In these early days of autumn, one can’t help but notice the skeins of geese that are starting the journey south.
Likewise coveys of other birds are making their winter plans, while herds of cattle are being gathered and flocks of sheep assembled for passage to winter pasture.
But sometimes the right word to describe a group of animals or other creatures doesn’t come so easily. Just recently a grammar of copy editors here at the Producer were stumped over the proper way to describe multiple muskoxen.
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Collective nouns, also known as terms of venery, are always being developed, but some have been around for centuries. A parliament of owls is an old one, as is the proverbial skulk of foxes and murder of crows.
The definitive book on the subject has one of the more beautiful terms as its title. An Exaltation of Larks, by James Lipton, has both the old and the new terms of venery: a gaggle of geese and a quiver of arrows, a wince of dentists and a lot of used car dealers.
The Producer library doesn’t contain a copy of this book. If it did, we could determine how best to describe a roundup of ranchers or a crop of farmers.
Of course, the farmers themselves don’t have to worry about such nomenclature. They’re busy manning a threshing of combines that spew a sibilance of straw, all while dodging a prejudice of rocks and a contraction of market prices.
As for the ranchers, they’re supervising a fermentation of silage and rounding up squirts of grass-fed beef on the hoof.
A frustration of feed grain seems likely this year, given the weather, but at least most producers didn’t have to face the gobsmacks of grasshoppers prevalent in the recent past.
And once the harvest is in the bin, they can tackle a complaint or a complexity of CAIS forms, for which they might need to employ a debit of accountants.
But enough of that for now, because it just so happens that a clique of photographers has been busy in recent weeks amassing an exposure of photographs depicting this year’s harvest. The collection begins on page 23.
The Producer’s annual photo feature this year focuses on the many hands involved in harvest and the many tasks to which these hands are turned so prairie bounty is delivered to bin and market and plate. It’s no accident that this celebration of harvest coincides with a time of thanksgiving.
Our fields of farmers once again proved themselves to be a cornucopia of co-operative photographic subjects. We would never trade them for a tangle of hairdressers, a convulsion of belly dancers or an outback of Australians.
We thank them for sharing their time and we invite everyone inside to enjoy the resulting views on handling harvest.
