I am sitting in the
tractor in the middle of the canola field that borders the Pembina River. A pyramid
of dust is moving down the field to my right: the combine, swallowing swath
after swath, steadily making its way down the field. The sky, forget-me-not
blue, is almost translucent, the river glitters golden in the afternoon sun,
its calm surface broken here and there by big rocks and small sandy islands.
The water level has dropped considerably, as almost always in late summer, and
flocks of geese gather here in the evenings to spend the night after foraging
on nearby stubble fields, feasting on scattered barley or – even better – peas.
A fluff of thistledown drifts by without wavering off its course, as if it knew
where it was going, its soft white blending with the skiff of clouds feathered
along the northern sky.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is what I wrote
around this time yesterday, and it looks much like this today, except, perhaps,
that the wind has picked up, and the dust is no longer a dense pyramid hiding
the combine but a banner held high in some medieval battle.
It is not only the
increased wind, however: the whole atmosphere has changed from peaceful and
pastoral to the other reality of farming: stress and hectic caused by
unforeseen circumstances. By 10:30 I had been in town twice already, a round
trip of forty-five kilometers each. Starting up the big grain truck this
morning Johann smelled something ominous: sure thing – the starter had quit. Working
to get it out Johann and Magnus needed a special wrench missing from the
impressive but still never quite complete collection they have at hand. Fortunately
the Bumper to Bumper store in town had them in stock, so I just had to pick one
up – except that it turned out to be the wrong size, and I had to go back and
exchange it.
Now, partway through the afternoon, Magnus has finally been able
to get the starter out. How long it will take the auto electric repair guy in
town to fix it is anybody’s guess, but quite likely the truck will be out of
commission over the weekend. It’s a nuisance, but one that can be overcome. We
will make do with the three old, much smaller grain trucks.
This was not the first
thing that went wrong this morning, however. Unloading canola from the grain
cart into the semi of the commercial trucker who was going to take it to the
canola crushing mill Johann bumped against the side of the trailer with the unloading
auger of the grain cart, bending a hydraulic cylinder. Fortunately this doesn’t
seem to have been bad enough to harm it seriously - just one more battle scar
for the grain cart.
The old adage that
things happen in threes must have a grain of truth: as if this weren’t enough
troubles Johann solidly plugged the combine almost as soon as he had started.
This happens most often when the swath has been compressed and piled high
during swathing because of unfavorable conditions: grain lodged in a low area,
for example, or, in this case, a canola variety that couldn’t withstand wet
conditions and grew long and lanky and didn’t stand up nicely. When the combine
encounters a pile like that it can easily happen that it bites off more than it
can chew all at once, and with a terrible roar and rumble and screech
everything stops, and nothing turns any longer. If it is really bad it can take
half an hour or even an hour to get it going again, and that’s what happened
today. I mentally check the calendar. No, it’s not Friday the thirteenth, much
as it seems like one.
It is almost seven in
the evening, and the wind has died down. It is hazy, dust particles suspended
in the air from the harvesting going on all around. After the problems early in
the day everything has settled into its pattern again. Magnus is unloading the
trucks into the grain bin at home, using some free time in between to finish
swathing the few acres of barley left in the low lying peaty areas; Johann is
still on the combine that has obediently swallowed everything it encountered
without any more hiccups, and I am waiting for him in the cab of my tractor,
ready to take the next load into the grain cart. There are only ten or twelve
swaths left, another couple of hours, maybe three.
The peaceful
atmosphere has returned. I just opened the tractor door and heard the honking
of many, many geese not far away. Here they come now, an undulating line drawn in
the early evening sky, lifting and falling and lifting again before it makes
its final descent toward the river. Watching it, I’m suddenly reminded of last
night’s northern lights. Unlike most others this one was special because it didn’t
have dancing sheets of light, but was instead nothing more than a bi-colored,
slightly wavering thin band, a diadem arching across the sky, pale yellow over brick
red.
There are dust, and
noise, and breakdowns, there is stress and tension and fatigue, but there is the gratification of working together as a family, the satisfaction of overcoming obstacles and accomplishing something; there are
the hawks soaring, suspended like kites on invisible strings, there is the sky
filled with thousands of geese and billions of stars, the moon slipping huge
and golden from its hiding place behind the horizon; there is the coyote
trotting along the swath looking for mice, and there are white butterflies
fluttering in groups of twos or threes in the warm September sun as if it would
stay summer forever.
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