A Horse with No Name

These two equines have recently come our way. Bee is on the left - her pedigree name is RanSome Honey Bee. I don't know why she's RanSome Honey Bee, but perhaps it is a nod to some of her ancestors. Horse people do that a lot; it's sort of like Prince William of England is really named William Arthur Philip Louis Mountbatten Windsor. The royals, impervious to trend, stick with well-worn names. There will be no Prince Hayden, no Princess Serenity, in the royal house of England!

I have an idea that the pedigree of Prince William A. P. L. M. Windsor is worth a little more than that of RanSome Honey Bee. We'll find out for sure if I ever decide to sell her. Meanwhile, we're just calling her Bee.

Problem is, her young daughter on the right needs a name. The previous owner simply called her "Baby", but she won't be a baby forever, and we're due to have three new equine babies around here in the spring. This could get confusing. The little filly has "Pride" written on her pedigree, but that's equally problematic. I can't quite settle into calling her a name that, biblically and practically, seems to be the root of a whole lot of trouble.

So I'm casting about for a new name for this girl. It doesn't have to be a fancy one, full of heritage, or allusions to Kentucky Derby winners, or referencing Miss Rodeo USA's latest mount. Just a good horse name that simultaneously fits in and sets her apart from her herd mates - Ginger, Grace, Jackson, Faith, Kandy, Jess and RanSome Honey Bee.

Any suggestions?

Sam's Front Porch

Sam's front porch is spilling over with sunshine and big plans. He shot his first buck last week. Satisfaction and confidence flow through his blue eyes as he tells me why he's going to pick every last bit of tissue off the inside of this deer hide, and that he's reading about tanning animal skins, and about the moccasins he's going to make for his grandmother ---fur side in--- so they'll be soft and warm, to shut out winter's bite.

The buck is dead, but Sam is full of life. I'm glad to know him.

Recital Girl

Goodbye to the Summer

I'm having to face an unpleasant fact.

I saw this sunflower skeleton outside my window this morning, "Summer's coming to an end," I sighed.

John corrected: "FALL's coming to an end."

Remember these sunflowers from July?

Remember our early morning garden times, and the glory and color that splashed into my world from every corner?

Now the landscape is drying up; colors are fading. Beauty, so saucy and unabashed for months, is donning her cloak, becoming delicate, shy, reclusive.

Fall is coming to an end.

Say it ain't so.

Harvest, Part 3

Driving the grain truck home at dusk.

Sometimes we harvest at night.

There's something cozy about our little lights shining in a dark sea of corn stalks -- like faces in candlelight when the power is out, or playing hide and seek outdoors at night.

An tiny hub of illuminated activity in a big, dark, quiet world.

Watching the corn drain into the auger hopper, John prepares to shut the grain
door for the last time of the day. Now go home and rest your weary bones.

Harvest, Part 2

John's job at harvest is to drive the combine through the corn.

It's called a combine because it combines the tasks of picking the corn and threshing it, separating the kernels from the cob, husk, and chaff. Golden corn piles up in the combine bin, while the refuse blows out the back.

Even after Americans knew how to build atomic bombs that could obliterate an entire city, it took a while to make a machine that could pick corn and shell it in one pass. Until 1954, corn was picked in the ear, hauled into the yard and then removed from the cob in a separate operation.

Step 1: The old fashioned corn picker harvested whole ears.

Step 2: The sheller separated grain from stalk and husk.

Picking and shelling photos courtesy of the Internet.

The invention of combines, which could both pick and shell grain in the field, resulted in a remarkable increase in productivity - corn that took an entire day to shuck and shell in 1900 could, by the end of the century, be picked, shucked, and shelled with a combine in five minutes.


My job is to drive the grain cart alongside the combine. When John's combine bin gets full, he dumps his corn into the grain cart.


My dad took this photo last year, of the combine unloading into the grain cart. Having a grain cart saves John lots of time - instead of driving to the field edge to empty the combine every time it's full, he keeps picking while I drive alongside, receiving the corn.


A lot can go wrong when you're driving the grain cart. To avoid dumping corn either on the ground or the cab of the tractor, you have to be the right distance away from the combine, and you have to go the same speed as your combine driver. If he slows, you slow. If he speeds up, you'd better not be thinking about what's for supper.

When the combine is through dumping, it's time for the grain cart driver to haul the load to the edge of the field. Filling the trucks without spilling corn on the ground can be challenging......

....that corn comes out FAST!

Sometimes I mess up.
Then I get a little aerobic exercise with a shovel in my hand, out in the gorgeous fall sunshine.

Harvest

Twenty minutes after curling out of the minivan, freshly home from our whirlwind Colorado trip, I was back in the saddle. Not the horse saddle, but the grain cart saddle, working with my dear hubby to get this corn (and all the other corn) into this grain bin (and all the other grain bins).

This corn is not like the sweet roasted ears you chomp through at an August cookout. This is "field corn". It stays in the husk and on the stalk just where it was planted, until the kernels are dried and hard. Then it fills up grain bins and elevators across the Midwest until someone needs it to make ethanol or corn syrup or cattle feed or Fritos.

I would write more, but I hear the combine starting. Duty calls.