"Start Seeing Farmers"
by Cathy Grafton on 09/29/11Well all the signs are here, rainy days alternating with sunshine - when the sun comes out so do the combines, they are lumbering along our rural highways, anxious to get in the fields. Grain trucks wait patiently on the edge of the fields and those piled high with a yellow haze of corn beeline for the nearest grain storage facility. Yes - the harvest is underway here in central Illinois.
Signs have popped up along the roads saying "start seeing farmers" to warn us town folk to be aware that farm machinery and trucks will be out on the roads taking up more than their fair share of highway. All seem amazingly courteous though, moving over to the edge of the road or even pulling off on the shoulder so the line of cars backed up behind them can zoom on past. I love this time of year, the corn is disappearing and once again we can see across the fields. As you drive down the road on a breezy afternoon, corn husks float in the air. Soon the dried soybeans will be harvested, turning the air to dust as they crumble under the combines, giving up only their small round beans.
I write some of this especially for my friend Becky, who lives on a farm in Illinois, but who has been in California for a few years now and who I know misses the farmland and bits of prairies that I get to see each day. It is all still here Becky, and we are once again busy seeing farmers.
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