August 14, 2005

Back in the Cities

On Thursday, I returned to the Cities after a brief "vacation" up north. I use the word vacation here, but it is not entirely accurate. It was not entirely a vacation, but it was very pleasant.

I went home, and harvest time arrived. This is not something you can plan. It simply happens when the right amounts of sunshine and rain combine over the course of a summer to allow the grain to ripen. It also depends on the rain holding off until the swaths have time to dry because we are not the kind of farmers who spray our crops with Round-Up in order to kill off the wheat and let it "dry" on the stalk. Those kind of farmers suck.

Basically, I mostly just had to cart people back and forth to the fields and help my mom with the house work because I have an unjustified reputation for being relatively inept when it comes to large machinery. I am just fine with this repuation because it means that I don't have to run the combine while Dad takes in the grain truck. Since we were really the only ones ready, he didn't have to wait in line at the elevator, so it was really only 10 to 15 minute streches anyway. I was the one who used to rake the straw while they were doing this stuff. Quit judging me.

At any rate, it was good to go home. The older I get, the more I enjoy the fields and the wheat and the smell of the straw.

I thought about this as I awoke with a great big jolt this morning to the sound of someone honking the horn at the people who live downstairs.

Posted by LoWriter at August 14, 2005 02:11 PM
Comments

that sounds wonderful, lo! i'm glad you had a chance to chill for a while. my chillin' last week went really well too. i wish i was still on the beach... sigh... back to work...

Posted by: dr gonzo at August 15, 2005 01:49 PM

Ah the peacefulness of the country. Of course it isn't so much peaceful for me anymore as eerily silent, waiting for aliens to abduct me or some serial killer to jump out of the woods... no, I don't think I'm paranoid at all, why do you ask?

I am glad you enjoyed your vacation. I get my vacation next Thursday and Friday and hopefully I will be taking a freshman college student (who I have known since I was 10 and she was 3 or 4) and possible some of her roomies to a fair here!! I can't believe I am so old!! aaaaahhhhhh!

Posted by: 10lees at August 15, 2005 03:50 PM

While not a farmer, I grew up with a father who liked big noisy machines. I was a tomboy, and was regularly allowed to assist in the operation of said machines... right up until the day I got my leg caught in a wood splitter...

while running it from a seat that was 10 feet from the actual blade.

Stop judging me. ;)

-B

Posted by: Mardou at August 15, 2005 03:54 PM

Yikes! That sounds like it hurt, Mardou.

When I was a kid, my dad made me all these promises about how he would teach me to drive this or that when I was such and such an age, and he never did. I am pretty sure that this is because I was the oldest and because he hurt his hand in a piece of farm machinery before I was born. He used to play guitar, and now he can't, and I think he was always scared that something would happen to us kids. We knew/always heard about people, including kids, who'd been seriously and permanently injured by farm equipment. Since I was the eldest, I got the brunt of my parents' worry. By the time the youngest comes along, they've usually mellowed out.

10, you will not be abducted by aliens. Also, no one will jump out of the bushes at you with a knife. Mostly because the mosquitoes would carry off anyone that stupid long before you got there. ;) At least where I live.

Posted by: Lo at August 16, 2005 07:39 AM

funny, i've always been creeped out by small towns. but last weekend i drove through New Prague (and yes, they say it wrong, and that's annoying) and i really took a liking to the dinky thing. it's probably some form of PMS or a weird side effect of being a girl of "settling" age... cuz i'd never live anywhere without a major city 30 min away. at the farthest. preferably, i'd be IN the city.

and 10, i think yo'ud have more of a chance of getting jumped in downtown Seattle. and for that matter, i know some weirdo nutcases in the city that appear to have been abducted at some point in thier life....

Posted by: dr gonzo at August 16, 2005 12:59 PM