Good grief, it was cold this morning when I came to work,” grumbled Molly Whiteside when she delivered the menus the other morning as the guys sat down at Mabel’s Grill.
“Yeah, snow is coming soon I’m guessing,” said Dave Winston.
“Oh please, not already!” George MacKenzie moaned.
“Yeah, first we’ve got the beauty of all those fall leaves to enjoy,” said Cliff Murray cheerfully. “It’s such a beautiful time of year.”
“But then the leaves all fall off the trees and my wife starts complaining that I have to get them raked up before they kill off the grass,” grumbled George. “And then she’s got this list of all the other things that need to be done before winter.
“But first we have Thanksgiving and remember all the good things we have to be thankful for,” Cliff said. “Another good year, despite some dry spells and the effects of Donald Trump’s tariffs, and higher prices for food, clothing and so on.”
“I guess we could be living on the street,” Molly admitted. “Or someplace like Ukraine where’d we have to worry about being hit by drones when we’re sleeping at night.”
“Well, I’m going to celebrate this morning,” said Dave. “I’ll had a slice of pumpkin pie along with my coffee!”
“Pumpkin pie? For breakfast?” Molly questioned.
“It’s time to celebrate another fall,” Dave laughed.
The other guys weren’t quite so adventurous and ordered bacon and eggs. Molly took their orders back to Mabel in the kitchen.
“Well we got the soybeans off okay,” Cliff said, continuing his optimistic tone. “Of course we only have 25 acres, not 1,000 acres like some people.”
“I don’t have 1,000 acres,” Dave argued. “Only about 250. But we got finished with that.”
“We got our beans off too,” George said. “But we’ve still got a few acres of corn to harvest.”
“Yes, we’ve got a couple of hundred acres of corn to come off,” Dave admitted. “I’ve got days ahead getting all that combined before I can put the combine away and relax.”
“At least you’ve got a warm cab on your combine,” George said. “I know some big dairy farmers who take their corn off with forage harvesters and blow it into horizontal silos.”
“And next thing you know it will be Halloween,” Cliff said, trying to change the subject to something more cheerful. “It’s nice to see everybody get dressed up fancy for the holiday.”
“Yeah, they certainly do get dressed up these days,” George said. “I remember my dad saying that back in his day you got dressed up in stuff you found around the house – sometimes buying a mask in town to top it off.”
“I can’t remember the last time we had kids for Halloween,” Dave said. “They all go to town.”
“They’re good farm kids who know how to turn a profit,” Cliff said. “In the same time they could go to five homes in the country they can visit 25 homes and get five times as much loot in town.”
“Hmm, something to remind my wife if she starts talking about how we should sell the farm and move to town,” George said.
Molly returned with Dave’s pie and the bacon and eggs for the others. “You guys talking about Halloween already?”
“We were just talking about all the kids in the neighbourhood heading to town so they can get more candies in the same amount of time.”
“Believe me, I know all about it,” replied Molly. “Which is why after a few years of giving out hundreds of dollars’ worth of candy, I went to the orchard outside of town and got freshly picked apples to give out instead?”
“And how do the kids like that?” wondered Dave.
Well by the third year half the kids stopped coming,” Molly said, “and I had more apples for myself!”◊