Harvest
November and November memories. That is what the harvest brings. For me this means thoughts of Kansas, of cousins, of candy corns and love. When I was growing up we went to Kansas for the harvest. My grandparents were farmers. They grew wheat. They had cows and chickens. And a big family. We would gather on the farm every November, children spilling from every room. The men would sit in the living room talking politics with their deep voices. The women populated the kitchen and dining room, preparing all of the food. The children ran from one room to another chasing each other or hiding from each other, out through the plant-filled sun room, through the sliding back door into the yard and around the house only to come running back in through the front door. Sometimes a few of us would go for long walks around the property. We climbed on hay bales and fed stray cats and hunted for animal bones in the trees that lined the edges of the street. We'd touch the electr