Erntemond

Saturday night brought this year's Harvest Moon. In German, it's Erntemond. I know the word because it is the name of our Deutsch Kurzhaar kennel, registered in Germany with the Deutsch-Kurzhaar-Verband.

When I was searching for a kennel name many years ago, my mentor Steve Kohlmann suggested Erntemond. He knew I was a farm kid, and he told me a story about Charlemagne naming the months of the year in the old German tongue, words his people actually lived by. One of them belonged to the harvest. I don't remember every detail of how Steve told it, but I remember the point. Some things are important enough that people named time after them.

We are on the cusp of harvest,s the season when a year's worth of decisions finally shows up in the grain tank. The hybrid we chose last winter, the planting date we argued over in the spring, the side-dress pass, the rain that came or didn't. All of it gets settled in a few short weeks, and there's no revising it once the combine rolls.

After this many years, I've learned that harvest isn't really about the yield monitor. It's about what I'm carrying forward. My family has farmed in DeKalb County since 1855. I wonder what my ancestors thought when they harvested their first crop there. They couldn't have known how the story would turn out. They planted anyway. They harvested what came, took the lesson, and trusted the next generation to pick it up.

That's what the Harvest Moon means to me now. It didn't make the work any shorter. It gave farmers enough light to finish it. Nobody gets to see the whole field at once. You get enough light for the next few rows, and you keep going.

The dogs seem to understand this better than I do. A pointer doesn't worry about the whole field. She works the ground in front of her, trusts her nose, and holds steady when it matters.

Soon the combines will start rolling in earnest across Northeast Indiana. Saturday night, I watched the moon rise over the fields of Allen County while I took in my son's marching band competition. There was comfort in that view, knowing Erntemond was rising.

Whatever you're bringing in this season, I hope you have enough light to finish it.