Harvesttime

 
      Abbey and I took Brad and Amy out to Nebraska and it was a good trip. (They plan to stay for a couple of weeks to visit and help out with harvest and other projects.) We headed down there on Friday.  For my little brain of fluff the roads were crazy. My car did well working the traffic, so I should not complain. But I had to concentrate a lot. No lolly-gagging along looking at the prairies, windmills, and corn crops.  Eyes on the road, speeding along at a ridiculous rate. Still makes my toes curl to think about it. What if we had actually changed lanes smack into that big white SUV? We would have all gone straight to heaven pronto. Somehow we like to die nicer than that, I guess.
     It is autumn everywhere. In Iowa and Nebraska this means that huge, wide machines swipe up and down the endless acres eating and spewing into trucks or gravity wagons the golden crops of beans and corn.  Everything is big out there: the roads, the sky, the fields, the machinery, and the horizon. Even the sunset sprawls out in brilliant blazes from a much larger ball of fire than we ever see in cozy, tree covered Wisconsin.
     We had good visits and coffee times with our family there.  They were gathering up the last of garden crops: a few ripe tomatoes, the last bouquet of zinnia, over looked squashes and peppers. Afterward, Gabe took a bush hog and mowed the whole tangle of vines and weeds down to little more than a soft covering of "green manure" to be tilled under to maintain the black loam. Jenny rejoiced in the completion of freshly turned soil.