"Harvest Home"
By Esther Smith
“Come ye thankful people,come
Raise the song of harvest home.
All is safely gathered in,
‘ere the winter storms begin….”
At this time of year, we may be reminded of “days gone by”, through images we have seen of beautiful shire horses pulling wagons laden with hay, corn for threshing, or root vegetables, all helping to see farming families through the hard winter ahead.
Here at Caring For Life, the shire horses at Crag House Farm do a different kind of work nowadays, pulling a specially built wheelchair accessible cart and providing incredible opportunities for disabled people to try their hand at driving a magnificent heavy horse.
Things change, but the harvest is still hugely important to us here at CFL. Tractors and trailers now bring in the harvest of silage, hay and straw, but these crops are just as vital and, being based on a working farm, we simply could not get through the winter without this harvest.
Large quantities of food also arrive at Crag House Farm, the home of CFL, by car, thanks to the generosity of churches near and far, who share their harvest thanksgiving produce with us. Churches and some schools meet to offer their own thanks to God for the harvest, and then donate food to CFL.
Every item is carefully sorted by type and date and is stored away, just as generations past stored food away in larders and attics, or turned them into pickles and preserves, to see them through the long, cold winter.
We value all these harvest gifts enormously, being deeply grateful to our heavenly Father and to His people. Without these gifts, we could not afford to run our supported homes, to give out food parcels each week, to provide meals for all those attending the daytime projects, or to give 130 or more Christmas hampers to those in need.
We do our utmost not to waste anything. Beetroot is harvested from our gardens and turned into tasty chutney. Wild fruits are picked and turned into jams, jellies and fruit coulis. Supporters donate their surplus crops, and what a year it has been for apples! All are turned into delicious traditional preserves, which are then sold to generate vital income for the charity.
The way the harvest is brought in and is stored may have changed somewhat, but the importance of the harvest remains the same, as does the wonderful love of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who is the same Yesterday, Today and Forever.
