Fill a thermos, pack a lunch: it's harvest time - Henan Duct Tape Group Co.,Ltd

Combines roll in small-grain fields near my rural home and memories flash into my mind.

During harvest, I used to fill thermoses with iced tea, lemonade, water or coffee, depending on who it was for, and help my grandma pack "lunch kits" as we called them.

The "kits" were black, plastic lunch boxes with metal clasps. But what was inside of the lunch kits mattered most. One side held the Thermos of liquid and the other side was the lunch, often two homemade — never store-bought — cookies wrapped in wax paper, a whole piece of fruit like an apple, peach or plum and a meat sandwich, often venison summer sausage from the previous fall's successful hunt, with a light layer of butter on two slices of wheat bread. We'd also rotate different days with peanut butter sandwiches, spread with homemade fruit jam that Grandma Nola also taught me to make.

If we were low on sandwich meat or regular peanut butter, I made a few Cheez-Whiz sandwiches, which I think you need to be from a certain part of rural America to even know about. My grandma always had an open jar of Cheez-Whiz in her refrigerator and more backup jars on a pantry shelf in the stairway to the basement. I imagine the disappointment if you thought I had made you a meaty sandwich and instead, the bread contained a smear of processed cheese product.

Grandpa never got a Cheez-Whiz sandwich though. Grandma had some low-sugar and sodium, healthier peanut butter for him. I'd sneak in a special sandwich creation for my Grandpa Sonny, peanut butter and pickles — defeating the sodium limitations — or peanut butter and banana, and make one for myself for later too.

I knew if I filled my own thermos and had my own (most years was Strawberry Shortcake) lunch box ready I catch a ride to the field too.

Harvest lunch kits weren't for lunch, or noon time. They were more of an afternoon snack time, between dinner at noon and supper later in the field.

Masking tape with my best penmanship labeled each lunch kit.

I lined them up with my grandma by the door for the harvest crew to take with them after they all came in the house for a big meat and potatoes homemade dinner that we set the table for and often included freshly picked peas or green beans from the garden just outside the back door of my grandparent's farm home.

I drove into my grandma's farmyard this morning with my mom, who taught me how to make the best harvest suppers. We walked into the entrance where the lunch kits used to line up, sat in the kitchen where decades ago I helped pack lunches and fill thermos and walked through the dining room where noontime dinners still fill my memory.

I sat and visited with my mom, in her late 60s, and my grandma, in her early 90s, both farm women who taught me to serve others and feed them well.

Routines change and in the midst of doing what needs to be done we are not always aware of the deep life lessons and memories being created.

My nephews, niece, our daughters and son all get in on harvest as they can around school schedules. While they won't be filling a masking tape-labeled black lunch kit, they're still filling a thermos and packing a lunch to get in on a slice of harvest.

Thank you to all who serve through harvest. The seen and behind the scenes, those on the payroll and those not, young, middle-aged to retired, filling in or full-time, you keep harvest rolling in America.

If harvest feels only of yesteryear for you or just what a neighbor or cousin does, fill a couple of thermoses, pack lunches, and ask if you can bring them some harvest lunch to the field, go for a ride.

Try to avoid the Cheez-Whiz sandwiches.

Pinke is the publisher and general manager of Agweek. She can be reached at [email protected], or connect with her on Twitter @katpinke.