city girl in a farm town

So, I knew when I moved here that it was going to be quite a bit different from anywhere I have ever lived. I have never lived in "farm country" and I have definitely never lived in the "Bible Belt". I was so happy to move here, I was finally where I've always wanted to be. My spring was wonderful, I watched the trees blossom and the new leaves bud. The birds come back out and life be reborn. Things that I missed while I was living in Florida.

Summer was amazing. It was never so hot and humid at the same time that I couldn't stand it outside. I spent much of my summer outdoors enjoying my new home to go along with my new life.

Fall came later than I had expected it to. And it came on suddenly. On Saturday, when driving to Huntsville, the leaves were all green. On Sunday, when driving back to Huntsville for Mass, the leaves were variations of reds, oranges, yellows, and golds. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

That said, not everything has been beautiful and refreshing here. We're closer to the earth here than in the city. There is more grass, more dirt, more wildlife, and you can notice changes in the earth here more. Around half way through the summer, we realized that all the corn crops were dying. The corn was rotting before it was ripe. Then the cotton plants failed to open. We had acres and acres of brown, dead, corn stalks, and dead cotton plants then later. The corn has thankfully been plowed under now, but the farmers haven't managed to plow under the cotton. It is just like death surrounding you.


As can be seen by this picture I snapped with my BlackBerry camera this morning, these fields are all over the place, and very depressing. all you see is acres of white on black. Millions of dollars worth of crops dead, and you have to wonder about the food supply for the winter. Was the growing season so bad for everyone everywhere? Or only in this area? Granted, cotton isn't a food stuff, but the corn and beans were, and they also died. As a midwife I rejoice at every new life, every new birth, and seeing these dead crops just give me shivers. As a mother, it makes me wonder how many years we can stand total crop loss before we go hungry?

We also have had a weird budding of flowers very late in the season, and monarch butterflies that are just now coming out as caterpillers and butterflies. So I ask Linda, is this normal for around here? And she answers me with "no", turns out she is just as startled by it as I am.

We have celebrated new birth here at the clinic though, and welcomed baby Selah to the Blessed Care Clinic babies. She is just beautiful, as can be seen in her picture below.


Isn't she beautiful? We don't have any more babies due at the clinic until December 28th, and so the midwives around here (students and senior alike) are relaxing, cleaning, and getting ready for a busy year next year!