Scenes from My Back Yard

This is a rare sight in most metropolitan areas. But one of the things I love most about where I live is the ability to look just beyond my back yard and see an active Iowa farm. Some years this field grows corn, but this year soybeans were the crop sown. Each spring we look on as the farmer plants the crop and watch eagerly as the tiny plants emerge to see whether it will be corn or beans (we like corn the best only because it provides a tall, green fence along our back yard.) Then we monitor the growth of the crop all summer, hoping the farmer avoids our garden as he sprays for weeds. We are entranced by the fireflies that hover above the field on hot summer days, and watch as green turns to yellow and brown as the days shorten. Then one day we come home from school or work or church to find the field barren - the harvest completed. This year we were fortunate to see the harvest in progress. With a combine of this size, it takes about four hours to clear the field. I think back to the combine my father used to harvest oats on our farm. It was much smaller; and it took much longer to complete the work. He rode in open air and scorching sun rather than a climate controlled cab. And what you can't see in this picture is that the driver of this monstrous machine is a woman - something nearly unheard of when I was growing up on a farm.
We're definitely living in a different time, but the connection with the land remains strong in Iowa - even in the biggest city in the state. I don't expect that this will always be the view from my back yard. Someday soon this field will probably be replaced by office buildings or restaurants or stores. So until then I will make it a point to treasure it. I'll relish the connections this makes for me between old and new, between childhood and adulthood, between rural and urban, and between two homes - one present and one left behind.