Empty Heads, Wheat, Young People, April 1

Today is April 1. Sunday. The first of the month and the first of the week – it seems so tidy.

Did you know that the life cycle of wheat – the number of days from planting until harvest is about the same as from conception to birth of a child?

My bike ride kept me in town today, but I found myself riding by a wheat field. It reminded me of living on the plains of Western Kansas. The first time I saw wheat I thought it was grass. I was one month from graduating from CSU and Susan and I were on a job interview trip across Kansas. I kept saying, “That grass looks great. I wonder what they are going to do with all that grass.” I was so young.

Come to find out wheat is just grass with big tasty seeds. But the seed is the last thing to form. The wheat I saw today looked complete but there was no grain inside the heads. In essence what I saw today was just tall grass. It looked completely grown but there is nothing in the heads yet.

Sort of like young people.

Speaking of young people, Katy wrote today that she got a nice, new tattoo. “Pretty,” she described, and then typed the three foreign words (without translation) which composed the ink blot. Not to worry, she beamed, “I got it at a real cheap shop.”

Hmm, looks completely grown but there is nothing in the head yet.

Later, Susan, who had since emailed with our newly ornamented daughter, asked me the date. “April the first.” And then the light began to dawn.

So, there comes a point in the life cycle of wheat when the mature (translate “Old”) heads of wheat dry out. Slowly over time, the wind blows, the sun bakes, weather breaks it down, and soon what used to be in the head slowly starts to fall out….