I'll Take Earrings for Farming

I grabbed the CB microphone from above my head, pulled it to my face, held the button down, and said this, "Well ladies, today we will have a good rhythm out here.  For two reasons.  Number one: you both have cute hats on.  Number two: I wore earrings this time." 

Kathy piped back in with, "Sounds great.  Yesterday we were all over the place." 

To which I replied, "I'm saving the lip gloss for extreme measures but I'll do it if I need to." 

Momma Debi popped in with, "Here's to a great day for us." 

And then just when I thought the moment had passed with the three of us girls left in the field to run the combines and grain cart while Dad-o, Brother, and Buckshot did the semi and truck driving, I heard, "I'm wearing a shirt today Amy.  Does that count?"  Coming from my ever wise brother. 

"Does it have pearl snaps?" 

"No, but it's bright green." 

"Neon?!  Well you are covered then.  Neon always works." 

I'll be honest and say I'm not sure if my earrings worked or not for getting the flow going because I didn't even have a second to breathe in between the combines being full and dumping into the trucks and throwing a niece or a nephew on my hip from time to time so they could get a ride to delivering shakes that Sil had brought out to reading a text or two from Sister Pister who was at a jackpot barrel racing to trying to attempting to capture some moments.  Like the fact that even though the tractor has more technology and monitors in it than a spaceship, I much prefer to refer the writing on the window and add my own marker when figuring out the weights on the loads. 

 

For awhile I was sweating.  It was hot.  Really hot.  So hot it was the kind of sky which looks gray and the dust hangs and it's like you are in an oven.   A real oven.  Maybe even on the convection setting. 

Some years of driving the grain cart, there is some wait time.  Some time to do things like take a drink or go to the bathroom behind the tractor tire or sing along loudly to a song or talk on the phone.  But not this year.  No wait time.  Except in the instance when the cart is full and both combines are full and the semi is not back yet.  That kind of wait time can only mean one thing.  Smiles on the faces of my family. 

It's like my dad said yesterday, "It doesn't get much better than this.  Good wheat and so and so on the radio."  I can't remember the so and so he said because by the time he got to that part of the conversation I was distracted. 

Anyways, getting back to my point.  It's been a fun week.  Was that point?  I don't even remember where I'm headed with this.  Harvest is always a stressful and crazy time of year on the farm but when there is "good wheat" it sure does make for happy. 

That good wheat though means no time for the grain cart driver who likes to take pictures to do that picture taking.  But I have to capture the moments.  So I got creative. 

I'd literally jump out of the tractor with the combine quickly approaching, snap a few, and then fly back in, and crank it up to catch up with them so we could dump on the go.  I also sometimes might have taken a picture or two while driving, but let's not talk about that.  My dad reads this. 

 

Right after this one, I threw my camera to Easy Rider who happened to be sitting in my tractor's buddy seat and told him, "Hang on bud!  Here we go!" 

He held on.  To himself and my camera. 

And I love how he already takes everything in and talks about his plans for when he is "big efufv" he'll do it this way and that way.  His farmer wheels are already in motion. 

I dare say it's in all our blood.  This farming thing.  Sure I have my normal job and I'm not really a contributing aspect to the farm anymore, but I still get a chest squeeze feeling when seeing the sky against the amber wheat with a full combine approaching and knowing my mom is the one driving it and being aware of the years and years of ups and downs and uncontrollables and the risks which were taken.  It's hard to describe.  Other than simply saying, it's a chest squeeze thing. 

It's the kind of thing which puts a bounce in your step and makes you feel like all is right in the world while you run your hiney back to the tractor because that combine is full.

And it pushes you.  To keep striving to work hard and reach goals and take the downs in stride and the ups in thankfulness.  Pushes you.  To turn around and take just one more. 

After much craziness, we finished the field in the early evening.  Which meant I had some real time.  Time to take it in.  Take in that my mom and her best friend since childhood drive the combines.  I asked Momma Debi the other day, "Did you ever imagine in a million years when you and Kathy were growing up and climbing trees that one day you each be in a combine in the same field?"  Life is something.  It really is.

 

Time to take in that I annoy Buckshot to the maximum.  But with the realization of knowing he appreciates it.  He really does.  At least that's what I tell myself.  It helps when he says things like, "That's actually kind of a cool picture." 

 

Time to say to my brother after he came rolling in to take the last of the grain in his semi, "You do this one.  I have pictures to attend to."  He might roll his eyes at me but he was wearing neon.  Which puts him right in my book. 

Time to have a moment with these two ladies.  A moment of we are capable women.  Women who can be left in a field to operate machinery.  And women who can get the job done.  With some laughs along the way. 

 
And then the whole notion of having some time quickly left the scene.  Moving to the next field had to happen.  Dad-o arrived back to the action from his semi load and we kicked it in high gear to pack it up and head down the road.  

It was sunset drive home.  Across a lake.  Up and down coulee roads.  Radio pumping out songs like "I wouldn't have missed it for the world" from Ronnie Milsap.  I was a happy girl.  A happy and blessed farm girl wearing her earrings.