I took myself out to my parent's farm in southwestern Minnesota this last weekend and it was lovely.  I swear, the ditches smelled like rosemary.  It took me right back to my country roots.  There's no call for being high-falutin' when you're on the farm.

 I can't think of anything as spiritual as being smack-dab in the midst of such bounty.  The soybeans all seemed to have been harvested, but it looks like we're still in the middle of corn-picking season.  Back when I was a kid, I complained about pretty much every job I was given - except for one big task that I remember with fondness.

It was the year the little old corn picker my dad was using dropped a lot of ears on the ground all over the field, and my dad sent a half-dozen or so of us kids out for a couple of days to pick them up.  The days were absolutely golden with the kind of blue in the sky artists only wish they could paint.  We walked behind the old manure-spreader (without the manure) picking up the ears and tossing them in. 

We used a manure spreader because the sides are very low and it has a mechanism that shoves whatever it's hauling out the back when it's engaged with the tractor and it's time to unload.  I remember this old guy in the nursing home who used to joke, "We stand behind everything we sell, except our manure spreaders."  Get it?

My mom would bring our lunch out to us in the field, and we'd sit out there and eat summer-sausage sandwiches on homemade bread that had been spread with real butter.  We ate apples and brownies, and had nectar to drink.  The town kids called it Kool-aid.  I didn't know a lot, but I think that was the year I first started to realize what a privilege it could be to be work so close to the land.  I think I get why farmers do what they do.