Combines and Buffalo

"Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world."
Marcus Tullius Cicero

The majestic parade of green machines moves across the prairie with stately grace. The dusty kernels of hard winter wheat fill the back in a red-gold shower.
The culmination of months of labor is deposited in the back of grain semis to be trucked to the silos for storage and subsequent delivery to the bread factories.


This is the proud beginnings of the lovely loaves of whole grain bread that populate the shelves of every grocery store across the nation.




There is something incredibly peaceful and almost primal about sitting in the cab of a combine as harvest commences. To know that this wheat means a paycheck for the farmer and bread for the hungry.


Plus, if your kids aren't there, it's pretty romantic to watch the sunset with your honey.... Ok, I realize this may not be a shared experience--


I wanted to take handfuls of the wheat home to set in a jar on the windowsill- to remind myself that no matter how technological this world becomes, we still rely on the humble wheat kernel to make our bread.

This also is a family affair- the kids ride along in combine, drive the trucks, clean the combine heads and help deliver dinner to the hungry crews in the fields.


Farm kids- no one cares if your shirt matches your shorts or if your face is dirty and you get to climb on the semi's!


Note the lights on the front of the combine- harvest does not stop just because it gets dark.


20 hour days are not unheard of and are usually close to the norm.




Oh yeah- the aforementioned buffaloes---

Look closely-- here it comes!!










BUFFALO STAMPEDE!!

Ok, Ok, they were half a mile away but they were stampeding and we did have to take our car and hide behind a parked semi just in case.

Buffaloes have no respect for anything that gets in their way!


Only in our crazy corner of the prairie can we take our city nephew to see my husband in the combine and get to show him an actual stampeding buffalo herd on the way.




And, by the way, friends don't let friends drive red tractors!!
(Country joke- see, red tractors are not John Deere's and anything that's not John Deere is, well, not as good.....you see? you get it, right? oh, forget it...)