Get The Tweezers, Mama

Cotton, soybeans, rye, corn, peanuts...

those are our primary crops. Those are the crops I think of when I think of farming in southeastern Virginia.

But a few weeks ago, my husband announced it was time to harvest the trees in front of our house.

I reacted as if someone had just yanked the shower curtain open just as the water was getting nice and warm.

What would I do for privacy?

For goodness sake, we'll be able to see another house from our own!

Mercy... I might as well be parading down the road in my unmentionables.

My children... well, my children acted as though we were cutting down their playground.

We appealed. We whined a little.

Okay, a lot.

We asked lots of questions hoping that would make him want to forget he'd ever seen a tree in his entire life.

Finally, we all put our slightly odd issues aside - it was time to harvest. After all, that's what we do. We plant and then we harvest. And we do a lot of praying and hoping along the way.

So this particular harvest is done. And I can see lights along the road that make me jump a little because I think someone is driving up the lane.

And those poor, heartbroken children?

Well, they have the best playground around. A playground full of stump-jumping and fort-building with the biggest darned splinters this side of the swamp.

I might need a bigger pair of tweezers.