(Taken from http://thethinksithinks.blogspot.com/2011/10/i-got-to-field.html?showComment=1319694619370#c4125549042647345078 )

Today is one of those days where I walk into the library, knowing that I’m not going to be leaving this place till it closes at midnight.

To be honest I really don’t mind days like this.

I think there is something to be said about the fact that I’m okay with it.

I like working hard, I wish I didn’t get sidetracked, but I love the opportunity to focus for an extended period of time and see the fruits of my labor at the end of the day.

I remember how much I used to love working on the farm; bailing hay for 24 hours straight, seeing the sun creep over the hills, lighting the massive fields of alfalfa that you never knew were really there, simply following the headlights of your tractor all night, circle after circle, bail after bail, hour after hour. As we orbited the sprinkler line; time and time again, the sun was busy traveling around the earth, bringing it’s gift of sunrise and leaving with sunset where ever it roamed.

Morning radio news came on, jokes told way too loud and way too often about George W. Bush filled our tractor cabs. Mrs. Pelzer would come on our CB radios and kindly say, “Boys, you want some coffee or anything?” We’d all respond back sheepishly, voices cracking due to our sleep deprivation and the fact that we hadn’t spoke a word in the past 9 1/2 hours of darkness, “Yes ma’am.” We’d watch as her 5’ frame drove that two ton pickup truck right through the field, straight to the base of our tractor wheels, parking right in front of us, saying without words, “You boys aren’t driving another foot until you’ve had some food in you.” She’d hop out with four Tupperware boxes filled with last night’s leftovers, a thermos of coffee, and then always open up the tail gate for us to get at the water cooler and have a place to sit. “You boys look like you could use some sleep, is Joe working you too hard again?” She’d smile and we’d all laugh. Such a sweet old girl that Mrs. Pelzer. After we were done eating we’d help pick up the mess, sweep off the cornbread crumbs on the tailgate, say “thank you Mrs. Pelzer,” and wait for the same farewell speech that she gave every morning, “K boys, I’mma tell Joe to send you all home early, it ain’t right for boys as handsome as you to be spending all summer out in these fields instead of chasing around girls and gettin’ into some trouble. I’ll see you tomorrow boys.”

She’d drive away in a cloud of dust and we’d sit around waiting till she was out of sight. We’d lean on the tractor of whoever brought the tops for that day, roll our cigarettes, smoke them, roll up another for our next break, finish our coffee, and start back up. We had started from the widest parts of the fields each day, the first pass always being the biggest circle, moving in, with each pass getting smaller and smaller, by the end of a field the circles were only about the size of a horse corral. In fields as big as these, I would often forget that I was out there with two to four other guys; it was nice when the passes became smaller and you could see a familiar face in the tractor passing by. Sometimes we’d even wave at each other. It was such a comfort to know that you weren’t alone in that dark field.

Falling in and out of sleep for the next few hours, blaring EAGLE 106.5 classic rock to keep me from falling into dreamland, we would finally call it a day when the last bail tied, fell to the ground. The thump of the bail hitting the earth and the relieving pressure on the tractor was like the weight of the world falling off a troubled man’s shoulders. It was the fields way of saying, “I’ve given you all I have my friend. Don’t forget me though. Before long you will need me again, by then I will be tall, and ready to give you all I have once again. Always come back, for I will always be here.”

I learn from the fields. I learn from the hours that pass. I learn from the light that says, “I am here again, I may leave for a short while, but I will never forsake you.”

(I thought this was well written and it made me nostalgic for my time working the alfalfa harvest during high school)