecast for days.” They all got up and stepped out into the rain, looking up at the heavens and giving thanks for such a welcome blessing.
The following day, the temperature was twenty degrees cooler, and the chores didn’t seem so bad. Mom turned on the oven to bake a pie while her men joked around as they headed for the fields, playfully shoving each other and making light of the situation, saying that the rain had settled the dust, making their work less dirty. Mom walked their daughter to the bus, wishing her a great day but questioning why she needed a sweater.
Tomorrow the temperature would soar again, but at least they had been granted a little reprieve today, and that was all any farming family could hope for.
Mike 2025
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