The Harvest. Hopefully?

I still need to get back to Halloween, and I really want to, But first, need to mark the beginning of corn harvest.

It’s been going in fits and starts. They got tho combine ready a couple of weeks ago and took a test run. The corn was way too wet. Again on Halloween, still to wet. Today they were fed up and found a few people willing to take corn with a slightly high moisture content, they went for it.

Tonight, in the gloaming, I had to make a trip into town. I felt an overwhelming urge to drive my pickup instead of the car. On all sides the glow of lights on combines and tractors lit the night. Their glow made brighter and blurred by the dust they stirred up hanging in the air. It was quite beautiful. I tried to take it in while watching for semis pulling out in front of me and for the deer that inspired me to take the pickup.

Almost into town I spotted, as I sped past, a small herd grazing along the road. They stayed and I was past as soon as I saw them. I pulled into town, picked up what I was after and left. It took very little time, a minute or two. Coming home again I was remembering to slow down and look for the herd of deer. I popped over the hill coming to where they were and there were vehicles on both sides and lights flashing. A small car hadn’t been as lucky as I. She had demolished her bumper but not had her windshield smashed in like a car we had seen earlier in the week at least. I couldn’t believe all that had happened in the little time I was gone.

At the park Monday the children were playing happily when an ungodly racket arose. It was coming from the road, over a hill, just out of sight. On my way from pushing one child on the swing to check the other standing with a tight grip on the bars I stopped and turned to stare. It popped and clanged, backfired and roared. Then finally I saw it, an old straight truck coming down the road faster than it had ever been meant to go. So forty, fifty miles an hour. As I watched in awe and horror it jerked and swayed down the road swerving from side to side. I wondered in that brief moment if I would be able to reach my innocently swinging child grab her off the swing run back and scoop the other from the ground and flee in time to escape the inevitable crashing of the behemoth off of the road and through the play ground.

As I decided probably not, it thundered past still spitting and backfiring. Two men, even more aged than the ancient  beast of a truck, sat inside serious but unworried about the dangers they faced. With gas peddle mashed to the floor they were hauling a load of gain in to the elevator. Old wooden side boards bulged and strained under the weight of their load, the corn heaped within left a trail behind like a deranged Hansel and Gretel. And then it was gone all but for the ringing in my ears. The sound slowly faded into the distance, or perhaps they slowed for their destination was at hand. And in that brief moment we nearly died and yet survived unscathed, everyone unaware of the danger but me.

We have done our best to get a little riding in during this last warm spell. That would be like  once. I got stirrups for her, the kind that hang from the saddle horn. I spent so much time telling people that we weren’t going to do that, and how dangerous stirrups are for small children and what ever other reasons I had that I realized that it must mean I was planning to get them. “Me thinks you (he?) protestith to much” or some such. So I found a pair with tapadaros to alleviate the foot slipping through issue and she does seem to like them. Her legs are a little too short even for the shortest setting but she can reach them and hopefully they will offer some support.

Dreading the coming cold but we are in November and were lucky to enjoy the long beautiful fall that we did. It is supposed to snow through the end of the week so hopefully I will have time to write about Halloween before I forget.