Soil Surfin' Safari

Oh what another wonderful day of spending my life force near unto exhaustion.

Did a bunch more equipment tinkering this morning then went over to cultivate the corn field. Dad and Bro had rebuilt the cultivator with some tricky new bits and so we weren't too sure how good it would work. Turned out it needed a little extra weight on board to get it to bite in to the correct depth, so I hopped on top and road the thing around the field for a couple of hours.

This re-introduced me to a sport I haven't practiced in quite a few years: soil surfin. It was fun but quite tiring, moving in synch with machine and earth. A number of times in the last 18 years of farming some piece of equipment has required extra weight or a functional operator on the back so it wasn't exactly a new experience but definitely unique. Rock and soil and steel clashing and thrashing against each other produce an indescribable motion. Probably a lot more dangerous than I think or know but what the hey, you only go around once and if the corn tastes especially good this year all the better.

And to make the whole thing a safari, there was even some wild animal action. No I'm not typing about Sparky chasing us around the field, although that was happening too. The really cool part today was watching the ground rush by beneath my feet. At one point, before thought or action could've done anything, a kill-deer nest zipped by into the maw of the weed and earth shredding machine. Miraculously the nest had been placed in just exactly the one tiny spot where it would negotiate the cutting, shredding equipment I was riding like a bronco. Looking back I could see the two tiny brown speckled eggs sitting undisturbed in their nest.

Wishing you an equal moment of grace.