Wonderful day in the neighborhood. Any day harvesting is good. The day started of decently. The cat especially thinks so. Farmer jumped in the combine, started it up and then started the head and a cat came flying out. Not sure how many lives he left behind.
One broken shear pin and then moved to a drier place.
Farmer needed his stashed refilled so after I finished at the UPS store where I was returning parts and pieces of some piece of machinery I stopped at the store to see what I could find. He wanted fruity. Such a waste of calories. Got to have chocolate.
I took his stash and some lunch and climbed into the big green machine to ride along. My, oh my, what a difference a decade can make. When we were first married and I rode with him what a sore hiney I had. Sitting on the arm of his seat was like riding a poorly made bicycle seat. Squished up against the glass on one side and falling into his lap on the other. So, not only did you have a sore bottom, you were constantly fighting gravity. There was a lot of head banging going on too.
When the boys were younger we would throw coats behind the seat and they would nap there. I was always concerned they would slide under the seat and be squished, but no squishing occurred. Now, I have my own cushy, bouncy jump seat.
So we're chewing up the field and farmer says I think there are deer in this section.
Big green ate away from the outside edges. Pretty soon you could watch the corn moving around the combine. You could not see the deer - God does an amazing job camouflaging. I finally opened the door and leaned over the edge while the combine was going trying to find the deer. I'm thinking "Dear God, please don't let me flip over the edge and get chewed up."
We got down to 18 rows of corn and the next pass the buck ran out, stopped, turned around and came back. We kept going to the end of the rows, dumped the bin into the truck and headed back.
I was still outside draped over the rail, camera at the ready eating red dogs (look that one up). Halfway down the rows the buck runs out, comes back and stands right in front of the combine. I could have thrown a rock at him and hit him - which means he was pretty close 'cause I'm lousy at rock throwing.
I was snapping away thinking he's gonna bolt anytime. So got the picture? A crazy lady perched on the edge of the platform of the big green machine, that is moving and shaking so hard her filings are vibrating trying to take a picture.
Farmer stops the combine, I regained my balance and the deer just stood there. Farmer actually turned the combine off and the deer still stood there. I started talking to him and he turned his head this way and that and we had this, you know, connection. We chit chatted while I took pictures.
Then the corn moves again. It's his girlfriend. She freaks out and leaves. He's so twitterpated (isn't that what they called it in Bambi?) he doesn't realize she's left. He's looking all over for her and not moving very far away from us.
I started to get off the machine to see how close I could get to it. Farmer says "Wait I want the camera so I can take pictures of him charging you." Well, let it be known I never want a picture with hoof prints in my face. So, changing my mind I headed back up the ladder. But romance was definitely in the air - deer romance, not farmer romance.
Red Dogs - the reddish "stuff" that flies through the air when combining corn.
